#41491
09/14/2001 2:00 PM
|
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609 |
I heard a news story this morning about Congress voting against a motion to allow the President to use "any means he thinks fit" against the terrorists. Can any one provide more information on exactly what was asked for by whom and what the outcome was? It was only a quick news clip and I may have misunderstood. If true, it would seem that Congress wishes to keep some control to itself.
|
|
|
#41492
09/14/2001 2:10 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
|
|
|
#41493
09/14/2001 2:16 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
|
|
|
#41494
09/14/2001 2:36 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
mav,
this was certainly a nicely reasoned approach, but is it the one we're all looking for?
I think it breaks down at point 4, It is clear to me that an imperative of dealing with terrorists is to detach them from their support base., if bin Laden is truly our target. In all liklihood the Taliban will not give him up, they being of like mind (having expelled the Russian devil). which would leave us exactly where in terms of the rule of law?
also, I think you have slipped into rhetoric which will not win friends and influence people with this statement: That is why it is vital that we do not allow idiots to brand this as a “war”... {emphasis added}
|
|
|
#41495
09/14/2001 2:40 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
mav, there is much thoughtful in what you've said (indeed much that I agree with), to which I will respond later. But one point I simply must correct, promptly:
The fact is that for more than five decades, in defiance of ... international law, the Palestinians' land has been occupied and their rights ignored by Israel ...
Mav, that is not a "fact"; it is the opinion of the author you quote, and it is highly debatable.*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Indeed, the author's blunt claim of "ignored", with absolutely no qualification or exception, ought to indicate that he is -- at best -- oversimplifying and overgeneralizing.
|
|
|
#41496
09/14/2001 2:50 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Yes, you are right tsuwm - that was a lapse of judgment, and I apologise if anyone was offended by that phrase. And Ken, yes, I was simply quoting the article for interest fo another perspective - I don't neccesarily agree with every nuance either. Though it is a fact that Israel has occupied territory and held it by force of arms in contravention of UN resolution (and yes, I too have reservations about the effectiveness fo the UN, but...)
|
|
|
#41497
09/14/2001 2:51 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Does anyone have a photo of New York skyline before the attack (with the towers) and then a picture of the skyline now to add to Max's gallery?
An absolutely uncanny pair of photos, each with the Statue of Liberty in the foreground, appear in:
before: People Magazine (issue dated 9/24), page 1; and
after: Time Magazine (special issue), rear cover
If anyone can find url's, let me know by PM and I will post them here, via edit.
|
|
|
#41498
09/14/2001 3:06 PM
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Mav:
I will admit that I was offended by your argumentum ad hominem (rant, nonsense), but I'll try to put aside my personal feelings in search of greater things - namely a civil dialog.
Let's start with your description of us as a trade empire. Certainly we trade throughout the world, to the point where we have huge trade deficits with just about everyone. We buy a whole lot more than we sell, and we have the dollar outflow to prove it. So we're a trade empire, huh? The rest of the world is getting richer at our expense. Those evil Americans! They MAKE us sell things to them while we don't buy anywhere near as much from them. How horrible. Let's punish them for that.
The problem is there's only 275 million of us as opposed to close to 6 billion in the rest of the world. So that means every dollar of mine that flows out of the country gets divided up about 21 ways. Certainly the poor people aren't getting rich fast enough. But I'm spending as fast as I can!!! I will, however, point out that I am now going to be much less likely to spend money on goods produced overseas, particularly from those countries who do not actively join in the battle of eradicating terrorism.
You also said in connection with our being a trade empire "national self interest is pursued with largely ruthless self absorption". As Samuel Adams said disparagingly of you Brits 225 years ago, we are a nation of shopkeepers. But we are damned good at it. Our government does not engage in trade. Our government doesn't have huge tariffs that restrict trade, though we do have some internal price supports which amount to tariffs. Those will probably go away in the next decade or so, I suspect. But the bottom line is that we as individuals (in which respect I include corporations as legal entities) are engaging in free trade wherever we can, just as the shopkeepers in the British Isles do and did. Where individuals can be accused of morality or immorality, the same cannot be said of corporations, which are by their vary nature amoral. They exist for one reason only: to reward their investors. Though corporations have broken and will continue to break laws, in the midterm and long run it is against their basic interests to do so. Here they can be fined, broken into pieces, put out of business. In some overseas areas, they can be nationalized (remember what happened in Cuba after the "revolution"), the corporate equivalent of capital punishment.
It is not national self interest that drives our "trade empire". It is individual self interest, manifested in the proliferation of multinational corporations that at times rival the powers of the governments whereunder they operate. But the government of the United States has a policy not to interfere in the world market place. We are not a trade empire, rather we are a nation of traders.
