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Starting this thread for discussion about remedy and/or respone.
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists
who commit these acts and those who harbor them.”
-G.W. Bush
This is a major policy change and signals the US will not only go after the terrorist but the country/countries that harbor him/them.
Security comment : I am one of the offenders when it comes to hating to check my baggage. I travel light and want to keep bag on plane ... but I really think that from now on carry-on, except for one small purse for women or, for men an attache case should be the limit for carry-on luggage. Both inspected before boarding. The Israeli Airline El Al has very strict rules about baggage and carry-on luggage ... perhaps we should take a leaf from El Al's book.
Obviously this attack need heavy financing .... my instinct is to "follow the money" and once found, seize it. Without the money ....
We hear on Boston TV that there is suspicion concerning several men who entered Canada, took the ferry from Canada to Maine then boarded a plane from Portland to Boston.
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Ann:
Yes, it is a major policy change and it is fraught with danger because it is a decision taken in a moment of passion -- understandable passion, but passion nonetheless, and it can actually have more far-reaching implications than did the triggering events.
From the moment I heard the first report of this dastardly act (series actually) I felt Osama Bin Laden was the most likely suspect. But on reflection he's not the only suspect. And quite possibly not the best suspect. I was struck pretty hard by a statement I heard during the coverage yesterday, "These people knew how to fly sophisticated passenger airliners. Where in Afghanistan can you get that kind of training?"
Certainly, unlike WW II kamikaze pilots, they didn't have to know how to take off, since someone else did that for them, but just as certainly they killed or incapacitated the pilots and took control themselves.
But they weren't perfect. One plane went down many miles from a target, and the one at the Pentagon actually hit the ground short and then bounced up and into the building. That probably saved a whole bunch of lives.
As usual, I've digressed.
Even if Bin Laden is behind this, the most logical conclusion is that the training was done elsewhere. And, in my mind, such sophisticated training implies the assets of a state government behind the scenes, probably actively involved. Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea are the immediate candidates. But if the terrorists were trained in Libya at the behest of Bin Laden, do we become a rogue nation by squashing the Afghani Taliban? Personally I think the Taliban in and of themselves are beneath contempt, but it IS their country and they have a right to run it any old way they see fit. If the people in Afghanistan who don't like it don't do something to stop it, who are we or England or Australia or Germany to do something to stop them? But if Bin Laden is in their country legally and has done nothing against their laws, can we be morally right in punishing Afghanistan for actions Bin Laden has instigated in other countries?
Quoting someone else, "Revenge is best served cold."
In sorrow and in anger,
TEd
TEd
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personally, I haven't got a clue. but I think we should all be interested in what the fourth estate is saying. here's an early entry from the Washington Post: http://msnbc.com/news/627549.asp?cp1=1
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If the actions against us were intended--by a faction of madmen *not representative of Islam--to produce a conflict that could be defined as one between the Islamic world as infidels, then 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 was has been thrust upon us with carnage and destruction in terms defined by our adversaries. To do so would be to hand them victory and threatens destruction beside which yesterdays would pale to vanishing. This is not a muslim assault against civil society. It was an action of madmen and fanatics. Terrorism, if it can be, must be ended, but not by perpetrating terror on others.
There can be no question that governments harboring criminals of this kind can and must be treated as criminal.
Any suggestion that we use nuclear weapons is, if real, insane and if in bluff, irresponsible beyond belief.
Any threat against civilian populations would be criminal.
The United States will need to respond. How, I do not know. And I worry that there is sufficient wisdom in Washington.
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The United States will need to respond. How, I do not know...
Follow the money trail. Somebody, some country, some group had to finance the attack.
I do not "blame" the Muslims ... nor do I believe any clear thinking person does ... it is a few ---i don't like to use the word but it fits here --- *dedicated, fanatic terrorists who perpetrated this senseless act against unarmed and innocent civilians.
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Reprisal against Muslims in this country is insane and un-American. The terrorists were undoubtedly Muslim fanatics, but we too have religious fanatics. Thank God they have not committed any attacks outside this country - the bombing of abortion clinics here is bad enough. Timothy McVeigh could have turned his hate towards some other country. And it is quite possible that the terrorists were not sheltered where they trained. They would have had reason to fear being betrayed for a reward.
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Reprisal against Muslims in this country is insane and un-American.
Yes - but unless this country acts promptly and firmly, individuals will vent their frustrated rage on whatever targets they can find. If we truly want to forestall reprisals against the innocent, we must see strong reprisals against the guilty.
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Yeahbut - the last time we acted promptly and firmly, anyone of Asian descent was promptly hauled off to an internment camp. No one needs to see that again either.
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the last time we acted promptly and firmly, anyone of Asian descent was promptly hauled off to an internment camp. No one needs to see that again either.
True; the best choice would have been our military response, but without our camps response.
BUT if you're not allowed to pick and choose and demand perfection, would you have preferred that we do both, or that we do neither?
The best choice should not become the enemy of the good choice.
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<<The best choice should not become the enemy of the good choice.>>
And the good choice should not become the enemy of the people.
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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?
Perhaps an old post card?
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if you think the choices look difficult now, consider this scenario: it may prove out in the long run that these acts were those of a determined band of *independantly organized fanatics. I don't think this is too far out of the realm of possibilites; consider what was really needed: a dozen men (or less) with death wishes (that's apparently a given), 4 trained in how to steer a commercial jet (this also looks like reality from the reports out of Florida), and the rest in hijacking with sharp pointed objects (another given); 1 man with a plan; $3000 for tickets and rentals (probably less). given this scenario, and assuming that most of the gang expired in the act, how could we possibly ever expect to get satisfactory closure?
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not to spoil everyone's political analysis, but i have something a bit more uplifting to share.
today classes were cancled for 2 hours so that the student body could attend a memorial service of sorts. chancelor, deans, student body president, 2 clergymen, and a school counselor among others spoke. there were prayers and songs (blowing in the wind and god bless america). the student government had arranged a collection to be sent to the red cross (i put in half of what was in my wallet, meager though it was), they had a blood collection today and another one scheduled for a week from today. as a form of peaceful protest they set up voter registration booths for the rest of the week (if they're going to kill us for our democracy this seems like a good way to fight back).
they have also set up some banners around campus on which people can write stories, emotions, thankfulnesses, or whatever else they wish to express. inselpeter, may i print out some of your words from the past few days and post them on one of these banners. they have moved me and i would like to share them.
my best wishes to us all in this time of pain and frustration.
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it may prove out in the long run that these acts were those of a determined band of *independantly organized fanatics
tsuwm has expressed (better that I could have) my fears since the beginning of this ordeal. What if the madmen were not a vast organization of Islamic terrorists, but just a small group of fanatics? What if there is no one left to retaliate against? What if by attacking "major" terrorists or the nations that support them we are simply doing just what those behind the attacks wanted us to do?
I sincerely hope that the powers that be are considering this possibility, and are considering the fact that the very leads they are following may be falsely laid tracks leading away from the truth. If you were hijacking a plane, would you leave your car in the airport parking lot with flight instruction manuals and videos in your trunk (as has reportedly been found in Boston)?
I also hope that I am just being overly conspiracy-minded, and that we will find other people responsible for the destruction and punish them with "terrible fury" (in the words of Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy).
I am so glad Helen and Inselpeter are well, and my thoughts and love go out to all of those in NYC, Washington and all over the world who have suffered a personal loss.
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Wow -- I don't have a photo but I do have an image. Some time ago Max posted the following which I added to my desktop to send to a friend but never got round to it. Frightening, isn't it, in retrospect:
Type NYC (all caps) in a large size, say 72 point. Change the font to WEBdings - cute, isn't it? Now, change the font to WINGdings - anything but cute.
I've been reading the posts and thinking of you all -- my heart is with you.
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There has been discussion of the Palestinians who danced in the streets and gave out candy to children. This is infuriating, and I was infuriated; but then I had to reflect on the reality of Palestinians, very many other Arabs, and Iranians. For three generations they have imbibed with their mothers' milk hatred of the Jews, Israel, America and Americans, who are the sponsors of Israel. It's reinforced all their lives long in their schools, mosques and families. Yet the vast majority of these people learn little else. Except for the privileged few, they live in squalor and ignorance worse than old-time European or Chinese peasants. They know no more of Jews, Israel, American and Americans than we know of Hottentots. Their lives are full of hate, desperation, envy of the more fortunate and even self-hatred. No wonder you can convince young men in the prime of life from this culture to voluntarily blow themselves up; they have little or nothing to lose and are told they have paradise to gain.
I heard on NPR an Israeli talking about an Arab fruitseller in Jerusalem who was dancing around the market, exulting, "Allaha be praised! The Americans are finished!" Poor deluded fool. Little does he know that we are far from being finished. On the contrary -- we are more united, more resolute to combat terrorism and terrorists, and more ready to do something about terrorism than we have ever been. So I'm prepared to be magnanimous to these deluded wretches who have been kept in poverty and ignorance by their leaders for decades. But as to their leaders? The recruiters who find bombers, the trainers, the planners?
