Have you considered why they have the opinions they do?
Why aren’t they bombing Switzerland?
Why aren’t they declaring Jihad on Columbia?
Because they aren’t sticking their noses where they don’t belong.
We are attacking the symptom rather than the cause.
If we had continued the research of alternative energy sources with the agressiveness
we did in the late seventies, we would have considerably less need for oil,
thus less need to be involved in the middle east.
Do your damned homework. The average Afghani has never had the freedom of an American. The average Afghani doesn’t know what happened Tuesday. The average Afghani probably doesn’t even know there’s a city in the US called New York. Yes, television was only recently banned there, but that’s because the Taliban has only recently had to worry about television. There hasn’t been adequate electricity in the country to run a television or radio. Everything they know of international politics is what’s been fed to them by the government, whether the Taliban or its predecessors.
Tuesday night, there were rockets flying over Kabul. US reporters in the area said it was the most intense fighting they’d ever seen there. The US said they had nothing to do with that, and that the rockets were likely fired from within Afghanistan. Doesn’t exactly sound like the people approve of their government to me.
Originally posted by Zenster:
I am on the brink of loosing a lot of respect for you, Zenster. You are not justified in killing everyone who happens to live in a country that is run by brigands for the sole benefit of their own bigoted power group. The people of Afghanistan were in the middle of clawing their way up out of a history of poverty, and ignorance, when Superpowers designated their home as a battleground in a contest having nothing to do with their wishes. The Superpowers lost interest, and the best armed thugs took power. No you want to obliterate the crumbling remains of their culture for vengeance.
I know only one Afghani personally. Odd, really, since I know dozens of Pakistanis, Iraqis, and even Palestinians. But I find that I only know one Afghani. She lived in Afghanistan until the overthrow of its government by Soviet backed rebels, who executed her husband for being a member of the former government. She was evacuated by American associates, with her daughter. Later, Russian forces killed her son, as he fought in the Mujahadeen. Her sister was killed a number of years later, executed for speaking out against the murders of patients under her care in a hospital, by Taliban justice. The village where she lived was bombed into oblivion by one side, or another in the decades of war, and as far as she knows, her brothers and father died there. She doesn’t know which side killed them.
She doesn’t have any other family in Afghanistan for you to kill; so, I guess if you want your revenge on her, for “accepting and supporting terrorists,” you are going to have to come here to Virginia, and gun her down.
Please, Zenster, I know you, you are better than this. Walk past the rage, put down the hatred. Hatred will eat your soul, if you let it.
“The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.
The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.” ~ Lao-tzu ~
As other posters more eloquent than I have pointed out, the logic of this statement utterly falls apart upon close examination. Afghanistan simply is not a society where the average person has much of a choice, let alone the ability to resist, the government in power.
A comparable situation that comes to mind is Cambodia, during the Pol Pot years. The similarities are there: a war-weary population controlled by a ruthless cadre of leaders driven by a bizarrely fierce ideology.
IIRC, the only resistance during Pol Pot’s rein was scattered guerilla activity along the Thai border. Therefore, by your logic, the Cambodian people obviously must have ‘tacitly approved’ of the Khmer Rouge regime. After all, ‘the hyper-repressive nature of the [Khmer Rouge] government should have stirred enough noticeable unrest in the [Cambodian] population.’
So therefore, had Pol Pot turned to anti-American terrorism, would it have been okay to carpet-bomb the Cambodians? Because by your statements in this thread, I’m left to think you would’ve supported such a plan.
As a long time reader and semi-lurker around here, I’m frankly disappointed to see this sort of jingoistic rhetoric coming from you, Zenster.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by dentarthurdent *
As I said, I do not care what their motivation was for flying those planes into those buildings. There are acts that have no justification. Bombing a civilization off the face of the earth is one. Flying a plane into the WTC is another.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by dentarthurdent *
No, if we find out who caused these planes to fly into our buildings and attack them, we will be attacking the cause.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by dentarthurdent *
And if Wilbur and his brother Orville had never attached wings to a bicycle, the terrorists would never have done what they did either.
I am not defending United States middle-east policy (by the way our noses belong there.) I agree we have made some very bad mistakes in the middle east. Does this mean when innocent cooks and busboys and customer service reps are slaughtered by terrorists we should accept it as our due? I don’t think so.
Just as I speak out when I think my country is wrong, I will defend her when she is attacked.
Or any other modern convenience, for that matter. I remember reading a report a few months ago that a Taliban edict banning the Internet was met with some bafflement, since the only net connections in the entire country were a handful of aid agencies in Kabul that dialled into ISPs in Pakistan via satellite phone.