Yesterday our Federal Reserve System announced that it was going to pump $50 million* into Europe to prop up the national banks there. Did we have to do that? Nope. We could use that money at home right now, but we see as our moral obligation the duty to keep Europe from falling on its ass. And on top of that I'm sending my tax dollars around the world as foreign aid. Because I have to? Nope. You live in the UK. How much of the money we sent the UK to pay for WW II got repaid? How often have we dunned you for it? The answers, as you well know, are none and never. We GAVE the world that money, though we called the donations loans because governments don't like to accept welfare. What about the Marshall Plan? Did we HAVE to rebuild Europe after WW II? Nope. We could have turned our backs on the rest of the world, but we didn't. We gave a helping hand (certainly because it would in the long run help us contain communism, despite the efforts of some of the UK's finest citizens, Kim Philby coming to mind immediately, to help the USSR destroy us.) Did we HAVE to? Nope.
Certainly the US has made mistakes. Show me a country that hasn't. We certainly could have done a better job in Vietnam, where we won the war militarily and lost politically. But we were there because our national leadership thought rightly or wrongly that doing so would contain communism and spread the growth of republican democracy. And as Americans, we expressed openly and publicly a wide range of views on the war in Vietnam, with the result finally that we got out. It was a lost cause from the very beginning because the people we were supporting neither had the will of THEIR people behind them nor were they worthy of supporting.
You also disparage my statement that those who fuck with us do so at their own peril because "the bitter truth is the guys who do this kind of act don't care." Mav, I am not stupid. I know they don't care. They value nothing in life and they value nothing about life. Accordingly, their nihilism is a direct threat to the entire world. They operate not from a political agenda but from an agenda of hate. These United States and the capitalists they represent are the evil Satan, and they feel duty- and honor-bound to destroy us once and for all. Along the way they want to forcibly convert the rest of the world to their twisted religious ideas. I do not want my daughter to live in a world where she is nothing more than an organ of masturbation for the man who owns her, covered from head to toe in a black garment to keep other men from looking at her, and treated as chattel property. Believe it or not, a father in Saudi Arabia can wrap his daughter in chains and drop her into the swimming pool in his back yard, free from any liability for such a heinous act. He can wall her in and feed her dog food until she dies insane.
No, they do not care about us. And in return I care nothing for their continued existence. There are only two ways to be safe from terrorism: give in to them and fight them tooth and nail until we prevail. I will not give in to them. Rather I will not suffer them to live. As Tolkien wrote, "branch and twig, twig and branch, root them out." These people are the personification of evil that rivals the Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin and the Pol Pot all rolled into one ugly little package.
The governments that allow terrorism to root and branch within their borders are just as guilty as the terrorists who thrive at their sufferance. Their failure to act for the common good of all mankind when they know the terrorists are there condemns them to the cesspools of history.
Ted
Terrorism delenda est
*Edited later. Of course that's not $50 million. It's $50 BILLION. That is NOT chump change!
TEd
|
|
|
#41499
09/14/2001 3:22 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
but is it the one we’re all looking for?No. Probably not. "I know just what to do with these Arab people," Mr. Beckwith proclaimed on Wednesday to the newspaper staff. "We have to find them, kill them, wrap them in a pigskin and bury them. That way they will never go to heaven…”
"Level the country that's harboring them," he said. "The whole country. Let the world know that we're not going to put up with terrorism of any magnitude. Go in there and do the job. Hit them with whatever we've got."http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/national/14REAC.htmlWhich is when it becomes a maverick’s duty to speak. ”This does not mean that we should shrink from retaliating against those who attack us and the leaders of any state that harbors them. But at the same time we cannot deal effectively with terrorists unless we understand them.”http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/14STEE.html
|
|
|
#41500
09/14/2001 3:37 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
Hit them with whatever we've got.
nice try, mav; but you can't brush me (us) with those broad strokes either. I'm just looking for realistic answers too.
|
|
|
#41501
09/14/2001 3:45 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
hehheh
I know. It's tough, in truth, it is. I don't have any magic answers.
In the particular scenario you raised, I think it woud be legitimate for the UN to demand that Bin Liner be handed over to face a charge of crimes against humanity, with the US/NATO tasked as enforcers. Perhaps there are other suggestions available?
|
|
|
#41502
09/14/2001 4:01 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Let us seek remedy, not retribution.
|
|
|
#41503
09/14/2001 4:22 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
|
|
|
#41504
09/14/2001 5:11 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
mav quotes from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/national/14REAC.html"I know just what to do with these Arab people," Mr. Beckwith proclaimed on Wednesday to the newspaper staff. "We have to find them, kill them, wrap them in a pigskin and bury them. That way they will never go to heaven…” "Level the country that's harboring them," he said. "The whole country. Let the world know that we're not going to put up with terrorism of any magnitude. Go in there and do the job. Hit them with whatever we've got."Then Mav adds: Which is when it becomes a maverick’s duty to speak.--------------- Mav, you are setting up a straw man. Your quote does not reveal that the newspaper clearly considers Mr. Beckwith the crazed, lunatic fringe, and not in any way a typical view. It precedes his remarks as follows: Phil Beckwith, a retired truck driver, announced his modest proposal ...in a newspaper that serves Fremont County, Wyo., one of the largest and emptiest counties in the nation.Mav, there's no "duty to speak" in refutation of every isolated lunacy.
|
|
|
#41505
09/14/2001 5:18 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I'm flying off in the direction of the Mediterranean early in the morning
Dearest Jo, take care. We love you.