If I were president, which thank God I am not, I would announce tomorrow that the U.S. Embassy will move next week to Jerusalem. Futher, that the U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the permanent and undivided capitol of Israel and that the U.S. will oppose any effort to give any part of the city to any other entity. Then let's see who dances in the streets.
But here's another issue. It seems that the ignorant masses have been and are being taught that deeds like those of yesterday are pleasing to Allah and are enjoined by the Quran. I have heard from a number of Moslems that this is false and directly contrary to Islam and the Quran. If so, why are these people allowed to get away with this without contradiction? Where are the great clerics, the high-ranking mullahs, the ayatollahs, the professors at Al-Azhar who are supposed to have the last word on Islam and the interpretation of the Quran? Why are they not speaking out in the most forceful terms to denounce a perversion of Islam? I would be glad to hear from any of our board who may be Moslem about this.
Lastly, it is all very well and good for G.W. to look stern and assure the American people that those who harbor and assist terrorists will be punished the same as the perpetrators themselves. It is supposed that if it turns out to be Bin Laden, reprisal will fall on the Taliban. But it is well known that Bin Laden's wealth is in Saudi Arabia (millions) and that the Saudis forward money to him when he wants it and that they have taken no steps to sequestrate or seize his assets. If there is clear evidence that Bin Laden was behind the attack, are we going to take reprisals against the Saudis, who make funds available to him, even if it is his money? And risk having all that oil denied to us as well as to Europe and Japan? Will the Europeans and Japanese support us if (har-di-har-har) we decide the Saudis must be punished? I greatly fear that the question of reprisals will, in the end, be subject to a lot of political and economic considerations and careful analysis of what oxen will be gored. That's not how it should be.
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The problem is I don't know if we command enough respect in the eyes of these beasts to react with authority anymore. We have been proven vulnerable too many times. I believe the roots of this all started 1. When the Carter Administration flinched on attacking when Iran took our hostages in '79. Yes, the lives of those 50 government workers could have been lost in such an attack and hindsight is 20/20, but they knew the risks involved in accepting a government job overseas, and we should've gone right in after them. The aborted rescue mission later was just an incidental after-fact. That's when our respect in the world starting slipping. And 2. In 1983 when we lost 283 Marines in Beirut (figure may be slightly off) the Reagan Administration knew they could do nothing, and did nothing except to divert a gullible public's attention by going into the pismire island-country of Granada to satisfy their need to strike out at "something." But, ultimately, those (or the country/countries) responsible were never brought to justice either by litigation or military response. Besides, Reagan and his cronies (including Bush, Sr.) were too busy covering their tracks of dealing arms to Iran as a gift for holding the hostages until he was assured of ascending to power...as soon as he lifted his hand from the Bible at his 1st inauguration, presto!...instant hostage release! But that's another story. After these two events it was open season on Americans, and then their Western allies as well...solitary hostages, plane blasts, European airports, etc. Once they found out they could strike at the US and get away with it, there was no turning back. And once a fanatic fuses politics with religion and is ready to die for their "cause," how do you stop them? I don't know if you can. Though squeamish about capital punishment, I've often said that after the first World trade Center bombing which I considered to be an act of war designed to destroy the towers and kill tens of thousands of innocent people, that the perps, immediately upon conviction, should've been marched against a wall on camera and executed by firing squad. Show them we will not fool around. But, of course, our sense of justice bequeathed these genoicidal maniacs to life terms in humane prisons...sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Unless they're in solitary for protection. If so I hope they immediately release these subhuman assholes to the general inmate population which I'm sure would be delighted to mete out thorough justice to them at this point. Yes, I believe in mercy and forgiveness, but there is a point where you have to draw a line in the sand, and I've reached it. The stakes are now clear...if you're an American, you die. Remember that cynical and insulting release of black hostages all through the '80's, as if African-Americans were going to fall for that ploy of differentiation. Well, the terrorists took care of that fable when they bombed the US embassies in Africa. But the problem is, it isn't just Americans...these genoical maniacs who think they speak for their Muslin God...they don't. And certanly not for the vast majority of the Muslin faithful, it really is a religion of peace, so I really fail to understand this constant slaughter of the innocent in the name of their God) are trying to take on the entire world...us, Russia, the Hindus in India, all of Western Europe, their own secular governments, everybody...it's just craziness! And the real problem is that if you convict and execute any of thes culprits they're very happy to be martyred for their cause, thank you, and are hailed and viewed as such...what's the point of killing people who are perfectly willing and happy to die? So where's the answer, people? I pray to see it...but I just don't know. And we can't afford to go out, now, and blast away at dubious targets like that grain factory in Sudan, or strike areas that will kill any innocent civilians. (Saddan Hussein...who I think is very culpable in this attack...but his name is not mentioned enough...this IS after all, the one and the same Bush administration he went to war with in '91, why wouldn't he take another shot at it? But maybe the Bushes don't want anybody to consider this?...anyway, Saddam is still sitting pretty in his royal palace, thank you, while 100,000 or so of his countrymen have died around him as th result (directly or indirectly) of the Gulf War, including an estimated 40,000 children...which shows and proves you have to kill the head, not just the body, or it doesn't go away). Violate the international law of political assassination instead of all these "collateral" innocent lives, or, ultimately, what we're witnessing today? YOU BET!! GO FOR IT!!! We have the technology and trained covert forces to get it done! Any proven mass-murdered or war criminal...Saddam, Bin Laden, etc. I don't think we have a choice. Not any more. But, ultimately, too, the sad reality is, that as long as there are people willing to die in suicide missions, what can the world do? And, what, for God's sake, do these people WANT??? How did it come to all this? 
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Whitman and Boby,
Reading your posts saddens me terribly.
"They" are not monolithic.
The Palestinians do not celebrate out of 'ignorance,' in a narrow sense of the word; they are among the most highly educated populations in the world. And if they are taught to hate us, so are we taught to hate them. Their complaints against Israel and the United States are not without reason.
Let us not invent the enemy, but find him and destroy him.
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Yeahbut - the last time we acted promptly and firmly, anyone of Asian descent was promptly hauled off to an internment camp. No one needs to see that again either.
Funny you should mention that. Last Friday I attended a performance of Portland Taiko, a Japanese/American traditional drumming ensemble which is half drums and half theatre. One of their presentations was a memorial to the Japanese Americans who were deprived of their rights as Americans because of their race. There were photos from the Tule Lake, California camp projected on the stage during the spoken/played performance. These Japanese Americans bent, but did not break, when assaulted by the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as Shakespears put it. Do we now want to snap in the force of the bitter wind that has blown upon our shores? Do we simply "cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war," or do we take the time to fully comprehend the who and what and why of the enemy? I do hope that the US government - one for which I did not vote - has more wisdom than I gave it credit for at the polls last November, and acts in a rational manner in this catastrophe.
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Dear Jo,
Your contribution contains all the aspects that seem important to me, too. And you put it masterfully. No need to add anything, in my view.
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Yes, insel, for clarity's sake let me say I agree with your assessment of the Palestinian situation, I have nothing against the Palestinians or any other people of the world. I don't know who "they" are...this handful of predators that changes from situation to situation. We could call them "whoever." In fact, "they" was even "us" in Oklahoma City. But when these handful of idiots are caught, in whatever situation, from hereon in they must be dealt with firmly.
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Just checked and in my Email got this from the Internet version of http://www.armedforcesnews.com which is primarily for active duty and reserve forces and dependants. America Under Attack
Note From Don Mace, Publisher
In a time when our country is under attack it may seem
almost senseless to send you a routine issue of Armed Forces News. Today is of course not a routine day. It is a day when we lean heavily on ALL OF YOU who have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We are the greatest nation in the world and we will bring these cowards to justice! It is a day when we reinforce our allegiance to the Commander in Chief. But it is also a day when all living Americans must continue to eat, sleep, buy groceries, send their children to school, and prepare for tomorrow. To do otherwise would hand these vicious cowards who attacked us an unacceptable victory. With this in mind we bring you this edition of Armed Forces News.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you – all of you.
Hold Fast,
Don MaceIn the face of what may yet come, please keep our soldiers, sailors and airmen -- and their families - in your hearts and prayers, especially those who died at the Pentagon in service to their country. Later EditArmed Forces recuitment center report that they have been inundated with young men and women coming in to sign up for active service. Memories of Dec. 7-8, 1941 fill my mind. One young high school woman on TV said she has often heard her Grandfather talk about where he was on Pearl Harbor Day and she said that she expects she will tell her children about where she was when the World Trade Center was attacked.
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Armed Forces recuitment center report that they have been inundated with young men and women coming in to sign up for active service.
Oh God. I pray they may never see active duty.
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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.
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thank you mav. i think it is easier for both inselpeter and i to be reasoned, as bad as our city has been hurt, we both know, first hand, this is a serious injury, but not a fatal blow.
i think back to the floods we has some years ago, when all of the mississippi valley, from canada to the gulf bay was flooded to some degree. a devistating flood, and now, a few years later, its hard to remember.
it will be harder to forget this, since it was a deliberate act, but in a shorter time than you can imagine, it will be hard to remember the year... we look and say was that 2001? or 2002?.. NY will go on, it will be better and stronger.
the news just reported, Morgan stanly, in WTC north, (first building hit,) has accounted for over 34XX employees, and only 37 are still missing.. these numbers are heartening. the news about the firemen, the news about regular "tapping" is good too, since we know there are more survivors.
what is most scary, most threatening, is the thought that this event will cost us our liberty. one difficulty about the dead and wounded, is no one in US is reguired to "carry papers". We have a freedom here, of life, of movement, of press, of person. i do not want to lose the forest of law, now, each leaf is precious.