Not only are the ground-level Afghani people not organized into an anti-US war machine, technologically or economically speaking, there’s not even a machine to organize.
It ain’t over;
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=87119
You can read my statement in that thread if you wish. I would appreciate all of you reading my other threads on this topic. You will see that I have been much more mild in many respects than others. My first tactic would be to give notice to evacuate their cities and then bomb them once empty. Any repeat of Tuesday’s incident would get them bombed without warning.
Try to remember that it could have been any of us that were in those buildings. That attack was not against some strangers in some East coast buildings. It was a direct attack on each and every one of us and must be dealt with as such.
IMO, this is just like saying that the civil war was the slaves’ fault, because it wouldn’t have happened had the slaves chosen to risen up against the slave owners. Or that a woman who is beaten to death is responsible for her own death because she should have stood up to her abuser earlier.
Or that the tragedy that happened on Tuesday is the fault of the airplane passengers, because they should have fought the hi-jackers.
Learn a little bit more about human nature before you condemn the opressed. The first goal of the human psyche is to survive; if the lizard brain tells me that only by flight, i.e. accepting opression, will I survive, then to fight that opression is like swimming a river upstream. It is only when I have seen flight to fail many times that I will turn and fight such a greater force than I.
Zenster: Let’s try to look at this rationally. How many uncensored media outlets do you suppose there are in Afghanistan? How many literate people? How many have good information about any of this crap?
My guess on the first and last? Zero.
These are people who have been fighting, or have been caught up in fighting, for decades. Not just sniping and assassinations - saturation bombing, heavy artillery barrages, para-assault, chemical weapons, armored attacks - the full panoply of modern warfare. They are mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted. They are, sad to say, mostly profoundly ignorant inhabitants of a country which was one of this world’s premier backwaters before the shooting started in 1979. And these people are dominated by an ultra-reactionary armed militia that they almost certainly have little will or energy left to contest.
Some of them, I’m sure, genuinely support the Taliban - At least the Taliban have brought them some semblance of stability and peace too much of the countryside. Many of the reactionary hillfolk are in cultural agreement with them. People in radicalized refugee camps, hardened by years of privations and nursing bitter hatreds, are in religious and political agreement with them.
So what? It doesn’t mean most of them support the wholesale slaughter of civilians. And agree or not, many of these poor people have not had the chance most of us have had to make informed, educated decisions. Even when they do, their voices don’t count.
And really - If rebelling and ousting a horribly repressive, but very heavily armed minority regime is that easy, how come the black South Africans never succeeeded in doing so? I really doubt it was a lack of will.
I’m all in favor of punishing the perpetrators. But your argument that the civilian population of Afghanistan as a whole is complicit in this horrific crime and deserves punishment is specious and ill-founded.
But it doesn’t matter, because I’ll tell you something - Your plan will not work. It will almost certainly accomplish NOTHING in the long run. These people aren’t going to be cowed or impressed by being bombed. They’ve been bombed for decades. As tomndeb said you’ll just be setting the stage for the next generation of terrorists eager to strike at your children because your govt. killed their parents.
You want an alternative idea? I point you to Edwino’s post at 9:35 in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=86654&pagenumber=3
Peace.
I think you and I are arguing different points, Let me reiterate,
** I am in no way attempting to justify the acts of these terrorists.**
I absolutely agree with you that there is no justification for them.
I disagree with the idea that bombing, or invading the countries involved will stop terrorism.
My point is that in order to prevent this in the future, we need to look at our own behavior currently
and in the past and learn from the mistakes we have made in middle eastern policy.
please explain
Afghanistan and Palestine are about as similar as the United States and Italy. I wonder if you would have supported killing American citizens over Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia?
Zenster, are you interested in debating or only in insulting the people who disagree with you? So far you have completly ignored all of the solid evidence and well-reasoned arguments that have been brought against your rants and have instead merely accused all your opponents of supporting terrorism - a terribly immature tactic. In the thread that I started in GD, I already explained why the “evacuate Afghan cities and then bomb them” idea is impossible.
It does not matter that you are “much more mild” than other people. That doesn’t make you any more correct. Advocation of genocide is wrong, wrong in all cases, regardless of the fact that anybody else is advocating it in an even worse form.
Zenster, I would recommend that you remember that you didn’t choose to be born in America. You could just as easily have been born in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world. You got lucky, you could easily have been born a hapless citizen in Kabul with no say whatsoever in your government and no freedom of any sort.
Please read my other threads and you will see that I do not advocate immediate slaughter of all Afghani civilians. As mentioned, one of my earliest suggestions was to bomb cities that were given the chance to evacuate. I have also routinely eschewed advocating the use of nuclear bombs.
