I’d be remiss if I’d didn’t mention, EvilGhandi, that in your zeal to proclaim yourself, ‘American #1!!’, you went and bashed on a disabled veteran.
The irony is incredible.
You’re a perfect example of what can result from blind rage.
I think I’ve had it with this crap. EvilGhandi. many people here have tried to be the voices of reason, and you’ve told them to fuck off for their troubles. You’re repeating the same tired reactionary shit you’ve been spewing in other threads. I’ll tell you what: if you’re so fucking convinced you know exactly whom to strike against, and that it should be done right now, rather than (as common sense dictartes) when we actually know who did this, then stop pissing and moaning about it from the comfort of your computer chair, grab a fucking gun, get your ass to wherever you think the culprits are, and blow them away yourself. The rest of us will wait until we know whom to blame.
Send me a postcard.
I understand and agree with your concerns for your son’s future. Family is important and you want to the best for them. This is natural.
Other countries have people with families as well. These people are not like us in the West. Some of them wear strange clothes, like robes and turbans. They eat strange food. They follow religions which we don’t really understand. Many of them are poor, and oppressed by the unsympathetic regimes which rule their daily lives.
But their families are just as important to them as our families are to us. So lets be very careful not to fall into the trap of somehow thinking that they are inferior to us.
They are not.
Look, I’m absolutely convinced we have to wipe out the bastards who did this, and terrorists in general. And, if necessary, to have a war with whomever decides to try to shield them–enough is enough. And, yeah, I understand that we will end up hurting some innocent people–I regret that, just as I intellectually regret the civilian casualties we inflicted on Germany and Japan during World War II, but I regard it as necessary and unavoidable. The terrorists have made the rules kill or be killed; the only way to make it stop is to follow their rules and kill them.
But there is a difference between that and striking out blindly–the latter is just state-sponsored terrorism itself, even done openly. We musthave sufficient evidence that the people we go after are guilty, and we mustdo everything practically possible to avoid hurting the innocent–otherwise we become exactly what the assholes who perpetrated this mass murder claim we are.
So while I favor being extremely nasty now, I also favor taking the time to make sure we are nasty to the right people. If this be what you regard as cowardice, then I don’t know what to tell you.
I dunno, EvilGhandi, you might want to consider that the people who want a thoughtful and measured response have a point. According to this
You’re perfectly willing to blame (and then go out and destroy) one of our allies because you can’t even slow down your hatred long enough to know what country you’re talking about.
EvilGhandi
I understand your rage. I really do. As a libertarian, I am a firm believer in retaliatory force. No one wants more than I do to find out who did this, who helped them in any way, and string them up by their toes in Times Square, and let the victims’ families have at 'em.
But you’re not thinking about your son. I know you think you are, but you’re not. Ask Randy Weaver what happens when the feds turn into knee-jerk thugs. His son was shot in the back. Ask the parents of the children at Waco. Their children were burned alive. You don’t want that. You don’t want the government doing anything without first giving it thoughtful consideration.
The president has called upon all Americans to be patient. This means you. He’s working on it. Trust me. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone more determined than he is to get these guys and everybody who helped them.
But you can’t just act like a BATF agent on steroids. Bad shit goes down when that happens. Really bad shit.
Evil Ghandi, are you in the military? I’m just curious. Will you sign up if these retalitory acts you propose take place? Because you are calling people cowards, but there is something somewhat cowardly about demanding action and then making sure someone else gets to do it.
I just thought this was a point that needed to be clarified.
EG, the enemy can’t simply be defined as “all Arabs” or “all Muslims” or “all Afghanis.” The enemy is all terrorists and their supporters.
Let your wrath be directed toward them, and let your sympathies be directed toward all of the innocents they caused, and will cause, to die.
And let the full fury of the United States be visited upon those guilty of this tragedy.
Ok, lets say that America is this big guy who is really strong. He’s got a couple of friends who are just about as strong as him. One day this little dude that dislikes him comes up behind him and trips him. The big guy isn’t going to go run around and hurt any and everyone that he thinks may have tripped him, hes going to get all his buddies together and find out exactly who tripped him and beat the living shit out of him with all of the big guy’s pals holding the little dude down.
The terrorists are the little guy who just think they can strike us and we will fall. Sure we will stumble, but the backlash is going to make the terrorist groups wish they were never born. There is no reason to jump to conclusions and go after the wrong guy, just like there is no reason to go after anyone who looks like a bad guy. Once we find out who is behind this disaster, then we will squash them like a bug. They will be put in their place, that is unavoidable, but we have to make sure we put the right people in that place.
I don’t want a war, I have friends in the army that I would like to remain alive. I do want justice. These people can’t be allowed to continue to hurt innocent people. What happened on Tuesday is not something we should take lightly, nor is it something that should make us jump to conclusions and hurt the wrong group. I, personally don’t think that we should turn into a country that harms innocent people, but should stay a country that squish those specific groups that hurt us.
Yeah, perhaps EG is a bit too angry in his post.
Let’s be clear about something, however, regarding this:
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If by being “the voices of reason” you mean “people who do not think we need to go to war,” your just another arrogant SDMB’er who thinks smart=what I think. And I think you’re completely wrong.
