http://tundratabloids.com/2008/04/sw...ld-brides.html


http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/i...ticle-1.456314


It has almost nothing to do with my "American" beliefs, and everything to do with the place of the law and the state where women and children are concerned: these girls range in age from about seven to age seventeen and are married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers. Oftentimes they are traded as pieces of property, not as people: the family is poor, so they have to sell their daughters to gain access to money. (A failing of the Swedish system as it doesn't always enable advancement as it claims due to ample racism.) When they are taken to places like Saudi Arabia, they lose many of the rights they were born with; for Christ's sake, they lose the ability to drive a car in Saudi Arabia and they lose their family, their friends, everything for a 52 year old man they do not know, do not love, and, if the bride is just a ten year old, may be sexually abused by come the wedding night and every night after until she finally ovulates, produces a child, and dies young. Saudi Arabia, like most of the Middle East and Iran, may not recognize her as a citizen of Sweden or totally ignore it (an issue of international importance) and getting a divorce would be like trying to stick a bull's balls in a bear trap-inadvisable, and possibly deadly.


The state should intervene here because it can't have its youngest citizens shipped off to faraway lands and forced into false marriages. It is not in national interest to promote sexual slavery, pedophilia, and rape, whether at home or abroad. There is ample precedence that these forces are destructive to society. It is equally not in national interest to forget to assure the rights of Swedish citizens when they are present in foreign lands nor is it in the interest of places like Iran and Yemen to ignore the Swedes in diplomatic matters as bluntly Sweden is a source of remittances, aid, and is a creditor to these impoverished places. Further, because this behavior is highly socialized, it won't hit home that it isn't to be tolerated nor condoned unless there are measures to curb its practice: an outright ban might just force it underground. Stopping the recognition of marriages where the bride was underage from entering Sweden to begin with, well, that would help as it makes it less likely that any daughters born to the couple shall be sold one day. Taking away children from a couple that has conspired to sell their daughter and placing them in a sort of foster care might send a clear message home that if you do x, you get y punishment.


For women who are married to a brute, the fact is that honor killing is common, though not exclusive to, these cultures: a wife who leaves a husband makes the husband feel shame, and his family too: in the eyes of these people, the only way to purge the shame is to kill the woman and destroy the reminder of a failure. Women, in turn, are shamed into staying with these men and otherwise compelled by the fact that in most of these places she loses all access to her children and loses access to valuable resources that would enable her to live and provide for herself. In Sweden, the means to self support are not denied nor the right to gain custody of children in a divorce, but the capacity for revenge or honor killing increases because the man and his relatives are "shamed" to be beaten by a woman. There needs to be an escape for these ladies, should they so choose to leave, and it is in the interest of the state and the law to intervene on her behalf as shooting your ex-wife or beating up your current one is a condition that only adds to a cycle of abuse and despair, societal decay. Armed guards at a safe house would work, as would gobs of restraining orders, and even possible relocation of the woman and her children in another place very far, under a new name. The interest of the state is to prevent murder and prosecute those who would commit it or be an accessory to it, and expose the enablers. A man does not need to kill his wife to feel like a man again; all she has to do is leave and never return.


Cultural identity has nothing to do with it when it is okay to beat up your wife, sell your daughter, and treat women like shit. It is certainly not unique to Middle Eastern nations and actually occurs in a lot of places in Asia and parts of South America. The failures of the legal system in the Middle East would do well to be addressed in the new home of immigrants, Sweden, else be felt ad infinitum et perpetua for generations to come.

Originally Posted by Mary Kate 1982

http://tundratabloids.com/2008/04/sw...ld-brides.html


http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/i...ticle-1.456314


It has almost nothing to do with my "American" beliefs, and everything to do with the place of the law and the state where women and children are concerned: these girls range in age from about seven to age seventeen and are married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers. Oftentimes they are traded as pieces of property, not as people: the family is poor, so they have to sell their daughters to gain access to money. (A failing of the Swedish system as it doesn't always enable advancement as it claims due to ample racism.) When they are taken to places like Saudi Arabia, they lose many of the rights they were born with; for Christ's sake, they lose the ability to drive a car in Saudi Arabia and they lose their family, their friends, everything for a 52 year old man they do not know, do not love, and, if the bride is just a ten year old, may be sexually abused by come the wedding night and every night after until she finally ovulates, produces a child, and dies young. Saudi Arabia, like most of the Middle East and Iran, may not recognize her as a citizen of Sweden or totally ignore it (an issue of international importance) and getting a divorce would be like trying to stick a bull's balls in a bear trap-inadvisable, and possibly deadly.