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I'll continue to come back (perhaps incessantly) to this point: if we arrive at a place where we must make a reasoned response to an act of jihad by a band of religious zealots, our hands are (once again) tied; for there very likely is no reasoned response -- or rather, the reasoned response will be (once again) no response.
but. this is not a *politically viable response.
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there is more testosterone than cold logic being displayed in a few posts over the last 24 hours
I think people were just looking for a safe place to vent the anger and sorrow ...
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.
Yes, you are absolutely right.
AS a mother with with a son in the Army, in a Light Infantry Division, I am in no hurry to see our Armed Forces deployed.
Many of the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter folks in WTC were people my late brother Joe did business with. The Portsmouth NH offices of the firm (where Joe was a VP) is in shock. It's a terrible time and I do not think life will ever be the same.
We are at the beginning of a long process and I hope it is well thought through and judiciously carried out.
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While it is perfectly understandable that some would disagree with those of us who favor more aggressive courses, I resent that aggressive positions are here denigrated as mere testosterone responses.
That is ad hominem argument, not reasoned discussion.
Let us end calling posts that disagree with us "rants" and "nonsense". It is not productive, indeed not even relevant, to claim that people were "murdered by the armed forces of Israel", and then suggest that Bush Sr. and Kissinger was each "a mass murderer". I find it odious to even suggest that those past events are to be equated with the events of last Monday.
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I think this quote from Dave Barry's article that Max posted is appropriate here:
That's what's so hard to comprehend: They want us to die just for being Americans. They don't care which Americans die: military Americans, civilian Americans, young Americans, old Americans. Baby Americans. They don't care. To them, we're all mortal enemies. The truth is that most Americans, until Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're Americans.
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our government has named Osama Bin Laden as the guy. I just watched a Frontline special http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/which details what we know about him. they found losts of important Muslim/Islam figures to say good things about him -- he is regarded as a hero by many of his Saudi countrymen. this is not going to be pretty.
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It sure isn't. But I do espy a kind of hope, as Friar Lawrence said. From other reports I have been hearing, I suspect that the Taliban may be at least considering the possiblity of handing bin Laden over. And I think that Sec. Powell's approach to the Pakistanis is to enlist them to put pressure on the Taliban to do that. The Taliban seem to be counting up their cards and may decide that bin Laden is not worth U.S. reprisals on an already impoverished country (partly their own work, but that's another story). If indeed bin Laden is the culprit, or one of them, that would be an optimal outcome. But we'll see.
Having said that, I must echo the comments of, I believe it was, Keiva. For all you pacifists there, I respect your opinions and your position, and your right to express them, but please try to exercise logic and make your arguments relevant. What the Israelis, Bush I, Nixon, et al. may do or have done, is irrelevant. And I don't accept your arguments that reprisal is a) subhuman, irrational or caused by excess of testosterone, b) what the terrorists want, c) some sort of vindication of the terrorists' positions or beliefs, d) doomed to failure, starting a new round of violence, etc. I take it that you believe we should do nothing except tut-tut like a bunch of schoolmarms. Well, we've been doing that too long and what has it got us? Pacifism is a noble philosophy, and would be preferable to 99.99% of all wars ever fought, but it is dangerous in the extreme in situations involving a real threat by the truly evil. If the pacifists had prevailed in 1939, 1940, 1941, what would the world be like now? No, my friends, face it -- there is such a thing as genuine evil, which must be resisted and crushed, even if it takes deadly force and mass destruction and the sacrifice of many innocent sons and daughters of innocent men and women. For evil to triumph all it takes is for well-meaning people to stand back and refuse to do what has to be done to end it. No same person wants war and its consequences (which always turn out worse than intended), but the alternative is unthinkable. I hope and pray we may yet be able, by measured and appropriate measures, to capture or neutralize the big scorpions wherever they have their nests and thereby deter or cripple the little ones. We'll never get them all, I suppose, but we can make a start.
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Like everyone else, I am still in a state of shock and horror over Tuesday’s events. I thank God that Helen and Inselpeter, the only two people I know in New York, are safe and well and my heart goes out to the families of those who are not.
If anything deserves retaliation this does. But:
Last Christmas Eve some churches in Jakarta were bombed (including the church I go to – by God’s grace that bomb was found and dealt with before it exploded, but the intent was there and other bombs were not found in time). Would the members of the congregations affected be justified in retaliating against whoever planted the bombs or were behind it? Why or why not?
Maluku and Central Sulawesi have been in a state of near anarchy for some time now with fighting between Christians and Muslims. Both sides have committed outrages. Are those affected on either side justified in retaliating? Why or why not?
Suicide bombers have been at work in Israel. Are the Israelis justified in retaliating against the Palestinians they believe are harbouring the organisation responsible? Why or why not? Conversely many innocent Palestinians have died in Israeli attacks. Are Palestinians justified in retaliating? Why or why not?
Irish terrorists have exploded bombs in London. Would Britain be justified in sending in some sort of attack force into Ireland? Why or why not?
What all this is leading up to is this question: if we are drawing lines at what point does retaliation become justified? When we (whoever "we" are) are the ones hurt? When we have the power to do so? When a certain number of people (which is what?) are killed?
I don't know. I'm only asking.
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Ken and Bob, I would not have even bothered to engage in dialogue with you if I did not respect your opinions and want to let you know there are alternative perspectives available on this desperate mess. I knew my views were unlikely to be popular in your ears, but perhaps I should clarify a few points since my arguments have been misunderstood in some respects.
I’ll do this short style to keep it as clear as I can.
1. I detest and abhor the actions of the zealot madmen who perpetrated the outrage and consider it an act of barbaric evil.
2. I am not a pacifist, and (to repeat my earlier remark) I believe reprisals should be taken in cold blood.
3. I believe that all reprisals should be taken within the law of civilisation which we seek to defend – in principal, if the USA tries to act as judge & jury & executioner in the manner suggested, it will have undermined the very basis for rational action and will have descended to nothing better than lynch law and an exposition that “might is right”.
4. It is clear to me that an imperative of dealing with terrorists is to detach them from their support base.
5. To do this it is vital to understand those who show ill will in a general way – vide “…Americans. They don't care. To them, we're all mortal enemies…” The people shown dancing in the streets in Palestine are IMHO sick bastards; but that people can show such extraordinarily inhuman ill-will has to be understood if it is to be fixed.
6. I believe the USA’s history of action in the wider world since the second world war is crucially relevant to gaining this understanding. You may not be comfortable with this fact, but it is true that even amongst America’s many friends there is a widespread perception that the USA government pursues its long-term goals with a ruthless disregard for the competitive interests of other peoples on this planet, and has often behaved in ways that are illegal and wrong.
7. I do not personally believe Bush Snr can be viewed as a mass murderer – I raised this as a question to illustrate the fact that there are some who do and who come to a very different world-view as a consequence. You may not like this fact – but it is a fact, and one that we have to come to terms with in order to be able to live in a more or less peaceable world.
8. I raised the issue of the Palestinians because in my view until the western world comes to a balanced appraisal of this incessant tribal warfare, there can never be any resolution. This was in response to the suggestion that the USA should change its stance in relation to these parties by adopting a bellicose and even more partisan position. [Personally, the only thing that makes sense that I can understand is a viable state for Palestinians and another for Israelis, both mutually recognising each other’s right to existence and the pursuit of freedom and happiness, but that is a red herring at this juncture.]
9. I think it is crystal clear that all major powers act in a manner dictated by expedience rather than morality, and indeed all that it takes for an evil course of action to prevail is for good men to do nothing. That is why it is vital that we do not allow idiots to brand this as a “war” when it is a despicable act of terror, why we cannot let anyone suppose there is any quick fix available no matter what force is thrown in the scales, and why the only way in which we can improve our long-term hopes is to learn the ultimate lesson that there is no Them and Us – there is only us. We have to change our own hearts as well as our neighbours’. Of course, this does not make for good TV.
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Images of hundreds of Palestinians spontaneously celebrating must have caused deep revulsion among Americans and many others who were horrified by the suicide hijack attacks and the ensuing carnage.
Like the attacks themselves, assuming that they were indeed the work of Islamic or Arab terrorists - which may not be the case - those images of jubilation carried a message which will almost certainly be ignored.
Rather than prompting a serious attempt to address the question Why?, both are likely to widen the gulf of miscomprehension and drastically envenom the situation.
