response 25 of 42:

May 18 22:28 UTC 2002

re:  "you cannot be a sovereign
 nation if you have 'enclaves' of foreign nation's citizens
 strategically placed with fine regard to military theory"  So 
that explains why the presence of W. Berlin kept E. Germany
from being a "sovereign nation," I guess.  That must be news
to them.

response 27 of 42:

May 20 00:51 UTC 2002

After the '67 war, Israel established settlements in land taken from
Egypt (the Sinai).  As has been mentioned here numerous times, 
those settlements were dismantled under the orders of none other than 
Ariel Sharon (despite strenuous protests) as a result of the 
peace negotiations that returned the Sinai to Egypt.

response 29 of 42:

May 21 00:02 UTC 2002

Are the Arab villages in Israel an obstacle to peace, too?  Or just
the Jewish villages in Judea/Samaria?  Please try to answer without
invoking a double standard.

response 31 of 42:

May 21 16:45 UTC 2002

Jewish villages under Israeli control would be the impediment, klg. 
Does Israel control the Arab villages within its borders? ARe the 
citizens of those villages Israeli citizens? Jewish villages in a 
Palestinian state where that state has control of those villages and 
where the occupants of those villages are citizens of the Palestinian 
state would not be an obstacle to peace, imho. 

response 33 of 42:

May 22 16:21 UTC 2002

Has the option of leaving the settlements (and any settlers who want to 
stay) under Palestinian control been presented to Arafat? 

response 35 of 42:

May 23 16:03 UTC 2002

Beats me. 

response 37 of 42:

May 28 01:40 UTC 2002

Re #10:  The desperation of the Palestinians is self-imposed (or by
their leadership, which is the same thing).  They had things much
better before they embarked on the most recent campaign of murder.
The checkpoints would have been forced out of existence by international
pressure if the bombers weren't enough to trump European hypocrisy.

Re #13:  Leeron has also posted how the groups actually doing the
dirty work are very small (like Hamas, at perhaps 1500 members in
the territories).  It's really easy to view the Palestinian regime
as grossly corrupt when their 30,000-strong "police" force doesn't
arrest and detain a corps 1/20 their strength whose very presence
violates the terms of the Oslo agreement under which the PA exists.

If Leeron did start arguing for genocide, there would be no difficulty
at all using his own posted facts and figures to refute him.  For this
reason alone I doubt that he thinks genocide is a solution; he's far
too logical for that.

I'm of the opinion that genocide is unlikely because the USA stands for
restraint.  This is true unless and until there is a general demand for
jihad against the USA, and we have another event like 9/11 (or worse,
such as an NBC attack).  Then all bets are off, and I will vote for the
candidate who promises to do the worst to them that we possibly can.

Such an attack on us frees us to respond in kind.  We have *how* many
shell's worth of VX gas in Indiana?  *How* fast could we whip up tons
of weapons-grade anthrax?  We have *how* many nukes in our inventory?
Let Islam fear to awaken the sleeping giant, because there may not be
an Islamic world left for long if they do.

If Pakistan and India go toe-to-toe with nukes, it'll acquaint the
Muslims with radioactive craters and REAL hell for the first time.
If it happens, let's hope such an event sobers up the theology-drunk
fanaatics enough to make them sane.  I don't know what else will.

response 39 of 42:

May 28 13:23 UTC 2002

I wonder what it would take to sober russ up from his MIGHTY USA 
(basking in reflective glory) high and make him sane?

response 41 of 42:

May 30 17:44 UTC 2002

Man, you really are a 'glass is half full' kind of guy.