=========================================================
I may as well say here that I sent Anu a message two days ago, I think, saying that I knew he could read our posts of concern, and that I wanted him to know that there were off-board, personal contacts as well, among our 'family' here.
I got a thank-you from his assistant this morning, who said that Anu is feeling overwhelmed and emotional at the moment.
Aren't we all, Dearest Anu, aren't we all? But we thank you for the gift of knowing each other.
|
|
|
#41506
09/14/2001 5:20 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
But Ken, this is too easy to denounce as isolated lunacy. There are reports of attacks against people of particular ethnic backgrounds all over the USA - they may not represent the majority redneck view, I cannot judge that accurately, but I sure as hell know my opinion is likely to lie outside the current concensus in the USA. Sure, this newspaper pokes fun at the guy - it's the NYT, what else would they do? - but they also factually report (amongst a host of such hate incidents) a Lebanese American being the recipient of over 20 9mm slugs. Nice.
|
|
|
#41507
09/14/2001 5:38 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Here, Mav, I think we agree. It would be easy, lazy argumentation by me to dismiss an incident as isolated lunacy -- and equally lazy argumentation to treat a handful of incidents as necessarily representing a pattern. As things unfold we'll have to look at the numbers, at how big the "handful" is.
|
|
|
#41508
09/14/2001 5:41 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
a civil dialogue, indeed Ted.
I unreservedly apologise for any offence caused by my jocular use of those terms, which in this airless medium evidently read a little differently to how I would say them to your face.
The points you make are good and I suspect over a whisky we wouldn’t end up a million miles apart. Let me offer just a few quick thoughts.
You evidently bridle at the thought of the USA being described as a trade empire. But what realistic description fits a nation with strategic interests in every continent of the globe, which it protects with the largest armed forces ever seen on the planet, with client states that are wholly dependant on the USA, and which are all in the service of advancing the mother nation’s pursuit of wealth through trade? Please don’t misunderstand me: this is not necessarily a bad thing, but I believe above all in recognising the reality of the world around me. Since America picked up the baton from the British Empire, perhaps we have a particularly clear perspective on what the new reality is.
You suggest that morality is only applicable to individuals, not to corporations and (by implication) also not to governments. I disagree. Completely and utterly. A team is nothing but a group of individuals in the same coloured shirt. This is increasingly being recognised by the leading transnational corporations when they talk of stakeholder values. I used to work for one of the leading minds in PriceWaterhouseCoopers who has helped develop these concepts and who traces the direct relationship between the moral behaviour of companies and their bottom line results. Since he managed the takeover of some little USA oil firm by some little UK oil firm for a world record value, I figure he may be right.
You want us to believe that the Fed reserve moves are based on philanthropy. I cannot buy that – the world banking system is nowadays completely interlocked, and they all move in what they believe are the most appropriate ways to maximise overall financial security. This is simply enlightened self-interest by all parties concerned. Again, I am not criticising the USA or Americans – but we need to be honest in our descriptions of what we all do, I am sure you agree? And I might add, our national debt is still paying the USA for the FIRST war, let alone the second – I seem to remember reading it amounts to the equivalent of about $80 per annum of taxes for every man, woman and child in the UK. I think the USA did make a substantial gift through the Marshall plan (and a cynic would say plundered the knowledge of Germany in return), but not as it happens to the UK. But the real current injustice of the banking system is the enslavery (and I pick my words with care here) of third world populations by first world banks. American banks and governments have stood out most strongly against any relaxation of this crippling burden.
I know you are far from stupid, Ted. And I agree that the apparent nihilism of these nutcases is a direct and present threat to civilised life. And I can only imagine the current sense of pain and probably above all a kind of impotent anger that is now burning in the minds of so many good American people.
All I am saying is that those of us with sharp minds have a special duty of care to not allow ourselves to be swept along with the tide. We all need to think how our current frame of mind will seem when looking back in tranquillity from the perspective of a year… five years… twenty years….
This is not easy. It is not a quick fix for the anger and hurt. But ultimately, wrapping ourselves in the flag and waving a big stick can only ever address the symptoms, not the cause. We have to all cultivate a ruthless degree of self honesty, even about the things we hold most dear. And this is often against every instinct when we are in pain.
If I am not here over the weekend, bless you all, friends in America and around the world: may you have a time of peace and quiet reflection. I will leave you with one final thought about threats with no defence other than initial prevention: it could have been a similar attack on a nuclear reactor.
|
|
|
#41509
09/14/2001 5:42 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Congratulations, Mav!
Let me buy you that whiskey you were refering to. Cheers!
|
|
|
#41510
09/14/2001 6:16 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I believe above all in recognising the reality of the world around me...We have to all cultivate a ruthless degree of self honesty, even about the things we hold most dear. And this is often against every instinct when we are in pain.
