What is it going to take to destroy the source of the terrorism? Bombing them back to the stone age? Hardly, they’re damn near already there. I’ve got a more radical proposal; Bomb them into the 20th century (21st is too much to hope for). Parachute huge supplies of solar cell powered satellite TVs into the country. Reading primers. Farsi editions of Playboy and the Wall Street Journal. Cell phones, credit cards, and Sharper Image Catalogs. The leaders of those countries stay in power because they keep their citizens poor, ignorant, oppressed, and blame it on the Great Satan. The first thing an oppressive government goes after are the sources of information. Lets take that out of their hands.
If you’ve got nothing to lose, you get suicide bombers. If you’ve got something to live for, you get citizens of the world.
This reminds me of a bit in Earthweb by Marc Stiegler. In that case, it was sustained dropping of mass-produced next-generation PDA’s with built-in internet connections, but the same general principle. I like the idea a lot.
I’m confused, Brionl. What’s already back in the Stone Age? Surely not the Islamic culture. I’ve been to two deciddly Muslim countries, each vastly different than the other. These countries are Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates.
Let’s see:
Malaysia - modern hotels, modern shopping centers, some mighty fine beer (but I don’t drink alcohol anymore), best cuisine from all over the world, live television, cricket, snooker.
United Arab Emirates - modern hotels, modern shopping centers, some mighty fine beer (but I don’t drink alcohol anymore), best cuisine from all over the world, live television, cricket, snooker.
Stone Age - none of the above.
Only difference I really noticed was the women in Malaysia looked mighty fine in shorts. Nobody, not even the men, wore shorts in the UAE - everyone was wearing modest clothing.
It’s definitely an extremely unfortunate choice of thread titling. I’d replace “Islamic” with “repressive”, myself–and add that outward terrorist actions needn’t be necessary to warrant Information Bombing. Lots of corners of the world that could use it. Worked in Kansas.
You know, that’s kinda the idea I’ve had, albeit in a less cartoonish form.
After we get ObL and destroy all those involved in sponsoring, supporting, condoning, or in any way aiding and abetting the terrorist that have declared war against us, we should rebuild and repair their society and educate them. Make living in Afganistan a better fate for them. Ironically, I was inspired by a rather idiotic and disgusting column penned by Ann Coulter.
You know Sterling, the same thought crossed my mind but I was inspired by Japan & Germany at the end of WWII. Get rid of the current government & set up a new one that their people could participate in. Help them rebuild their economies. Turn them into friends.
My take on what I’ve been told by the few muslims I’ve spoken to about this subject is that the people you want to inform aren’t ignorant. They’re afraid. Physically afraid.
We have no idea, not really, how hard life is in some of these places. Unrelenting hardship.
I suspect that most of them sincerely wish that all this shit would just go away. Now they must pay the price for the idiocy of a few fanatics.
Sad.
Peace,
mangeorge
Besides which, I do have an idea of the distinction, but the OP was a least a little trollish. Would you have read or responded to this thread if the subject had been: Proposal in re a radical restructing of socio-economic status of certain southwest asian ethnicities?
And likewise with mangeorge, yes. Sorry to see the title-choice was more than simply unfortunate.
I’m not terribly sure of that. I’ve also heard tales of young people, on the path towards being educated into terrorism, being absolutely stunned and disbelieving on hearing that the Quran exists in translations outside of arabic, and similar such things. Not that somehow accomplishing an end-run around the blocks on their information flow would be a magical panacea, but it would do more than zero good, I suspect.
Actually, I was referring to those things mentioned in the OP. TV’s, etc.
Some Islamic leaders want their followers to watch American tv. “Look what satan has bought with your oil money. Look at the sin”.
mangeorge
Dang, mangeorge. You know me too well. I’d’ve responeded even sooner had that been the title.
Speaking of “look at the sin”: Did y’all catch the news reports what some of the hijackers were doing before heading off to kill some of us sinful Americans? Why, they were getting drunk on booze and paying for lap dances at some strip club. Could’ve sworn booze wasn’t allowed for Muslims.
So, I guess you also think that the entire Christian faith is the source of McVeigh’s mass murder? After all, you don’t care about minor things like factual distinctions, right?
I’m not surprised. I know a LOT of American, Internet-savvy, well-connected, TV-addicted, reasonably bright kids, who had no idea how to change channels on a 1975 vintage dial-type TV.
They also don’t know what a “45” is in reference to records, they have no idea that there was ever such a thing as $5,000 reel-to-reel VCR, which was the only thing you could get at the time, or that personal computers were clunky, slow, had no graphic user interface or mouse and cost $9,000.
For that matter, did YOU know that a scotsman came up with the concept of a fax machine almost a hundred years ago? Did you know that one of the first internal-combustion engines used gunpowder as a fuel?
