re: Wall Street Aghast at TragedyIt is good to see a post like this and Peter's amongst the other hate filled posts. Let's remember that an entire race of people or religious group are not responsible for the actions of a radical, hate filled minority within them.
My feelings witnessing the horrible attacks on Tuesday were a mixture of disbelief, anger, sadness, fear, and uncertainty. The world we know/knew has changed forever. I fully support the war on terrorism that will be waged in the coming months. I understand that innocent men, women, and children in other countries will die along with the evil perpertrators of this act. However I will grieve them even as I celebrate the death of each terrorist. Before you write something like "Kill 'em all and let God sort out the bodies"...think about how much say any common person has in the actions of a powerful military force, whether this force acts justly or unjustly. Could you stop any US military actions you might not agree with?...Can an Afganistan farmer stop any actions of Bin Laden?
While accepting the unfortunate deaths of innocents that unfortunately can't be avoided, let's not be so cold as to look forward to it. Let's not be as evil in our hearts as the bastards that killed thousands of innocent people on Tuesday are.
re: Wall Street Aghast at TragedyThe quotes are directly out of the Quran. Please note, I have read both the Quran and the Bible cover to cover...several times...have you? I also have read the Life of Muhammed...have you? I probably know the history of the region better than you, having studied it in college.
Let me correct you:
You and your contrymen have not been dealing with terrorism for ages...you have been fostering it, growing it, and refining it to a fine art!
The word you want is not dealing, it is incorporating(/i>. A hefty mixture of religion, culture, and politics, all wrapped up around a feeling of being wronged by everyone throughout history, and how (in your thinking) you are really better than everyone, and one day you (in your fantasy) will take over the world.
Your words make my point.
Terrorism and fanaticism are as I said, endemic to your religion, law, politics and culture, and that is a fact. To a much, much greater degree than in the West. It is hard for people here and there to comprehend the differences between our cultures.
For those here: The culture, law, politics, and religion of the Dark Ages are alive and well in the Middle East.
Peter Heywood: I guess we should have listened to Lucky Lindy before WWII and made a deal with Hitler and let Europe go to Hell. Or used precision guided munitions on Germany? Never have fire bombed Dresden? Never dropped the A-bomb on Japan? IMO, the only thing we did wrong with Japan was to avoid war crimes trials for things like Nanking.
War is personal, and it is pure bloody Hell on earth, and that is why it is to be avoided. Without the reality of full scale war, terrorism can be hosted at no significant consequence...then it bcomes embedded in your culture...like it has in Islam.
No thanks...I would rather have WWIII. Which we have now...and that's the truth.
re: Wall Street Aghast at TragedyThe "bastards" that,technically speaking,perpetrated the crime are dead.
More than likely, they have been preparing themselves to die for the last year. It takes an incredibly strong conviction to get to that point. What was driving these "bastards" to this extreme of extremes ? Were they crazy ? drugged ? manipulated ? ... or victims ?
If you do not understand the cause, you will never fix the problem. See Israel and Palestine.
re: Wall Street Aghast at TragedyAmerica as a superpower does not compromise when it can bully other people. We and our allies create institutions that further our interests (delibrately restraining development in other countries!!!) That's especially apparent under the new administration, but it's not a new attitude. Breaking or walking out of treaties, walking out on conferences, not paying UN dues... and these are only the 'symbolic' things the US has done recently. Iran Contra, anyone? -------------------------
But what you and many others are in denial of is the fact that US takes on to its shoulders problems that many countries around the world will not touch.
Stability of oil supplies, for example, isn't just an american concern. I suggest you look at really suffered the most during the oil shocks in the 1970s. The US system is the most dependent on oil, but there are very few places in the world that don't suffer when energy prices rise dramatically.
The IMF and the world bank get attacked all the time. But how did "third world debt" get created in the first place? Its typically a matter of totally corrupt and irresponsible governments. The IMF steps in to run economies because otherwise the economy is looted with the proceeds ending up overseas.
Several years ago, the US tried to help haiti by overthrowing the government and trying to establish proper institutions. What was the long term effect? the "democratic" 'opposition' simply replaced the old ruling classes in the big houses on the hill while the old ruling class moved to new york or miami or various other places with their money. It turned out that the oppositions "sympathy" for the poor was nothing more than a way to take power and distribute the spoils among themselves.
And things like the UN conference on racism are always amusing. It turned into the typical broad international conference where a bunch of corrupt dictators get together and trying to shakedown western countries for some cash.
They talk about colonialism fourty or more years after it ended in most cases.
I mean who wants to hear lectures about european colonialism at a time when colonial explotation is alive and well in africa done by africans to each other.
Southern Sudan might as well be a colony. But those real africans deserve nothing, get nothing and the problem gets treated as if it doesn't exist.
Then there is the congo and the efforts of all its neighbors to economically carve it up to line the pockets of the military regimes in each of the countries.
Or take Angola where a proxy war for the country goes on between the "gang" that owns the oil wells and the "gang" that owns the diamonds.
And then there are "treaties". The US has lost interest in them primarily because they are either constructed to blame an entire problem and put the entire burden on the US....or based on past experience nobody but the US is going to pay any attention to the agreement.
