Its clear they don't value their own lives or the lives of their fellow Islamics. Why then does it make sense that we are to sacrifice our wealth and lives to save ANY of them? It doesn't but making sense is old fashion and not an attribute of our current post-modern age.

We should have turned the whole area into a radioactive desert a long time ago. The malignancy will eventually be sterilized. The only question is how many of us will have to die before that happens.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:19 am | #

comment removed by site administrator as not relevant. to post.
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:23 am | #

Oh, boy. Michael Moore... Now THERE is someone who's credible as a used car salesman and trustworthy as a con man looking to scam you out of everything you've got.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Con...onfidence_trick

Yeah, you can TRUST Michael Moore. To be Michael Moore - and nothing else.

J.
JLawson | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:31 am | #

Lefties think they can solve the issue by pitting their debate team against the Islamic radicals. The only problem is the Islamic radicals will show up with their rifle team.

Preemptive peace is the real fallacy here.
SteveH | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:44 am | #

Doc, everyone - this Raymond Kraft article is a must read. Very chilling. Very disturbing. Very possible.

http://www.therant.us/staff/kraf...ft/ 10242006.htm

I especially want that little piece of troll shit anonomoron to read it.
Ghost of Josey Wales | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:55 am | #

"You have to wonder if the Times' editors and all their allies on the Left, who have spent the last four years mocking the very notion of pre-emptive war, read this review."

Of course after the fact its easy to see what should have been done! That's the reason pre-emptive war is a bad idea-- predicting the future is notoriously impossible, and its only the insane who claim to be able to do it.

"Those who claim this war is somehow immoral have their priorities and their morality completely warped."

This rhetoric, as usual, takes a complex situation and boils it down to something so simple as to be meaningless. The violence is not the evil al Qaida vs. the moral US, but rather mostly the internal violence you'd expect with a power-vacuum in three ex-Turkish provinces stuck together.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/ 0,2...,204562,00.html

"But much of the bloodshed has been carried out by Shiite militias seeking retribution for attacks by Sunnis..."

"No one is saying that mistakes have not been made..."

Yes, of course mistakes are made during the course of war, and I am willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt on many things, but the sheer incompetency coming from the civilian leadership is astonishing, as has been well documented from the numerous first person accounts.
Michael Czeiszperger | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 12:07 pm | #

Michael C - and if it is sheer incompetency to wage this moral, necessary war badly, then what is it to blithely deny that such a war needed to be fought at all? What is it to pretend that there is no threat ? It is sheer, blind stupidity. Frankly I think you are completely wrong about the way this war has been waged. I predict that it will be seen as an historic military victory in removing a despot. What came afterwards I don't think anyone would have predicted based on history. As I said, the sheer evil that would have had to be imagined is beyond the scope of most civilized people. What ties us down is our own goodness, the unwillingness to let collateral damage occur if we can prevent it; the sensitivity to religion; --all have been used against us by this despicable enemy. It is time to play them by their own rules; otherwise, we will pay a much worse price for it in lives and blood later. I prefer to do it now in my own generation, so that my daughter doesn't have to. I am confident that history will be extremely kind to GWB and completely trash the fools who somehow seem to think that wars can be fought without bloodshed or mistakes or sacrifice. For every "first person account" of incompetence, I will trade you one that documents the extreme competence. In the middle of the war is hardly the time to deal with this, as it is history's perogative. These issues keep getting plastered all over the MSM in a deliberate attempt to undermine and bring failure (or the appearance of failure) to anything that the Bush Adminstration has been trying to do. The Democrats have shown that the only "win" they care about is political. If they now have their way, I have no doubt that the consequences of their pathological blindness and denial will fall back on all Americans.
Dr. Sanity | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 12:35 pm | #

Re:Michael Czeiszperger 11.14.06 - 12:07 pm

Of course after the fact its easy to see what should have been done! That's the reason pre-emptive war is a bad idea-- predicting the future is notoriously impossible, and its only the insane who claim to be able to do it.

Didn't you demonstrate the doctor's point? If you can't learn from history, why bother to learn history then?

