Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 13:03:22 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: jason <kib@mediaone.net> Cc: Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, Stephen Hurd <deuce@lordlegacy.org>, Technical Information <tech_info@threespace.com>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <3BAE400A.9BD2F357@mindspring.com> References: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAGEDNCEAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org> <3BAC3644.1CB0C626@mindspring.com> <xzp66abb7pz.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <3BAD1FAE.2F3D40F5@mindspring.com> <20010923011557.B60374@jake.akitanet.co.uk> <015e01c143c8$c93505a0$89941bd8@speakeasy.net>
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jason wrote: > > > Yes, Iraq is a state that is known to sponsor terrorism. > > > > So is the USA - god knows how many operations the CIA have backed, > > involving everything from drug smuggling through to terrorism. In > > fact, they gave Laden his weaponary and training in the first > > place. As I've stated It is illegal for the C.I.A. to do most of these things these days. It takes an act of Congress to authorize an assasination, and we are not permitted to use "unsavory characters" as field assets. People who paranoidly complain that every little thing that doesn't go their way is the result of C.I.A. intervention really don't know what's going on or not. The U.S. is much more likely to stage something like Grenada or Nicaragua these days, than to do something covert. > Why would we support Bin Laden when he has hated the US for > some many years? When the Soviet Union was intact, and they were invading Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was one of the leaders of the resistance (following being disowned by his family in Saudi Arabia, and his exile from that country -- he is a Saudi Arabian citizen, not an Afghani citizen). The U.S. supplied arms to these resistance groups in order to oppose the spread of Communism (the same reason that the U.S. involved itself in Vietnam, after the situation there fell apart on the French colonial failure). Among these arms were shoulder launched surface to air Stinger missles, which were used to attack Soviet Hind Helicopters. > We did support Suddam at one point only because or Iran. I can't recall any > one time where the US had any interest in training or helping Bin Laden's > group. > Name one. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. > > elsewhere, certain portions of the US population don't seem to have a > > problem with the IRA either. > > The IRA as far as I know didn't knowck over any US buildings. Although UK > has to deal with that sort of thing the same way we deal with out own > internal terrorist. I think we all remember Okalahoma City. Yes. The IRA is not an apt analogy to the group which attacked the U.S. in this case. > > Even Bush isn't stupid enough to piss off the EU countries, > > the UN security council and NATO. Frankly, direct military action against the U.S. would not be fruitful. Similarly, and embargo against the U.S. would starve many countries, and so is similarly, not fruitful. > > > Bombing is _nothing_ compared to the other extreme options > > > available. > > > > See above. Bush knows, and more importantly his advisors know that if gets > > to that point, he has a problem with the whole of the UN. The US might be > > big, but it's not big enough to avoid getting into the shit. > > Unless we plan to take on the rest of the world I think the US would be best > adviced to not consider those other "extreme options available". This will > probably be handled in a more conventional mannor or warfare. If this goes to a 10 year war, the information we have obtained from the human genome project could offer a tempting solution; one would hope that we could resist the expediency, but, of course, the option now exists. This is a minor aspect of what I hinted at when I pointed out that we have more than half a century of technological improvement since the atomic bomb, and that there are other extreme options available. Realize that if it comes down to the continued existance of our democracy, the U.S. will use all means at its disposal. I'm really surprised that people have not learned this from the lessons of the cold war, where the only thing that prevented an active conflict was the doctorine of Mutual Assured Destruction. During the cold war, both sides were willing to take the entire planet with them, rather than yield to their enemy. > > > You have a lot of terrorists claiming credit before the act > > > over there, do you? It would seem to me with that information, > > > you should be able to prevent the acts. > > Some terrorists have announced attacks before but most wait until after. It > depends on the demands of the terrorists and the target of the attack. The > US has attacked without warning and with warning. Compare Iraq bombing > (before ground war) and the bombing of Libya. The presence of forewarning > has nothing to do with it being a terrorist attack or a retaliation. The U.S. warned in both cases. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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