Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 16:21:42 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Paul Richards <paul@freebsd-services.com> Cc: Stephen Hurd <deuce@lordlegacy.org>, Technical Information <tech_info@threespace.com>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Helping victims of terror Message-ID: <3BAD1D06.6E56344F@mindspring.com> References: <NFBBJPHLGLNJEEECOCHAGEDNCEAA.deuce@lordlegacy.org> <3BAC3644.1CB0C626@mindspring.com> <948140000.1001159802@lobster.originative.co.uk>
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Paul Richards wrote:
[ ... destruction of Buddist statues as a part of revisionism in
Afghanistan ... ]
> You are showing a prejudice against a
> people that you do not have respect for because of their beliefs and
> actions. In your mind that makes it acceptable to carry out actions that
> you would find abhorrent if carried out against a nation you did respect.
Incorrect; I am only attempting to demonstrate a pattern of
a profound lack of respect for others.
In the U.S., we tend to have people who have been trained to
believe that all opinions have equal validity, and thus we
tend to extend the belief in such a belief to others; just as
a child might personify a teddy bear, U.S. citizens trained
in the throes of political correctness have a tendency to
"Americanize" their view of others, and thus accept zealots
as being "just people with different points of view", rather
than perceiving the dangers which lie in such intolerance.
> Harbouring terrorists is the other main issue. The Irish govt. had
> terrorists based within its borders for the whole time of the conflicts
> there (and it's not completely resolved yet). What the US is planning with
> respect to Afghanistan is akin to the UK waging war against Ireland for
> harbouring terrorists that were bombing London.
Technically, the U.K. is harboring those same terrorists;
this is a different issue than the U.S. "harboring" Kazinsky,
for example, given the basis for governance.
> This is not a war; a small number of individuals have committed a heinous
> crime and they should be tracked down and brought to justice. That is a far
> cry from invading a foreign power for not doing as they're told.
You are wrong. This is a war. It is much more a war than
the so-called "war on drugs", and it is much more a war than
"the Gulf War", or, come to that, the Vietnam or Korean wars.
Not since the civil war have there been such casualties on U.S.
soil. Unlike those others, this war has near unanimous support
of the U.S. citizenry.
> From Afghanistan's perspective, they are not attempting to hide Bin Laden,
> they've made a diplomatically astute statement, that clearly shows, at
> least in my mind, that they do not want to fight this battle and that if
> the US wants him they can have him. However, the Taliban would be
> committing political suicide to do the US' dirty work. The social
> environment in that part of the world is such that most of the population
> hates the US and would rise up and overthrow a regime that supported it.
> This is a real danger for the Pakistan govt. who are seeing large
> demonstrations on its streets already.
The demonstrations in Pakistan are a relatively small percentage
of their population. There is some indication that they are
being intentionally incited. I really no more believe the
Pakistani demonstrations than I believe the file footage of the
Christmas celebrations in a number of countries represented an
anti-US celebration of the terrorist acts in Washington, New York,
and Pennsylvania.
> > They "publically expressed outrage"? Was this before or after
> > they stated that a religious court should judge him, and we
> > should accept the outcome, if the activist zealots of the same
> > stripe as Osama bin Laden found in his favor?
>
> Umm, the last statement I heard was that they would not hand him over, but
> requested that he leave their territory. That's not showing support for
> him, that's turning their back on him, but that's as strong a statement as
> they can make publically given their own internal political situation. They
> did publically express outrage in fact; the very first public statement
> they made was to express sympathy for the US.
I agree that they are between a rock and a hard place. But
that doesn't mean that they will be cut sufficient slack that
bin Laden is not going to held accountable for his actions.
> > This is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. The U.S.
> > is in no way acting as terrorists: terrorists bomb first, and
> > claim credit afterwards -- assuming that they don't say to
> > themselves "Oh shit... I've stepped in it this time...".
>
> The IRA generally issued warnings before bombings so that casualties were
> minimised. Though they still killed plenty of innocent people it could have
> been a lot higher.
The main difference here is that the U.S. demands are coming
from a duly constituted government of a nation which has had
non-combatant civilians attacked and killed, en masse.
A closer approximation would be the Nigerian embassy bombing
several years ago (also a U.S. embassy, and also a terrorist
attack), which resulted in the deaths of ~5,000 Nigerian citizens.
> The US approach isn't that different and the IRA would definitely be
> considered to be terrorists. While on the subject of the IRA, a lot
> of the finance came from the US, so if you accept the current US
> thinking then the UK should have invaded the US for aiding and
> abetting the IRA over all those years.
A lot of financing for _everything_ comes from the U.S.,
including the financing for Palestinian activities on the West
Bank. Any rich nation is in the same boat.
> The US, until Clinton got involved, turned a blind eye to the
> Irish situation because a lot of US Irish were sympathisers.
> That was apparently an "acceptable" struggle being waged.
If the U.S. is to be held responsible for the foreign policies
of Bill Clinton, then we might as well throw in the towel now.
> Terrorism is not some black or white issue. It's a manifestation of
> underlying politics. It's hypocritical of the US to wage war on terrorism
> at this point given that it has participated and supported it in the past,
> as long as it wasn't on their doorstep.
On the contrary: dead terrorists do not commit terrorist acts.
> Did the US express outrage and decide to wage a war on terrorism when the
> IRA blew up the hotel that the UK govt were staying in at the time, or when
> they killed a member of our royal family, or when they carried out a mortar
> attack on the MI5 HQ?
I don't know. I rather suspect that, unless you are talking
about the Clinton administration, that the answer is "yes".
> Did the UK decide to wage war on innocent countries when faced with
> such provocation?
You mean like Ireland, for harboring the IRA? That would be a
"yes".
> There needs to be a reasoned response to this attack, and declaring war on
> countries because some of their residents are suspected of being involved
> is not a reasonable response. It's more a symptom of the foreign policy the
> US has had for many years which led to the terrorist attack in the first
> place. i.e. do what we want or we will send the boys around.
What if the residents are provably involved, and the country is
unwilling to permit extradition?
> Incidentally, the support in the west for US action is flimsy. The EU was
> very guarded in it's support yesterday. While the UK may be gung ho about
> supporting the US that is not reflected across the whole of Europe. No-one
> is going to stand up and not support US action, but there's growing feeling
> that the US will not be given open-ended support to do whatever it wishes.
I think the U.S. will do what it has to do, what it has been
forced into the position of being required to do, the actions
which are now necessary.
The U.S. has generally kept its gloves on, with regard to
trying to be "the nice guy", and be everyones friend.
> There are many countries on the fringes of the EU that will be very worried
> about US retaliation, countries like Turkey for example.
In other words, Moslem countries.
This is not a vendetta against Moslems, even though bin Laden
would love to paint it that way, just as Saddam Hussein attempted
to pain the Gulf War, with regard to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait:
"Oh, help us brother Moslems against The GReat Satan, and by the
way, ignore the fact that we just invaded another Moslem country
ourselves... K PLZ THX". The vendetta is against terrorism, and
I doubt that it will end with bin Laden -- nor should a peaceful
world tolerate such people.
-- Terry
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