"Because we don't know how the future will unfold, therefore, we shouldn't do anything about it?"
always right | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 1:11 pm | #

Well, I find the support of NYT for a pre emptive war against Hitler entirely consistent with their support of Stalin. Big Joe might be gone but, he lives on in their hearts.
Tia | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 1:16 pm | #

"Of course after the fact its easy to see what should have been done! That's the reason pre-emptive war is [always] a bad idea-- predicting the future is notoriously impossible, and its only the insane who claim to be able to do it."
Michael C.

Right. In other words, because we cannot undo the past, we should not try to control the future, especially because we cannot predict the future. Say what?

And, therefore, we must not try to eliminate or curtail a gigantic proven threat because it is not a sufficient threat until Michael C. says it is.

But, then at that exactly correct point of sufficiently perceived threat, since we cannot undo the past, and cannot predict the future, we *should* try to control the future? Right, Michael C..

Helpful hint: once war has been declared upon you, it's *always* pre-emptive, and you must try to control the future.

The Bush Doctrine has been a success, even managing to minimize MIchael C.'s perception of threat. The war in Iraq is integral to that success.

Only the insane would deny the past and think s/he could rearrange the future so as to replicate the past, by denying the past.

Nor is the Iraq war per se a failure.

MSM's favored perceptions of it are not the reality. I saw another example of that fact on Charlie Rose's show last night. Duke's "Coach K." was on with his daughter, with whom he had collaborated on a book she wrote. Her husband spent about a year in Bagdad. So Rose asked her about his experience.

K's daughter said basically that it's not what you see back here, the
"failure". Her husband's personal experience with the Iraqis was the opposite.

You could tell she was being careful about saying it, so as to not get overtly political or offend Rose.
J. Peden | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 2:31 pm | #

Too many people look for simple answers. They aren't interested in anything that is not easily defined in black and white terms.

It is going to have to get worse before it gets better.
Jack | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 2:40 pm | #

"Right. In other words, because we cannot undo the past, we should not try to control the future, especially because we cannot predict the future."

The logic for pre-emptive war is something along the lines of "since we know that Hitler will end up trying to take over the world, we should have invaded Germany as soon as he was elected." If you believe that a modern country is a threat to the US you can then use this to justify invading early. The problem with this logic is it assumes the ability to the tell the future on the one hand, and is self-fulfiling on the other, as countries that are identified as potential targets prepare for an invasion that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

If the same reasoning had been used during the cold war (after all, the USSR had lots and lots of nuclear weapons) we would have started a war and potentially millions dead instead of the relatively peaceful resolution.

"What is it to pretend that there is no threat? It is sheer, blind stupidity."

It is my understanding that security professionals professionals simply believe that on the relative threat posed by Iraq compared to other threats was low. Yes, I realize that you believe that somehow the neocon pundints know more than those actually working in the field, but to me taking the word of office jockeys with no field experience over actual working professionals is "sheer stupidity."
Michael Czeiszperger | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 3:16 pm | #

Michael C: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.


Dr. Santy,
Glad to see that you are doing well after your surgery. Just a few days post-op and your posts are full of spunk and, as usual, spot on!
IrishEi | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 4:17 pm | #

IrishEi,

I sense she's just begining to sharpen her claws. With her new and improved knees in place and the chronic pain on the retreat, she's soon gonna be opening up with both barrels! Iron's up baby! It's hammer time!

Good stuff comin'...oh yeah.
Ghost of Josey Wales | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 5:30 pm | #

I posted this late in yesterday's thread, but I hope it bears repeating in this one:

We on the Right have been impatient and contemptuous with the Left's trotting out of Vietnam again, because frankly it's tiresome: after all those movies and TV shows that beat the Futility Of War drum so incessantly, we can safely say that we get it--War Is Hell. As in, duh. Like we need 13 years of Hawkeye Pierce's pacificst tantrums to figure that out.

