[Puke]

AJC, that is my favorite Lennon song. Of course, I usually stop at the first verse.

and yes, globalization is what the terrorists are fighting. yes, only first world nations are globalizing. they are globalizing INTO smaller nations where they setup sweatshops and take advantage of the local poverty. So far, it has been working really well for us, and im behind it. Of course its not all black, there are good points and benefits all around, but i wont take the time to argue that here.

and as for 'any response needs to be a violent one, involving the carpetbombing of terrorist states' (paraphrased) NO. I certainly would not mind seeing that, and i dont think it would be 100% counter productive, just oh.. 80% or so. Any response needs to leverage military, political, and economic force to completely eliminate the philosophys and ways of life that are so dyametrically opposed to western culture that the people following that set of beliefs has no recourse but to engage in guerillia (spelling?) warfare against the west. The western world has been destroying their way of life for centuries, and there is nothing they can do to stop us. they see it, and they are desperate. by comitting these acts, they are begging for their suffering to end. The cruelest thing we can do is to play 'nice guy' and only punish those directly responsible and leave the rest of the culture intact.

Its like playing SE4. your opponent has already lost, and their strength cant compair to yours. you have been at war for hundreds of turns, and you push them into a corner and force surrender. but you leave them with nothing and no hope of striking back, yet you are the 'nice guy' and you dont finish them off. both your people hate each other, but for some screwed up moral reason, you both just sit there in some sort of cold war standoff.