Do you honestly think the wealth given back to the oil-producing countries is spread across the population more or less equally? Like the wealth generated here in the United States, most of it stays up at the top with a tiny minority of society. Incredible personal riches exist side by side with abject, grinding poverty in places like Saudi Arabia just as much as it does here at home. People like you and I aren’t holding the citizens of other countries back. The logic of a system that puts profit before all else is.
We’re going to have to acknowledge an irreconcilable disagreement on this point, then.
Well, you’re wrong there. There is no point at which I’m going to say “Now that you understand why they did it, don’t you feel sorry for them?” What I’m trying to say is “This is where I believe this situation has its origins, and thus it is why I believe going to war is a horrible mistake.”
I do indeed. It appears that I’m not entirely alone in this sentiment, either.
My money’s on them being royally pissed off. Certainly not contrite.
They may not be completely what motivates the human animal but they certainly have bearing and influence in many of the situations in which we humans find ourselves as a global society. Including this one.
Sorry, I’m a bit confused. If we are willing to murder many millions of people over our loss of 5000, then what is it about our culture that should be preserved?
Nazi Germany and Japan both killed far more of our people than this Tuesday’s attack did. Would you say that we should have exterminated the populations of those countries? If not, why are they different?
Sigh. You’re serious. It’s too late, this tragedy is the first shot in a war. Do you really, truly, believe that terrorism will stop if we “turn the other cheek”? It didn’t stop after the original WTC bombing, it didn’t stop after the embassies in Africa, it didn’t stop after the USS Cole, and it will not stop now. Your solution is akin to
recommending a domestic abuse victim to stay with a batterer or a rape victim to “just lay there and enjoy it” and not report it.
Sleep safe, knowing that your fellow Americans are fighting and dying for the freedoms you take for granted.
Olentzero, I am glad our debate has settled down a bit again. More my responsibility that it ever escalated, of course, but none-the-less.
Whoa, I honestly think that wealth cannot be spread equally, but it can certainly be spread, and people there certianly do not have to starve or live in poverty.
Don’t I know it. But our lives, Olen, are almost infinitely more rich than most in the Middle East even for that. As I said, even with a moderately to highly corrupt government these people can have decent lives.
Profit is before all else, it is the design of the human animal. We are not satisfied with strict survival. How that profit takes its form is a matter of politics. People like you and me, even on totally opposite sides of the political spectrum (as far as the west goes), are not to blame for this. My perspective tels me no one is to blame for this: we are designed to compete, to wage war, to commit atrocities. Our languages and our sciences can provide a method of explaining our justification, but our sciences and our languages did not create the justification.
Is war and strife and competition the only way to realize profit (however we define it)? Of course not. But everyone must agree that war and competition are no longer necessary. You and I can agree to that; can a terrorist? Can someone who will throw their own life away to promote a religious state? Of course not; that’s silly. There is much we can do besides throwing bombs at people; we should do those actions as well. WE should demand free press, free speech. We should wage psychological warfare (which, to me, would involve simpy throwing reprinted works of nihilist philosophers into the public’s eye ;)). We should do everything in our power to drive those in power to the peace table.
But that often, if history be any guide, involves unwavering resolve to wage war until both sides agree that war is not a solution. You can extend your right hand and throw a grenade with the other, and that grenade can be real or metaphoric. The communist Manifesto goes some way to outline a metaphoric grenade. The so-called Unabomber Manifesto does similar. It eplains there are many ways to achieve an end; the author(s) dictate that their choice was warfare, but the readers’ need not be.
Probably. Though I retain a rather materialist perspective, I’m afraid its focus has shifted considerably over the last few years.
War is the language of biology. We would like to think that with our brains we can rise above biology. As an anarchist, I would tend to agree. Each individual can. But if they don’t, what then?
We are not seeking, that I notice, to remove these governments from power. If power is their motivation, then the choice between an American attack and rooting out terrorism in their own country is rather simple. I think Pakistan’s change of view in this matter is indicative of that.
I still disagree. Here is a thread wherein we may tackle that perspective, however.
I completely agree. There will be much more fine tuning required to those points and additional regulations need to be addressed.
Olent, I am in complete agreement with you on almost all your points. But I think Oceans and Eris may be right in their sentiment regarding retaliation. Even if it serves as nothing more than posturing, I think it is inevitable.