That said, I do feel as though there is a need to retaliate in a fashion that involves some sort of dreadful retribution. A trial of Osama bin Laden, and even his execution will not give the slightest pause to the terrorists.
I have frequently used the term decimation in my suggestions. This refers to the Ancient Roman military practice of killing every tenth man in a returning defeated army. I propose some level of decimation to their society such that there are a limited number of reprisals before their gene pool is wiped out entirely.
I do not suggest immediate genocide. I only suggest what will work. These terrorist maggots were already trying to board some more planes again this morning. Do we need another atrocity like New York to drive my point home? I certainly hope not.
It is time for all nations participating in or sponsoring terrorism to suffer immediate and dire consequences for doing so. Howevermuch you may dislike what I am saying here, the time has come. What I advocate will come to pass. Not because I am right, but because it is the right thing to do.
Try to avoid wasting your time and the lives of so many others by attempting to reason with those who are immune to it. Again, I do not see any effective alternative long term solutions being presented here. Sam Stone is one of the few who is showing any vision for what is sure to come in the months ahead.
Stop Zenster.
Please?
Reason has left your voice. You are letting rage drive you. Genocide is wrong. You already know that. You will regret saying these things. Go to bed. Wake up tomorrow, and look again at the world.
Evil has been done. It may well be that those who ordered, and orchestrated that evil are in Afghanistan. Genocide is still wrong. Innocent people died in America on Tuesday. Yet, still, genocide is wrong. Hate filled people in Palestine danced in joy over the deaths of innocents. Yet still, genocide is wrong.
Rabid zealots continue to stab at us, in our freedom, because they despise us, and have no honor, no decency, no humanity. They will kill again. Yet still, genocide is wrong. Nothing that anyone does will change that. Genocide is wrong. You already know that.
We will take some action. Perhaps we will wage war against nations, against governments, against organizations of terrorists. Perhaps we shall bomb their hiding places. Innocents will die at the hands of American soldiers. But to call for the destruction of an entire people is simply evil. Stop.
I cannot hate you, Zenster, I have seen far too much in you worth respect. But I fear that you are giving your spirit over to hatred. You know better.
“When the use of soldiers cannot be helped,
The best policy is calm restraint.” from Tao te Ching
How many times do I have to type this?
I do not advocate genocide. I do not hate the Afghani people. I do not hate the Muslim religion. I do understand that there has been nothing but turmoil in Afghanistan. I do know that we used to finance Osama bin Laden. I also do know that nothing short of total obliteration will stop these maggots.
I laugh at the accusations of racism. Anyone who knows me also knows that is the farthest from the truth. I also laugh at those who think that prosecuting and imprisoning Osama bin Laden will make all of this go away. To believe this is to be so gullible as to be pathetic.
Second attepmts have already been made to hijack other planes. Immediate and severe punitive action must be taken or we face an epidemic of slaughter to make my own recommendations look like a picnic. This is not rage speaking, this is the result of careful assessment. Any of you who think this can be solved peacefully are in for a big surprise. We have just seen what peaceful attempts will buy us. After so many thousands of us dying so needlessly, there is little humanity to lose in punishing the perpetrators. They stole the world’s last shred of it on Tuesday.
Why are we arguing with each other?
The mourning of our lost, our way of life, has easily been turned into fuel for vengance. (myself included)
While re-taking everything in I’ve come to the conclusion, that we do need swift action. I do believe we need to find everyone involved and deal with them.
I think we maybe surprised at who we find supporting these terrorists. It (IMHO) will not only be Bin Laden, there are probably many groups throughout the MiddleEast and other parts of the world who helped the terrorists.
We need to find them. Their are probably many financial institutions which helped the organization(s). We need to find them.
I’m not saying the powerful hand of America should crush the entire nation/population of afgan or pakistan or who ever else is responsible. Given the people of these nation are relative irresponsible, but it is their own religious beliefs (given it is a ratical branch of their religion), their own actions, which have spawned these terrorists.
Although, we should be aware that these terrorist/religious citizens are willing to die for a cause. And we should be willing to kill to protect ours. Because many of our relatives from so far back, that we don’t even know their names, fought and died so we could live in the country we are in now. This attack on America has not been just an attack on N.Y. or Washington, it’s been an attack on every single person who lives and enjoys the freedom of this country.
Tonight my husband commented that he was glad to hear Pakistan is coming in on our side. Our side?! He said that England and a half a dozen other countries were also going to come in with us. Has it really come to the point of choosing up sides?
