I made a post on another message board I frequent and have been catching hell for it all day. A lot of people had expressed some ugly sentiments seeking the death of every Afghani who was dancing in the streets in celebration. Letting off a little steam is one thing but this was getting nasty. I posted that wanting to kill everyone who looks like your enemy is not the American way. If we seek the deaths of innocent and guilty alike we are no better than the terrorists. I’m not a pacificst, far from it. Those guilty and supporting them sould have hell to pay. I was called everything from a coward to a sympathizer with the terrorists. I’d prefer to keep that board separate from here but want to thank you all for being a voice of reason in a situation that will get much more ugly before it gets better.
Thank you, Padeye.
Pad I hear you, brother. I damn near got in a fight at the grocery store last night over this very issue. Some Cletus in line behind me told his buddy that we need to nuke the Middle East and kill every “raghead” on earth to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Like just about everyone else yesterday, I had a pretty big stick up my butt, but for some reason this guy just popped my cork. I said, “Instead of killing millions of people who haven’t done anything but believe in specific interpretation of god, how about we let the people who know how to do it identify the guilty parties than then kill THEM. Killing all the “ragheads” would have us doing the same thing Hitler did to the Jews, and you’d better start with me because I happen to be a practicing Muslim.” My voice was low and my eyes were, as Mrs. FA likes to describe them when I get good and pissed, “sparkly”.
He apologized and said he was just upset. I told him we all were, but that didn’t give him license to be an idiot. His buddy laughted, and that was the end of it.
We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. - President Bush
I’m hoping we will find a way to punish those responsible for this ugly work without lowering ourselves to their level.
Let us not forget that not all afghanis are in support of the taliban.
There are many who live in afghanistan who are afraid of
the very real threat of retribution should they speak out against the taliban.
They have lived under totalitarian rule since 1996, prior to that, they were a
relatively advanced society in terms of gender equality and personal freedom.
If we invade or bomb afghanistan, there will be a great number of these people as casualties.
I’m holding out hope that Bush’s statement about “those who harbor” terrorists refers (assuming it’s bin Laden behind this) to the Taliban itself and not to the Afghan people in general. Or, (to be fair) to the specific backers, whoever they might be, of the specific terrorists, whoever they might be, rather than the general populous of whatever country might be in question.
Maybe I’m naive to hold out this hope. I was apparently naive to believe the one place in the United States that could never be violated was the Pentagon. 
I agree with you 100%, Padeye. I’m starting to sound like a broken record with my “indiscriminate retribution would lower us to the level of terrorists” speech.
I don’t want to see the disgrace of the Japanese internment camps of WWII repeated here. No thank you. I have known many people of Middle Eastern discent who are decent people. I have no desire to paint them all with the same brush, and treat them like they are guilty of something. We did that once, (in WWII) and once is enough.
I’m with Ferggie, I took Bush’s comment to mean that any person/organization who willfully protects and harbors the evil men who did this terrible thing.