| | A rational discussion of options is not warmongering. Warmongering is "Yee haw, good job in that there Iraq, now lets get them other countries" I would not advocate war as the solution to our problems with the Saudis, and I think its possible Syria might be dealt without resorting to violence. Iran doesn't seem very amenable to any other method.
"And you demonstrate that you do not know what you are talking about when you presume that OPEC is just going to fall in line with the radical Muslim agenda, because one-third of the nations of OPEC are not predominately Muslim (those would be, of the 12, Nigeria, Venezuela, Angola and Ecuador) and there are others than cannot even be counted as "radical" nations (the UAE, Qatar and perhaps Kuwait)."
I do happen to believe that in a situation where a nuclear exchange or arms race happened in the middle east, most middle eastern countries would continue to quietly or openly support the radical muslim factions they do now.
CIA.gov lists Nigeria as predominately muslim, and wildly corrupt to boot. I pretty sure that Venezuela might not be counted on to reliably buck OPEC for the benefit of the US. Ecuador might be willing to maintain trade with us if there is a problem with OPEC, as long they aren't intimidated by Venezuela and their Russian allies. There sure is a lot of Russian naval activity in the area lately. No matter, I'm sure Russia would never use its influence to undermine us. Those other non-radical muslim countries aren't going to have nearly the same amount of freedom to determine their own course with a nuclear armed Iran next door.
"Spare me the violins; most people I met over there were good people, and most Objectivists should be smart enough not to engage in collective judgment because of a few bad apples. Or would you like if your service was judged on the yokels at Abu Ghraib? I thought not."
Where would you get the idea that I'm looking for sympathy or telling a sad story in need of violin music because I state that being exposed to muslim violence has shaped my views? I've heard a lot of officers make similar statements to yours regarding the essential goodness of the people over there. Might I ask your field? I was out on the ground every day in Afghanistan and most of the people I met were sheep, a significant majority were corrupt, and most of the others were radicals. A few were Ok, but if I had to remove from that list the Afghans that were removed from their culture as children and raised in the USA, that would be a mighty small number that impressed me. The opinion you expressed I have generally seen expressed by staff or officers that have little contact with actual locals, just local gov't and leadership. BTW, according to most of the news I see, my service is often judged based on Abu Graib and similar incidents.
An Objectivist might also notice that there seems to be an awful lot of bad apples making their way into circulation, and that they tend to kill people. If he were dealing with some magical talking fruit he might also note that the "good" apples aren't doing a lot of talking or much of anything to stop the bad apples. An Objectivist might decide that this seems to be deadly fruit and that the danger inherent in giving the good fruit a chance was far outweighed by what the bad fruit does. Radical muslims operate with the sanction of the locals.
Muslims hold a dangerous belief system. You're absolutely right that I lump them together, as I have seen no real movement among them to separate themselves from the radicals. Just silence. Just like if some Objectivist started gunning people down it would be MY responsibility to make sure others knew that I didn't condone his actions and help catch him.
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Neither did Afghanistan nor Al Qaida. So I suppose, like Clinton, you oppsed do anything about Al Qaida until they attacked us? You may not remember the hostage crisis, but surely you remember seven years ago.