How very true. You should know. I guess all I can do is
TRY to cultivate this more, because sometimes I believe I am being self-honest, but go ahead and do what I know I shouldn't, anyway.
Congratulations on your new title, Sweetie.
|
|
|
#41511
09/14/2001 6:42 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428 |
The points you make are good and I suspect over a whisky we wouldn’t end up a million miles apart. Let me offer just a few quick thoughts.
What a wonderful post to become a Pooh-Bah with. I am nothing but impressed by the thoughtful, incisive debate that this thread has become. Mav, Ted, Keiva, Bob, Jo, Bingley, Whit, Jackie, and all the rest -- you are making me challenge my assumptions and question my world view with every post. Thank you all for being here. I think we could all use a good stiff one these days, and I'll raise a toast to you all.
|
|
|
#41512
09/14/2001 8:23 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
it could have been a similar attack on a nuclear reactor.
It crossed my mind Tuesday morning.
I can go one block from my house and look across the salt water marsh and see the dome of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, just three miles south of me as the seagulls fly.
Chilling.
|
|
|
#41513
09/14/2001 8:58 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Mav, I haven’t participated much to this discussion. To date, I would only have repeated your words, but probably not with such clarity.
There is one thing you mentioned that I have to discuss, if only for my own emotional well-being. You write (I shortened it a bit cause my post is long): … Images of hundreds of Palestinians spontaneously celebrating must have caused deep revulsion among Americans and many others ...those images of jubilation carried a message which will almost certainly be ignored...The fact is that for more than five decades, in defiance of countless UN resolutions and of international law, the Palestinians' land has been occupied and their rights ignored by Israel, with full diplomatic cover and open-ended financial and military backing from Washington. So for many Palestinians, Israel and the US are virtually one and the same thing. That is why the awesome atrocity triggered jubilation among many ordinary Palestinians.
I wish I had your power of speech to get my point across but here goes...
I was raised to believe that deep inside we are all the same. Our basic core is one of kindness and good. And that, true, there are differences brought on by cultures/religion, but real people, you know, that guy standing in the street, or the woman at the grocery store, or anywhere,,, inside themselves, inside people are basically good.
This is what my father taught me and I have always lived my life accordingly and never hesitated to stand and defend that idea (as those on the Board the longest will surely vouch for)….YET…now I am shaken.
No matter what these Palestinians have lived through, don’t they have a core that should have told them that killing innocents is not something to celebrate? I am in turmoil because of the sight of those in jubilation. Did my father lie to me, unwittingly and of kind heart, but was it a lie? And am I living a lie?
I don’t know anymore and I am angry at myself for not knowing. I’m angry because I think that this is only ONE thing and yet it makes me question myself. But it was such a cruel sight, and so many people, all celebrating. I have stood up to bosses (got fired once), stood up to a racist client (and am consequently banned from selling to one of the biggest pharmaceutical retailers) and never doubted, never hesitated.
But now I doubt, and wonder if it was really a lie told by one who always believed it to one who was naive enough to believe it too?
What do I do now Mav? What do I do now?
|
|
|
#41514
09/14/2001 10:02 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Bel and Maverick,
I speak here as a Jew, as one revolting with difficulty against the Zionism preached to us in our youth, against the concept of the agglomeration of enemies as the defining moment of one's faith, as one revolted at Israeli actions against the Palestinians last autumn. I permitted an eviscerated rendition of my letter to the editor to be published by the New York Times last November. The sentence removed read, "I hear with shame the litany of wrongs against us preached while we kill children." I have heard words of unspeakable bigotry uttered by men whose faith-legally-forbids it. Moralistic posturing is a favorite dissemblance of purveyors of atrocity. And Israel is far from innocent.
At the same time, caution is advised in rebuke. To say that Israel has occupied Palestinian lands for five decades may be arguable, but to make that argument is to say the State of Israel has no right to exist.
Inspite of my complex feelings about that country, I recognize the presence on those lands of two peoples, the consequences of whose removal from there alone endows each with the right to remain.
Israeli behavior towards Palestinians has often been utterly deplorable. And if the structures of power in the Middle East are so constructed that the only apparent enemy of the Palestinian nation is the Israeli, still, that nation's nascent pleas have often, too, been murderous.
We find ourselves in cycles of violence and revenge that cannot be closed in a framework of blame and retribution. While I agree with much of what you say, I ask you to exercise great caution in fashioning your arguments.
US Middle East policy has been brutally arrogant, as, under the patronage of their allied states, have been the policies of the competing nations on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean towards each other. And US policy needs to be radically changed.
Perhaps, though, the political situation on that soil could be considered in terms of competing rights and not of competing wrongs. Of historical exigencies horrific and long past undoing.
