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21 Sep 01 - 05:15 PM (#556126) Subject: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: catspaw49 Continuing on I guess.........I added the future part since we are getting past totally talking of the attack, although the rescue and cleanup will go on for 6 months. Still talking about that and now we are going into unknown territory........the world is and will be forever changed. I'd like to change the name of these threads but don't want to lose the continuity......As you post, if you have an idea for a different name, add that to your post too. Spaw |
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21 Sep 01 - 05:27 PM (#556138) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: catspaw49 LINK BACK TO PART NINE Spaw |
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21 Sep 01 - 05:41 PM (#556154) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll Saudi Arabia is also the country that expelled bin Laden for perverting the teachings of Islam AND revoked his citizenship. They are a very strict sect (Wahabi Sunni I think) but not like bin Laden. troll |
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21 Sep 01 - 05:43 PM (#556157) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Kim C Personally I am hoping not to think about it for awhile. It's like, I get all edgy when I watch the news; but I can't NOT watch the news if I want to be informed. Therein lies my quandary. Anyway I am fixin to go home in a little while. Maybe I will have something better to say on Monday. |
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21 Sep 01 - 06:08 PM (#556175) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth There is no doubt that Osama bin Laden is an international criminal. He is responsible for the deaths of many people, and especially considering the fatwa, he is condemned out of his own mouth. The world would be better off without him and his ilk. But is he guilty of the September 11th attacks? I have never been quite comfortable with the statement "confirmed suspect." To me, that says "we're pretty sure he did it, but we don't really know for sure." I won't go into my opinion of the Taliban here, but I see nothing out of line with their asking "What's your proof?" Okay. What is our proof? I ran across this yesterday, lost it, then managed to chase it down again today. ---------------------------------------------------------------
Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view --------------------------------------------------------------- I think it might be a good idea to know the hell we're doing before we start doing it. Don Firth |
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21 Sep 01 - 06:12 PM (#556178) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles The future is very uncertain.
If this is a war, look at how careful one side must be in just choosing their targets, let alone actually hitting them.
Possibly hitting these targets will be both victory and defeat? The other side have endless number of soft targets.
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21 Sep 01 - 06:34 PM (#556200) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow My point about the Saudi roots of Bin Ladin's movements isn't that the Saudi regime is somehow behind this, but rather that in focussing all our attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan etc we ignore the real possibity that there must be a lot of potential popular support for Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia.
If this thing were to be seen as a conflict between America with its friends and Islam, a "Crusade", it is not hard to envisage an upheaval in Saudi Arabia which ended with a regime in power that was sympathetic to Bin Ladin, and hostile to America. Remember how the Shah's regime in Iran was seen as strong and a reliable ally - and how quickly it collapsed.
Envisage a situation where Bin Ladin was in Mecca, under the protection of a new regime in Saudi Arabia...
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21 Sep 01 - 07:15 PM (#556221) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Don -- this was posted here in a thread of the same name.
It is an interesting analysis and will probably be our second framework of focus for our greast adventure ino war, assuming we can escape the first one, which looks very much like Afgganistan to me (since they are rejecting Bush' ultimatums). his can get ugly. The ex-Soviets have made it real clear they think we'd be crazy to try an Afghanistan war, the Taliban insists it will start an Islam-wide jihad, etc.