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.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1540000/1540364.stm
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An interesting view from within Israel: with or without Islamic fundamentalism, with or without Arab terrorism, there is no justification whatsoever for the lasting occupation and suppression of the Palestinian people by Israel. We have no right to deny Palestinians their natural right to self-determination. Two huge oceans could not shelter America from terrorism; the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel has not made Israel secure — on the contrary, it makes our self-defense much harder and more complicated. The sooner this occupation ends, the better it will be for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
It is all too easy and tempting now to fall into all sorts of racist clichés about "Muslim mentality" or "Arab character" and other such rubbish. The horrendous crime committed against New York and Washington is a sharp reminder that this is not a war between religions, nor a struggle between nations. This is, once more, the battle between fanatics for whom the end — any end, be it religious, nationalistic or ideological — sanctifies the means, and the rest of us who ascribe sanctity to life itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/14OZ.html
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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.
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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}
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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.
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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...)
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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?
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Let us seek remedy, not retribution.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Congratulations, Mav!
Let me buy you that whiskey you were refering to. Cheers!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 ...
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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 ...
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post edit: this was meant to be a private, so I'm removed it.
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>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
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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 ...
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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?
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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.
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An excellent idea. Regardless of my intense disagreement with the first eight words, the remainder is insightful and proactive -- an excellent idea.
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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.
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Pooh-Bah
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<<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.
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Mav, i think that number (65%) exist, becuase americans, with all our fault, have a system of justice. Most Americans believe OJ "got away with murder"-- but he had is day in court, and he will not be "assasinated". he might be a social outcast, but he will live.
We have very little trust in justice in other countries, england pehaps being the exception, the rest of europe iffy.
maybe we are wrong. but we don't have any faith, that any "government" in any mid eastern country, even if presented with the cancelled checked for the payment of the flight school, or the paying the bills for the the terrorist who boared the flight, would find any of their nationalist guilty-- actually, we think, the accused, would be "hiding out" in plain site, going about unencombered by the law.
it is from this perspective, (right or wrongly held) that the appalling number arises.
One of the truths is, as Cap't Kiwi can tell you, america is a big, and beautiful country. and unfortunately, unlike Kiwi's or Ozzies, we don't have a sense that we need to go out and see the world. the percentage of americans who have travel abroad is very low (look at bush--his idea of world travel was canada and mexico.)
i don't know which comes first, our personal narrow parochial views, or our political isolation. but they do go hand in hand. the rest of the world is a little scary to america, -- and they close their eyes to it-- but are very happy to enjoy the riches corporate america hauls off from where ever. We are a youthful nation, we grew a bit with the WW's, but now, we must come to acting as adults in the world.
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Mav, i think that number (65%) exist, becaase americans, with all our fault, have a system of justice. ... but we don't have any faith, that any "government" in any mid eastern country would find any of their nationalist guilty -- actually, we think, the accused, would be "hiding out" in plain site, going about unencumbered by the law.
This is, I think, a good part of the concern. It would be laudable for the accused to have a full criminal trial here -- but no one expects, for example, that Afghanistan would consent to extradite bin Ladin et al. to stand trial in the U.S. Given that, mav, how would you propose to go about separating the "judge, jury and executioner"?
Interestingly: where extradition is not feasible, international law allows a trial if the accused is instead kidnapped to bring him into the jurisdiction of the country in which he is to be tried. The most familiar example is Adolph Eichman, kidnapped from Argentina by Israeli agents, and brought to Israel for trial.
The court rejected, based on prior precedent, Eichman's attorneys' argument that the court had no proper jurisdiction over his person (having obtained his person only by kidnapping). Those precedents included:
(a) (I think) the Nurenberg trials, and
(b) (I am certain) U.S Supreme Court rulings in the 1890's, where various US labor leaders, when criminally tried for labor-movement violence, had been brought by kidnap into the jurisdiction where the violence occurred.
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but now, we must come to acting as adults in the worldHelen, I really hope this may come about as some sort of positive counterweight to so many individual pains and tragedies. I can certainly recognise what you are saying about justice and perceptions of its absence in many parts of the world. But I know that whatever else we get right or wrong, we CANNOT take the path of state-supported murder. It is tantamount to cutting the branch on which we sit. I have been struck, through wide exposure to European radio and TV and newspapers over the last 48 hours *, that (actually as Jo suggested) my views expressed recently may be closer to the educated mainstream than I had assumed likely. I think there is, in addition to the obvious and open-hearted sympathy for everyone caught up in the tragedy, a desperate hope that Americans will find a cool sane space of contemplation – and realise that much of the rhetoric they have been spoon-fed by their political system for generations contains much self-imagery that is completely delusional. “Of all history's great powers, from Athens and Rome to Byzantium and imperial Britain, perhaps none has ever so dominated the globe as America does now.
Nor has any of these powers aroused such a complex of feelings, positive and negative, that could go some way toward explaining how extremists from a distant world could mount an attack of the unfathomable hatred seen this week in New York and Washington, followed by the unrestrained outpouring of sadness and support from some of the very peoples that America's terrorist enemies claim to represent.
America, with its daunting economic, political and military power, its pervasive popular culture, and its instinct to spread the freewheeling, secularist ways of American life — even to those who may prefer to shun them — has an impact on people's lives to the farthest corners of the earth. Just how great this impact is, and how, in many places, it is resented, may be more than many Americans can grasp.
If they consider their country's place at all, many Americans may see it in uncomplicated terms, as the "beacon of freedom" President Bush spoke of with moistened eyes this week. But the feelings of many of the peoples who live in America's shadow are frequently less sanguine, or at least deeply contradictory. Grievances run side by side, and often in the same person, with a consuming passion for things American.”http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/international/16AMER.html?todaysheadlinesAmerica is not viewed worldwide as a beacon of all that is best in mankind, not by a long chalk: close friends admire and indeed share much of America’s values, but the complete mix of feelings is far more complicated. It is the twin realisation that (like it or not) the USA is a part of the wider world, and also that the wider world has some serious issues that the USA needs to come to terms with, which gives a hope that some good may arise from the ashes, not just more death and inhumanity. “That fat, daydreaming America is gone now, way gone — as spent as the tax-rebate checks, as forgotten as the 2000 campaign's debate over prescription-drug plans, as bankrupt as our dot-com fantasies of instant millions, as vaporized as the faith that high-tech surveillance and weaponry would keep us safe……
We have no choice now but, as a horror- struck Hamlet said after being visited by the ghost, to ‘wipe away all trivial fond records’ from the table of memory, and hope that our learning curve will be steep.”http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/opinion/15RICH.html* as an example only of these emerging view trends here, let me quote from the Letters page of The Times on Saturday, not generally a notably libertarian medium! (There were 8 published letters in all, three about more tangential matters such as potential terrorist access to plutonium)
1 “Firm and legitimate action must be taken to hit back effectively…/… But account must also be taken of the wider issues of foreign policy that provide an underlying cause of the deep animosity against the US which is fuelling these atrocities. In large part this hostility arises out of a perception across the Arab and Islamic world that United States policy is irrevocably committed to support for Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands. The obduracy of the present Israeli leadership, initiated with Ariel Sharon’s ill-judged act of provocation by parading near the Muslim sanctuary of the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem during last year’s election campaign, has intensified the frustration among extremists within the Islamic world. If the issues that are generating such ferocious acts of terrorism are to be effectively countered, a deliberate American lead in renewed progress over the Arab-Israeli peace process, as was given by George Bush Snr at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, has to form part of the answer.” – Alan Munro, British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia ’89-‘93
2 “…However well intentioned, US governments have aroused a sense of injustice throughout the Arab and Islamic world and provoked feelings ranged from muted disapproval to fanatical hated. Western leaders should aim to cut at the roots of terrorism, not just its vile tentacles.” – Micheal Purcell.
3 “….While terrorism can never be right, the fact that those who carry out terrorist acts have often been driven to it by the failure of others to listen to their grievances needs to be recognised. It does no good to the credibility of the US or NATO to assume that right is entirely and irrefutably on their side.” – John Evers.
4 “I fully agree with Simon Jenkins (Comment, Sept 14) that the crisis calls for a distinction between determination and vengeance, acts of will and acts of idiocy. It is a time when head must rule heart. Assuming that the attack on the WTC and Pentagon is the work of associates of Osama bin Laden, the core complaints of the world of Islam – dispossession of Palestinians by Israel – must be seriously attended to; otherwise we will simply be helping bin Laden’s cause and validating fanaticism.” – Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Leader Muslim Parliament of GB.
