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Simple question for Sam: Why did the Islamic world turn so sharply against the U.S. in the first place? I know you know this. To be a bit more recent and precise, why did the Sirhan Sirhan kill RFK? Cuz of his support for Zionism. Why did Bin Laden lead Al Qaeda in escalating attacks against the U.S.? Cuz we based troops in Saudi Arabia to save them and the Kuwaitis and others from the Iraqis. Why do the Iranians chant "death to America" at weekly prayers? For two primary reasons, the first of which is a that we overthrew their legit leader in the early '50s, Moussadegh (funnily it was a great nephew of that maniac Teddy Roosevelt who led it) and installed the Shah. We then trained and used his secret police, the Savaak as our 'off books' intel service in the region. They were horrific to dissidents and we looked the other way. The second reason is that in the late '80s, the Iranians were just about to defeat Saddam's army and we decided we didn't want that to happen. So instead we gave Saddam satellite imagery to Saddam and chemical weapons, and the Iraqis then wiped a huge chunk of Iran's army.

If you go into a home in Iran you will often see pictures of the 'martyrs' killed in their wars with Saddam. We thought Hussein was so evil we invaded to depose him - but before that we backed him against the Iranians.

I'm sincerely curious, Sam. How will more militarism by the U.S. in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world help the American people. Cuz the interventions in the past caused us to be a target. And it seems like we have only given those Jihadis more reasons to kill us now.

My point? They did not wake up and decide to attack us out of the blue. We effed with them, and they are a proud people. We need to pull back from the the busybody role we play in the world dramatically cuz it blows up on us and costs us a mint and only makes new enemies for us.

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Good points Glenn. But we need to look way back, to Abram, Sarai and Hagar, Genesis 16. That misguided plan resulted in Ishmael. God promised Hagar Ishmael would be free and wild and fight with everyone, and everyone would fight with him.

Yes, we have made tremendous mistakes throughout our 200+ year history, many for profit and power. But we cannot disregard the spiritual battle raging around us.

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Indeed, evangelicals such as yourself who blend their politics with their religion are a huge problem in the conservative movement. You ignore that that the intellectual and philosophical moral argument for the U.S. and our liberty and self-governance was based on Natural Rights. Not scripture. Our founders understood better than you the failure of theocratic societies, as they were living with the failure of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Puritans.

Next time you want to know why we have lost so badly to the Left over the past 50-60 years, just look in the mirror. The evangelicals hijacked conservatism, and as such it has little appeal to mainstream Americans. I'm a Catholic, and much of it doesn't appeal to me...But please, continue to babble about scripture like a loon, it's all part of your 'service' to the rest of us, lol.

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