Bel, I don't believe that human beings are inherently good. Or perhaps-all-individuals of our species can undertake the enormous task of *becoming human-and *that we become, as what we become, *can be inherently good. We are faced daily with that choice. And now, at impossible cost, we may recognize it. Pray that we do.
|
|
|
#41515
09/14/2001 11:59 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
bel, bel--don't lose your faith, child! Your father was RIGHT! People ARE inherently good! Maybe not every last one on the earth, but the VAST majority of us are! To start with, look at us here on the board: are we a group who was handpicked for our kindness and good will? No! We are a completely random group, though I will admit to a kind of segregation by virtue of education. And look how much real caring we have demonstrated for each other--we who came together with no foreknowledge at all of each other.
Anywhere you go in first-world countries, you find instance after instance of human-to-human good will. Capital Kiwi and his wife were bought dinner by complete strangers in Detroit. People who need driving directions are helped by willing strangers. Are there very many times when an obviously stricken person is ignored? No. My friend who went to the Ukraine a few years ago reported desperate shortages, including food. Yet when she purchased anything intended for a meal for her and her hostess, her hostess insisted on sharing it with others who were also deprived.
I do not know how far kindness to others is extended in countries where starvation and warfare are a constant way of life. But please remember that these are extreme conditions, and if people are not "good" in these circumstances, that is not an indication that the good wouldn't show itself were they living in a normal situation.
Speaking of extreme conditons: I thankfully know nothing firsthand of the prison camps of WW II, but from everything I have learned, prisoners of all kinds took as good a care of one another as they could. I read where a doctor in the killing fields of Cambodia was at the point of death from dysentery; his wife gave him the only food she had been able to find for days: a potato, charred nearly solid. But the charcoal saved his life. I believe she lost hers.
Lastly: look, just LOOK, at the genuine, grass-roots sorrow displayed by nations all over the world today, on this, a United States national day of mourning. Their governments had OUR national anthem played and sung. The governments can order a ceremony, they can order our song played, but they cannot order citizens--people-- to come and to cry. I saw this in every ceremony that was on our television, including yours, dearest bel, and I have cried at every one. People all over the world have literally stood up for America today, no matter that their opinion of us might have been less than positive prior to Sept. 11th., and as our day of mourning draws to a close, I add my thanks to all--to all. It is so heartening...so strengthening.
|
|
|
#41516
09/15/2001 3:59 AM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
A wonderful discussion among all parties. A few quick comments/responses; it's too late at night to do much.
Bel: Follow your heart, my dear. Your bringing-up, your standards are leading you the right way.
InselP and Mav: I am not a Jew, but I support the Israelis on the Israeli/Arab situation. You are both sadly ignorant of a number of basic facts which can be found in a non-partisan history and in many documents. Such as: 1. The British acquired Palestine after WWI as a mandate from the League of Nations. The mandate was "to provide a permanent home for the Jewish people". Palestine at that time was a neglected and impoverished vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, which had just gone down to defeat. The native Arab population lived under Turkish law, had done for centuries, and had no say. The vast majority of the Arab population were living in poverty, working for a handful of wealthy landowners who spent their time in Damascus, Beirut, Cannes, etc. The Brits, needing to get some kind of administration in place, turned the territory over to the Colonial Office, who proceeded to attempt to run it like another colony, on the model of Egypt, also a British colony at the time. It is believed by most experts that the Brits' motivation was that they wanted to protect the other flank of the Suez Canal so as to eliminate any threat of disruption of their line to India, their chief colony. 2. When the Brits took over, Palestine consisted of what is now both Israel and Jordan. As soon as they started the mandate, Jews started coming in. They cleared out the malarial swamps (at great mortality from disease), planted trees, irrigated fields, and started reclaiming the land which had been neglected and run down for centuries. The rich landowners were glad to sell these worthless (to them) plots of land to Jews, and did so. ALL THE LAND SETTLED BY JEWS BEFORE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL WAS PURCHASED FROM ITS PREVIOUS OWNERS. Of course, the landowners cared nothing for their tenants, but the Jewish buyers did what they could to help the displaced Arabs.