Given the fact that the worst act in U.S. history happened Tuesday, and it’s now Saturday and we haven’t fired one bullet at one person, I guess that means we’re taking the time to find out exactly who did this, and who supported them.
When we do, we’re to going to annihilate them. All. And if you think that won’t make us safer, well, you just go on thinking it.
Get your tsk-tsking and your piety and your moral superiority ready now. Avoid the Christmas rush.
I just read through a whole bunch of artilcles onBin Laden at the cnn website.
I was able to conclude a few things from these articles. We can pretty much figure that al Qaeda or one of it’s affiliates is responsible. I pretty much got the impression that every militant anti-american terrorist in the entire world belonged to some group affiliated with or directly with Bin Laden.
This quote,
says that it would be largely ineffective to bomb Mr Bin Laden or his camps. It’s just gonna take a bit of time to both develop a viable strategy to eliminate his terrorist groups effectively and eliminating civilian deaths. The two are not mutually exclusive but will take a little time, patience is a virtue.
But of course we haven’t heard any such arrogance from the other end of the spectrum. :rolleyes:
It’s theoretically possible that a multimillionaire could buy or steal numclear weapons, but he can’t make them in his current position. A nuclear weapon is not something you buy the parts for at Radio Shack and whomp up in your garage workshop.
EvilGhandi, Booker57, so you call for the death of all hate-mongering people that advocate blind senseless slaughter, indescriminate killing, death of innocents, and senseless destruction fueled by rage. “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” I suggest you look in a mirror and start there.
Hate begets hate. Evil begets evil. You’re trying to protect your families by becoming the evil that you despise.
Using reason to identify the actual guilty parties, and locate them to dole out justice is not being a coward. I’m sure there will be plenty of violence and bloodshed by the time it is over to satisfy your bloodlust.
No. Actually, I meant voices of reason = people (on either side of the issue) who tried to approach the discussion calmly and politely, only to receive a “fuck you” for their troubles.
I did not mean “people who agree with me.” I meant people who tried to speak reasonably to someone who gratuitously called anyone who didn’t agree with him “cowards.”
Hey, I respect that. Hell, I agree with it. What I don’t agree with are people like EvilGhandi who shout their “we know who did it - we should go kill 'em all right now - and if you don’t agree with me, you’re a coward” rhetoric.
Does that clear things up?
Sometimes I get to wondering if the people who get to screaming, essentially, “you should shut up!” spare even a flicker of synapses to the fact that they’re doing so in–and in many ways because of–a culture wherein contrary positions are allowed to be peaceably expressed. That that is one of our greatest strengths.
Then I wonder why I ever wondered in the first place. Of course they don’t.
Now, I’m very far from the “let’s not retaliate and just sort of hope we get left alone” camp. I favor a merciless, ruthless, and thorough action that will smash global terrorism, using both military means to do the initial smashing and other approaches to deliberately alter the poisonous cultures that give rise to it–including policy changes on our end. But even more than that, I favor those action being planned and implemented by calm and non-addledly-shrieking people.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by RickJay *
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I had heard of people stealing radioactive materials from laboratories, and I had also heard (or read) that materials and instructions for creating nuclear weapons are available, or were at one time. I suppose I should have checked this out on Snopes, but I thought I actually heard this on the news a few years back. I’ll see what I turn up on search engines.
And yes, I know you can’t build these in your garage workshop.
Excellent idea. Now just straighten out a few definitions for the rest of us. All terrorists. Are you including the IRA who haven’t done a thing to America and are massively funded by Americans? How about Chechen rebels fighting for independence? They are more or less in the same postion now as the Afghans were when t hey were being funded and trained by the CIA. Should Bush help the Russians wipe them out now? Tibetan seperatists? Falun Gong members? I’m thinking the Chinese leadership would regard them as being not much better than terrorists. Maybe we should all jus t use American defintions of terrorist. The only problem is that some Irish-American in Boston might not feel the same about the IRA as a former Texas governor. Then again, a former Texas governor might think the IRA are essential to America. Wh o else is gunna look after internal revenue?
What about victims? Do they have to be white to be recipients of our sympathies? Or do they have to be American in particular? There are heaps of Cuban and Iraqi kids dying because of American sanctions. These sanctions don’t really achieve much other than kill innocents. Fidel and Saddam will always have access to food, shelter and medical treatment when they need it regardless of sanctions.
This will never work. You are casting the net too wide. Just look after the American kids instead. Give them access to guns, no info on safe sex or drugs and they’ll be fine as long as you don’t let the Arabs near them. And as for all those terorists that haven’t fucked with America yet… well they haven’t fucked with America. Yet. Just go after all the rag-heads. There might be a few innocent ones amongst them but you just know that they’d get around to killing American people sooner or later. Except Kuwaitis and Saudis. They’re OK. But not bin Laden. Anymore. a
I’m with you. We knew who did it, but then what? Bin Laden is already a wanted man, for prior attacks. If we go after him, we don’t need to pin this event on him. It’s like when we hit Kadaffy “by mistake”. So what? He was guilty of prior things even worse, and he’s still in power. Likewise Sudam. Now is the time to collect on their prior attacks on their civilian neighbors. When the final data comes in on this attack, if it turns out to be someone new, get him as well.