What to do? Option 4 ain't gonna happen. Option 2 might. Option 3 will probably will be continued in parallel but with too little work, too late, and will be blunted by the counter-PR of the Taliban and other militant Muslims. The scary part of today is the possibility that Muslims internationally will listen to the over-torqued rhetoric of the militant radical clerics who are the philosopical mouthpieces of the terror net. The NS will get hot and heavy -- rationalizations, justidfications, illogical dialog, data distortion. We need to be ready to launch a major PR burst, not just one good speech. We're up against entrenched fixed ideas and authoritarians, who use Big Lie techniques and any rhetoric they can find to postyion themselves as wronged instead of doing wrong, innocent victims instead of complicit accomplices to murder of noncombatants, and religionists instead of power-hungry control freaks. We need to be able to SHOW in every way that for each of these positions they try to assert, the facts disprove the claim, and the other half is closer to the truth. A |
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21 Sep 01 - 07:42 PM (#556238) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Spaw, do you maintain thsi kind of staying power in bed, too?**BG** I don't know how you do it. I am on overlaod, so take this for what it is worth: name change, "The End of the World As We Know It." luvya'llkat |
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21 Sep 01 - 07:44 PM (#556240) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC I don't think I could bear to see that in the list of thread titles every day. (sorry) |
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21 Sep 01 - 07:50 PM (#556244) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: GUEST Don't be so over-dramatic, Kat. This isn't the end of the world as anyone knows it - maybe Americans have got a bit of a wake up call, and minor security checks might change. For the rest of us, we'll just get on with life. You will too in a relatively short time. Peace to you
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21 Sep 01 - 08:25 PM (#556259) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Yeah, Amos, I just found it. The problem is that there are so darned many threads on this general subject that it's practically impossible to keep track of them. I downloaded your other long post on that thread to read at my leisure. Don Firth |
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21 Sep 01 - 09:08 PM (#556282) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow We need to be ready to launch a major PR burst, not just one good speech.
Better delegate that, and not have the people who have been making the goofs ("Infinite Justice" "Crusade") be in charge of it.
What goes down well in America may not be what goes down well elsewhere. For example "just one good speech" - that's Bush to Congress, I take it. In American eyes he clearly came across well, and he was speaking to America. But I doubt if that verdict would be shared by all that many people outside the States, including people who are predisposed to be pro-American.
An invasion of Afghanistan by Americans, or by people seen as acting directly as America's agents, is likely to be disastrous. If Bin Ladin gets killed in the course of it, it won't make things better but worse.
The only people who could attack the Taliban with a hope of it being seen as liberation, would be the anti-Taliban Afghanis, and possibly the Iranians. The job of the American in such a conflict would be keeping the Pakistanis and the Iraqis off the back of Iran while it was happening, and providing backup for the rebels and invaders, and more especially help for the refugees.
And the main focus of effective action against terrorists has to be where the terrorists actually are - in Europe and America, and probably in countries in Arabia and the Gulf. Because it is hardly likely that they are waiting on instructions from Bin Ladin (or whoever) before attempting further attacks. |
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21 Sep 01 - 09:15 PM (#556286) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Carol, I couldn't either, I was just feeling low. Guest, I am not being overly-dramatic. That was one of the first things most everyone said in the immediate aftermath.
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21 Sep 01 - 09:33 PM (#556297) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel My next door neighbor's first words out of his mouth after the attack was "Its the liberals who done this letting in all them furners , bringin this country down from within". All I could do was think of the inscription on the Staue of Liberty and leave him to grieve as all us must do in their own way.
This man is a Viet Nam Vet divorced tow truck driver with two trained Rotwielers (Harley and Lady) in his back yard ,as he says ,to guard his ammunition shed and Harley motorcycle shed. He legally sells guns on the side but I don't see him brandish them.
Last Christmas I got one of those Hilshire Farms salami logs I knew I would never eat so I tossed it over the fence for his dogs. Awhile later he was complaining about other dogs and perhaps a neighbor that were inciting his dogs to howl and bark every night well past 3 AM. I told him as a musician I know exactly which dogs are doing the barking and that I have to sleep downstairs with the TV on to get some sleep. This evidently invited him to accuse me of trying to poison his dogs with a sausage and possibly poison the rabbits that he finds dead near his dog pen.
Should I escalate tensions and tell him that I do not discriminate between his dogs behavior and him? Should I deliver an ultimatum that he is either for me or against me?
As it turned out I found out what his favorite car was and I just happened to have a replica in the basement that I gave him for hiw birthday. Surley this man has legally killed fellow human beings. He has no relish for war and is not a meglomaniac to my knowledge.