But now that the Democrats have taken Congress, the Left's use of the Vietnam paradigm threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Read the rest...
dicentra | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 6:01 pm | #

the unprecedented cruelty and wanton barbarism and bloodshed exhibited by those we are currently fighting in Iraq is historically unprecedented and could not have been envisioned by anyone developing post-war plans.

Things right-wingers could NEVER have imagined:

1. terrorists, who are fairly well known for hijacking airplanes and also blowing things up, would fly airplanes into skyscrapers

2. the levees in New Orleans would breach when hit by a devastating hurricane

3. Middle Eastern people would not be pleased with America taking over what they see as their land

What next? If something bad ever happens because of global warming, you can bet the next day the Right's talking points will be that "no one EVER could have imagined that."
Kiwi | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 7:07 pm | #

If middle easterners are so upset with Americans then why do they spend most of their time blowing up schools, weddings, shopping centers and so on. Killing your own does not seem like a strategy for a legitimate resistance. How do those of you who decry the war see the "insurgents?" do they have a legitimate goal of liberation for the benefit of their people? When they get what they want they will of course leave us alone, since they are not really "evil". What an outmoded idea, unless we are talking about Bush.
Peter | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:04 pm | #

Oh, Peter, people in the Middle East have been killing one another since the beginning of time, and nothing we ever do will change that.

And you know something? If we weren't so involved in Middle Eastern affairs, they wouldn't have ever hit us in the first place.

Would that Israel would fight its own battles, and we didn't have to kiss sheikh ass for oil.
Kiwi | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:23 pm | #

The point at which Hitler should have been stopped was in 1936, after the Rhineland incursion--victory would have been certain and relatively easy then, but would have been considerably more expensive in 1938.

Some French politicians who opposed action used reasoning similar to that used by today's Democrats--lack of support from the international community. "The United States will accuse us of imperialism," said one politician (Flandin). Another politician (Deant) said "If, this very night, two months before the elections, a general mobilization is decreed, we shall be swept out of Parliament...And we shall have given the world the hateful spectacle of war-mongering. Abandoned morally by all the great Powers, we are risking, moreover, if we answer back, the worst of moral and material disasters."

And, from Britain, a newspaper column worthy of today's MSM: "There is no more reason why German territory should be demilitarized than French, Belgian, or British."
david foster | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:26 pm | #

The specific policies that inflamed the potential "support base" for Islamic terrorism were Israel-Palestine and the murderous US/UK sanctions regime in Iraq. But long before, there were more fundamental issues. Again, it makes little sense to ignore these, at least for those who hope to reduce the likelihood of further terrorist crimes or to answer George W. Bush's plaintive question, "Why do they hate us?"

The question is wrongly put: they do not hate us, but rather the policies of our government, something quite different. If the question is properly formulated, answers to it are not hard to find. In the critical year 1958, President Eisenhower and his staff discussed what he called the "campaign of hatred against us" in the Arab world, "not by the governments but by the people." The basic reason, the National Security Council advised, was the perception that the US supports corrupt and brutal governments and is "opposing political or economic progress" in order "to protect its interest in Near East oil." 54

The Wall Street Joumal and others found much the same when they investigated attitudes of westernized "Moneyed Muslims" after 9-11: bankers, professionals, managers of multinationals, and so on. They strongly support US policies in general but are bitter about U.S. support for corrupt and repressive regimes that undermine democracy and development, and the more specific and recent issues concerning Israel-Palestine and Iraq sanctions. 55

These are attitudes of people who like Americans and admire much about the United States, including its freedoms. What they hate are official policies that deny them the freedoms to which they too aspire. Attitudes in the slums and villages are probably similar, but harsher. Unlike the "moneyed Muslims," the mass of the population have never agreed that the wealth of the region should be drained to the West and local collaborators, rather than serving domestic needs.

Many commentators prefer more comforting answers: anger in the Muslim world is rooted in resentment of our freedom and democracy; in their own cultural failings tracing back many centuries; in their alleged inability to take part in the form of "globalization" in which they, in fact, happily participate; and other such deficiencies. More comforting, perhaps, but not too wise.