The state should intervene here because it can't have its youngest citizens shipped off to faraway lands and forced into false marriages. It is not in national interest to promote sexual slavery, pedophilia, and rape, whether at home or abroad. There is ample precedence that these forces are destructive to society. It is equally not in national interest to forget to assure the rights of Swedish citizens when they are present in foreign lands nor is it in the interest of places like Iran and Yemen to ignore the Swedes in diplomatic matters as bluntly Sweden is a source of remittances, aid, and is a creditor to these impoverished places. Further, because this behavior is highly socialized, it won't hit home that it isn't to be tolerated nor condoned unless there are measures to curb its practice: an outright ban might just force it underground. Stopping the recognition of marriages where the bride was underage from entering Sweden to begin with, well, that would help as it makes it less likely that any daughters born to the couple shall be sold one day. Taking away children from a couple that has conspired to sell their daughter and placing them in a sort of foster care might send a clear message home that if you do x, you get y punishment.


For women who are married to a brute, the fact is that honor killing is common, though not exclusive to, these cultures: a wife who leaves a husband makes the husband feel shame, and his family too: in the eyes of these people, the only way to purge the shame is to kill the woman and destroy the reminder of a failure. Women, in turn, are shamed into staying with these men and otherwise compelled by the fact that in most of these places she loses all access to her children and loses access to valuable resources that would enable her to live and provide for herself. In Sweden, the means to self support are not denied nor the right to gain custody of children in a divorce, but the capacity for revenge or honor killing increases because the man and his relatives are "shamed" to be beaten by a woman. There needs to be an escape for these ladies, should they so choose to leave, and it is in the interest of the state and the law to intervene on her behalf as shooting your ex-wife or beating up your current one is a condition that only adds to a cycle of abuse and despair, societal decay. Armed guards at a safe house would work, as would gobs of restraining orders, and even possible relocation of the woman and her children in another place very far, under a new name. The interest of the state is to prevent murder and prosecute those who would commit it or be an accessory to it, and expose the enablers. A man does not need to kill his wife to feel like a man again; all she has to do is leave and never return.


Cultural identity has nothing to do with it when it is okay to beat up your wife, sell your daughter, and treat women like shit. It is certainly not unique to Middle Eastern nations and actually occurs in a lot of places in Asia and parts of South America. The failures of the legal system in the Middle East would do well to be addressed in the new home of immigrants, Sweden, else be felt ad infinitum et perpetua for generations to come.

Are they not teaching the value of brevity in the schools anymore?

Originally Posted by Mary Kate 1982

Cultural identity has nothing to do with it when it is okay to beat up your wife, sell your daughter, and treat women like shit. It is certainly not unique to Middle Eastern nations and actually occurs in a lot of places in Asia and parts of South America. The failures of the legal system in the Middle East would do well to be addressed in the new home of immigrants, Sweden, else be felt ad infinitum et perpetua for generations to come.

Forgive me if my intentions were misconstrued, but I wasn't disputing the morality or "correctness" of the action--my own opinion on the matter has nothing to do with the subject & I won't touch it with a twelve foot pole--because that is not what I'm addressing--I'm addressing HOW you're addressing the subject, not the WHAT the subject is. I merely noticed how you went on a campaign of charging others to "accept all other's cultural/social beliefs and practices" and pointed out that you support "minorities" in being free to practice their own beliefs and practices until those said beliefs and practices come in conflict with your own beliefs and practices, at which point--like how you accuse Sweden & Tussliago of being cultural supremacists--you begin a campaign to condemn those same minorities for practicing what they've clearly been doing for centuries, and what our own culture partook in as well not so very long ago.