You can finish the story any way you like by imagining the turn of events had I taken a tough stand or decided upon retalliation of some sort over something as simple as barking dogs and no sleep. Today I had to smirk to myself when I saw 3 industrious roofers remove his old roof and re-shingle his house in one day. They were non english speaking immigrants. |
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21 Sep 01 - 10:50 PM (#556335) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Last week I saw 19 industrious workers steal four airplanes and destroy the hopes and lives and bodies of over six thousand peoeple in two hours. They were English speaking immigrants. The morale, obviously, is don't let them learn English! Donuel you are talking about a realm of human interaction still above the line called "civilized conduct", a spectrum of exchanges which basically work on improving communication. I believe that there is a time when communication cannot occur, and when pursued it actually worsens the situation, until a lower level of order, a basic control, is established. That sort of control is voluntary among mature humans, no matter their culture, but it is lost in the circumstances of rampant psychosis, extremely criminal mindsets, or people who themselves are so far out of control that they cannot receive a simple communication with any understanding. In cases like these, if you want to get some communication going, you have to establish a basic level of control as the first kind of communication tyhat will make any difference. Otherwise you are just rying to teach a pig to sing. In affairs between large groups, an act such as that of last week is comparable to a psychotic outbreak. The kind of approach you used on your neighbor, who for all his wrinkles was still in communication, and had not started shooting at you or coming after you with a club, is already defaulted on and out of the list of possible responses. You don't discuss flagrant destructive impulses while they are being acted out against you! A.
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21 Sep 01 - 10:57 PM (#556339) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing I'd like to hear from some of you Canadians about whether you felt slighted by Bush's speech or not. Here is what CBC is saying.
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21 Sep 01 - 11:08 PM (#556349) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: heric No. There are small minded Canadians who seek pathetic issues like this even when the subject matter is as huge as the deaths of over 6,000 people, and many of them seem to make it into journalism. But there are small minded people everywhere. "If it is anything, it is an indication that our support goes without saying." |
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21 Sep 01 - 11:35 PM (#556366) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: RichM No, as a Canadian, I don't feel slighted at all. Americans are grieving for their fellow citizens who were victims of a monstrous act. It's silly for anyone to feel slighted. I've been dealing with my own feelings of anger, fear, despair and horror. I'm sure it's worse for Americans. Rich McCarthy
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22 Sep 01 - 04:36 AM (#556493) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles There does seem to be quite a difference between Mr Bush's line and what Colin Powell (in a UK interview last night) is saying. The latter is speaking pretty good common sense. He is talking about years and a not very clearly defined victory.
It would appear that Mr Bush's line of America as the 'Lone Ranger, is mainly for home consumption and would seem to me to be creating unreal expectations there and 'painting himself into a corner'. I would hope and suggest that this can be 'toned down' as I think it would be fair to say that this line worries the friends and allies of the USA, a lot more than it worries its enemies. I'm sure would worry Tonto............... |
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22 Sep 01 - 04:52 AM (#556500) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC I've posted this to three other threads. I might as well post it here too. This is more or less in keeping with Colin Powell's preferred approach. And it's not just Bush who favors the 'Lone Ranger' approach. It appears that a sizable portion of the population of the US also favors it. So maybe those of us who prefer Powell's approach have some work to do to spread the word. If anyone wants to, they can make their wishes known at this site...
http://www.congress.org/
What we can do...
We do everything we possibly can to promote, protect, and preserve a coalition with as many countries in the world as we possibly can.
We work together with all of the countries in the coalition to come up with a plan to use diplomatic, law enforcement, and finanial avenues to isolate and starve the organizations who are responsible for the terrorist attacks. This includes holding banks accountable for any help they give to terrorist organizations by sheltering money for them.
We make absolute sure that we do not do anything to destabilize any countries that have governments who are friendly to us or who are willing to help us.
We learn to work with other countries as equals instead of acting like a father figure to them and treating them like children.
If there is anything that is going to save the US, it will be for us to learn that we need the rest of the world, and we need their help as much as they need ours. If we fail to learn this lesson, I fear that we are in very big trouble.
The first and most important thing, in my opinion, is that at this moment in history, perhaps more than any other moment in history, we not only have the compassion and sympathy of much of the rest of the world, we also have their empathy. By that, I mean that they can, probably for the first time ever, see themselves in our shoes. This is very critical, and should not be wasted.
Because of this, they will very probably be willing to work with us and help us, as long as what we propose to do helps all of us. Most other countries probably won't have the burning desire or need for retribution that we have here. Most of them will probably be interested in solving the problem of terrorism, and no more. If we use our military might in a way that destabilizes countries that are crucial to this effort, at least one of which has nuclear weapons (Pakistan), the other countries in the coalition will probably recognize that they will not be helped in the long run by these military actions, that they may, in fact be hurt, and may remove themselves from the coalition.