3. After a while, say around 1922 or so, the Jews were doing so well that some Arabs got jealous that the Jews had prosperous kibbutzim and other communities while they still had these worthless lands and wanted to be cut in (without doing anything for them, of course). This was the start of the "Palestinian" movement (a name not applied to the Arab population of the area until then). It was headed by a Hussein who called himself the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was in with the rich landowners, and who later became an ally of Hitler during WWII. They started the campaign of violence against Jews which has gone on ever since, hoping to discourage them so they would leave and abandon their farms and factories. 4. The Brits, not wanting a lot of strife, coddled these Arab thugs and ended up, after some years of continued violence, by sawing off the eastern part of their Mandate (in contravention of the terms of it) as a "home for Palestinians", naming one of their stooges whom they owed a favor as king, and named it Trans-Jordan, later shortened to Jordan. So there really is, and has been for 70 or so years, a Palestinian state -- it's called Jordan. 5. When WWII broke out, the Jews, although greatly dissatisfied with the British administration which allowed them to be massacred by Arabs with impunity, supported the Brits against the Axis; the rich Arabs did all they could to help Hitler, the peasants, as always, were at the mercy of prevailing forces. It was during the war that the Jews set up their own organizations, like the Irgun Zvi Leumi, the Stern Gang, etc. which became the basis of the Israeli army and political parties. 6. When the war was over, the Brits figured on going back to the status quo ante, but the Jews were having none of it. The Holocaust had changed all that. The Brits, as is well known, tried to cut off immigration into the territory, even of Holocoast survivors. The Jews, having adopted the principle: NEVER AGAIN, took on the Brits and the outcome was that the Brits had to get out. 7. The Arabs, having forewarning that the Brits were leaving and not giving the Jews any help in taking over (the same thing they did in India, setting the stage for the Hindu/Moslem strife), figured the Jews would be easy pickings. They advised the native Arab population to get out of the country for the time being so their armies would have a clear field in driving the Jews into the sea. Thousands of Arabs took this advice, some selling their land cheap, others abandoning it. Unfortunately for them, the Arabs failed to defeat the Jews and the Jews, very naturally, declined to readmit those who gave up their property and they became refugees, whom the Arab states have kept in that status ever since. 8. From 1946 until the later war when Israel defeated the combined Arab armies once again and recaptured much territory, East Jerusalem was part of Jordan. The Jordanians desecrated Jewish cemeteries, denied all access to holy places to Jews, cut them off from Mt. Scopus where the institutions of learning and healing were. When Israel took back Jerusalem and the West Bank, they decided that this would not be allowed again; hence their determination that Jerusalem shall be their eternal and undevided capitol, although they allow Moslems access to the Temple Mount, even when the Friday sermons egg on the believers to new hatred and violence against Israel. 9. The claims of the Palestinians that they are a poor persecuted lot of people whose land was stolen from them are mostly rot, although there have been some cases of dubious landtaking. As I noted above, up to the war, all land was purchased by the Jews, and most of it after the war as well. But the Palestinians and their Arab brothers in other nations in the area learned one of Hitler's techniques: If you tell a big enough lie, and tell it consistently and constantly, it will eventually be accepted by most people as truth, no matter that evidence exists to refute it, because most people can't be bothered with evidence. That's what you, IP and Mav, have been bamboozled by. Check the history and evidence.
Horrors -- that last turned into a thesis. I'll have to get in some other points, in which I agree with IP and Mav, tomorrow.
|
|
|
#41517
09/15/2001 4:51 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Bobby, To preface, I appreciate your informed post. However, I think you've misunderstood me entirely. I said something to the effect that I suppose one *could make the argument that Israel has occupied Palestinian lands for five decades. I don't, however, believe the argument is valid. The phrase "five decades" is a significant shorthand, there. The historical exigencies include, of course, the holocaust of the Jews. Whether or not a wrong was perpetrated on a pre-existing Arab population from the West Bank to the Mediterranian in 1948 is, at best, an open question. That the survival of the Jews was in question, or could at least reasonably have been thought to have been in question, is plain, and wtih my shorthand, I intentionally by-passed that question. I am concerned with the facts of today, when the visitation of violence is not unilateral. For my own people, the spectre of the holocaust as mask, as proof of our moral superiority and victimhood is simply grotesque. Behind the tale of our legendary (and real) suffering, we hide actions which can only remind of actions perpetrated by those who wrought that suffering on us. That acknowledgment is in no way meant to suggest innocence on the part of the Palestinians. I mean only to remove the moral posturing from the exercise of power--on either side. I believe, too, that I suggested that if the Palestinians have enemies in the Middle East, those enemies exist in regimes other than the Israeli, too. For the Jews, it seems to me that the terrible irony of the Israeli state is that if it succeeds, it can probably only succeed in destroying the very people it was meant to preserve. Here, I will add the same caveat you did: it is late and I can only touch on these arguments. Finally, I would suggest that the question of the Israeli and Palestinian states is peripheral to what is happening here (in New York), today. Today's events transcend nationalism and bigotry. They involve the antagonistic world views of secularism and religious fundamentalism. That, of course, is a fortune cookie assessment, but in this forum, points of view must be assembled in bits and pieces. IP here is a URL for alternative positions. my inclusion of it here does not necessarilly mean I support any views stated there. http://www.alternet.org
|
|
|
#41518
09/15/2001 10:22 AM
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Bel, yes it is revolting that anyone should think Tuesday's events are cause for celebration, but something I have learned from talking to people here (and I don't mean about the current situation but over a long time) is that for people without the benefit of exposure to other cultures or a high degree of education it is very difficult to think of people who live thousands of miles away as real. They can be good and kind to the people around them or to strangers they meet but people the other side of the world don't realy exist. They're just images on a tv screen at best -- and images on a tv screen are always getting shot at, blown up and dying in all sorts of ways. It's a failure of imagination. We must do better than that because we know better. I hope that this medium we're experimenting with will spread so that everyone can feel that people the other side of the world are real and come to know and love them as we are doing. Given the bitterness of civil wars I may be deluding myself but I have to keep hoping, now above all.
