Well that is good to hear. My granddaughter flying from KC to MSP for her 1st birthday she was not treated the same.

Hello, Mr. Gore,
I come from the part of southeast Europe that was under Ottoman Turks' occupation for more than 400 years. The people have an expression, poorly translated here, "damned Turkish times, never again!" I will never ever submit to any Islamic laws, or accept that Islam influences our culture or policies. Should that start to happen, I will escape as I did from communists. I would have a prejudice against a Muslim neighbor. I had some such neighbors in my long gone past. Never again! Islam is trying to push humanity for more than a millennium back. I have read their Koran. It is an evil book.
EDIT: inserted forgotten initial salute

I am 80 years old and TSA tells me that I am too old to have to take off my shoes. In many recent (couple of years?) flights I boarded with my shoes never taken off.

No problem.

No need to apologize! I thought that's what you meant; just wanted to be sure, and thanks!

I apologize. I thought it was clear. Pencils do not makes mistakes, people do. That is why they have erasers. Guns do not kill. People use guns to kill. Power does not corrupt. People corrupt power. Not all people corrupt power, however, power does not corrupt anyone.

so true...

Thank you. The widespread-ownership-of-guns strategy has worked well for the Swiss. They are required to own guns and know how to use them. Between that and the mountains, Europe's bent-on-conquest fools know better than to mess with the Swiss, and the Swiss certainly have no interest in jumping into the European playpen. The same posture would of course work for the US, and is pretty much what George Washington recommended, but it's far too logical, even for a lot of people here on Galt's Gulch, a supposed haven for Objectivists.

as usual...great article...

i note you comment on "honor" and not "sacrifice"...i like that...

also, they asked the Japanese generals as to why they did not invade california after Pearl Harbor, the generals did not want to face the millions of guns private citizens owned...as the primary reason that they did not invade mainland u.s.....

I see Memorial Day honoring those Americans who fought and died in numerous Foriegn Wars and those veterans who survived and came home. Some still living most have past, such as my father, my wife's father and uncle. Plus, other of my relatives who have served. You can't take away that honor or service because you "think" it was in the name of the government. But, that is history now and you don't have a time machine to go back and change. Even if you tried a new divergent time line would be created and it wouldn't effect past history. It is a matter of what happens now and in the future. Wether, we could affect it by our participation in or changing the existing govermental system. Or we could build a new system as many in the Gulch would love to do!

Jsw225 "Pretending your enemy is not your enemy" is what our Administration is doing , no profiling just spy on every American. Treat all air travelers the same a 1 year old baby to a 90 year old veteran must take of those shoes. Sheeez I feel safer.

Thank you, Straightlinelogic. I have long admired your eloquent writings and your profound and logical thinking.

Interesting statement, "power does not corrupt". I think I get where you're going, but could you elaborate? Thanks

Thank you, Puzzlelady. At various times I have said many of the same things on this site, and I have found, like you undoubtedly have, some of the responses to be unbelievably uninformed and the products of jingosim rather than any kind of logic and fact-based analysis. There are not enough hours in the day to respond to it all, but anyone on Galt's Gulch who is looking for the other side of the story I refer to my website, Straight Line Logic, and the many articles I have written about the US's foreign and military policy. Again, thank you.

Thank you, Robert, for the honesty and objectivity of your essay. Putative justifications, indeed, along with vilifications and demonization of all who won't genuflect to us. Never ask what we may have done to create those enemies; never see the conflict through both sides' eyes; never see the others as resistance fighters defending themselves against our aggressions. Always claim they are terrorists for no reason other than hating our values (what are those values, anyway?). And never, never, under any circumstances, admit we are hypocrites with double standards.

Just look at all the male commentators here who virtually advocate genocide, or at least killing them until they no longer want to defend themselves. These commentators whitewash our crimes against humanity as "a dreadful mix of poor judgment and stupid moves". Are we really in the process of destroying 7 or more countries over there just to protect Israel? Is endless war really the best way to protect it? Israel will not rest until it has goaded the US into attacking Iran as well, notwithstanding a verifiable agreement that Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons. Need I repeat that Iranians are not Arabs, have no love for Arabs, and are a different sect of Islam (Shia).

With every day that we pursue our terrorist acts against those countries, we dig ourselves deeper into an immoral abyss. History will judge us and our hubris of wanting to dominate the globe because we think we can, and I fear that judgment will be severe.

More to the Siberian reference than meets the eye. The Russians have been defending themselves against Islamic incursion for centuries and the rise of Islam in recent times seems to be starting the cycle all over again. I believe whats happening in Ukraine has an Islamic component regarding Islamic resettling of the Crimea. Stalin threw them out to secure Russia's access to the sea and the new PC Ukraine government was letting them back in. I suspect a reasonable component of Putin's Middle East policy is if he can foster a scenario where Muslims are killing each other, they won't be killing Russians.

Thanks for the correction.
In those days, when I was a kid, all Japanese were interchangeable villains. As to patriotism, it would make most Americans today seem like guests rather than citizens.

+1 for Midway reference. Just watched it last week. Did a WWII movie binge with "Tora, Tora, Tora", "Midway", "Patton", "A Bridge Too Far", and "Battle of the Bulge".

The "imposing their desires by force" seems to be inherent in human nature unless we engage in rational thinking.

After another attempted "one-off" attack ... on Midway, it was Yamamoto that had to report to His Majesty. That was Yamamoto's famous last line in the movie Midway.

AR showed that it takes more than instinct to survive. When the environment changes, instinct won't save the animals. So, "any way possible" is not the answer. Japan's and Germany's war making were primarily economic; they were fighting for land, resources and markets. Following the examples of the UK, France, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Russia and the US, the Germans and Japanese wanted their own empires; that was considered necessary to maintain a large industrial system. Technology has rendered those arguments obsolete, and the Germans and Japanese weren't looking to change the system, but to impose their desires by force.

It was Admiral Yamamoto who said that. Even though he planned the attack, he warned the Japanese high command of the possible outcome, which proved prescient.

Clearly, you were asleep in history class, or maybe your books never addressed the Muslim conquests. Maybe you didn't realize that it took the Spaniards nearly 800 years to get the Muslims out of their country, and it took a Polish army to beat back the Turks at the gates of Vienna. And if you've seen any Dracula movies, you should know that they really were about Vlad Dracul, a guy who was so murderous that he became a legend, but that was what was necessary to keep the Turks out of Rumania. The last time I looked, my map didn't show Spain or Austria or Rumania as being in the middle east. So, if the Muslims could be so gracious as to invite themselves into other peoples' lands, why are they so upset when others return the favor?!? And, why should we give a rat's ass what they think? They obviously didn't care about what others thought of their depredations. You can't have it both ways. If you believe in conquest, then you can't in all honesty complain if conquest is imposed on you. The fact is, virtually ALL of the so-called Muslim lands weren't Muslim before the conquests. Now that they have the land, they want to hold onto it. I say, they can hold onto it as long as they can, and not a second longer. And if they lose it, as they say in Siberia, "tough shitsky."

Two things. First, Japan's mistake wasn't invading the US, but not taking Hawaii. If they'd taken those islands, at the outset, they might have prevailed, or at least made it a lot harder to defeat them. Second, the reason we get more terrorists over time, is because of the inane rules of engagement. If we showed the terrorists what real barbarism looked like, they'd stay home.