[AMF]

Well, ok, but my comment was more than just the practical one but also based on the fact that if you want to know who our enemies are, you can just ask the people who have decided these things. And US and other Coalition policymakers state publicly that the 'people of the middle east' are NOT our enemies. They go out of their way to say that.

It sounds like what you're saying when you state that "They are our de facto enemies because they hate our wormy guts and would gladly see us all burn in hell" is that we should consider all muslims to be our enemies, becuase they all hate us.

(I'm not going to get into what I perceive to be the inhernet immorality of that -- I think others have done that better than I) but instead, my rejoinder is that if we made them all our enemies the consequences would be impossible to deal with in the extreme. And there is no need - there are lots of moderate Muslims. Again, look at our alliances and so forth (Pakistan, Qatar, Bahrain, etc...). The Pakistanis, for example, are key allies of ours. In fact, just a few months ago, they were in command of a wide variety of US and other coalition naval assets in the area. (unclass info here, obviously). At the end of the day, conducting this war is utterly dependent on the good will of moderate Muslims. But, it sounds like we agree on that, so I would just enquire as to how you would deal with the consequences of treating all muslims as our enemies.

Which brings us to the concentration camp statement: First, Phoenix should have been clearer, and stated internment camps rather than concentration camps. They are, obviously, different with much different implications. But he did correct himself later.

Second, it was somewhat unclear from your first few posts whether you were talking about people from the middle east in general or all muslims. And if you were talking about treating all muslims as our enemies, then I think the debate must inevitably address the fact that there are a lot of muslims in the US and other coalition nations, so, if they're our enemies, how does one deal with that? And, the perfectly apt historical analogy was Japanese internment camps in WW2 (again, Phoenix might have been better served by saying internment camps vice concentration camps from the get go). So, I see the logic in both sides, but it perhaps was more an issue of diction.

Just to clarify, then, when you say that "They are our de facto enemies because they hate our wormy guts and would gladly see us all burn in hell" are you claiming that 'they' is 'all muslims' and that they are all our enemies?

Thanks,

AMF

EDITed: re-wrote what I was thinking in a more straightforward way to take into account prior postings.