Having said all that, once those who are responsible for this have been definitely identified they must be dealt with fairly but decisively however much we may understand what led them to it. In this case to understand all cannot be to forgive all, but the understanding must still be there.
I'm sorry if this is less than coherent.
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
#41520
09/15/2001 5:44 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
several of the news broadcast, especially the radio ones, (having seen the damage, up close and personal, i don't like watching it, so i stay away from tv) have pointed out the WTC -- was just that-- a World Trade Center. many, many foriegn nationals are among the missing and injured. on UK firm lost 100 employees, most from UK. a small japanese trading company lost the entire office.. only 20 odd, but everyone.. ozzies, kiwi, south americans, many other european nationals.. pakistanies where especially hard hit, many of them kitchen staff, trapped on the very top, after the plane hit, with no way down, the stairwells in flames.
the "normal NY" is a foriegner. killing 5000+ NY'ers means every country on the globe has lost someone.
I never really think about it, but its very true, in a normal day, i met or interact with more than a dozen people of other nationalities.. i live on a 1 block long dead end street. 30 houses or so total. my neighbors hail from croatia, poland, czechaslovia, columbia, korea, pakistan, germany, ireland, austria, italy, greece, taiwan. some are like me, born in this country, with parents who imigrated, but the austrians, czechs, croats, koreans, and pakistanis, and greeks are all new imigrants. i suspect inselpeter has as rich a mix in his neighborhood.
NY is an upstart for a cosmopolitan city, but, i think it has mix of nationalities, greater than any other city in the world. (as well as the local joke, of what is the largest (or second largest) greek city, israeli city, italian city, irish city, korean city, (and so on..) the answer is always the same, NY.
|
|
|
#41521
09/15/2001 7:11 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
We certainly could have done a better job in Vietnam, where we won the war militarily and lost politically.
Huh? Sorry, TEd, must have been a different war to the one fought 8,000 miles north of me. The one I know about was lost both militarily and politically and by a landslide at that.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
#41522
09/15/2001 8:08 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
I think that there's been a lot of emotion in the posts above. That's understandable, if a little unfortunate.
My view (and it is only my view) is that whoever perpetrated the outrage in NY and DC this week is not a religious fanatic. The perpetrator may have enlisted religious fanatics to carry out the acts, but my understanding of terrorism is that it is usually carried out to achieve political, rather than religious ends.
Witness Northern Ireland and that sad farce last week when the loyalists gave the catholic kids going to school a hard time. Those ignorant morons on the street doing the yelling and jostling may well have been religiously motivated, but you cannot convince me that the leaders who called them out to do it had anything but political ends in mind. Come on!
Similarly, whoever was behind the attacks in the US will probably not give a monkey's toss for religion, but will have some purely political motive in mind. It's hard to know what that is, since no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and the most obvious suspect, bin Laden, has flatly denied it.
Oddly enough, I'm inclined to believe him. What possible motivation could he have for not putting his hand up to it if he was, indeed, responsible? Think of the increase in stature it would give him among his ostensible constituency! To say that he's denied it to avoid retribution is a nonsense. There's a $US15 million price on the man's head for heaven's sake. He's not worried about what Dubya thinks of him any more now than he was before the attack.
To get distracted by a few zealots dancing in the streets in Gaza or Ramalla or Islamabad or Peshawar or wherever is just silly. They're not players in the big game. And to start discussing the attacks in NYC and DC directly in terms of the Jewish/Arab issue is, in my opinion, fruitless.
I think there's a new player in the park, someone who has contacts within the Arab terrorism camp, but who has not been directly involved before. Why do I think this? Well, it's because the attacks were so well-planned and executed. Usually, there's a major error made (as in the first attempt on the WTC) due to a lack of training, of discipline or motivation.
And if I'm right, who could it be? Let's discount Saddam Hussein straight away. No way, no how, could he have engineered this one. It was simply beyond him. Ghadaffi? Don't make me laugh. Redoubtable though friend Muhamar may be, the Libyans are fringe players. Syria seems to have played itself out of the Arab fanaticism game. The Taleban couldn't organise a booze up in a brewery outside Kabul. Arresting a few foreign aid workers on charges of preaching Christianity is imaginative enough for them. Iran? Hardly. Pakistan? I'm running out of likely and unlikely Muslim-based suspects here.
That, again in my view, pretty much leaves the US's ostensible allies. Who has the most to gain from this attack on the US by Middle Eastern terrorists? If I were the FBI, I think I'd be looking at Saudi and Israel very diligently. Wouldn't you?
But if I am wrong, and the perpetrator is a lone wolf like bin Laden, if not actually bin Laden, how expensive would this have really been to pull off? Everyone is saying that it has to be big money. But even a cursory add-up doesn't actually come to all that much. $10-$20 million is chump change when it comes to terrorism.