5 “Having grown up with 30 years of terrorism in Northern Ireland, it is disappointing to hear President Bush and his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, talk of revenge. Revenge has done nothing to solve the tit-for-tat loss of life in Ulster. It is only serving to heighten tension between Palestinians and Israelis. NATO countries must not be drawn into a military confrontation as a result of the attacks in the US.” – William Sellar.There is a range of views represented through the BBC services, including this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1547000/1547292.stmBob, I too have made a detailed study of the history of the Middle East, and could happily trade skirmishes about the Balfour Declaration and the detail of the Palestine Mandate until everyone else in the room was screaming for relief! But let us just look for a moment at the big picture: there are two groups of peoples in that area of the world, with an immensely complicated history of mutual stupidity and sometimes simply evil. The most recent attempt at a peace process was being undermined by the most accelerated grab of Palestinian lands for new Jewish-only settlements and roads ever seen in the region. Does current US foreign policy make the eventual peaceful co-existence of these two tribes more or less likely?The thing that makes this most odd for me is that through all personal friendships and other contacts I have had with nationals from that whole region, and from deep-seated cultural predispositions I am a natural friend of the state of Israel, and continue to wish her citizens nothing but happiness. It is only cold logical analysis of the actual reality being played out daily that makes me so concerned that we do now what we have to do eventually: facilitate a peace process based on mutual respect and even-handed justice (even if we doubt some aspects of one or other or indeed both parties’ good faith). And Bel, no, your dad was right despite the shameful displays we witness from time to time, so keep that flame burning. The world is continuously recreated in the image of our actions and our beliefs. If we act well and with justice, we leave our children’s world a small increment of truth and beauty; if we act otherwise, we rob ourselves of an increment of peace and happiness and leave a bill for future generations to pay in blood and misery. Keep faith with the good in all of us – as Insel has so vividly commented, a thousand incidences of this have been on view through this terrible week.
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As things unfold we'll have to look at the numbers, at how big the "handful" is. Yep, that sounds reasonable. 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. the idea that 65% of Americans now evidently support state-conducted murder is appalling. When is it appropriate to use the word 'murder' for state-sponsored assassination?
Mav, you've used linguistic prestidigitation to change the subject. Before, we were talking about the few on lunatic fringe who, like Mr. Beckwith, would "level their country". But the 65% you now cite supports something very different: a specific targeting of the specific individuals directly involved.
Mav, have you set up your requirements in such a way that absolutely no response will be acceptable to you? If the response surgically targets the specific individuals who are directly responsible (and stringently minimizes harm to others), will you castigate it as "assassination"? Conversely, if the response is broader, will you excoriate it as "creating innocent victims"?
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I hope not, Ken. For example, whilst yes, I am completely resolute that murder = murder whether by the individual, the terrorist, or the state, I fully expect and endorse America to go after the perpetrators of this outrage. But I am just trying to suggest we all need to act together within the confines of the law and the justice we seek to protest. It's not an easy path.
You are, of course, absolutely right to discriminate between the two types of response - but I was nevertheless interested in this as a statistical pop-quiz of what Americans are thinking and feeling.
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It's not an easy path.
Amen, brother mine, amen.
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and also please believe that I am not preaching from some lofty position of advantage. In the course of my formative years and adult life, there have been times particularly in relation to the IRA when I have passionately wanted to have my finger on that button. I have personal reasons for that. But I have come by painful degrees, through outrage after outrage, murder after murder, blame after blame after blame, to a current belief that there is simply no alternative. That, however much in pain that we may look for the quick fix, in the longer run there is nothing shown to work but dialog(ue), understanding, patience, compromise: all those grey and amorphous things that cost us dear. It's not what, in some respects, I want to believe - but I just know that if this response is heavy-handed and not accompanied by serious soul searching in the West, we will be back here very soon, but worse.
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Assuming that Bin Laden is behind the attacks, or even that it is simply probable that he is, would America settle for a trial on neutral territory as was recently done with the Libyans accused of being behind the Lockerbie bombing? Of course this would probably mean recognising the Taliban government and persuading them that he would be treated fairly and that handing him over was not a breach of their previous oaths to him.
Bingley
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Inselpeter responded: 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.
Come on, IP, I can think of several reasons why they may wish to more firmly bind the US to them which would fall short of wanting to engineer all-out war in the region. Amd the Mossad have a lot more influence in Israel than the CIA does in the US, or at least that's my understanding.
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.
I offer you two items to consider: 1. Ariel Sharon is the ultimate hawk and none of his Arab neighbours will trust him as far as they can kick him. Witness the breakdown in real dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians (although, yes, it's relative, but symbols are important). And 2., of course Israel's existence is threatened. That has never changed. The fluid nature of politics in the area has that as a constant.
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.
No, no, IP, the exact opposite. The Saudis are under threat from within and without by fundamentalists. What better response, then, than to have the Americans come in, as they have done before, and do their dirty work for them?
But please note, I merely put these up as straw men. I don't necessarily think that the argument holds any water. I just wanted people to think a little further outside the square.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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<<strawdogs>>
Dear Cap,
I appreciate the importance of the thinking outside the square to which you admonish us, and I think I understand you better now that you've written <<..strawdogs..>>. How deliberative we will be, I haven't the heart or stomach to speculate, right now.
Also, I mean you no offense when I say I haven't the heart or stomach to continue this debate right now. I am content to say we disagree on the specifics and to agree the care you recommend is paramount.
Yours,
IP
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Bush declares this to be war... a resolution passes Congress which reads like Tonkin Gulf... an ultimatum is now in place to the Taliban...
(fill in the blank)
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I suppose at this point my own feeling is we should recognize the act as an act of war; action it as a crime; try it at The Hague; improve security, espionage, etc. Mourn, rebuild, move on.
And that we should consider reconsidering and not consider learning from all this to be handing a victory to the enemy. I suppose we, as a nation, have a tremendous lot of soul searching to do.
Please, please. No more devastation. Please.
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I just wanted to convey my appreciation of what I've been reading in this and related threads here, even though I've nothing useful to contribute. It is a kind of refuge to come here and read so many thoughtful insights. I'm still most often stuck in that dark place between mute numbness and overwhelming sadness, for the world in general and for those I knew and worked with who are still missing and presumably dead.
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mmm, glad to hear that - apologies to all that I have shot my mouth of so much, though, but I have really appreciated the opportunity to trade different perspectives with you-all. and BTW, confirming the impression of one or two perhaps, I notice this visit to the thread carries my number hehhehheh 
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The difficulty I have is with the term "war" - and apologies if this has already been discussed and I've missed it. This is actually word-related. Hmmm.
As I understand it (and the lawyers among us may well correct me if I'm wrong), "war" can only exist between equals. Usually that's between nations. War, of course, has different levels and different words to describe those levels, depending on the context and intensity of the fighting. The American Heritage Dictionary, perhaps not the most authoritative of sources, says:
war (wôr)
n.
A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.
The period of such conflict.
The techniques and procedures of war; military science.
I offer this as a source for my statement in the previous paragraph.
Anyway, I can well understand the Americans, and in particular, the politicians, characteristing the attacks as "war". Certainly, the scale of the attack was such that it didn't appear to be too much of an exaggeration on Tuesday, and I didn't give it's use a moment's thought. Like everyone else, I was too bound up in the acts and their aftermath to consider the implications of what was being said, particularly with regard to the semantics. And even now, I feel that America's leaders were entitled to use whatever terms they liked at that time.
But I think that we now have to step back a little. Unless a nation state was the proximate cause of the attacks - or substantively knew that they were being planned and failed to act to stop them - America really can't "go to war" with the perpetrator. Seeking to bring bin Laden to justice - whether through the transnational judicial system as represented by the World Court or through the somewhat less problematic, in this instance, US courts, is not an act of war. It is merely enforcing justice, using the word loosely. If the CIA is used to get bin Laden "with extreme prejudice" then the word "war" really can't be used in that context either. That is merely state-sponsored terrorism. I'm reminded of stones and glasshouses.
It may be that the US will choose to declare war on Afghanistan, although (a) I don't think that's very clever, and (b) Colin Powell seems to agree with me (he must read my emails).
I think it's about time that the mixed signals being sent through the misuse of emotive words like "war" should be sorted out. A "war against terrorism" is fine, but for America to be talking about entering into a war in the formal sense is ... what, overstating the case, somewhat?
As usual, for what it's worth, or not.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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I completely agree with CapK's difficulty in using the term "war" to describe the situation we find ourselves in, as I too feel it conveys a sense of equals, or at least entities of the same category, in conflict. I desperately want to continue believing that the US is categorically different from a terrorist organization, and that we will not begin carpet-bombing Afghanistan in retaliation for the attacks here.
I keep seeing in my mind's eye the image of Bush and a bunch of US troops leaping into the saddle, charging off to war, and then casting about to find which way they need to ride to find the enemy, as the traditional field of battle appears to be empty. I have no easy answers, but I definitely feel that we need to tread very carefully here, as we're defining a new kind of conflict, and I don't want that definition to include tacit acceptance of the idea that it's okay to shoot from the hip because we're pissed off.
I never expected to be so pleased to have a military man in the role of Sec'ty of State, but it gives me hope to think that Powell, in addition to reading CapK's e-mails, can draw on his own experience and see that waging war on Afghanistan (or Iraq, or others on the list of possibles CapK described earlier) is not the answer here.
As a final thought in this hylarchic jumble, I'd like to commend mav, BobY and TEd for a civil argument over very contentious points, and for keeping this forum a haven of peace in a world where it may become scarce for a time.
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Amen, Hyla-chic --to ALL points you made.
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G.W. is so inspirational; first he likened the situation to a crusade, and now he's compared it to an old TV western: Wanted - Dead or Alive.
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<<A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.>>
If I might add a little pepper to the wurst. I believe, Cap (and perhaps just for the sake of being contentious) you have been seduced by the apparent meaning of the definition. The hint is in the "or," which is not exclusive and the answer is that the United States and Osama might each be party to a single conflict. According to the AHD, this need only be prolonged--whatever that means--et voila!
