Just to play Devil\'s advocate here... Pauls views reflect the views of many Americans who have fought in various wars in the region since WWII. In the book that Band of Brothers was based on many GI\'s made observations of the various people and cultures they encountered throughout the war. In it, they rate Arabs the most "untrustworthy" and that they only cooperate as long as they receive a direct personal benefit from the action they are doing. The second worst were the French and surprisingly the people that they could most identify with and respect were the Germans. Granted this is almost 60 years ago, but not a whole hell of a lot has changed.
Pauls beliefs are quite common among US military personel from both the present and the past. Having served in the armed forces myself I tend to agree that this is a defacto belief.
As far as Unicorns comments... they may not be "racist", but they certainly are inflammatory. Hell, look at the title of his thread! There is a very fine line between what Paul is doing and what Unicorn is posting and personally if Unicorn can post that nonsense and basically offend *almost* every American on this board, Pauls comments about not wanting to fight along side a Muslim are no less valid. Considering the wacko who threw the grenades in the tents of some of the 101st Airborne a few nights ago, what do you expect?
I know this is difficult forum to participate in (let alone moderate) as there have been times where I have typed a response and after rereading it, decided not to post it. War (especially this one, which involves different cultures and religions) blurs that line between racism and patriotism - I doubt anyone can dispute that. You have to expect peoples emotions to run high at a time such as this and short of someone advocating genocide and personally attacking someone it must be remembered some of us do feel very passionately about this war. Americans (especially the younger generations) for the most part have never seen a war like this and to see bodies of our troops being propped up on Iraq TV with a smiling/laughing Iraqi standing over them brings out the anger in most. Most who have served in the military have seen images like the ones shown on TV, but this war is the most televised event to date (which has it positives and negatives) and we all have to expect some emotion in these posts.
I am not trying to tell any of the mods how to do their job, just have an understanding that some here may have ties to the military or friends and family serving in this war. Some news will cause knee jerk reactions in some. This goes for both sides of the argument as we have many nationalities here and even though I disagree with everything Unicorn says, I didn\'t feel it should have been edited. The same goes for Paul - as I felt he did go a bit overboard, I don\'t think scolding him publically was appropriate either.
In closing, I love having a political forum here as it is a place to vent and on rare occasions a place to learn from each other.
