great piece, Greenie, just great, and spot on.

the word conspiracy has such a lousy rep, but it's just short-hand for 'a group pursuing an end'. nothing illogical about that, and all our preferred sociopolitical groups engage in it to one form or another.

and that leads to the difference between those that would project and destroy and those that would stop and think along the way. of course fanatics who behead innocents should be ruthlessly stomped. duh. what's important beyond that is what we do with those who are suspected and detained. shall we just detain indefinitely and torture and perhaps execute innocents? i'm gonna be all soft, squishy and "liberal" and come down on the 'not exactly' side. some fire must be fought with a like element, but we've got to retain some morality, and therefore model the behavior that we demand from the rest of the world. yeah, color me radical.