54. For sources and background discussion, see my World Orders, Old and New, pp.79, 201ff. Now also Salim Yaqub, Diplomatic History 26, no. 4 (fall 2002).

55. Peter Waldman et aI., Wall Street Journal, 14 September 2001; see also Waldman and Hugh Pope, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2001. See my 9-11 and, for more detail, Middle East Illusions, chapter 10.

--Noam Chomsky, "Hegemony or Survival"
Mango | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:47 pm | #

Mango,

Careful...you just mentioned the name Noam Chomsky. The over/under for the number of people who will instinctively ask why you hate America is roughly ten. Get ready.
Kiwi | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 8:56 pm | #

'War' and 'moral' have no place in the same thought. War is hell because hell is where morals have no value. Every now and then we all need a taste of hell to reconfigure our morals....or to be reminded of heaven if that's your bag. War happens. Just like shit happens. Morals have never stopped or started a war.
Phoenix | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 9:43 pm | #

Roger, Kiwi. Over and out. Mango
Mango | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 10:28 pm | #

No, Kiwi, I just find that Chomsky only looks in one side of the balance pan. If you are an educated person, read a lot of people who agree with you, and collect only information that supports your POV, you can usually build an impressive-looking case for just about anything. Chomsky does not answer even his honest critics - he just starts a new sermon.

That is also true of his linguistics work - and I say that as a person who essentially agrees with his conclusions there.

And so Mango, not surprizingly, brings a lot of useful information, better than what is usually brought forth in discussion. The older, though not ancient, events of the last two centuries of interaction between the West and the Middle-East do indeed figure into their attitudes toward us.

I believe the effects of these are relatively small, however. I acknowledge that motivations are mixed, and that for some, especially the pan-Arabists, these are major. They are used as rationalizations by many more.

But even at that, I don't think it is the primary motivation, for the following reasons:

1. People will long hold resentments for actions they regard as betrayals or callous disregard, but they seldom go to war for them. At worst, they settle into small-scale conflict, such as in Northern Ireland. Actual war is nearly always tribal, with various historical wrongs (real or imagined), religious differences, and economic competitions thrown in to give it all some noble cover.

2. The average age in most ME countries is quite young - 15 in the PA for example - and the level of education low. These are not people who care a fig for the particulars of historical events. Their leaders may use such things to give sanction, and play up certain aspects in order to inflame the populace, but it is the perceived threat to the tribe that gets people rolling. Professors in Syria can cite examples of Israeli actions in 1948 that they believe justify the elimination of Israel, but the populace is motivated more by the idea that they are descended from pigs and dogs, have stolen Arab land, and desire to exterminate Arabs. Tribal considerations dominate.

3. The various historical events are not interpreted identically even in the Arab countries, and certainly not the Persian. Different countries and groups were on different sides in many of the conflicts, dating back even to The Crusades, in which some Arab tribes allied with the European Christians at times. That variety of interpretation could not sustain a unified opposition to the West.

An intersting opinion by an ex-jihadist is Here:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpo...1b- 77366f7af920

If you have trouble with that long url, I link to it on my own site here:
http://assistantvillageidiot.blo...st- opinion.html
Assistant Village Idiot | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:01 pm | #

WAITING FOR A PREMENITION OF THE PAST?

"Of course after the fact its easy to see what should have been done! That's the reason pre-emptive war is a bad idea" -- Michael Czeiszperger

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

BUT, we didn't need hindsight in the case of Iraq, any more than we need hindsight in the case of Iran. We have Nazi Germany as the gold-standard of evil, and against which we can compare the acts and words of others.

If there arise among us those who are as bad, (or worse?), then we have no excuse for inaction.

In other words, if it looks like a monster, and acts like a monster...
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Gall.../Gallery/ 18.htm
http://www.honestreporting.com/ a...in_the_News.asp

OR, just do a Google image search of "Islam" and "Nazi", or "Arab" and "Nazi"

NOTE: you will see many of the Arab cartoons depicting Israel as the Nazis, but that is the 'projection' that Dr. Sanity has talked about so often.

Anyone who claims not to be sure they aren't comparable, is someone who's moral universe is seriously deficient.

