[ACPlayer]

I dont agree with your assessment of the professors conclusions. I just scanned the post again and could not find it explicitly, so I am assuming that you are suggesting this is an implicit conclusion.


As a history professor he has simply looked at the current situation from a historical perspective. This is one reasonable method to investigate the root causes of the problem under study.

I see you have a relatively small number of posts. If you have been hanging around this forum you would have seen various attempts at identifying the nature of the problem. The simple minded one that jumps out after a superficial look at the events is to point to Islam and lay the blame on that religion. This is patently wrong and a study of history as Dr Cole does here bears that view up.

Now, neither I nor Dr Cole condone the use of violence, condone the misuse of Islam to ferment the violence, suggest that what they are doing is correct, honorable or reasonable but we both agree that the causes of the problem lie in the History and that our role in getting us to where we are at bears important lessons in going forward in dealing with that region. To ignore or write off the history lessons as the Left preaching to the choir is, excuse me for being blunt, ignorant -- and our leaders seem hell bent on being ignorant.