I think this is the time on Sprockets when I agree to disagree and bow out.
I’m glad there are people who can see the world in terms of justice and retribution and make decisions that I might not have the stomach to make myself, and I’m glad there are those like Cranky and myself who will always say “how can we make things better?”
Right, but then the next step is to apprehend him and bring him to trial, not go find him and blow his brains out at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, that’s what retaliation is going to accomplish.
It’s an amalgam of demands that I’ve heard from Hamas and those sorts for years.
**
I suppose I don’t know but based on Bin Laden’s previous rhetoric, as well as the Taliban’s I’m pretty comfortable in assuming that the list I made covers at least part of their demands (Keeping in mind that when fanatic Muslims say they “want the US out of the Middle East” it’s code for “We want to destroy Israel without fear of US reprisals”)
I’m willing to learn about them in order to better destroy them. I should have made that clear in my OP. But that’s not the “understanding” I was ranting about in the OP. What I was trying to pinpoint (and this thread has helped me clarify) is that there are people (the Idiot Morning Guy on the radio for one) who are of the opinion that we need to learn more about their motives so we can avoid future attacks. And I say “Nope. Never. No way.”
A woman should be free to dress and walk whereever she chooses without fear of attack. And if an attack does occur, the woman, her clothes or her route weren’t to blame and the woman shouldn’t be instructed to dress otherwise or walk elsewhere. Same situation here.
I’m not willing to learn about the terrorists to prevent future occurances, because the assumption that America has to change to avoid monsters like these is anathema to me.
We may (and will) change when we as a nation decide to, but we will/should never change in response to or for fear of craven murderers.
Cranky
You wrote:
**
I’m happy to give in to 2/3ds of what you want! 
I’ll give you the “run our airports” bit and the “act on knowledge of terrorist whereabouts” part. But I can’t agree to the “conduct foreign affairs” part. Our security can and must change with the actions of these terrorists. Our foreign policy must never do so. And changing foreign policy towards (even slightly) the direction the terrorists want will be seen as capitulation. Even if we were considering a change before the attack. They must learn that the only response they’ll get from terror attacks is that we dig in our heels with stronger resolve. And, hopefully massive death and destruction to those involved.
Fenris
What if what they want is war with them? Then we are giving them what they want. You might ask why anyone would want this, but you also might ask why anyone would blow up the WTC.
I don’t think we have a good chance of winning if we don’t understand exactly why they did what they did. I know we have no chance of preventing future terrorist actions if we don’t understand. We should change our policy in response to this terrorism because otherwise there is no reason for the terrorism to stop. Wether that change in policy is to beef up security against terrorism or going after the terrorists we are still changing it.
Imagine if you will a person is fighting you. He attacks you and then runs around a corner and while you don’t understand this you follow. He then stands there and when you hit him everyone thinks you started the fight and attacks you. From a moral perspective you have no reason to understand them, but if you actually want to win the fight you might want to try.
A cause and effect does exist. The difference is I see it like "you were burned, huh? Well maybe you should have checked to see if the stove was still hot. There is no blame implicit in the linkage, but people are still responsible for themselves. We can’t simply blame others for the attack and not worry about preventing future attacks. I would like to see future actions of terrorism prevented more than I care about whose fault it is.
I would find it very constructive in a real world situation. I try to not piss people off so much that they attack me the same way I don’t stand up in a boat so I wont fall out. Maybe from a moral perspective the boat shouldn’t have thrown me out and gotten me wet, but I can either decide to stop standing up in the boat or find some way to stand up and not fall out which would be helped alot by understanding why I fall out.
discovering the ‘why’ will not, of course, change anything for the 5000+. That’s not the point. Discovering ‘why’ may prevent the next one from happening.
And that is very important.
and now seeing Fenriss statement, I need to clarify what I mean.
This is not the “dress differently dear and you won’t be raped” gig.
