I want to start-off by apologizing for getting so personal in my post. I should have simply stuck to my own rule and stayed out of this forum.


The Geneva Conventions and the U.N. heavily favor the enemies of the civilization we have managed to achieve. There are several utopian assumptions that went into the drafting of the Geneva Conventions and the establishment of the U.N. that have not worked in practice. Not all states are rational actors. Not all actors are states.

Torture, assassination, and killing innocents are each intrinsically horrific. As a former soldier, I have an absolute belief in the sanctity of proper conduct in war. But the intifada is not a war. What is the proper name for a conflict between a nation and terrorist organizations, anyway?

The "cycle of violence" does need to be broken. The only way to break it is for one side to decisively defeat the other. In the Palestinian/Israel conflict, one side is a democracy where people are free to dissent and can elect new leaders. The other side summarily executes suspected "collaborators" and teaches their children to strap-on bombs and detonate themselves in crowds of civilians. Take a guess at which side gets my sympathies.

In 1996, the Palestinians either elected Arafat to be their leader, or the "international community" let him steal the election under their noses. That makes the Palestinian people either responsible for the intifada or victims of the Palestinian Authority. In the first case, I cannot pity the Palestinians for the consequences of their choice. In the second case, perhaps the "international community" should worry more about liberating the Palestinians from their criminal leadership.

I do not believe that there is any legitimacy to Herzl Zionism. But then, I do not think that there needs to be since Israel has managed to soundly defeat its neighbors four times including its fight for independence (in spite of how the "New Historians" want to paint the birth of Israel). If some Israelis are Zionists who believe in the Greater Land of Israel, then I say "so be it." The settlements were built on land taken from Jordan and from under Egyptian administration. There never was a Palestinian state--not even in all the years between 1948 and 1967.

The world is different from the one I thought it was less than a year ago. Now my eyes are open to the fact that there are people on this planet who are willing to strap bombs to their children and send them out to kill civilians. This is a world where spoiled rich kids can be incited to hijack airliners and crash them into buildings. I do not know how many are standing in line behind them, fresh from their nihilist programming in madrassas and Palestinian Authority elementary schools and suicide-bomber workshops.

The root causes of terrorism are crystal clear to me: People sometimes choose to be evil. If it comes to a choice between the security of me and mine and the human rights of some "freedom fighter", then I do not think that any terrorist's human rights would be of concern to me at that moment--even if I knew my thoughts or deeds would leave me burning in hell beside him for all eternity.

In spite of all the high-falutin' crap we try to force-feed ourselves about how we should all live in peace and harmony because it is within our reach as human beings, there are people who are willing to take advantage of these pipe dreams--like the U.N. and the Geneva Conventions--and be wolves among us. Maybe these people can respond to something other than naked force. Maybe these people can be effectively rehabilitated. But it is not worth even a single innocent life to try to figure-out how to rehabilitate terrorists when eliminating them will do the trick.

If that makes those in line behind them hate us more, then let them hate us--so long as they fear us.