The fact of the matter is, you're okay with certain aspects of their culture--you aren't threatened by what they wear, when they fast, or the different holidays they observe. All of that is superfluous to you. However when your own beliefs that are quite clearly stated above are offended, that's an okay aspect at which to "change". Can't you see that you have your own belief system, which you consider to be universal because of your upbringing, and that they have their own belief system, which they consider to be universal because of their upbringing--and that the two of them are clashing? They don't see things the way you do--your perspective is not the only one that's "correct" here. From your perspective you're right. From their perspective they're right. What and who is "actually right"? That depends upon what you believe & what you were taught--all of which is subjective when you really get down to it. There seems to be only a hand full of universal truths and we like to kid ourselves that there are more out there than there probably is.

I'm just saying you can't have it both ways, Mary Kate. You can't say "embrace their entire culture, except for that part of it" and not expect someone to point the discrepancy there. In the end, I'd rather you get the note from me, rather than get the full frontal response from the parties whom you're addressing. Consider it a concerned critique.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Not to be a jackass, but you do realize you're coming off here Mary Kate as:

"Tussilago, don't offend their religion, find ways to for them to preserve their own cultural identity in Sweden--except for when it conflicts with my American beliefs about marrying young...then feel free to throw out their cultural identity."

I'm just saying... it doesn't help your argument any.

~Chas'88

EDIT: I'm just saying this so you can revise your argument, and I can delete my post.

Chas - cultural identity stops where human rights violations begin.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Chas - cultural identity stops where human rights violations begin.

Not to dispute the subject at hand, I'm just pointing out that by their viewpoint, there is no violation of human rights by their perspective, because human rights--as we see them--is a cultural belief that we've developed.

I'm not arguing for the damned thing--don't confuse that--I'm just pointing out that everyone has their own beliefs of what is right and natural and they don't always line up perfectly.

Am I talking to a lot of Js?

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Not to dispute the subject at hand, I'm just pointing out that by their viewpoint, there is no violation of human rights by their perspective, because human rights--as we see them--is a cultural belief that we've developed.

I'm not arguing for the damned thing--don't confuse that--I'm just pointing out that everyone has their own beliefs of what is right and natural and they don't always line up perfectly.

Am I talking to a lot of Js?

~Chas'88

Well, I'm supposed to be an INTp, but I also predate the post-modern cultural relativism that claims there is no difference between, say, modern Sweden and Moctezuma's Aztecs, because who are we to judge other peoples' practices? Some things - and I know there is often no agreement on what things - are simply, flatly, dead wrong. Sorry.

Now go watch more classic Star Trek. Especially the episodes where alien planet X selects it citizens by lot to be executed as a moral substitute for war. Or where Planet Y has set its face against birth control and is so overcrowded, someone lets a plague loose to solve the problem. Or, or, or ...

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Well, I'm supposed to be an INTp, but I also predate the post-modern cultural relativism that claims there is no difference between, say, modern Sweden and Moctezuma's Aztecs, because who are we to judge other peoples' practices? Some things - and I know there is often no agreement on what things - are simply, flatly, dead wrong. Sorry.

Now go watch more classic Star Trek. Especially the episodes where alien planet X selects it citizens by lot to be executed as a moral substitute for war. Or where Planet Y has set its face against birth control and is so overcrowded, someone lets a plague loose to solve the problem. Or, or, or ...

Taking this conversation to PM. But please note that I'm personally playing Devil's Advocate in the earlier posts.

~Chas'88

Friday night I heard an awful BBC story about honor killings in the UK's Sikh community and it made me see red. if they want to commit such barbarity they should go back to India.

Europe is not recovering.

Originally Posted by Wonkblog

The European Union is getting closer to signing a new treaty that would make members pledge to keep deficits lower in the future or face sanctions. But two outside analysts--one an economist and the other a political scientist--are skeptical that the latest developments will be more than half-measures to keep the EU afloat. They predict that a real, lasting resolution of the Euromess is still a long way off...


... Ultimately, Farrell says that the biggest obstacle to a real resolution is not only political, but increasingly electoral-driven as both Merkel and Sarkozy are facing voters who are unhappy with bailing out the distressed southern countries in the EU. “They want the timing of this to be as late as possible, and as much on German terms as possible,” he concludes. “I don’t see clear path toward any grand bargain any time in the next couple of years.” ....