I did a research paper about a year ago to find out what is the most powerful motivator for people. This was not research that originated with me. I was researching work that was done by others. What I found was that the most powerful motivator is what I would call "enlightened self-interest". By that I mean, people are motivated the most powerfully, and in the most lasting way when they understand how it is in their best interest to behave in a certain way. But what makes it enlightened self interest is the understanding of how what is in their best interest is also in the best interest of others. So, obviously I'm not talking about extortion. I mean people are motivated most powerfully by what is genuinely in their best interest.
If the US says, "You must do what we want or you will suffer in some way", that would be extortion. If we say, "We must work together to find a way to solve this problem in such a way that we all benefit", that would be motivating people through the use of enlightened self-interest.
Once we have built a coalition of willing participants that is based on the idea of enlightened self-interest, we determine what the benefits will be for all of the members of the coalition. The most obvious would be to protect all of us from terrorism. Even the banks will probably suffer in the long run if terrorism is allowed to destroy the economies of many of the richest nations on earth. So, even for the banks, there is an element of enlightened self-interest in helping to eliminate terrorism. In fact, it seems to me that there are probably very few groups, nations, or other interests who would benefit in the long run from allowing terrorism to continue or to flourish in the world.
If we put together such a coalition, we will need to identify what sort of actions would be detrimental to any of the members in the long run. One example of this would be if we caused, through military action in Afghanistan, destabilization in Pakistan resulting in an overthrow of the government now in place which is friendly to us at this time, by Muslim fundamentalists who are friendly with the Taliban. This, of course would be contrary to Pakistan's self-interest (as defined by the majority of people there at this time, which would likely change if we killed a lot of Afghanis), and it would also be contrary to our self-interest, because we would then have two enemies in the place of one, and one of them with nuclear weapons.
You see where I'm going with this. So we form a solid coalition. We work with the coalition as equals, rather than as an authority figure who says, "you're either for us or against us". Then, we put together the best minds that each of the countries in the coalition have at their disposal, and formulate plans to use the tools at our disposal to find out who the terrorists are, and how leverage might be applied to dry up whatever resources they have to help them to accomplish what they are trying to do. And whenever it is possible to, try to take into custody important figures within the terrorist organizations only if doing so does not put any member/countries of the coalition in jeopardy in any significant way. It seems to me that the most important thing we can do to the terrorists is to remove their sting. Even if they are still walking the streets, if they are perceived as ineffectual and weak by the starry eyed youths whom they would want to recruit, would anyone want to join them, much less give up their life for them? Take away the glory and there is no point in any of it. We don't take away the glory by killing them or making them glorified prisoners. We take away the glory by making them ineffectual. |
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22 Sep 01 - 05:38 AM (#556511) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Thank you Carol. I had not seen this one but I have noted and appreciated many of your other contributions. Please keep it up, I think it is going to be a long haul. In all truth, not many people in the world are 'for the terrorists'. Let us all do what we can to keep it that way. |
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22 Sep 01 - 07:32 AM (#556533) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow "Osama bin Laden has made his escape from Afghanistan and is now hiding somewhere in China, it was claimed last night." - from today's Guardian (London).