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I still think that the use of "war" in this context is actually attributing a status to bin Laden - that of some kind of equal to the US capable of maintaining his side in a sustained conflict - which raises him somewhat above his real capabilities. Let's call it the Insel-Peter Principle.
The man may well be able to organise another attack of some kind, but I think that unless he can obtain BNC-type weapons it is unlikely to be as spectacular as the one last Tuesday. In that respect, at least, I think he's shot his bolt. To organise something like Tuesday's atrocity (and I have no difficulty with that word here) requires peace and quiet, and above all, US complacency. He'll be struggling to get that, won't he? You can't kick over a hornet's nest and expect the hornets to say "Oh, well, never mind".
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Isn't the Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was (still is?) a general?
Incidentally, how does the man himself pronounce his name? I seem to have heard several variations over the past few days, Colin with the same vowels as coffin, or the same as bowlin', and Powell to rhyme with towel, or like pole.
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>I still think that the use of "war" in this context is actually attributing a status to bin Laden ... when all he is, is a SUSPECT. Not the slightest bit of evidence has been brought against this man. He may not be a saint, but then our southern friend Bush will hardly go down in history as a second Ghandi. Blame must always be attributed to someone, anyone... it must, in the public's eyes, become a struggle between 'good' and 'evil', then the war can begin. If there isn't enough to hold against those targeted, then that can quickly be changed: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.htmlI guess if all wage war in the name of God, then all will be together in hell.
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<<I still think that the use of "war" in this context is actually attributing a status to bin Laden>>
Dear Cap,
If you have convinced me of one thing, it is that I don't always understand you. I really couldn't understand, last night, what possible significance you attached to your distinction. In daylight, I see the wisdom of your remark. (As an aside, I would say my last night's response to you more reflects an urgency for the ridiculous; but I have to say, the Talmud of the Absurd has little relish, these days.)
Dear Beliyouth,
Thank you for your diligence. You, too, are right.
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<<I still think that the use of "war" in this context is actually attributing a status to bin Laden>>
Dear Cap,
If you have convinced me of one thing, it is that I don't always understand you. I really couldn't understand, last night, what possible significance you attached to your distinction. In daylight, I see the wisdom of your remark. (As an aside, I would say my last night's response to you more reflects an urgency for the ridiculous; but I have to say, the Talmud of the Absurd holds little relish, these days.)
Dear Beliyouth,
Thank you for your diligence. You, too, are right.
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In today's Guardian Seumas Milne writes: "Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world." Full article link below: [urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,551036,00.html [/url] This is one outspoken Board member's comments: ---------------------------------------------- DoctorSpin - 03:17pm Sep 13, 2001 Awful loss of life, but nothing noteworthy compared to 500,000+ starved Iraqi children, deliberate creation of dictators and wars, trained & funded 'freedom fighters', trained & funded death squads, random missile strikes to get the President's sex life off the evening news, random missile strikes to mark the President's coming into office, Operation Desert The Kurds, blocking medical supplies unless they're exchanged for oil, etc. etc. etc. AIUI, even Taliban / Bin Laden himself got the training/equipment push via the good ol' CIA. All to further US interests - if the people affected don't like it, well they can go and complain to a brick wall. USA continually sides with Israel no matter what they get up to - whom I note took advantage of the media distraction to send more tanks in to expand its lebensraum. The US is also the world's largest arms dealer. (I wonder if they'll determine the knives' origin?) And that's not even touching upon what happens off-camera, nor the cumulative effects of US-manipulated events elsewhere, e.g. Yugoslavia, US-backed IRA. And then there's the economic arena... Those planes were like chickens, coming home to roost. Tasteless I know, but true. In an ideal world, government/military would pause and ask themselves *why* they are despised and referred to as 'the great satan' by almost a third of the planet. Why children danced in the streets when this happened. No prizes for predicting what will probably happen though. Operation TowelHead - The Video Game, fat military checks, flag-waving with near-lynching of any American who doesn't join in, half-cock job to 'preserve US interests in the region', making martyrs to the cause by addressing only the surface symptoms, some more civil liberties stamped on in the name of freedom [racial profiling, encryption backdoors, anyone?]. All that will happen will be the situation gets exacerbated. If they play their cards right, this might even start WWIII - that should help the Dow. And we all know how much they would be concerned if this had happened in some distant unimportant country [e.g. Guyana, Angola, Britian] rather than NYC. Saddam Hussein hit the nail on the head: 'The USA is reaping the thorns of its foreign policy'. He should know - the CIA put him where he is today. http://www.counterpunch.org/ p.s. flamers etc. please note that this is in no way aimed toward the victims of this tradegy, nor is it justifying the attacks. It is Whitehouse policy and attitude that has caused this. On a governmental level, USA is not the shining-city-on-a-hill full of big-hearted boy scouts fighting 'EEEEEEVIIIIILLLL' that it claims to be. It has stirred shit for decades and it's just been splashed. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/
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big job to do1. Shut cabin door 2. Issue mace spray to f/attendants 3. Instigate automated fuel dump process to be triggered by ground control in emergency Is that so difficult? and now a word for our conspiracy theoreticians... “US planned attack on Taleban in July…”http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm
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Rumsfeld, 'the nation must prepare itself for the fight against terrorism'
In light of what Beliyouth and many others have been saying, I suggest that that fight should begin at home.
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by: Doctor Spin has got it all wrong. one of our very own fundamentalists has it all worked out.
In an interview Thursday during religious broadcaster Pat Robertson’s TV program “The 700 Club,” Falwell blamed the devastation on pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People for the American Way.
“All of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ’You helped this happen,’” he said.
[file this under "Nothing is Simple"]
p.s. - Rev. Falwell apologized Monday, saying “In the midst of the shock and mourning of a dark week for America, I made a statement that I should not have made and which I sincerely regret,” He added: “I want to apologize to every American, including those I named.”
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In an interview Thursday during religious broadcaster Pat Robertson’s TV program “The 700 Club,” Falwell blamed the devastation on pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People for the American Way.
“All of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ’You helped this happen,’” he said.
And if Americans want to know the kind of distorted, illogical, venomous fundamentalist thinking that results in America being hated in so many, usually inconsequential and little heard-from parts of the world, well, just step right up and listen to the good Reverend. It's only surprising that he didn't take the opportunity to slip the knife into niggers, kikes, spics and dagos as well. Really, a surprising omission. Imagine including the ACLU and not the Jews. IP, you should feel slighted! Still, it's early days yet, isn't it?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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>it's early days yet.
obviously not too early for finger-pointing.
"Nothing is Simple"
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Belligerentyouth, I have to publicly, not in a p.m., tell you that your posting of that series of diatribes was the most offensive thing I have ever read on this board or anywhere else on the net.
The article by Mr. Milne raises the question, why don't the firefighters and rescue workers think about why this might have happened to the U.S.A. There's a very simple answer to that. They are not like the god damned evil twisted people who committed this crime. They were raised in a country and society which values life and all that it affirms and in a nation which tries, however imperfectly, to promote that and which is founded on that. We do not live in a society which lives by hate, harbors grudges for decades, and which instills hate into its children every day. Our constitution does not call for the annihilation of our neigbors, as the PLO's does (and they want to be a sovereign state). I don't know who Mr. Milne is and don't care to know. He's obviously someone with an anti-American outlook and now takes the opportunity to vent it. Fuck him.
As for the other crap you included (no other word for it), I have never seen such a farrago of suppositions, outright lies, and off-the-wall theorizing. I can't imagine why you thought that worth sharing with us.
Pardon my way of expressing the above. I'm too angry to be polite.
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Bobyounbalt, did you think the article was anti-American? I thought that the writer was simply trying to get Americans to recognize that the hatred which generated the atrocities of last week had not sprung up out of nowhere. You said,
We do not live in a society which. . . harbors grudges for decades
Try telling that to Vietnam and Cuba.
The knowledge that millions of Americans still can't understand why US hegemony, and the means used to achieve it, has generated massive resentment in so many parts of the world means that "those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it." It is possible to despise the hateful, terrible crimes committed while recognizing the validity of some of the complaints made against the US. That was the thought that I took away from reading Mr Milne's article.
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>3. Instigate automated fuel dump process to be triggered by ground control in emergency
mav, that still leaves a bit of a problem for a planeload of people (and where the plane comes down -- it won't always be in the middle of a farmer's field). a far, far better thing would be an auto-pilot controlled landing. and believe me, this technology will be available very soon.
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Sorry, VC, I don't buy it.
Firstly, I don't know how you understand "hegemony", but dictionaries define it as leadership or domination. The U.S. is certainly "guilty" of leadership, but we haven't attained it by force. Actually, I believe most would agree with me that a hegemony generally connotes a forcible domination, like the British Empire, Third Reich, etc. While we have gotten ourselves into questionable campaigns like Vietnam, now almost universally viewed as a huge error, they were temporary and not intended to create a hegemony. In fact, our motives for what we did in Vietnam were to help the other countries in the area avoid being conquered by communist neighbors. You have a short memory or are too young to remember how that affair came about. The same is true of other "crimes" of which we are accused. Why do we support Israel? To create a hegemony over the Palestinians or the other Arabs? It may be partly to protect the sources of oil on which we are so dependent, but we're not the only ones who depend on it. We are perfectly capable of creating a hegemony by force in the Mid East (as demonstrated in the temporary hegemony we put up in the Iraq-Kuwait affair, which was for the purpose of rescuing a small state invaded by an aggressive neighbor), but as soon as the immediate purpose of it had been attained, we quit without even going to Damascus.
