High School bullies, AEoN? Never bothered me, because I had their number. And who are the bullies here, anyway? Bush and you Bushholes (yes, our holes for minds are eager to give pleasure to the Big Dick), eager to beat up on a little shit (who certainly had it coming - no argument there). Well aren't you tough guys, making the world a safer place.

Oh, but hold on a minute, I'm a little confused here. What I need is some of that straight-thinking realism of yours, AEoN. Wasn't terrorism the big threat? And Saddam was the main instigator, so that's why he was chosen, right? Not Bin Laden, not Saudi Arabia, not the disaffected, ill-educated, unemployed masses of young men across the Middle East and beyond. No, a man sitting on vast oil reserves just ripe to be carved up amongst the freedom loving good men of the West.

How many more times do we have to point out that one to you Bushholes before you get it? Ah, but wait, I'm probably just wasting my time, because everyone who posts on this board is most likely set in their beliefs...

And like good school bullies you wouldn't take on the real tough kids, like the Chinese, because you know you'd get fucked good and proper. Or even the real rabid dogs, like North Korea, because you're frightened of a pasting.

So your ethics stink and so does that sense of realism. Where does that leave you? With some vague notion about religion giving us a sense of purpose, self-betterment and charity. Well those are ideals you can frame with or without religion - my point about idealism that you dismiss in the same post. Faith and idealism do not preclude realism.

As for buying peace, where do you think war comes from in the first place? Wars have always been fought for control of resources as much as for supremacy of systems of ideals. Where do you think the vast wealth that the States can use to buy peace comes from in the first place? From the same place as Britain's - the control and exploitation of the rest of the world's resources in materials and labour, not from some sort of innate superiority. It's the resentment of that amongst the disenfranchised billions that feeds the terrorists, and it's that that 50% of us in the States and Britain object to. You can't beat the world into submission for ever - eventually you have to stop blaming the world's woes on everyone else and look to yourself. Or else you're doomed to suffering endless war and doomed to losing in the end. And that's realism.