Hopefully it only needs to be “posturing.” Remember, our biggest enemy here is the governments that can hide these criminals. Without their support of terrorism our task will be much easier. This isn’t a walking-on-eggshells situation as Pakistan’s support shows.
Honestly, I think a strong military presence and a demand for free press in the area will go a long way, and then the military can do its job in tracking these people down and little “innocent” life will be lost.
Even if a government actively supported these styles of attack before, they are a hot-potato now. Really, if anyone knows the force we can muster without public support it is the middle east. And now we have a whole heaping helping of public support.
So, is it posturing? Only in hindsight. We may not need explicit force against governments to get this job done. But it is going to be there in waiting, and they will be ready to act should the need arise.
I can only hope posturing is all it will be, but it is highly doubtful that this is the case. The Taliban has already pledged that it will resist. Hussien is certainly not going to be cooperative. If those are the only ones who resist then that will be a damn good thing, but you can never tell how the chips will fall until you deal the cards.
Olentzero, I can’t believe your brazen brass balls to come on and claim that our interference is responsible for this. Sure we mess around with other countries. Every single country on earth messes around with other countries. We just do it more than anybody else, because we can.
I believe the historical record is sufficient to show that Capitalism works, Socialism doesn’t. There aren’t going to be any changes imposed from below, because “poor” and “oppressed” as they are, the average US citizen has it much better off than any of the worker’s paradises, and they actually know it. Just by existing, we’re a threat to the anti-intellectual theocratic regimes. Either we go, or they go. I’d prefer it to be them.
I’ve mentioned Latin America before, and somebody else did in this thread. The Monroe Doctrine was expressed in 1823. That’s 178 years of meddling in Latin America. Around 40 years of economic warfare against Cuba. The middle east haven’t suffered nearly anything on the scale that they have, and there aren’t any Guatemalen or Cuban suicide bombers showing up here.
I hate to add to the hijack that’s taken over this thread, but I’ve got to point a few things out that haven’t been mentioned as of yet.
Yes, the US has meddled into the affairs of countries when we probably shouldn’t have. We’ve supported dictators and murderers, we’ve booted out legitimately elected leaders and replaced them with our puppets, we’ve even slaughtered our own people for inexplicable reasons at times, but we have never advocated genocide on the scale which it has been practiced by other nations.
At the end of the World Wars, we did not slaughter the entire nations of the opposing powers. No, we helped rebuild those nations and in general left the vast majority of their populations alone.
We have been the strongest nation on Earth since the end of World War Two, and no matter how stupid and arrogant we’ve been, we haven’t used that power to erase our enemies from the Earth. That is why the other nations are rallying around our flag and mourning our dead as much as they mourn their own, because they know that we may be a devil, but we’re nowhere near the devil others have been.
Well, it’s no surprise that those two responded they way they did, is it? One’s probably a bit surprised to find themselves in such deep water, and the other one… well, that feud goes back a bit. I’m pretty sure the Taliban is trying to seem like they’d stand up to the US right now. They’ll more than likely change their “strong stance” once the military shows up.
And like you said, this issue has become a hot potato. I doubt there’s going to be any more resistance than the ones that have already mentioned it.
Which is good, cause as you also mentioned, this only helps prevent any other innocent lives being lost.
Pinochet, Duvalier, and the “freedom fighters” the US supported in Central America are no less terrorists for only having done it against the local population and not having visited destruction against the United States.
Plus, the “economic warfare” against Cuba has been just that - economic. The US has blockaded it with ships and told people they can’t travel there, but they haven’t bombed the place or sent armies against it (except for that one time, which turned out to be an object lesson). If the United States had conducted an ongoing military campaign against Cuba, I’m quite sure there would have been some sort of Cuban terrorist actions on US soil by now.
The economic blocade of Cuba is a tyranny pure and simple, not only against the Cuban people, but against peaceful honest people right here who might wish to trade with Cubans. Once in a while, you and I manage to find common ground.
sigh I’ve already lost my cool once in this thread, and I’m not going to allow myself to do it again.
Your analogy is highly offensive on a number of levels, including a personal one. I don’t want to get too much into it except to say I grew up in a household where domestic abuse of several types was a common and regular feature. I know what a victim is, and I know even victims entertain thoughts of striking back in a seriously violent manner.
Having said that… Ordinary working American citizens were the victims of a brutal attack on Wednesday. But the United States is not and has not been “The Victim” for a long while. It has muscled its way around the Middle East for four decades now at least, and pulled whatever strings it felt it needed to to ensure the companies who invested in the region’s oil got the profits they wanted. This was done at the expense of the local populations, and that situation became the seedbed for the logic of terrorism.
