Ladies and gentlemen, I've been lurking around reading all these 'love the
planet' emails, and I have to agree...killing is surely not the answer - but
if you gave me an unlimited supply of rockets, and a lot of killing power,
I'd point it at Afganistan and say....'Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out
later".......just my two cents...I had a friend who left his wife a message
seconds before he died up there in south tower..."Honey, I'm on the 92nd
floor and am not going to make it back to your arms alive - remember I will
always love you" -then the line went dead....those words ring through my
head over and over and over - I could have been there, so could you.
True, there is no taking back what happened, but if GW issued an act
of war, and did some re-arranging of the middle-east and the like, and
places like Afganistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian militant states
DISAPPEARED forever - no one, especially this blue-blooded American would
shed a tear...and I as one...would see all the psycho-terrorists to hell.
And terror begets terror. I don't think genocide is the answer here, and that is
certainly what you are implying. Do the actions of the few condemn the many? If they kill civilians, should we? I personally don't think so, but then, I'm
not in power, one can only hope that this country, or any other, will bring
nuclear weapons to bear. It would be like using a tank to crush an ant(a fire ant in this case, but still).t
if you gave me an unlimited supply of rockets, and a lot of killing power,
I'd point it at Afganistan and say....'Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out
Let me state a couple of things. First of all, a direct attack on DC couldn't
be any less a declaration of war. We must respond. We must also respond for NY
lest it happen again. There is no question in my mind that we will soon be at
war and I am supportive of that effort as the only viable option for keeping
my family alive and safe.
BUT, keep in mind that the majority of the people in Afghanistan are caught
between armed factions in an internal conflict. They are simple farmers,
peasents at best, suffering under the oppression of a fundamentalist regime on
the left and warlords on the right. "Kill them all and let $DEITY sort them
out" is the wrong thing to do, as it will bite us in the butt later.
What we *should* do is crush the warlords who would give us the longest term
grief in any occupation, decimate the leadership, and then bring in the Corp
of Engineers and the Peace Corps to help the peasentry build a functional
democracy for themselves. A modernized version of the Marshall Plan is about
the only thing we haven't tried, and it would be much more rewarding in the
long-term than killing them all.
Agreed for the most part. I think the general consensus is that after this
certain governments must be completely and systematically removed to
prevent this from ever occurring again. By removed I mean the people that
compose them utterly destroyed and annihilated. Many, if not most, were
not directly responsible for the attacks this past week, but I feel to
quash a ground-swell of support that it is possible to conduct these sort
of attacks against America, we need to be surgical in the removal of our
enemies.
The first and most obvious is the Taliban, including Bin Ladin.
We may was well remove Sadam and his cabinet while we are at it. I'm sure
there are many other militant anti-U.S. groups which are building strength
and need to be eliminated.
Now to my point, since I feel this needs to happen, I'm not too worried
about some of the innocents that will die in the process. Its a tragedy
when the lot of a child includes being killed at a young age due to the
war of its father's. War is not pretty though, neither is life or history
and we are an angry people, at some point it simply needs to be accepted
on some functional level bad and unjust events are always going to exist.
If I'm bitten by a rabid dog and I have it put down, that's not
revenge. That's prudence. Faced with an incurable disease/mindset
capable of causing more misery/illness/death one finds oneself in the
invidious position of having to decide between several obviously
unpleasant and previously unacceptable alternatives. It's not fair - any
of it - but it's the situation nonetheless.
... you know exactly what dog it was. In this case it's
not that easy, and I for one would hope that convincing proof
be found before action is taken only against those proven
guilty. Everything else will backfire..
OK, put aside all questions of motivation (revenge vs. prudence, etc.)
Putting down a rabid dog is pretty much an atomic operation, without
hugely significant side effects. Removing several countries, several
governments, or several populations is a quite different proposition.
I'm not aware of any such attempt along these lines in human history
that fits the model of removal of a single animal of another species.
We are (increasingly) interconnected, and our apparently distant
actions reverberate with local consequences. Predicting consequences
in complex systems is tricky business, but one thing we know is that
human perceptions and beliefs are involved in these systems. Thinkers
as diverse as Gautama to Machiavelli have recognized this - the latter
wrote of the difficulty of pulling off a coup that can establish a
successful governement because of the cycle of violence problem.
As times get worse, as our emotions are jerked around, it is more
important than ever that we see the world as it is, that we think
as clearly about human systems as we do about other kind of networks,
and that we not let our understandable desire for a different world
lead us to make things worse by pursuing simplistic solutions.
If you were one that infected the dog with rabies in the first place, you
might consider ways to avoid doing so in the future to prevent
reoccurances.
Th dog has rabies... drop him....The USA can not and is not responsible
for every nuts problems. If this "dog" has a problem, then I ask that he
take care of it with reason and logic. If he can't and is unwilling to
listen to logic, drop him before he bites more of us.
> The dog has rabies... drop him....The USA can not and is not
responsible
> for every nuts problems.
In the case of the U.S, they created the nut. The CIA trained and funded
bin Laden. The U.S. also funded Hussein.
I keep saying this over and over but it appears that it's not being heard.
Sir, providing training and arms does not make a person a nut.
Are you suggesting that he became a nut case because we gave him money and
such. My position is that the CIA is not responsible for crashing these
planes into buildings - The nut did it.
I hear you...(and I'm sure we won't be giving them anymore money)...
We gave them their freedom and money and power and now they have thrown it
back in our face and killed our innocents. They will be accountable for
THEIR own actions.
We may have raised and trained the dog, but as soon as it bites one of the
kids, its buried in the back yard.
> > The dog has rabies... drop him....The USA can not and is not
responsible
> > for every nuts problems.
>
> In the case of the U.S, they created the nut. The CIA trained and funded
> bin Laden. The U.S. also funded Hussein.
> I keep saying this over and over but it appears that it's not being heard.
Sir, providing training and arms does not make a person a nut.
Are you suggesting that he became a nut case because we gave him money and
such. My position is that the CIA is not responsible for crashing these
planes into buildings - The nut did it.
He is not a nutcase. He is a religious fanatic who was trained and helped by
the US when US thought that his fanatism can only be used against USSR, no
matter how many times USSR warned that the same people fighing against USSR
will fight against every non-Muslim.
In a civilized country there are no rabid dogs running down the streets,
because those dogs found to have rabies are euthanized regardelss of them
having bitten anyone yet. Other important factors are: vaccination and
spaying of domestic animals.
If you've been bitten by a rabid animal and didn't have shots immediately
after (day or two), you're dead.