BOC: Divine Wind; and OFF

[Nick English]

Well, I finally got around to downloading the Divine Wind video, and I thought
it was pretty cool.

I can fully understand the concern among some viewers. . . especially those who
don\'t live here in America. . . with many of the images of Arabs.  I can only
speak for myself, but I hope most Americans would agree with me here:  Such
imagery does not make me want to go out and start beating up the first Middle-
Eastern person I see.  In fact, I could have done that already if I\'d wanted
to.  We\'ve got an Iranian couple living down the street from us.  Their son
happens to be one of my son\'s best friends, and since Sept. 11th, he\'s been to
our house and my son has been to their house.  As far as I can tell, nobody in
my neighborhood is treating them any differently in light of the attacks.

The fact remains. . . and it\'s an indisputable one. . . that Muslims from the
Middle East ARE largely responsible for what happened on Sept. 11th.  Thus,
there\'s nothing, in my opinion, inappropriate about showing the violence and
anger that grips that region to point out how it has caused their negative
reaction to our way of life, or to \"stoke our patriotic fires\" a little bit.

If you want to get into the real root causes of their hostility toward us. . .
mainly our foreign policy. . . that\'s fine.  Personally, I\'ve always felt that
U.S. foreign policy in many regions, but perhaps mostly the Middle East, has
been misguided and wrong-headed.

Ironically, however, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts have pushed that issue to
the back burner.  Right now, the only voices in America who seem to want to
blame the U.S. for September 11th are the ultra-liberals like Michael Moore and
Rage Against the Machine (Not to mention more legitimate liberal thinkers).
And basically, their opinions. . . which have a lot of merit. . . have pretty
much been crushed under the heels of more hawkish sentiments, thanks to the
very event that was supposed to \"open our eyes\" to it.  We\'re totally ignoring
what these people want and need wholly because of how they tried to call our
attention to it.

Even I, a longtime fan of Michael Moore, am getting tired of
his \"unpatriotism\".  If I get another e-mail update from him that starts out
with his \"Sept. 11th was a horrible tragedy, BUT. . . \" attitude, I may just
unsubscribe from his list.

I\'ve been cynical and skeptical of the U.S. government for a long time. . . but
I refuse to blame America, the American way of life or the American people for
what happened September 11th.  And there are thousands of motherless and
fatherless children out there who didn\'t \"have it coming\".

I realize that I rambled quite a bit, but the basic point is this:  Arabs and
Muslims on the whole are not our emenies.  But our enemies ARE Arab and Muslim,
coincidentally or not.

Just my two cents.  Please don\'t hurt me.

--Nick