Point taken.

Post #376,241 by mmoffitt 6/11/13 8:37:54 AM Reply	Point taken. I assumed everyone was familiar with his much publicized more recent rantings. After all, it was the "proof that we needed to kill him" provided us by our major media. However, I was and am unsure how many were familiar with his earlier sermons. I've had a number of otherwise well informed people tell me they were either unaware or couldn't recall all the television and radio interviews he did here in the aftermath of 9/11. Neither could they recall that he was considered "a moderate imam" by no less than your nascient security state apparatus nor that he'd been invited to dinner at the Pentagon after 9/11. I'll confess I'd forgotten most of that myself. It was partially for that reason that I chose to post the link of that speech made a month after 9/11. The other reason was (although most here probably didn't need reminding) to re-emphasize the damage that our reaction to our always-on fear can inflict. In brief, our national security state can turn anyone into a terrorist. Even those who are not initially predisposed to terrorism.
Post #376,247 by rcareaga 6/11/13 9:50:03 AM Reply	Oh, indeedy People have been observing for years that the "war on drugs" was all so much dress rehearsal, and that the subassemblies devised for that project required little modification and just a few turns of a screwdriver to put them together into the monstrous apparatus we see in place today. At the same time, even if we grant your point that the national security state can turn anyone into a terrorist, it does not follow that every terrorist—let us consider the recent Brothers Bombamazov in Boston— has been created by U.S. policies, any more than the spooky little loon in Connecticut last year was created by that state's public schools. A) Socrates is a man. B) All men are mortal. C) All men are Socrates. cordially,
Post #376,250 by mmoffitt 6/11/13 10:19:28 AM Reply	I did say "can", not "will." I'm not even prepared to claim Awlaki's apparent turn was a consequence of actions by our security state. But the more I read about him and his life the more difficult it is for me to reject that notion wholesale. At least until he went to Yemen, the sermons of his I've read include what I would call not unreasonable critcisms of US policy and a consistent message against the killing of innocents. Apparently, something happened to him. But what? My view is that we should consider that very carefully. Why? Because we assassinated not only him, but his 16 year old son in order to shut him up.
Post #376,260 by rcareaga 6/11/13 12:08:27 PM Reply	Ayup Stinks to high heaven, it does. 'Bout twenty five years ago my then-employer, Flatline, Comatose, Torpor & Drowse (after a few subsequent mergers, today's BrainDead Systems) acquired a new CEO. I asked my boss, a man extraordinarily attuned to the organization's bush telegraph, what we might expect. "It will depend on which faction captures her," he replied. It's become pretty clear which faction has captured the Obama presidency. cordially, It turned out that she fell into the lap of my own "International Division." Yay! Good times! Pretty lean years for my old colleagues since she left.

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