As to grudges, we don't really have them. I would think the Marshall Plan was proof of that. We sulked a good while, but we're back to relations with Vietnam and even starting to help them. Cuba is a somewhat different situation which has to do with domestic politics and all those Cuban voters in Florida, but it looks like we're going to resume relations in the not too distant future and most Americans are for that and have been for years.
But all this is really beside the point. You and others seem to be suggesting that resentment of American policies, successes, prosperity, investments in other countries, the spread of our ideas of democracy and equality in places where such notions are tabu, somehow justify what was done and that we deserve it. Why else even bring it up? Aside from the fact that these maniacs killed many other people besides Americans, as they must have known they would given the nature of the WTC. But you are implying that there was some kind of justice in it.
Along with nearly every American, I deeply resent the fact that certain Colombians and Asians are making incredible fortunes manufacturing and supplying dope to the U.S., which has a fearful effect here. No matter that if there weren't a market for it, the problem would vanish. The fact is that there is a market and there are those who are richer than some small countries from the dope trade. These people are the lowest kind of humanity. But according to your logic, not only are they personally guilty, but so are their countries since they are citizens of them, and therefore I have a perfect right to put together a plan to blow up crowded buildings or commit some other outrage like NY to "punish" the Colombians, Burmese, Thais, etc. who are making themselves a scourge to my country in particular and the world in general. Does that admittedly trifling and imperfect analogy suggest how false your position is?
This is my position: If a sneak attack by the armed forces of a state, a la Pearl Harbor, is unjustified whatever the provocation, if any, there is absolutely zero justification for any individual or group of individuals to commit an act which is designed to kill as many people as possible, inflict as much financial loss as possible, destroy symbolic places, and in general disrupt the national wellbeing and confidence. To repeat: SUCH ACTS CAN NOT BE JUSTIFIED. PERIOD. And if you start bringing up what the U.S. may have done (even if true), your only purpose has to be to attempt a justification, or just to take an opportunity for another anti-US diatribe. If the latter, it's despicable to do it now; it's like kicking someone who's already down. And that's why I found BY's post so offensive.
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Actually, I believe most would agree with me that a hege
Sorry, the server died in the middle of this one.
BYB, a hegemony is a specifically non-military influence. The US has a hegemonic influence over most of the Western world for economic reasons related partly to the vigour of its economy and also to its sheer size and leadership.
Nazi Germany had hegemony over Italy until 1943 (they were unequal allies), but for the most part was militarily dominant in the rest of Europe. The British Empire had dominion over Hong Kong and a hegemonic influence over southern China (think tea and opium) and the co-hong.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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ByB writes : He's obviously someone with an anti-American outlook and now takes the opportunity to vent it. Fuck him.
I think the writer of the article expresses strong misgivings about America's foreign policies, but that does not mean he is anti-American - no doubt he has close ties to many Americans.
Just because someone expresses opinions regarding the international and historical situation within which these acts occurred, in order to make some sense of the current position it does not mean that some justification of the crimes has been attempted. Rather than offering some treacle about a 'faceless coward' as if these attacks occurred within some vacuum, one should try to forge positive steps (i.e. not military action) which can be taken to alleviate the hopeless disparities at present.
I don't think I live in the same world in which the perpetrator's supportors live, but I can *try to understand what they *might feel like - that's not wrong, Bob.
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i have keep out of this, but...
yes, US (american ) culture can be pervasive.. but the fact remains, if a religious person want to dress modestly, they can and do, with out any one saying boo! there are lots of religious jews and muslims, who walk through the street of ny, covered from ankle to to wrist, with there head covered. there religious communities that are cloistered, or semi-cloistered.
hey, you want to live that way, its okay by us.. there are families, (like my son's) that think TV is a bad influence, and don't have one. no one forces the culture down your throat. yeah, its there, and its out in the open, but you are free to accept or reject --or to accept as much as you want or as little as you want.
this country was started by religious fundimentalist who didn't want these kinds of freedoms, but, hey we moved on.
America has the highest percentage of the population going to church, and huge amounts of money go to religious organizations-- but no one is force to church, no one is forced to "piety" no one is forced to give money to religious organizations. if that is threatening.. if that is what earns use the title of the great satan, then there is very little we can do.
of all of the western world, we are the most free, and the most religious. freedom does not destroy religion.
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Last night BBC had story that US had a military unit in Tajikistan with plan to capture bin Laden, but it was cancelled because estimate of casualties was too high. The force is apparently still there. Maybe this is what Bush is talking about. I haven't been able to find anything about it in US news. Has anyone else heard anything in US news?
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Yes, I put a link to what seems part of that story up earlier in this thread yesterday.
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I have been meaning to put something together on this topic, but have so far not found enough coherence of thought. I would like, however, to suggest a hypothesis.
It is possible that, as an organizing social principle, religion played a role in last weeks crimes. I do not, however, believe that religion lies at the root of those crimes. It is at best a pretext for attitudes and behaviors whose root causes are not subject to such simple categorization. Raw power must be considered at a fundamental level, and its correlative powerlessness. On a metaphysical level--do not reject the notion of the metaphysical on account of the term--the will to destruct is probably deeply bound to the will to create. Inhumanity is bound fast to humanity at the level of humanity's very possibility of existence. Destruction cannot disaffirm humanity. According to this hypothesis, humanity is indivisible. But, of course, I recognize in the last two sentences a flash of idealism.
(The three monotheistic religions remind me of the wives of a single husband, where each vies with the other for an exclusive legitimacy. I may have mentioned in an earlier post that the Yiddish word 'tsoris' --travail-- is the Talmudic word for multiple brides. Without hoping to give further offense where none was ever intended, I will say one must pity this God for his squabbling brides, who finds his emblem on the battle flags of opposing armies.)
That's a smattering.
I'll try to work out the hypothesis.
IP
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In reply to:
Actually, I believe most would agree with me that a hege
Sorry, the server died in the middle of this one.
And I spent hours trying to work something out about reaping, sowing, and hedges and trying to imagine what the point might be. 
Bingley
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<I'm thinking of converting
Yes. And as I understand it, a beauty of Bhuddism is you don't need to convert. You need only be, or not. To convert--if I may inject a paradox of language, not of practice--would be antithetical to its spirit. At the level of religion, it seems to me, *a grave trouble is the emphasis on renouncing.
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mav, that still leaves a bit of a problem for a planeload of people ...../.... a far, far better thing would be an auto-pilot controlled landing. and believe me, this technology will be available very soon.
Indeed®, on all points tsuwm - I believe this is practicable now, just not deemed advisable for the public's feeling of security ("look, mom - no hands!") My point about fuel dump is that the mere existence of that would render such hijacks improbable, since the deterrent effect of knowing their lunacy would fail should cut out 99% of the chances.
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Who are the People for the American Way? Is it a real organization or something like the mythical new world order that so many people are convinced is coming to take away our national sovereignty?
Falwell shot himself in the foot with that one! Too bad it wasn't in his mouth at the time.
TEd
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Who are the People for the American Way?I'll let them speak for themselves: http://www.pfaw.org/
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just a TAD left of center :)
TEd
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a TAD left of center
Yeah, well, waddya expect from a bunch a people supporting a country that gots its start from a bunch a revolutionaries.
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just a TAD left of center :)Only if you accept a *static center! 
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I was going to suggest the Sri Lankan group Tea Workers As Terrorists, but the abbreviation would probably get me in trouble.
A now retired flight attendant on a now retired airline:
"Sir, you would like some TWA coffee, some TWA milk, or perhaps some TWA Tea?"
TEd
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To some of us, even the American extreme left looks to be somewhat to the right of Ghengiz Khan!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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CapK, you should have included a pass through the People's Republic of Berkeley, CA on your travels through the US. We can offer left-wing loonies (and this from a very liberal tree frog) to do even your globe-trotting heart proud.
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I just saw my second report in this Chicago area (doubtless I have missed others) of a hate crime involving Arabs. But it was not what I expected. The perpetrators were yelling the following, to a mother and son in the adjacent SUV: "Arabia will rule the world." "F___ Americans, we are going to kill you and your whole country."http://www.suntimes.com/output/terror/cst-nws-arrest19.html
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May I be so bold as to declare a short break in this most vigorous thread (I think we could use a short break) and insert for your perusal this poem apropos to IP's thoughtful discussion?
Show me deare Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear.
What! is it She, which on the other shore
Goes richly painted? or which robb'd and tore
Laments and mourns in Germany and here?
Sleepes she a thousand, then peepes up one yeare?
Is she selfe truth and errs? now new, now outwore?
Doth she, and did she, and shall she evermore
On one, on seaven, or on no hill appeare?
Dwells she with us, or like adventuring knights
First travaile we to seeke and then make Love?