Ann is right. The money will lead investigators to the source, or at least as close to it as they can come. And I only hope that the American agencies do their homework right before telling Dubya who they think did it. The consequences could be worse than any of us could imagine if America gets this one wrong.
For what it's worth.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
#41523
09/15/2001 8:55 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
post edit: this was meant to be a private, so I'm removed it.
|
|
|
#41524
09/15/2001 9:21 PM
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
>What possible motivation could he (bin Laden) have for not putting his hand up to it if he was, indeed, responsible?
Quite simple, CapK. If he admits to having done this the Taliban will turn him over to the US faster than those planes were going when they hit their targets. They have said repeatedly that in the absence of proof that bin Laden has been involved in terrorism they do not intend to turn him over.
I wish to take this opportunity to tell everyone that I am NOT repeat NOT angry at Mav, and I have privately and hereby publickly accept his apology.
TEd
TEd
|
|
|
#41525
09/15/2001 9:21 PM
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
And I was being a little facetious in suggesting Israel as a potential perpetrator. But only a little. And my wild imaginings had them using the terrorists as patsies, not Israelis!
Seriously, though, I believe that the Israelis would (a) do it and (b) be able to internally justify it if they thought that it would aid their cause and bring America more firmly on side. Not that they need to do that at the moment with a hawk like GWB at the American helm. That's why my tongue was in my cheek, at least to some extent.
Going back to the actual attack, did anyone see the slow motion footage taken by (I think) an amateur cameraperson of the second jet impacting the tower? For just an instant, perhaps one or two seconds, there was just this outline of an airliner "imprinted" on the building, a black shape or hole on glass. Then the explosion emerged. But it was really freaky, just like the cartoons of Wiley Coyote hitting something when one of his schemes has gone awry. I shall probably never laugh at that kind of thing again. It was so real!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
#41526
09/16/2001 1:50 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
Cap,
The only reason I can think of that the Israelis would attack the United States would be to engage this country in all-out war in the Middle East thereby destroying their adversaries. While not beyond the scope of possibility, I find it hard to contemplate and also that the suggestion insinuates an incredible evil to that government. *Perhaps, if the country's very existence were threatened..but it is not. And that "perhaps" is almost off the meter. As to the Saudis, I cannot imagine what possible motive a regime that is at pains to keep power in the face of fundamentalist movements could have to so destabilize the politics of the region. You are saying that they would seek to create a war which would be fashioned a Jihad against "the west." But that same jihad would identify the Saudi monarchy as a regime installed by the very enemy of that jihad and would certainly try to bring it down.
...or, what *is your reasoning?
|
|
|
#41527
09/16/2001 1:06 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
I encourage everyone to patronize Muslim-owned businesses and to show solidarity with Muslim-Americans and guests in our country.
post edit: I'd considered not including what was formerly the first line of this post. Keiva, by public and private post, has convinced me that I should (not include it). In his words, and I agree, the line was gratuitous.
|
|
|
#41528
09/16/2001 1:31 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
An excellent idea. Regardless of my intense disagreement with the first eight words, the remainder is insightful and proactive -- an excellent idea.
|
|
|
#41529
09/16/2001 2:50 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
As things unfold we'll have to look at the numbers, at how big the "handful" is. Yep, that sounds reasonable. I noticed this from the NYT, and had meant to protest about Dr Bill’s flip use of the phrase “wet work” for describing CIA murder: “…after the attacks, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, the chairman of the House intelligence committee and two former directors of central intelligence said the attacks justified easing some restrictions on the behavior of spy agencies. Some of those leaders also said the terrorist assault represented a colossal failure of American intelligence.
"We have got to be a hell of a lot more aggressive," said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.
R. James Woolsey, the former director of central intelligence, said that "Washington has absolutely undergone a sea change in thinking this week."
Those comments reflect a turning point in the attitude of political leaders toward the need for sharp limits on the extent and nature of covert operations and perhaps for allowing American agents to carry out the kinds of actions that have long been prohibited as too ruthless or morally questionable.
They also reflect a strong public sentiment …/ …A New York Times/ CBS News poll conducted late last week showed that 65 percent of those questioned say American agents should be allowed to seek out and assassinate people in foreign countries who commit terrorist acts against Americans.http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/international/16INTE.html?todaysheadlines“who commit terrorist acts” – judge, jury and executioner. Now, for me this is unambiguous: not despite but because of my revulsion at this week’s terrorism, the idea that 65% of Americans now evidently support state-conducted murder is appalling. (This goes back to the language query I raised a while ago: when is it appropriate to use the word ‘murder’ for state-sponsored assassination?) Oh, America – you whose country was founded upon noble ideals of liberty, justice, the separation of powers… is all this to be the long-term casualty of the mob rule mentality? I hope not. But 65% is a pretty scary handful.
|
|
|
#41530
09/16/2001 2:56 PM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
<<I hope not. But 65% is a pretty scary handful.>>
I will not here offer my views on this subject, I have to think about it. But I would venture that, considering what has happened, considered objectively 65% really reflects a very restrained response.
|
|
|
|
|