Not that I think terror is in any way justifiable. A better approach, for me, would be for the ordinary working people of the Middle Eastern countries to organize, overthrow the dictators, kick the US and European oil companies the hell out of the Middle East and nationalize the oilfields.
Only freedom we got in fighting someone else was independence from Britain. All the other freedoms we got were from struggle here at home.
Inevitable? Most likely. A mistake? Definitely. I forget the exact quote from that cheesy movie WarGames, but I do agree with the sentiment that, in this case, “the only smart move is not to play”.
eris, me lad, the only way the Pit would have come in to this were if we were so irreconcilably hostile to each other in our viewpoints that there was no room possible for rational debate. Irritated as we may be with each other’s views, as long as we both keep cool heads about it we should be just dandy.
:wally:
Wealth in the form of profits, no indeed - such wealth cannot be spread equally. Wealth in the form of produced goods alone, yes that certainly can be spread equally.
Only because the United States is the richest country in the world, not simply because we are Americans.
Profit is a design of modern human society, not some sort of biological hardwiring. True, we are not satisfied with strict survival, though for most of human existence we had no choice. The problem now is that the profit system forces a great number still to live at the level of strict survival so that a smaller minority can live in opulence undreamed of by Croesus himself.
We aren’t “designed” for anything. How we behave depends on the situation we find ourselves in.
There were people that caused unimaginable terror in New York and Washington on Tuesday. And there were people who unflinchingly risked - and gave - their lives to rescue the victims of that tragedy. There are Palestinians who mourn with us over the grave loss of life, and there are Americans who are screaming “Nuke the Arabs back to the Stone Age” at the top of their lungs. Human nature is nothing if not fluid and mutable.
War and strife and competition are an integral part of the system of profits, since they allow for the destruction of previous production and open up markets for greater investment - rebuilding infrastructure, bringing production of consumer and military goods back up to pre-war levels, and the like. Of course it only benefits those countries who emerged economically strong enough from the war to make those investments - generally the victors. Which is how the United States came to dominate in half of every continent in the Eastern Hemisphere, and Russia in the other.
What would be more effective is for the local populations to do that. If a country’s government goes to the peace table because there is a strong enough and militant enough anti-war movement withing its own population to do so, that’s one thing. If they come to the peace table because they’ve been so completely out-bullied by a larger force, that’s another thing. The first one weakens dictatorial holds over the population, the second plows very fertile soil for generalized resentment against the “aggressor” country and can ironically strengthen a dictator’s hold. I submit Milosevic in Serbia and Saddam Hussein as examples of the latter, and US involvement in Vietnam as an example of the former.
I believe it’s more of a time when one side comes to realize that the war cannot be successfully prosecuted by them.
War is a product of social organization, not biology. Yes, you can see certain types of apes and monkeys also engaging in what could be described as war, but they are also the species that have a highly developed social organization. You don’t see lions engaged in war, or elephants, or dogs or cats. If it were biological, we should be seeing the majority of, if not all, species engaging in the practices of war.
No, but they fear an attack anyway and they will be angry over it. They’re not going to sit there and say “Yes, we deserved it, we’re sorry.” An attack will anger them, at least, if not a great majority of the populace.
I am not going to turn this into a debate about human motivations with you; sorry, Olen, but you gotta know we are never going to see eye to eye there.
Well, all I can say is: we’ll see. Having recently read a webpage a Taliban supporter put up (not updated, apparently, since the attacks) this/these individual/s put up some quotes from Taliban leaders.
They pretty much stated that they are rebuilding Afghanistan the way it should be, and that they were the ones who removed the superpower (USSR) from their borders. Do they truly beleive this? :shrug: IF they do, they aren’t backing down.
Each load of crap I read gets bigger than the one before.
Please show me a cite that explains how Bin Laden was trained in “terror tactics.”
Please show me cite supporting this ridiculous piece of misinformation:
Despite your idea of a “one size fits all” tactical doctrine, it doesn’t work that way at all
Finally, the suggestion that the CIA had forknowledge of Bin Laden’s leanings before they trained, and consciously made the decision to do so any way, is a pretty damning one.
Do you have anything at all to support it, or are you just making this stuff up as you go along?
More my responsibility that it ever escalated, of course, but none-the-less. 
