I don't care much for the extremists -- and anybody who pointed a rifle or RPG at my squad was one. The sooner they went to meet the virgins, the better off we were. We thought of ourselves as a dating service that gave them permanent matches.

It's not them I'm worried about offending, it's the persuadables. If they think we are conducting a religious crusade against Islam, we just make more bad guys. And you can bet the "Jesus rifles" are getting big play on al Jazeera and the jihadist web sites around the world. We might as well paint crosses on our MRAPs and targets on our backs.

My guess is the sights work just as well without the Bible verses. So why go around looking for ways to tick off the persuadables and...

Thank you for your service, if not your respect for mine. Maybe my problem is that I still have too many friends hunkered down in places like Kandahar to want us to pick a fight we don't want with the entire Muslim world.

For all of you who want to follow Pershing's example, let's look at it. He was fighting with an overwhelming force in a single theater with the majority of the population behind him. In contrast, we are fighting a global insurgency. Our main forces are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, operating in an environment populated by three types of people, extremist bad guys, pro-American locals and "persuadables," the folks who are still trying to make up their minds whose side they are on. There's a lot more of...

If one Americna soldier has been killed by one illiterate, uneducated Muslim kid recruited to the fight because an extremist told him that "Jesus rifles" were being used to eradicate Muslims, I want the president of Trijicom to visit that soldiers parents and explain to him why this was such a good idea.

I don't know what led them to put these citations on thier scopes. They may have had the best of motives. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that they are helping our enemies.

I have spent some time in countries that have struggled with theocracy and I much prefer religious tolerance. Thinking someone else's beliefs are "a crock" is usually the first step toward not respecting them, then enforcing your own precepts. It is how the Taliban works as they move toward strict enforcement of Sharia law in areas under their control.

is not that he discussed his faith, which I am sure is deeply held and important to him. It was not even the venue, which was not a news report but rather one of Fox's opinion / discussion shows. He is enough of a pro that he never proselytized while anchoring a news show, which would not have been appropriate.

My problems are that first, his statements implied that Woods own faith was somehow inadequate to help him through his troubles. As I respect Hume's faith, he should likewise accept the faith of others and respect their personal choices.

But what really grated was that Hume's statements made it sound like the sole reason for turning to Christianity was that it somehow offered Woods a better deal, like he was...

I am curious where you get your information about Gitmo not being a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Can you enlighten me?

Every J-2 guy I've known says the biggest reason he got for why people turned to extremism was the way we have treated Muslims, from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib to torture. Al Qaeda repeatedly spins this into a tapestry of Americans and ISAF forces hating Muslims, mistreating them and wanting to humiliate them. It has been a propaganda bonanza for the extremists that has turned many Muslims against us and cost the lives of a lot of very good men and woman.

Keep in mind, these J-2 guys are the ones actually interrogating the bad guys we picked up on the battlefield. They have written books about their...

How exactly did George Bush exact a heavy price from the extremists? It sems to me it was the other way around.

The strategy of the takfiri movement has always been to wear America down, to cost us so much blood and treasure that it would break our economy, sap our resolve and break us. We've pretty much played right into their hands for the past eight years.

Islamic fighters have paid a heavy price? We allowed their leaders to escape from Afghanistan on three separate occasions, allowed them to reconstitute in Pakistan while destabilizing that country, let them grow rich through opium production and let them retake most of Afghanistan while our attention and resources were focused on Iraq. Giving them a new base...

Some posters today seem to be letting their Obama Derangement Syndrome cloud their view of reality. I knew that would happen when I read Sullum's reasonable, well-reasoned offering.

Objectively, there is a much greater difference between Bush's efforts from 2001-2006 and his efforts in the last two years of his presidency than exists between the later Bush policies and Obama. Obama has even kept most of Bush's national security team in place, from SecDef Gates, JCS chairman Mike Mullen, CENTCOM commander David Petraeus, Iraq commander Ray Odierno, both deputy CIA directors and counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan, who founded the National Counter Terrorism Center under Bush.

For those who insist Obama doesn't believe we...

I recognize the status of Scientific American but I was trying to find a piece that might be intellectually accessible to most of the posters here. Judging from the responses, I still must have overshot my mark. Next time I'll try to find something in the Flat Earth Quarterly.

But let me congratulate you, it is rare to find someone who still disputes warming despite all the evidence to the contrary. Most deniers have at least graduated to the non-anthropogenic school by now. You are definitely retro.

The only minimally persuasive argument I've heard that the earth is cooling results from the observation that 1998 was the warmest year on record and it has not been as hot since then. Of course that argument confuses...

I find it interesting that when I try to have a civil, respectful debate with people who are more disposed to reach conclusions based upon ideology than facts, it quickly and surely degenerates into name-calling. And from your offering -- "you arrogant, ignorant horse's jerk" -- you aren't even very good at it. Pity.

But since you are in Boulder, how are those acquifers up there? That declining melt water resulting from the receding snow caps helping out with that problem?

I presume you will be submitting a paper disputing John Tyndall's work on CO2 soon. Might I suggest the Oil & Gas Review as an appropriate publication?

If you are looking for climate data, I presume you are familiar with the NCDC database, as...