...Tu Packard, a senior analyst at Moody’s, agrees that the future of the EU remains in flux and is similarly disheartened by the tone of the negotiations in Greece. “The level of uncertainty is still very high,” says Packard, who believes the German approach toward the Greek debt restructuring talks has been counterproductive. “I’m not sure what’s on their minds...it’s almost as if [Germany] did not want it to happen,” she says. “It’s surprising that some of the parties involved would want to heighten the level of bitterness at this extremely fragile state of things.” ...


... Packard adds that the overwhelming focus on austerity, instead of growth, could still be a major obstacle to the continent’s recovery, as Ezra has explained. As such, Packard--who had been becoming more optimistic in recent weeks about the EU’s prospects--says her outlook has clouded over once more. She summed up her feelings in one word: “negative.”

The unwinding of the Euromess has a long way to go

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Europe is not recovering.



The unwinding of the Euromess has a long way to go

That was predictable. Austerity just does not work.

Originally Posted by Odin

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Europe is not recovering.

The unwinding of the Euromess has a long way to go

That was predictable. Austerity just does not work.

A related question: what impact will this have on the US. We may be farther along the recovery road, but not that much further. A collapsing Europe will not be good for us, and even worse, I suspect our banks are in it up to their eyeballs. It's a given that a second bank bailout is a non-starter, so what then?

... and all this inthe middle of a Preidential campaign. Wonderful.

Originally Posted by Odin

That was predictable. Austerity just does not work.

Unfortunately, neither does decades of deficit spending. We backed ourselves into a corner. The question, IMO, is this: How much more debt to "kick start" the economy can we handle without driving over the cliff where the debt becomes too great to manage? It doesn't take much from here to push us over -- higher interest rates on government debt, inflating the debt into something more manageable, very high tax rates that cripple economic growth... there are no magic bullets in the chamber here. Austerity has its own problems but it's not necessarily the most irresponsible thing we could do, depending on how and where we cut.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Unfortunately, neither does decades of deficit spending. We backed ourselves into a corner. The question, IMO, is this: How much more debt to "kick start" the economy can we handle without driving over the cliff where the debt becomes too great to manage? It doesn't take much from here to push us over -- higher interest rates on government debt, inflating the debt into something more manageable, very high tax rates that cripple economic growth... there are no magic bullets in the chamber here. Austerity has its own problems but it's not necessarily the most irresponsible thing we could do, depending on how and where we cut.

I willing to risk inflation and currency devaluation to get us out of the mire, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Unfortunately, neither does decades of deficit spending. We backed ourselves into a corner. The question, IMO, is this: How much more debt to "kick start" the economy can we handle without driving over the cliff where the debt becomes too great to manage? It doesn't take much from here to push us over -- higher interest rates on government debt, inflating the debt into something more manageable, very high tax rates that cripple economic growth... there are no magic bullets in the chamber here. Austerity has its own problems but it's not necessarily the most irresponsible thing we could do, depending on how and where we cut.

H-m-m-m. We might be there now, and more borrowing may move us further away. The fact is, the debt we carry is only important in two respects:

1. What is the Debt:GDP ratio?
2. How much does it cost to service the debt?

We can affect both by our actions, so we need to be somewhat cautious (MMT not coming to our aid any time soon). The trick is to create an underlying growth paradigm, and that may mean some serious short-term debt. If we can assume that the GDP rises faster than the debt, in percentage terms, the problem is self resolving. There will be pain. It will ease in time. The immediate benefits will be greater than the immediate pain.

France has been a nation of immigrants similar to the USA since the 19th century, a lot of people from Flanders, Italy, Spain, Poland and other European nations immigrated to France and assimilated into French society. President Sarkozy for example is the son of an Hungarian immigrant and his mother, the first lady was born in Italy.<br>
<br>
Although in France there has been a ideology that anybody can become French by assimilating into French society.

Sorry, I just saw this.&nbsp; Tristan, you forget that France has a schizophrenic relationship with religion.&nbsp; And no matter where you go on earth, religion has a large role to play in culture.