Predicting the future may be impossible, but its only the foolish who think they can keep such evil contained, or that a dire outcome won't be the result of inaction.

Get yourself up to speed on who (or what) we are dealing with...
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snor...igb/ muftism.htm
http://www.jerusalem.indymedia.o...omment.php? l=en
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Arti...cle.asp? ID=4934
http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Is...-2001-11- 16.asp
http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2.../ arab_holo.html

multiple links here...
http://www.mideastnewswire.com/ a..._islamists.html

And, connect the dots for yourself with this handy guide to the who's who of modern terror.
http://www.tellthechildrenthetru....com/ index.html
This also traces the history of the Muslim Brotherhood, about which you can read more here,
http://www.freecopts.net/english...do_pdf=1& id=210
and which, incidentally, was involved in the founding of the Islamist propagandist fifth-column group CAIR which masquerades as a human rights group.

It isn't the "neocon pundits" who are putting ideas in our heads. We are perfectly capable of doing that ourselves. You should learn how, too!
ytba | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:22 pm | #

sorry: not "PREMENITION" BUT "PREMONITION".
ytba | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:35 pm | #

Oh, I meant to include this one. It's got more good pics and info.
http://www.jtf.org/israel/ israel...nues.terror.htm

So, tell me, do those agressive savages look like people we can deal with?

And, as regards Mr. Bush. I've been screeming for the past 6 years about his support for self-determination for these monsters. It completely contradicts everything else he says he stands for, and is support for pure evil. What on earth is he thinking?
ytba | Email | Homepage | 11.14.06 - 11:41 pm | #

The Canadian site Asstistant Village Idiot refers to is certainly worth consideration.

The sexual motivations of jihadists should be undermined if they are so powerful. It seems that authoritarian movements of all backgrounds share a common desire to suppress and manipulate sexuality to political ends. Wilhelm Reich pointed to this as a wellspring of fascism. If it's sexual paradise they're seeking, let's give them Paris Hilton and Playboy Club memberships now.

A question for you A.V.I.: Do you see the U.S. war against Saddam/Iraq as tribal? I certainly would agree that a majority of the popular support for it is tribal, but what moved our policymakers to launch it?

Don't tribal politics eventually express themselves as national policy? Therefore wouldn't a critique of policy be implicitly a critique of tribalism/tribal motivations?

Don't certain factions within the tribe learn to manipulate public tribalism for their private benefit?
Isn't Chomsky criticizing the private profiteers, asking them to lead honestly instead of manipulating tribally?
Mango | Email | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 2:49 am | #

"The logic for pre-emptive war is something along the lines of 'since we know that Hitler will end up trying to take over the world, we should have invaded Germany as soon as he was elected.'"
Michael C.

Totally incorrect - a preposterous strawman created by unfettered, unhinged nuance.

The logic for the Iraq war as pre-emption occurred only *after* we became involved in a war declared upon us by OBL, enc., who advocated the killing of any American anywhere by all Muslims in 1998, and followed it with 9/11 and other definitional acts of war.

Iraq became the perfect fit for the Bush Doctrine template as a strategy for war in response. And by chance and intent Saddam played his role to perfection, by his historical acts starting from at least his invasion of Kuwait, and subsequently, involving his refusal to comply with the surrender agreement inspections specifically dedicated toward making sure he had no wmd's.

So Saddam essentially brought the invasion on all by himself. He could have prevented it even after 9/11 by complying with the reinstituted inspections. He instead knowingly chose to fit the Bush Doctrine as a "significant threat".

And no one had to assume that Saddam was going to try to take over the world or even attack us directly for him to fit the bill as a significant threat to our security and survival.

In fact, Saddam did not even have to really "want" to cooperate with terrorists, or do anything more than take steps to defend his regime from regional and internal threats in order to also constitute a "significant threat" to us in the larger picture.

In the larger picture, which came to involve Islamofascism, Saddam f'd up by invading Kuwait, then not complying with Gulf War I surrender agreement inspections, which then couldn't help but make him a significant threat.