The treaties end up often being little more than feel-good exercises because the treaties as passed never really see effective implementation in 90% of the signing countries.
Take the Kyoto treaty. Blame the whole problem on a few countires while endorsing the "right" of other countries to expand their emissions. Everyone understands that the US produces more emissions, but for any agreement to work there has to be at least a sense that the whole world is willing to share some level of pain to make the problem better. Rather than that, an agreement shows up that puts a huge burden on the US and no burden at all on many other countries.
Nicaragua is an interesting case in that in hindsight, the stubborn and self-destructive attitude of the Sandinesta leadership pushed the country into a decade of civil war that could have been avoided by little more than staying at a distance from Cuba and not funneling weapons into other countries. By any measure, Nicaragua gained no benifit fighting essentially for nothing.
re: Wall Street Aghast at Tragedy"If you do not understand the cause, you will never fix the problem. See Israel and Palestine."
The same treaty that 'created' the state of Israel (ignoring the fact that God handed it to the Israelites thousands of years ago)- is the same treaty that created the borders of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon... Prior to that time, it was ALL 'Palestine'. Why don't the Palestinians attack their 'arab brothers' as they do the Israelis? Why is it ok for the Palestinians (( I apologize for the grouping... Islamic Fundamentalists )) to be disrespectful of a treatised border? And why just one?
re: Wall Street Aghast at Tragedy ************************************************* If you do not understand the cause, you will never fix the problem. See Israel and Palestine. *************************************************
re: Wall Street Aghast at TragedyI think all they wanted was to hurt us, make us feel pain. Their pain, one could assume. ItGÇÖs the classic GÇ£teenagerGÇÖs cry for help.GÇ¥ ItGÇÖs GÇ£suicide by cop.GÇ¥
GÇ£WeGÇÖre hurting, badly. Stop us before we strike again.GÇ¥ ----------------------
The problem is that the people carrying out these particular actions tend not to be the suffering refugee from Lebannon or Palestine or from the palestinian camps.
These (so far) seem to be educated people who have never suffered in any way I can see.
What seems to be driving them is "pain" at the idea of non-muslims existing or at the very least not being their slaves, the whole concept of women running free in the west and not being treated like cattle, and that their governments are not "strong man" tyrannies along the lines of Iraq.
Saddam Hussien drives his country into two wars and endless mysery. He kills anyone who gets in his way. These people see him as a "real man". The leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE build up rich affluent societies in the gulf and are seen as "weak" and "corrupt". Relgious virtue for these people is directly proportional to the strength of the leader. It has nothing to do with observing islam or even being knowlegable about Islam.
I dont know how people could ever have made such a grave miscalculation, but many of the dissidents in or from Saudi Arabia don't want an open society or democracy or more freedom. They are angry because the government isn't brutal enough. Poverty and Tyranny are the expected way of things to these people.
But to be clear, these people are a minority among muslims. A brutal, loud, dangerous minority but not anymore than that.
re: Wall Street Aghast at TragedyWhy would someone commit these crimes? Are we witness to the world's worst case of untreated sociopathic pyromania?
Was it intended to get us to do something?
No demands were made. No one has admitted to committing these acts.
Therefore, we are supposed to come to the correct conclusion ourselves?
Somehow, I donGÇÖt think these criminals reasoned that, after seeing what theyGÇÖre capable of, weGÇÖd all decide to convert to Islam, or be real nice to the Taliban, or whatever their point might have been.
I think all they wanted was to hurt us, make us feel pain. Their pain, one could assume. ItGÇÖs the classic GÇ£teenagerGÇÖs cry for help.GÇ¥ ItGÇÖs GÇ£suicide by cop.GÇ¥
GÇ£WeGÇÖre hurting, badly. Stop us before we strike again.GÇ¥
TheyGÇÖve got our attention, and, judging from what IGÇÖve read here, weGÇÖre only too happy to oblige.
re: Wall Street Aghast at Tragedy>>Breaking or walking out of treaties, walking out on conferences, not paying UN dues... and these are only the 'symbolic' things the US has done recently.<< (Datazoom)
>>And things like the UN conference on racism are always amusing. It turned into the typical broad international conference where a bunch of corrupt dictators get together and trying to shakedown western countries for some cash<< (skeptic)
Skeptic portrays a typical UN conference. My take on the UN conference is that the US wouldn't sign off on condemning an ally, Israel, that "Zionism is Racism". Here's a link to a more strident take on that conference: http://www.theweeklystandard.c...
My feelings witnessing the horrible attacks on Tuesday were a mixture of disbelief, anger, sadness, fear, and uncertainty. The world we know/knew has changed forever.
I fully support the war on terrorism that will be waged in the coming months. I understand that innocent men, women, and children in other countries will die along with the evil perpertrators of this act. However I will grieve them even as I celebrate the death of each terrorist.
Before you write something like "Kill 'em all and let God sort out the bodies"...think about how much say any common person has in the actions of a powerful military force, whether this force acts justly or unjustly. Could you stop any US military actions you might not agree with?...Can an Afganistan farmer stop any actions of Bin Laden?
While accepting the unfortunate deaths of innocents that unfortunately can't be avoided, let's not be so cold as to look forward to it. Let's not be as evil in our hearts as the bastards that killed thousands of innocent people on Tuesday are.