sorry if this goes back over old ground, but I haven't been able to join in today.

Permit an outlander to remark that there is more testosterone than cold logic being displayed in a few posts over the last 24 hours.

WO’N chooses the losing position with his suggestion Violate the international law of political assassination YOU BET!! GO FOR IT!!! We have the technology and trained covert forces to get it done! Any proven mass-murdered or war criminal... Who determines who is and is not a mass murderer – was Mr Bush Snr a mass murderer on the Basra road, was Kissinger a mass murderer in Laos and Cambodia…? I suggest that the winners of the wars write even most accepted history, so contemporary accounts from the combatants are even less likely to be accurate judgments on such momentous issues. If we start openly acting in the kind of way suggested we undermine all the values on which our civilisation is built: to paraphrase Thomas More from A Man For All Seasons “when you have chopped down the last tree in the legal forest, and the devil turns around and comes looking for you, where will you hide then?”

TEd rants We have made a career out of altruism…But we have let ourselves be pushed around once too often. Let the word go forth from this moment on YOU FUCK WITH US AT YOUR OWN PERIL. The first statement is as much of a nonsense as it would be about any trade empire the world has ever known – national self interest is pursued with largely ruthless self absorption whilst most citizens are content to not know what is done in their name. And about the final statement, the bitter truth is the guys who do this kind of act don’t care. Let me repeat this because this is fundamental: they do not care. You cannot usefully or effectively threaten anyone who does not care about your sanctions. But in truth, you guys know this – and your current expressions are borne out of natural anger and frustration.

And BYB says nobly that I'm prepared to be magnanimous to these deluded wretches from Palestine, 600 of whom have been murdered in the last 12 months by the armed forces of Israel who are armed and funded by the $3 billion per annum deducted from American taxes. Can you truly be serious in thinking that Israel’s claim to dominion over the multi-cultural centre of Jerusalem would lead to other than outright mayhem?

I note that two of our members who have most directly experienced the recent horrors seem to talk the most sense. I have been particularly struck by these words from inselpeter:

”we are best advised to respond judiciously and with great restraint. A counter attack against this crime must be conducted in terms of the justice of civil-society, for it is civil society that is under attack. We cannot accept… terms defined by our adversaries.”

And from Helen:

“we must stand and fight. not guns and missiles, not as much an armed retaliation, as a fundamental movement, to civility…. all of us, must act to contain the evil. in our own hearts, in our families, in our communities, in our governments.

we must not stand idly by, nor can we let our response be dictated by those who have so injured us. any response must be lawful, just and reasoned.. we can not cure this wrong by acting wrong.”


I hope that these lessons will be applied in the USA next time the begging bowl is passed around for fundraising on behalf of the IRA or the neo-nazi groups in the UK, both of which could not exist to practice their terror without American funding. Hyla was also right in his very thoughtful piece:

“At the same time, I have some hope that this will change the way Americans act in this world. Ted is right, that we have contributed in huge ways in this world, but we have also shown great arrogance in how we operate.”

A sleeping giant waking, Ann? Well, I hope so: but waking to the true responsibilities engendered by world economic domination, rather than just to bust up the guys in the black hats.