For much of its history, France was the Roman Catholic Church's "Eldest Daughter": it was the only country other than Italy that was used as a base of operation for popes, Holy Mother Church had huge claims to the land under the feudal system, and the kings of France always staked their right to rule on divine right, ordination by God and always crowned at Rheims by the cardinal (separation of church and state never really got off the ground until long after the death of Louis XVI.)&nbsp; Obviously the French Revolution broke that power but it never fully tamed it, as the 19th century was a giant exercise in Mother trying to reclaim moral dominion over her daughter and the daughter trying to figure out her identity now that there was a vacuum where the state religion once was. By the early 1900s, the relationship had devolved so badly that all church property was confiscated (again) and to this day Notre Dame de Paris, Sacre Coeur, St. Denis, and all the other numerous abbeys are the property of the state.&nbsp; The cardinal in Paris cannot so much as lift his cheek to&nbsp; fart in his own damn church without the permission of the state, even if he is just using the seat on the alter to read the funny papers. (crude, but very true.)

Fast forward to the present. The attitude has devolved further where ANY religion is suspect, and those who hold a belief in God get looked at as if they beamed down from the mother ship.&nbsp; The law forbids any display of public faith; even the average Christian cannot wear a cross in public that isn't the size of a rice krispie and heaven help the Indian feller who wants to load his brahman cow into the back of his pickup and loudly start to sing and honk his horn-he could be arrested.

This is causing huge problems in France, where, in my honest opinion, their brand of secularism is actually doing more to censor and persecute religion, where the bullied have now become bullies. And worst of all, there is a racial element to it: all the countries you mentioned are white, European nations.&nbsp; The overwhelming majority of immigrants in the 20th century did not come from Europe, but rather from former colonies in Africa and Asia Minor. They were not allowed to ascend the ladder the same way as the others were; they were subservient in the colonies and were expected to remain so forever. And mark my words, it WILL come to bite France in the ass, hard, sooner rather than later. It is even funny that their idea of progress is electing somebody who is not French going back generations, but instead making a marginal change where the candidate was the brat of a Hungarian aristocrat who fled the Germans for Paris; It reminds me of when some Englishmen claim proudly Benjamin Disraeli was the first non-Christian PM....and conveniently forget that 1) he was raised in the Church of England and 2) no PM that has ever followed him has ever been anything but a white male over age 45, Anglican at-least-in-name, married, an OxCam clone, and the only time this pattern was ever deviated from was the year they ran out of contenders (and ran Thatcher.)


PS-Actually, the Kennedys were less Yankee than you might expect.; (Trust me, I live in Kennedyville, and I did some snooping: you'd be shocked what you can dig up when you sniff around, and believe me, the 90 year old guy with the hard BAAHS-ton accent will flap his gums all day long if you let him....) To explain, Joe Kennedy aspired to many of the trappings of the life of a Boston Brahmin: the Harvard education, the money, the big house on Beacon Hill. So he did what he thought would get him through to that world: he used a combination of East Boston street smarts and bundled it with a Harvard degree. To speak plain English, he made sure he outsmarted the Brahmin pampered princes on every test, got the degree, married the daughter of the mayor,&nbsp; bucked like funny rabbits with her to create a dynasty (while also slipping out the back door to look at ye oulde cute hoor from time to time, a habit likely picked up in East Boston and NOT Harvard)&nbsp; speculated his brains out on Wall Street in the 1920s, and lest we forget, smuggled and bootlegged alcohol throughout the 20s and right on up until the point just before FDR dealed him in in his new government.

It is almost funny: Joe Kennedy outlived Al Capone by many years, but the old fart managed to rack up a list of felonies that was a holy hell of a lot longer than Capone's.

Most of the stuff he taught his sons to do (aside from the philandering) was just an affectation, his way of papering over where he was from.(The family was deeply suspicious of Jackie Bouvier, who was thought of, at first, as an old money snob.) (The core, obviously, always remained the same, triple underscored by the fact that, horror of horrors, the Kennedys were papists and could never cross over into the world of the Brahmins, sons and heirs of the Puritans; to them such was unthinkable and deeply threatening.) But in the end old Joe got the last laugh, because the old Brahmins forgot that without having enough children to replace you, you can't maintain dominance over anybody, and since Joe (and men like him) bred like horny old goats, they have now supplanted the Brahmins in Boston society, hands down. (The Brahmin accent itself is incredibly rare nowadays.)

Overall the Great Recession has hit Europe a lot harder than the United States. Although some parts of Europe such as Germany have fared a lot better, while other parts like Greece, Ireland and Spain have fared a lot worse than Europe as a whole.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/bu...ooms.html?_r=1

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...iz-EUROweb.jpg

While most of the European Union is under a common currency, there is not the sort of political unity in the European Union which the United States has, which has enabled the United States to subside states which have fared badly from the Great Recession by states which have fared better.