Betray kind husband thy spouse to our sights,
And let myne amorous soule court thy mild Dove,
Who is most trew, and pleasing to thee, then
When she'is embrac'd and open to most men.
-- John Donne
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This is a great thread but unmanageably large. Would one of you old masters do what it takes to break it up?
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Froggie, I meant that the "left-wing" political party - theoretically the Democrats - would be regarded, in its entirety, as ultra-conservative in Zild. - Ratty.*
*Froggie of Toad Hall? Doesn't really sound right, does it?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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auto-pilot controlled landings ... I believe this is practicable now, just not deemed advisable for the public's feeling of security
many landings are on auto-pilot as I understand it, they just don't talk about it much. Certainly the old Trident airplanes (circa 20 years ago?) were the only ones able to land in fog at London, precisely because it was automatic. There is a story that the program had to be changed because it landed too flat, pefectly safe but the customers felt safer with the nose high.
From google - I just had to check my memory:
first fully automated commercial landing was made by a BEA Trident 1 in May 1967
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And just how far right *was Ghengiz Khan?
As far as I know he could have been the front man for an anarcho-syndicalist collective.
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>For your crime of punning, telling of shaggy dog tales and humour of dubious origins I hereby fine you, one cup of tea (hot, no iced stuff), to be brewed by you and presented by you to me in fine bone china the next time I set am within a fifty mile radius of you on US soil.
Bone again, Christian??
Tisane-yone going to defend me here? It's been (t)oolong since I've had such an invitation. You get together the green and we'll have tea together. Assam, my friend in England, told me recently Herb'll want to come along, even if the price be steep.
All seriousness aside, I would love the opportunity to pay my fine.
TdE
TEd
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The problem is I don't know if we command enough respect in the eyes of these beasts to react with
authority anymore. We have been proven vulnerable too many times. I believe the roots of this all started
1. When the Carter Administration flinched on attacking when Iran took our hostages in '79. Yes, the lives
of those 50 government workers could have been lost in such an attack and hindsight is 20/20, but they
knew the risks involved in accepting a government job overseas, and we should've gone right in after
them. The aborted rescue mission later was just an incidental after-fact. That's when our respect in the
world starting slipping. And 2. In 1983 when we lost 283 Marines in Beirut (figure may be slightly off) the
Reagan Administration knew they could do nothing, and did nothing except to divert a gullible public's
attention by going into the pismire island-country of Granada to satisfy their need to strike out at
"something." But, ultimately, those (or the country/countries) responsible were never brought to justice
either by litigation or military response.
Besides, Reagan and his cronies (including Bush, Sr.) were too busy covering their tracks of dealing arms
to Iran as a gift for holding the hostages until he was assured of ascending to power...as soon as he
lifted his hand from the Bible at his 1st inauguration, presto!...instant hostage release! But that's another
story.
After these two events it was open season on Americans, and then their Western allies as well...solitary
hostages, plane blasts, European airports, etc. Once they found out they could strike at the US and get
away with it, there was no turning back.
And once a fanatic fuses politics with religion and is ready to die for their "cause," how do you stop
them? I don't know if you can. Though squeamish about capital punishment, I've often said that after the
first World trade Center bombing which I considered to be an act of war designed to destroy the towers
and kill tens of thousands of innocent people, that the perps, immediately upon conviction, should've
been marched against a wall on camera and executed by firing squad. Show them we will not fool around.
But, of course, our sense of justice bequeathed these genoicidal maniacs to life terms in humane
prisons...sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Unless they're in solitary for protection. If so I hope they immediately
release these subhuman assholes to the general inmate population which I'm sure would be delighted to
mete out thorough justice to them at this point. Yes, I believe in mercy and forgiveness, but there is a
point where you have to draw a line in the sand, and I've reached it. The stakes are now clear...if you're
an American, you die. Remember that cynical and insulting release of black hostages all through the '80's,
as if African-Americans were going to fall for that ploy of differentiation. Well, the terrorists took care of
that fable when they bombed the US embassies in Africa. But the problem is, it isn't just
Americans...these genoical maniacs who think they speak for their Muslin God...they don't. And certanly
not for the vast majority of the Muslin faithful, it really is a religion of peace, so I really fail to understand
this constant slaughter of the innocent in the name of their God) are trying to take on the entire
world...us, Russia, the Hindus in India, all of Western Europe, their own secular governments,
everybody...it's just craziness! And the real problem is that if you convict and execute any of thes
culprits they're very happy to be martyred for their cause, thank you, and are hailed and viewed as
such...what's the point of killing people who are perfectly willing and happy to die? So where's the
answer, people? I pray to see it...but I just don't know. And we can't afford to go out, now, and blast
away at dubious targets like that grain factory in Sudan, or strike areas that will kill any innocent
civilians.
(Saddan Hussein...who I think is very culpable in this attack...but his name is not mentioned enough...this
IS after all, the one and the same Bush administration he went to war with in '91, why wouldn't he take
another shot at it? But maybe the Bushes don't want anybody to consider this?...anyway, Saddam is still
sitting pretty in his royal palace, thank you, while 100,000 or so of his countrymen have died around him
as th result (directly or indirectly) of the Gulf War, including an estimated 40,000 children...which shows
and proves you have to kill the head, not just the body, or it doesn't go away). Violate the international
law of political assassination instead of all these "collateral" innocent lives, or, ultimately, what we're
witnessing today? YOU BET!! GO FOR IT!!! We have the technology and trained covert forces to get it
done! Any proven mass-murdered or war criminal...Saddam, Bin Laden, etc. I don't think we have a
choice. Not any more. But, ultimately, too, the sad reality is, that as long as there are people willing to
die in suicide missions, what can the world do? And,what, for God's sake, do these people WANT??? How
did it come to all this?
Thank you for your unsavoury, narrow-minded and bigoted ranting, Whitman.
I hope they do capture the culprits and, if they do sentence them to the firing squad, I hope you are the executioner. I'd like to see the look on your face as you face them with a loaded gun in your hand. Will you smile and enjoy killing as much as they have? Will you do it cold-heartedly? Or will you lose your bottle and admit that you just can't kill?
What kind of person are you? You call these terrorists monsters and yet you bay for blood? I feel sorry for you and all your like-minded sicko types.
You have such a poor understanding of world events and I find your knowledge on other races and civilisations (which are far more civilised than your own, by the way) absolutely appalling.
It's dangerous idiots like you who stir up hatred and bigotry in this world. You definitely should be classed in there with the [deleted] set.
Note: This post was written, like all the others in this thread, in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and elsewhere. As is the case with any 'debate' on such a historic occasion as that, things are said out of context and with great emotion that would not normally be said in times of rationale.
I have apologised to Whitman for the above post which was written with spite and venom which are really not characteristic of me. Bar one word I have decided not to amend the post and to leave the rest of it in its entirety as a reminder to other members, both future and present, of a very intense and heated time on the board.
Let's hope that peace can prevail in the world and on the board and that such a dark event will never be repeated again
Rubrick 01/02/2002
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Dear Heart--
A LOT of people say, and write, things in the heat of passion that they might say and write differently, at other times. Just a reminder, Sweetie, kind of coming full circle, you might say. Love.
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Time to start anew.
Another thread being opened by moi as this is getting unmanageable.
With affectionate aloha to you all,
wow
High Priestess
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PLEASE STOP THIS THREAD.
PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING ELSE TO THIS THREAD. I AM ASKING YOU AS A FRIEND. I AM ASKING YOU AS A HUMAN BEING. AND I'M ASKING EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK YOU.
PLEASE DO NOT CONTINUE WITH THESE THREADS AND THIS TOPIC.
The name-calling, the denigrating of people without thought and without care; we have become no better than the chat rooms we all so avidly avoid.
When you demean one person you are demeaning yourself. Look over your own posts and think about it in all honesty. Are your words the words of tolerance, peace and honesty, our are they reactionary at best and harsh, angry and close-minded and mean at worst. How much better is one person who demeans a second person for his thoughts or beliefs?
If you're ticked-off that I'm asking you this send me a personal note…rant at me if you must rant – but do it in private.
But please, think of how you are acting and ask yourself if you would treat your mother that way. If you would not, why would you treat an other human that way.
There is a world of difference between political debate and intolerant and antagonistic ranting. We've crossed the line.
IF WE WANT TO GET BACK TO IT, WE'LL GET BACK TO IT WHEN SENTIMENTS ARE LESS AT THE BRINK.
PLEASE, PLEASE STOP ALL THESE THREADS.
With all my heart,
Ginette Beaupré
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Pooh-Bah
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The RE above, which I have changed from jmh's, expresses my sentiments.
May I respectfully suggest that it is unwise to resurrect here a discussion which in the past has proved incendiary and divisive? and is wiser to have any such discussion elsewhere, so that this AWAD Board can continue to fill its regular role in our lives?
To the extent some may wish to resurrect that discussion, they can (out of consideration for those of us who feel otherwise) freely to create a new website of their own for that subject. Or if that is not possible, place their posts on the matter in some little-used area in the bottom half of the main index? For which purpose I would propose "Loanwords from German".
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