When we were in the Gulf war, wasn’t there some specific rules for the GI’s there (stuff about no beer, no nudie pics) so as to not offend the hosts? ( and NO, I don’t mean that the attacks at WTC were at all justified in any way, shape or form.)
Bin Laden has quite a following in the Arab world, even after he was linked to prior attacks on embassies. and, not all of those are terrorists. Unless your aim is damn close to genocide, it behooves us to learn what those saner folks see in him, and why they weren’t all ready to condemn him after the embassy bombings.
Those other attacks were not justified, either - but apparently some folks who are somewhat our allies (Pakistan, right?) weren’t ready to completely condemn them. Why?
If you think that eradication of Bin Laden and those who financed him and helped him hide will guarentee that no one will take his place, I believe you are mistaken. Without learning what the hell made them believe we were the enemy, how can we address it? (note I’m saying address it, which is not the same as ‘give in to their demands’).
How? Tease this out for me. If they object to, for example, sanctions against Iraq (U.N. actions, but widely blamed on the U.S.), knowing that will prevent the next attack how? The only way the knowledge could prevent it is if we change that particular policy – not because we think it’s faulty (or surely we would have taken a hard look at changing it before) but because if we don’t we are the target of terrorism. IMO, we should never change anything we do, in terms of policy, because of the threat of terrorism. If we do, terrorism as a tactic of foreign policy is vindicated, which it must never be. It’s hard to think of a better way to guarantee the proliferation of terrorism than to prove it successful as a means of effecting change.
I agree wholeheartedly with this administration – and every one that’s come before – that we must never give into terrorism, no matter how awful the alternatives. There is no way a reexamination of our foreign policies can ‘prevent’ the next terrorist attack unless we intend to change those policies specifically to head off terrorism. But there can be no appeasement of terrorists, no matter how high the cost. Review domestic policies on public safety in light of this attack, but foreign policy? No. Not now. Later maybe, and if other reasons exist to revisit it.
I truly fail to see what difference this makes. If they are willing to defend him, then they are in our way. Why they defend him doesn’t change that. If they shelter him, we must go through them to get to him. How does understanding their motivation for sheltering him change that? Because then we would understand that they really won’t give him up? I’m willing to assume that. It will take force to make them surrender him, and therefore force must be applied.
Who cares? I’m not being intentionally flippant, but what possible difference does it make why they fail to condemn him, if we have established that (a) he is in fact responsible (not shown yet) and (b) they nevertheless do not condemn him? Where are we then that it is any way different from where we are now?
Jodi to use the analogy of the theif - discovering that the theif targeted you because of your faulty security would be an excellent reason to understand why. To discover the theif targeted you because of the belief that the jewels really belonged to his great grandma would be another excellent one.
RE; the sanctions. excellent example.
So, you’ve got an entity that’s doing bad things. You ‘sanction’ them, intending to force those in power to change how they act. You discover, though that instead of the punishment/sanction effecting those in power, it doesn’t change their situation in the slightest, but it does harm to those who are not in power. And those that are harmed are filled with a resolve, because they’ve been attacked, harmed, etc.
the sanctions weren’t working in the past, apparently harmed people we didn’t intend, but your plan is that because of the terrorist attack we shouldn’t ever re-evaluate the sanctions?
If the “understanding” is about our security weaknesses or vulnerabilities…airport screening…access to public buildings…etc then yes, that needs to be understood NOW… or in the near future (analagous to the faulty security in your home…or the jewels in the home)
If the “understanding” is about the thief’s childhood, or his low blood sugar…or if our understanding is about bin-Ladens feelings about U.S.-Israeli relations, then no…acting as if this is relevant to our political and military response now. is a victory for the forces of terrorism.
Analyze their mindsets and feelings at a more appropriate time.
you truly fail to see what difference genocide makes? That’s the scariest thing I’ve seen yet.
You may be able to show that the Taliban as a whole have protected Bin Laden. But it’s got to be apparent to people that the general population of Afghanistan is not the Taliban.
