This is the fire and brimstone edition of the ongoing dialog with my Republican friend. He has drunk the family-size kool-aid and as I keep reminding everyone here, is generally a nice, caring person in all other respects. He has a nice family, cares about some of the same injustices as I do, isn't racist by any means and does good work in his profession.
However, this is some serious voodoo he's got going here and I'm interested in a discussion of his response. The theme of "opinion" in this reponse is puzzling to me, particularly the differences between fact, fiction, opinion. That's a new one for me. Post your theories here.
This is an attempt to understand the Republican mind and my friend here is one of the card-carrying members. He's also the only Republican I know that I can disagree and argue with without getting angry about it since he is generally a nice guy otherwise.
History diaries here:
1)
My first message
2)
His response
3)
My 2nd message
His Response:
I love it! I give you my opinion on the noble cause for the war, and you say it all lies. I am giving you an opinion, it is not fiction or fact, it is my opinion. I took your opinion, not as fact or fiction, but as your opinion. Therefore I cannot say your opinion is all lies, its your opinion, not a fact. The same goes for my opinion.
I can play the same game and say all your crap is lies, but we will go no where with that. I love your rebuttals to my "reasons". That is where we differ, you feel those retaliation actions were actually something, where I see them as slim to nothing. Again Randy, your opinion (no I am not going to call that a lie, that's your opinion) is the U.S. retaliation actions were actually something that was going to deter terrorism, and my opinion was that the retaliation actions were slim to nothing and actually bred more terror attacks since the terrorists could tell from our actions that we were weak on terrorism. Again that is my opinion. Just as I thinking taking Osama Bin Laden to court in the United States is a fools game in the war on terror. He is responsible for 911, so lets debate him court, and he will get the justice he deserves. You do that, that is not going to deter terrorism one bit, which includes Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and many other organizations, not just Al Qaeda.
This was a long email, so I will address a few items that I really got a kick out of....as follows:
"then we should have just turned that desert (Iraq) into glass and came back to the US
It should be mentioned that the desire to just destroy a country and kill all of it's citizens is genocide. It's disturbing that a man who considers himself a Christian, and I assume moral and just, would advocate such a radical idea. Do you truly feel this way?"
- I am a realist, not an idealist as you are. If it comes down to it yes, I would destroy the enemy (yea have fun with that word) and if collateral damage (another word to write a whole paragraph about) was unavoidable, then so be it. Ah the attack on Christians, the usual suspect. Well you want to talk about genocide, I guess you are mad at God for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. I guess according to you, God committed genocide on Sodom and Gomorrah, yet he suppose to be the supreme being. And yes if I am ever in the battle field, and there is a terrorist shooting behind the cover his of wife and children, I will not hesitate to wound the wife and children to get the terrorists. That is what you call collateral damage, and its a sad fact of war. I know we can kill our babies over here is the US via abortion, but we better not kill or wound anyone else. Babies are free game, everyone else if off limits. And keep in mind the God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, is the same God of the Muslims and Jews. So not only according to the Christian bible did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but also according to the Koran and the Torah.
I agree it is not worth rebuilding, spending our dollars, and putting our fine young women and men on the line to rebuild Iraq, if this is the case. But..... regardless of the outcome, I still support the war for reasons in my above paragraphs.
And finally, I think it's a little too late for second-guessing. This outcome, that Iraq would turn to civil war, and the radical Islamic fundamentalists would assume power was predicted. It is extremely telling that you did not mention WMD's in your response. Why did we go to war? I was told that Iraq was a threat and that the evidence would be "a mushroom cloud." I was lied to. The lies were covered up. Aren't you offended by that? Remember, these are the reasons we were told we went to war:
WMD quotes What happended to that reasoning? Why didn't you mention that in your response? Why do you believe that we can make up lies to justify our invasion after the fact?
-speak for yourself, I am not second-guessing anything. You should be a comedian, with all this ad-lib crap. I would have thought by now, you would caught on to my firm position. I responded to your opinion that you think Iraq is turning into an Islamic state that will have less rights then they had under Saddam. Again the keys words in the sentence are "if this is the case", no need to debate on this one. Don't assume I am changing my grounds based on a simple response to your opinion. So is not second guessing, you crack my ass up on this email. Give me another one of your opinions and I will give another one of my opinions. But don't call that second guessing, your really good at shoving words in my mouth, perhaps you should be my spokesman. Nice link as usual.... I don't need list all the details in my reasoning, my broader response implies the threat of WMDS (yes if you cry wolf, and don't have them, guilty by association/threat), etc....
Well man it is almost midnight, and I ready to hit the sack. Maybe I will address your other lies later.
Peace, Love, and Rock'en Roll.... and of course God Bless America and our Troops over seas.