And, therefore, even the 9/11 attack which ultimately made Saddam's course a sure-fire f-up need not have been connected with Saddam at all.

It's the Bush Doctrine which the Left does not understand. It's both a threat and made a credible threat by the Iraq invasion.

Furthermore, the military front in the wot is in fact in Iraq. The Islamofascists were sucked into Iraq, because we proactively and pre-emptively chose the battleground and the terrorists could not resist. Bush stated that this was the strategy and policy right from the start and that it was a form of pre-emption.

Once more, Michael C., "pre-emption" in the case of the Iraq invasion is nothing more than a military tactic relating to a war which was *already going on*.

Abandoning the Bush Doctrine tactic of pre-emption leaves us with nothing except non-specific nuclear retaliations as a military strategy against terrorism.

And no one in the future would then be able to enforce any inspections whatsoever on any Nation at all. Such inspections are another example of pre-emption: if they can't be enforced militarily, if necessary, they won't work.
J. Peden | Email | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 3:46 am | #

Everything we do in life is a form of pre-emptive behavior. Were it not for predicting the future then why would we brush our teeth? Why pack a lunch for work? Why open a savings account?

If we are to be successful against Islamic aggression we must act pre-emptively at some point. That basically means we kill them before they kill us. No matter when we choose to do it we will be ridiculed by people like Michael. Because the alternative future events of an America under Islamic control wont be there to convince him we were right. A burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt that i certainly dont care to take it to.
SteveH | Email | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 7:30 am | #

SUMS IT UP

"kill them before they kill us." -- SteveH

The longer we wait, the more it will cost, but I do believe it will happen.
ytba | Email | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 3:40 pm | #

Mango, I believe Chomsky's understanding of the world and its "private profiteers" borders on Illuminati conspiracies. He greatly overestimates their effect on events. Alan Dershowitz writes revealingly about remembering Chomsky from Red Jewish children's camps, and concludes that for all the cover and rationalization, Noam is a garden-variety 50's communist who believes in capitalist exploiters behind everything.

Tangent one: yes that Canadian article gives evidence of one of my favorite soapboxes. Societies which oppress women produce narcissistic young men. It's not good to pass your mother in status when you're only six years old.

As to our tribal nature in this war. I see the US as more of a coalition of tribes, which accounts for the varying degrees of support for the war. Some tribes do not believe their existence is especially threatened - these tend to see things in much the same way as the Western European elites, which are also resisting the idea that their tribe is threatened. Those tribes see more danger in stirring the pot. They regard the physical losses pre- 9/11 as absorbable, and responses to them as likely to provoke instability.

Other American tribes regard attacks on honor, which the jihadists have certainly been inflicting on us since the 1970's, are alarm signals which portend more massive physical attacks. Those tribes regarded the small damage in resources of the USS Cole, the American Embassies, and Mogadishu as enormous attacks on honor. The accusation is that such people are overly concerned with honor because they are defensive or insecure. Their own impression is that attacks on honor are precursors to larger physical attacks.

While we divide this into Red Tribe/Blue Tribe in our current thinking, I believe it is far messier than that.

9-11 gave profound evidence that the honor-believers had it right, and much of the nation moved into that column in 2001. But life is very daily, and the lack of physical damage here has caused us to resume our lives of working, raising children, mowing the lawns. We slip back into not wanting to stir the pot. Is that wisdom, laziness, self-centeredness, denial, lack of focus, or something else? We will only be able to answer that in hindsight, and are stuck making the best guesses among bad choices now.

So, all tribes have some reason for believing that their view is the better predictor of what we need to do next. I have greatly oversimplified the tribes into two large groups here, but isolationists, traders, religious groups, and ethnic groups all have very ambivalent responses to the current split.
Assistant Village Idiot | Email | Homepage | 11.15.06 - 11:04 pm | #

Thanks for this -- I think you are so right.

In regard to Santayana's quote at the beginning of this post, I saw another quote once which was also apropos and chilling:

"Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up."
Barbara H. | Email | Homepage | 11.16.06 - 10:26 am | #