SO, what is your plan for the Bin Laden cells in Florida, Boston, Germany, Great Britan etc.?
Too bad for their neighbors, too? Should the Pakistanii folk start moving their borders back?
You seem to have a different concept of ‘sheltering’ than I do. The Taliban may in fact be sheltering him. The rest of Afghanistan does not appear to be doing that (at least no more so than those folks living next to the terrorists for the past 18 months did).
How far do you go with this, anyhow? Certainly, for example, the Mossad had some idea where he was, and failed to ‘take him out’ in the past several years. Should they be a target of our wrath at present?
and beagle thanks for the ‘analyzing his blood sugar’ -
jeeezuz. I’m not (nor is anyone else) suggesing warm fuzzies for Bin Laden. But, fercryinoutloud when ignore what leads to breeding monsters because ‘why bother finding out why, we don’t care why’, then we shouldn’t be surprised to discover more monsters in the future.
Why were we targeted? Why in the world do you not want to know? Is there something that we can do to avoid it in the future? we cannot begin to assess that question if we fail to ascertain why we were targeted in the past.
But I think, in general, we DO know…
WRING –
Surely yo are not saying you think that the terrorists killed themselves and blew up all those people simply because they could. This was no act of opportunism, akin to a faulty home security system. Besides, beefing up domestic policy regarding safety is not what I am talking about; that seems to me to be only common sense in the wake of any attack. Why is the other reason an “excellent” one? Say the thief feels the jewels are really his? What difference does that make? Is it less of a burglary? Less of a theft? It only makes a difference if you are willing to take into account his motivations when determining punishment. As I have already said, for a crime of this enormity, I am not willing to consider mitigating factors. There can be no factors sufficient to mitigate this act.
These are all good reasons to lift the sanctions, if you personally feel they should be lifted. They were good reasons last week, too, before these thousands of people were all killed. But we didn’t lift the sanctions then. Why not? Apparently because the government believes that good reason exists to keep them in place. I take no position on this myself, except to point out that if we weren’t going to change them a week ago, we should not be considering changing them now – because the only think different is an intervening act of massive terror, which should not justify any change in our foreign policies.
I have pretty clearly never said that they “shouldn’t ever” be reevaluated. I do not believe they should be reevalutated now, for reasons I have already set forth – ie, that it detracts from the task at hand and it appears to be a caving-in to terrorism, if they were okay last week but now they’re not.
In light of your post to BEAGLEDAVE, WRING, I’m very interested to hear what you think we should do. Apparently, we cannot attack the country sheltering bin Laden because if we do so innocent people will die. but innocent people die in every war, and we did not start this. How do you propose to extract bin Laden (if he is to blame) without a war? Or would you suggest we simply do not retaliate to an outrage of this magnitude because any retaliation will certainly involve civilian casualties?
And this topic is sensitive enough without employing overheated rhetoric like the term “genocide.” “Genocide” is “the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.” That is not what we are proposing. What we are proposing is that those who shelter terrorists who commit acts of war may reasonably expect to have the war brought to them, for so long as they insist on sheltering the guilty. War is not genocide, and it is unworthy to equate the two.
If you know of some way to wage war without hurting innocent civilians, I’d be glad to hear all about it. If you know of some way to compel a nation to do promptly something it is resolved not to do, other than waging war against it, I would be glad to hear about that as well.
your link didn’t work for me - I see it’s “slate”. A commentor is your reference for how we know why we were targeted?
Presently no one has claimed responsability for the attack (yes, I agree that Binney is a prime suspect, but do we know who his helpers were? was Saddam involved? was Arafat? was the Taliban directly- accepting that they’re indirectly linked to Bin Laden-) etc etc.
Those who sympathized with Bin Laden (or whoever was/is responsible) but disapprove of his actions - if we fail to address/discover why we were targeted in the first place, what will stop these folks from targeting us in the future?