We are Canadians. As has been reported, there were a number of Canadians working in the WTC as well as Canadian passengers on the planes. Our countries have always had close ties. My best friend lives in Washington State, and my grandmother was born in Montana. I have no doubt that Canada will stand with the States. What terrifies me is that rational people are actually considering going to war.
Of course in our pain, our first instinct is to lash out at what has hurt us. The terrorists who commited these acts must be caught and dealt with, but the decision of how to deal with them isn’t mine, any more than it was Ali the Afghani sheepherder’s decision to hijack those planes. One thing common to both Canada and the USA is that we place our trust in the governments we have elected. Those men and women will ultimately be the ones to decide our course of action. They will have access to All the information, not just the sound bites, news clips and rumers that we base our reactions on. It may well be that those responsible are no longer in Afghanistan. Are we prepared to chase them throughout the earth and make war on every country one of them passes through? I’ve heard that some of the terrorists may have entered the States from Canada. Should I be afraid? Do I need to start work on a bomb shelter? If that idea seems absurd, then why are we so ready to destroy Afghanistan? Surely we can’t hold a whole country responsible for the acts of individuals.
At my church last night we prayed for the dead and injured, we prayed for their families, their rescuers and their mourners. I also heard a prayer for peace. As terrible as the whole thing is, we have to try to hold onto peace. I’m not naive enough to think that we can simply mop up the rubble, bury the dead and move on, but we can’t let it escalate into war. Make sure we find the people who did this, make sure they pay, but please, please, don’t let anger and pain lead us to more destruction.
I think the thing that bothers me so much about this thread - and it’s nothing at all against the participants - is that smash-and-grab-type terrorism has been going on for years. DECADES. And the US, in her (our) arrogance, sat back and patted herself on her well-fed stomach and said, “Well. It’s not happening HERE.” As if that made all the difference.
She sat back and watched guerilla attacks by Israel on the PLO and guerilla attacks by the PLO on Israel. And the IRA against the Prods and the Prods against the IRA. And the Islmaic Jihad against whoever and whoever against the Islamic Jihad. Ad infinitum.
But it doesn’t happen here, see. We’re the United States of America. We’re not like that. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in justice. We believe that the system - OUR system - is superior and will work in all situations.
But…it DID happen here. To her. To us. But, see…I, however naievely, believe in that system. I do not want us to become a society that thinks “They did it to us; we have to do it to them.” Because if that happens…Well, then we’re THEM, aren’t we? And as much as our current crisis frightens and angers and saddens me, I don’t want to be a THEM. I want to think that this nation is above that.
And I’d rather not be proven wrong.
[sub]<major hijack>
BTW…Nice to see you back again, Rysdad.
</major hijack>[/sub]
And you think the slaughter of innocent people will do that? Their own ‘government’ kills them with impunity.
You know what they say: When in Rome… Oh wait. We’re not in Rome. I bolded what I did to show you the prime difference in what I see between Ancient Rome and your suggestion. Rome was taking actions against people in the Army. They weren’t killing every tenth man of a defeated country. You aren’t proprosing reprisal against the people directly responsible and those that support them, but against people that probably have NO IDEA who those people are, what they’ve done, or where they are.
[quoteb]
I do not suggest immediate genocide. I only suggest what will work. These terrorist maggots were already trying to board some more planes again this morning. Do we need another atrocity like New York to drive my point home? I certainly hope not.
[/quote]
You keep saying you “don’t advocate genocide” (Look to your post above), and yet here you qualify that with the word “immediate”. Methinks you are trying to backtrack a little, if I had more time I would show you more than one quote of yours, from this thread, that shows what you’ve suggested is genocide.
I agree with you, and I’m sure the others arguing against you do as well, that the terrorists and those supporting them in their acts should be stopped.
However, targeting innocent people that have no idea what the hell is going on in their own country, let alone any where else in the world, isn’t going to stop it. It’s not the right thing to do. To hold innocent civillians responsible for the acts of their ‘government’ (and acts of those they harbour) and punish them for something they have absolutely no control over would make us little better than the terrorists. That’s what they do.
Again, I repeat, I know that in war innocent lives are lost, but we don’t have to actively make sure that happens.
that people are becoming more rational, as the shock of this horror is wearing off. We must root out terrorism, and I would point out that this means not just the destruction of BinLadeen ; what about:
-the bankers who handled his funds for him
-the arms dealers who sold him explosives and weapons
-the corrupt officials who allowed his minions to travel around the world
-all of the dispicable scum who provided safe houses for his murdering gangs
I think President Bush has chosen a wise path…if he can put together a wide-ranging coalition of nations, we may have the resources to root out these terrorists and put them all behind bars. We also have to SEVERELY PUNISH his accessories in this dastardly crime.Killing BinLadeen is just the strat.