My belated best wishes to His Catholic Majesty Felipe VI of Spain on his succession to that throne last month.

Originally Posted by bosboreas

My belated best wishes to His Catholic Majesty Felipe VI of Spain on his succession to that throne last month.

Mr Saari -- a pleasure as always. Please join us more often. You are missed.

Guy I know posts to his web site old post cards of Frankfurt. This has attracted, he said, attention from Germans. He said that about 25 of them seem to be members of identitaree bewegune. Think of a group of German nationalist, who want Germany for the Germans. Opposed to the Muslim presence in Germany. Gaining adherents among young people.

Bruce said that some are moderate nationalists, rather than neo-Nazis. For example, they will tolerate Americans so long as we go home and mind our own business.

Nationalism is about to squash whatever is left of the End of History / Flat World / Fast World / (other favorite platitude of Thomas Friedman, Francis Fukuyama / et al).

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Nationalism is about to squash whatever is left of the End of History / Flat World / Fast World / (other favorite platitude of Thomas Friedman, Francis Fukuyama / et al).

The action of Putin have changed my international perspective. I am now in favor of isolating the current Russian state until a less aggressive government is in place. And what I see this meaning in terms of internal western policies, it means the development of practical energy sources within countries. Without the large current level of raw material sales Russia will have to change. Granted the recent trade restrictions on US exports of food may prompt the Russian state to become more of a food producer.
And yet the breadbasket of the old Russian Empire was the Ukraine.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Nationalism is about to squash whatever is left of the End of History / Flat World / Fast World / (other favorite platitude of Thomas Friedman, Francis Fukuyama / et al).

As humanity becomes one world society, culture, race and civilization, it is natural for some people to resist the inevitable. But I imagine youth in other countries are increasingly pro-diversity, as they are here. In any case, nationalism is an anachronism. People don't get their identity from their nation anymore. People get their identity from what they value, what fulfills them, what is important to them, what abilities they have, etc. We are all expressions of God, the divine within. There, I guess we don't have much in common on that score Nor with Tussilago, etc.

But, we have a long way to go to the "end of history." What nonsense.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

As humanity becomes one world society, culture, race and civilization, it is natural for some people to resist the inevitable. But I imagine youth in other countries are increasingly pro-diversity, as they are here. In any case, nationalism is an anachronism. People don't get their identity from their nation anymore. People get their identity from what they value, what fulfills them, what is important to them, what abilities they have, etc. We are all expressions of God, the divine within. There, I guess we don't have much in common on that score Nor with Tussilago, etc.

But, we have a long way to go to the "end of history." What nonsense.

The majority of the world regards a wilsonian style world government as an anathema. Its fundamental norms and aims are incompatible with the nation-state as its traditionally understood. Nor is it compatible with pre-nation state type constructions. The balance of power and the supremacy of force has always the driving force of history.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The majority of the world regards a wilsonian style world government as an anathema. Its fundamental norms and aims are incompatible with the nation-state as its traditionally understood.

Yes, and we will move beyond tradition, as we always do when it becomes outdated.

Nor is it compatible with pre-nation state type constructions. The balance of power and the supremacy of force has always the driving force of history.

And as we advance, that will become less and less true. Force will yield to love and intelligence. Force no longer works; war is out of date. Peace is the only way.

Baby boomers will never accept a world order that is built on realist principles and doctrines. Treaties are usually nothing more than toilet paper; they should be negotiated only to provide tactical relief for a nation. Only Restorationism is capable of realizing this distinction between the moral world and the real world. It was an embarrassment to seek to win "hearts and minds" since 9/11, that muslims ran toward our troops when we entered their cities. Terrorists easily took advantage of that fact to shoot our troops when their backs were turned. Instead, in a future scenario, the report of the approach of a Restorationist American army; would provoke a wave of refugees by the millions. The choice between shooting or sparing enemy POWs, or shooting enemy noncombatants is not a choice between morality or barbarism. It is a choice between sparing future enemy soldiers who would no compunction about killing our troops or children, or eliminating the potential threat before it could emerge.