So you have no objections to conversations about the origins of terrorism? Or about what makes a terrorist in a particular part of the world?
Because those are the conversations I want to see.
I am in favor of forceful, precise retaliation. But this only eliminates this particular cell of terrorists. It doesn’t eliminate the long-term problem. And with all due respect to Scylla, I don’t believe “burning Carthage” in the Roman manner is the solution. I have been ( unsuccesfully ) trying to make this point with Zenster in GD.
The problem as I see it, is less the terrorists ( who must be dealt with harshly - One can sympathize with the poor dog that got rabies, but it still has to be put down ), but the conditions that breed terror. And the populations that live lives of such hopelessness and ignorance, that they are vulnerable of recruitment into terrorism. Violence can ameliorate and help contain the situation. It won’t solve it. And if applied too broadly or indiscriminately, it will worsen it.
I am not in favor of giving in to terrorist demands in terms of foreign policy. I am in favor of changing U.S. policy such that it takes a more activist role in helping to eliminate the poverty, repression, and despair the breeds desparate acts of terror. This is NOT in the terrorists best interests, because it will damage their ability to recruit. The British didn’t win their counterinsurgency campaign in Malaysia by wholesale slaughter. They won by careful application of force combined with winning over the rural populace and depriving the insurgents of bases of recruit and support. Edwino has suggested, in reference to the Israeli conundrum, that careful pruning of terrorist cells in concert with a massive ‘Marshall Plan’ to develop the Palestinian territories and bring them into the mainstream of the economic world may be the only long-term solution to the problem there. He also suggests that such an idea may have merit in our situation as well. I tend to agree with him.
And for all you capitalists out there, just think - oodles of new customers .
At any rate, that’s my $.02.
Yes. I hope you get a chance to read the article before dismissing it out of hand.
Why in the world do I need to know? As I have already asked several times, what practical difference does it make?
Of course. We can do what the terrorists want us to do, and refrain from doing what the terrorists do not want us to do. And having proven what an effective hammer terror is against us, we can prepare to make the same extensive concessions to the next group of terrorists and whatever agenda they are supporting.
It doesn’t matter why we were targeted. That doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t change what will happen in the future, unless we are willing to change our policy in light of this attack – unless we are willing to cave in to terrorism, precisely as they hope. This we must never do. If independent reasons exist to change policy, then change it. But not because of terrorism.
This is very simple: I do not care why they did what they did, because there is no reason good enough to justify it. I do not care why they did what they did because I have no intention of changing how I live my life in the slightest because of it – because if I do so, then they win. If I refuse to change, might they not attack me again? Sure. They will attack repeatedly, until they are either stopped or they realize terror is not an effective tactic to achieve change. That doesn’t change the nature of my response to all violent coercion, which is that I will see you in Hell before I will give you what you want at the point of a sword.
Jodi back to the theif thing. If we knew that the theif targeted us 'cause he thought the jewels were his, ONE response could be to pointedly prove the contrary. (no, it’s not intended to be a perfect analogy, - I don’t know why they targeted us. Neither do you. Since we don’t know, then how in the world can we decide that there’s no reasonable response to it since we** don’t have a fucking clue why yet?**
As to what we should do, I"ve expounded before. This thread was ‘don’t bother finding out why’. I’m not in the mood to have a bunch of folks pile on me 'cause I don’t have all of the perfect military options panned out. I’m trying to focus on the best way to protect us in the future.
SOME of what I think we should do includes:
(and it appears that we may in fact be doing much of this).
Ascertain who is responsible. We need to insure that we are in fact targeting those responsable, and not just folks who’ve pissed us off in the past, and, insure that we get all of those responsible, and be able to demonstrate that they are responsible (I acknowledge that it is possible that the Taliban will reject any proof that is sufficient for others).
locate and secure those responsible. This does not include carpet bombing an entire country 'cause “we know” he’s there somewhere. If the Taliban will not turn him over or permit teams in to search, then other measures will need to be taken. But it should be attempted. Do I have a list of all pertinant and appropriate and possible ‘other measures’ No. But I believe that there’s possabilities that lie between “do nothing” and “nuke afghanistan”.
