Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 17:41:27 -0400 From: Technical Information <tech_info@threespace.com> To: FreeBSD Chat <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010921173959.02994178@threespace.com>
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I sent a few messages to FreeBSD Chat on this topic last week and just got them bounced back to me. (I know not why.) I felt passionately about this one in particular, so I decided to resend it. Sorry if it is no longer relevant to current discussions. --Chip Morton At 08:41 PM 9/15/2001, Piet Delport wrote: >[ disclaimer: I'm a South African with no official training in ] >[ socio-politics, aside from what i glean from observation, and ] >[ reading the occasional book and/or other piece of literature. ] >[ So this is mainly an armchair opinion. ] Believe me, after a tragedy of the magnitude that occurred on Tuesday, we're all armchair politicians or generals or analysts or whatever. I have yet to meet the person that has no opinions on the events, so you're certainly no less entitled to your own. >On Sat, 15 Sep 2001 at 04:34:14 -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: > > I'm certain that, had the Germans pointed out a more direct route to > > defeating them, including precisely the targets to concentrate on in > > order to make them lose, the Allies would have been very happy to undo > > the one bolt that held everything together, instead of maniacally > > blasting away with a shotgun. > >So, to paraphrase, it was Germany's fault that the Allies carpet-bombed >their cities, because Germany didn't conveniently point out to their >enemies where all their most important military targets are instead? > >Expecting the country you're at war with to conveniently reveal all >their key military weak spots to you is absurd, and taking the fact that >they (obviously) didn't do so and using it as a moral excuse to carpet >bomb their cities and civilians is just as absurd. I think you missed the point (or at least the sarcasm). If you go and pick a fight with someone that you can't defeat, anyone, you can't expect them to conveniently stop beating on you once you're ready to submit. More likely, their going to beat you until THEY are satisfied that you've been beaten to the point that you've learned your lesson. In the case of WWII, that meant dealing out an ignominious and undeniable defeat to ensure that the threat was eliminated and not just temporarily set back. >The fact is that thousands of civilians died in those bombings, and >while war in general is a Bad Thing, i think the mass-killing of >civilians like that is one of the worst examples of it. > >Whether it's the Allies, the Germans, or even Bin Laden's terrorists >that do the said killing doesn't make it any less wrong. Killing civilians is a terrible thing to do, but if Country A kills the civilians of Country B, then I would think Country B were within it's rights to inflict similar damage/pain upon Country A. An unprovoked attack is one thing, but retribution is an effective form of defense. >[ snipped because the U.S. is not going to abandon its most potent >defensive weapon, regardless of public opinion ] > >Guilt over the past use of nuclear weapons and irrational fear of >civilian nuclear reactors are two entirely separate things. I doubt >*anyone* paying that fee to support the de-commissioning of existing >reactors are thinking about Hiroshima/Nagasaki when they do so. > >Instead, are there any public memorials dedicated to the tragedy, any >public days of mourning, or anything like that which would indicate real >guilt? (This is an honest question, i really haven't the faintest >idea.) Actually there are memorials and remembrances on the dates of the bombings of those two cities. The U.S. government has not only apologized officially to the Japanese government, they've also made formal apology for the detainment of Japanese Americans during the war. And I'll also point you to the fact that our trading stance with Japan over the past twenty-five years has been *extremely* friendly and always in favor of Japan. The fact that Japan now boasts one of the world's strongest economies is not coincidence. I'm not saying that America deserves credit for that, but it certainly is one of the principal factors. > > PS: How profound do you think is the guilt of the perpetrators of the > > September 11th atrocity?. > >Even less than the guilt of Joe Average American over America's own >atrocities, i imagine. I've been hearing a lot of statements like this that seem tossed out for no other reason that to point out that America has made military mistakes in the past. And to be blunt, it makes me bristle. To mention America's past mistakes in this context as if they're some sort of justification for anyone to commit these atrocities is utterly classless and a clear demonstration to me that you don't fully understand the magnitude of what happened. Too many people around the world have expressed support for the U.S. position on this event for me to believe that we're all wrong. --Chip Morton To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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