30A,
IMHO there is very little understanding me or anyone else here for that matter could have for those people who become suicide bombers. All I can say is that there must be the deepest level of desperation, anger and despair to feel that this is the last method they need to resort to. The killings of civilians in NEVER justified but in war things change.
I have met dozens of truely educated, exceedingly well traveled arabs, who were fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to leave their war torn regions, who had the financial means to put themselves through college and who, if they so chose, need never return home. Even with these privileges they are often consumed by an anger and furiousness that is hard to comprehend given the advantages afforded them. So imagine what it must be like for the thousands who have no political voice, harbor little if no prospects for their future, live in areas where there is rampant unemployment, stripped of their dignity and pride and basically have no hope whatsoever - they feel and become marginalized and turn to fundamentalism. I make no excuses for them but I can tell you this: if americans were forced to live in the same conditions as let's say palestinians who have spent deacdes in refugees camps, do you really think that peaceful revolt is all you would see.
My father has always said that what the middle east desperately needs is a Nelson Mandela or a Ghandi - someone who intrinsically and passionately believed that you could bring about drastic change in an oppressive regime through peaceful revolution. I couldn't agree more.
I know enough about personal politics to know that it is highly unlikely. if not downright impossible. to change anyone's personal ideas about our current president (and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being a republican or a democrat - in fact it is amazing to me that so few republicans are angry with him given how he has pretty much violated the very precepts of his party such as fiscal responsibility, conservative spending and small government!). My anger and disgust with Bush is that he is seemingly more preoccupied in his idealogical beliefs, in his own executive cocoon, and he is fueled by wanting to protect his power and that of his administration above all else and this leads him into a scary willingness and callouness to keep sending troops into Iraq to get blown up.
Respectfully sent.....
;-)