It is extremely important to NOT simply bomb the shit out of Afghanistan. We need info re: where the hell the rest of the folks are that are responsible. and bombing the shit out of the potential evidence will not help us locate others who may not be in Afghanistan anymore.
And Jodi I’ve addressed ‘why we need to know we were targeted’ before. You don’t believe we do. I hope you’re right, but believe that you are sadly mistaken.
(as Tamerlane provides yet more reasons why it’s important. So you anhiliate Bin Laden’s group. What is your plan for the next group?)
begal - if I can’t see your source, I have to dismiss it (ie, fix the damn link if you want me to see it). But, frankly, yes, I find links to columnists less than compelling evidence, no matter who’s doing it. Columnists are opinion writers. If they are speaking of facts, then my preference would be for the hard data that led to the opinion.
Okay missy, I let it slide the first coupla times…but the word is spelled “thief”!!! Got it? Good 
The link works fine for me…fix your crappy browser ;)…in all fairness, the writer relies heavily on an upcoming researched book on Bin-Laden by a CNN reporter…He does include historical hard data…and of course the “why” of Bin-Laden’s actions, while subject to some objective study…will always be at least partly speculative…
WRING –
Um, no. See, if he’s already robbed you, then why doesn’t matter, which is my point. It is not incumbent upon you to prove that you are entitled to be free from robbery; that’s a given. He doesn’t have the right to rob you even if the jewels are his. The question therefore becomes whether the fact that the jewels are really his mitigates the robbery in anyway. But if you know in advance that the crime is so enormous and unforgivable that nothing could justify or excuse it, then who cares why it was done? In the robbery analogy, let’s say there’s a law that says “there shall be no mitigation of robbery” – ie, no matter why you did it, if you did it, the punishment is the same. Under those circumstances, why is “why you did it” in any way relevant? Similarly here, this is a crime of such magnitude that nothing will mitigate it. Therefore the motivation for it is irrelevant.
Who has said there is no reasonable response to it? There is absolutely a reasonable response to it, which is to bring the perpetrators to justice, in a court of law if possible, by killing them if not. Let me ask you this: IN light of the enormity of this crime, what possible motivation would in your opinion justify a response of anything less than that?
You have failed entirely in explaining how understanding the motivation of terrorists can be of any use in protecting us in the future, unless we are going to change our behavior in light of their terror – unless we intend to give in to them.
Obviously. To which motivation is irrelevant.
See above.
This is being done as we speak. It appears at this time that they will NOT give him up.
Such as . . . ? I’m not being facetious. What other options do we have? It seems to me that you, like many others, are long on criticism but short on practical alternative suggestions. If they won’t give him up, what do we do next? Sanction them? They have nothing. And what kind of justice is sanctions to 5000 dead? And, in the spirit of restraining unnecessary hyperbole, kindly do not speak of “nuking” anyone, since that is manifestly not what anyone is talking about.
See above. None of this has one thing to do with the motivations of the terrorists, which would seem to underscore my point that in the real world, it is largely irrelevant, at least at this time and in light of whatever immediate actions need to be taken.
I can respect that. What I object to is anyone attempting to tell me what I need to care about. What I resent is anyone implying that past actions in any way make America responsible for this horror. You must order your priorities as you see fit, and that may well include trying to figure out why the terrorists hate the United States. At this moment in time, I frankly don’t care.
To hope that a swift, comprehensive, and firm response in this case deters the next group from whatever plans they might have. That is one obvious advantage of coming down on the responsible party with both feet, and hard. If it doesn’t, to hunt them down in exactly the same way, and bring them to justice for whatever crimes against humanity they might perpetrate. NOT to look at our own actions to see what we did to deserve this, as if we ever could.