Ironically, if that turned out to be true, it could be the best news this week. It'd take the heat off the plans for an invasion of Afghanistan which would be likely to have disatrous results in Pakistan and, in a knock-on effect, other places too. The people who'd be going after Bin Ladin would be the Chinese government instead. Bin Ladin would be even more out of touch with any outside cells than he is already (assuming that he is in touch with them anyway).<> And the rest of the world could turn its attention to averting terrorist atrocities, and doing whatever it could to clean up the messes that make it easy for people to be recruited to suicidal terrorist groups. |
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22 Sep 01 - 09:09 AM (#556568) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Is Bush dumb enough to let Bin Laden pit the US against China? Using our own planes against us as well as our own stupidity and tenuous enemy/friend sounds like something he would think of. here is my eamil of the day: 9/22/01 Dear Friends, The drive across New Jersey has been the longest portion of this trip across America. It is only 60 miles to New York City and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. I had just pulled off the road in Allentown, PA, to throw some cold water in my face. Kathleen and I have grown very silent. It is the dread of what is ahead. As we cross the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan, the plume of smoke from the lower part of the island hovers, bright blasting searchlights attempting to crash through it. The college radio station from Fordham is playing Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall." Instead of making the turn south to go home down the West Side Highway, I go north and head toward the town where our daughter goes to college. It is one in the morning, and when we arrive on campus we note that every single light in the dorms is on (when do these kids sleep?). We call Natalie and tell her we have made it home. She directs us to the nearest gate where she is with some other young women who are working on the school paper. We pull up, she comes out... and this is, as it always has been, the happiest moment of our lives. We hug her, and hug her again. She is happy to see us, and she generously, good-naturedly, tolerates our weepy parental doting. She is, after all, the only reason we have made this drive. Nothing else matters at this point. We eventually leave her to her own life and head toward New York City. It is now deep in the middle of the night and the radio plays "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson ("Here come the planes - - they're American planes!... hold me in your arms... your military arms...") and then the DJ says that he is going to play a song that they have never let him play before on the station. What an odd thing to announce, I think, considering we live in a free country where you can play whatever music you damn well please. I recall the email I received the night before from a radio station manager in Michigan. He passed on to me a confidential memo from the radio conglomerate that owns his station: Clear Channel, the company that has bought up 1,200 stations altogether -- 247 of them in the nation's 250 largest radio markets -- and that not only dominates the Top 40 format, but controls 60% of all rock-radio listening. The company has ordered its stations not to play a list of 150 songs during this "national emergency." The list, incredibly, includes "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Peace Train," and John Lennon's "Imagine." Rah-rah war songs, though, are OK. And then there was this troubling instruction: "No songs by Rage Against the Machine should be aired." The entire works of a band are banned? Is this the freedom we fight for? Or does this sound like one of those repressive dictatorships we are told is our new enemy? The song the college DJ goes ahead and plays is, "Hey, War Pig," by Katrina and the Waves, and he dedicates it to the "all the war mongers out there." Yes, there is hope, the kids are all right. We arrive at our apartment building and I am too tired to drop the vehicle off at the rental car place, so we unload, head upstairs, and hit the sack. I awake at noon. A horrible stench has filled the apartment. I did not notice it a few hours earlier, but the winds have shifted. It is the odor others had warned me about. It is a smell I have never smelled. I am told by someone in the building that it is a combination of chemicals, rubber, sheetrock, and... he pauses. He does not want to list the final ingredient, and I do not want him to. I thank him and go back upstairs and close all the windows. I look at the cereal box I had left half-opened before our trip to L.A. I stare at this box for a long time. Nine days of ash has descended on the city. It is everywhere, microscopic, invisible, non-discriminatory in where it has landed. No part of the city is untouched, and all are treated equally to the smoke and stench, regardless of station in life. There is no way to turn away and ignore it. I take the rental car back. As I park it, I look across the street and see our neighborhood firehouse consumed in flowers and candles. "They lost nine firemen," the rental woman tells me. "It's a pretty sad place." There's a firehouse every few blocks in New York. Back in Michigan, I grew up across the street from a fire station and I have always loved the sound of that screeching siren. The (mostly) men who work down the street from us now in New York are our neighbors in the truest sense of the word. They are quintessential New Yorkers, right to the bone, and when they are called to do their job (for which they are grossly underpaid), they never stop for a moment to think of themselves. I always enjoy shooting the breeze with these guys, and when possible, I've put them on my show, as they are natural-born comedians and wiseguys. I have never once complained about the wail of their fire trucks as they barrel down my street. I walk across the street to pay my respects. A lone fireman spots me coming and approaches me, arms outstretched. He grabs me and hugs me. He says, "Mike, thanks, thanks for everything you do for the..." I am stunned and embarrassed by this, and I cut him off. "Stop," I say, "I haven't done shit. I am here to thank you and to tell you how horribly sorry I am..." He cuts me off. "Shutupwillya! Lemme say what I need to say..." He continues to thank me, I can't take this -- I HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT RETURN A DAMN RENTAL CAR -- and I break down in tears. "Oh, don't go gettin' mushy on me, Mike -- c'mon, we're Irish!" He laughs, I laugh, I grab him and hold him and these two big Irish lugs and crybabies make for quite a sight in the middle of a Manhattan street. Kathleen and I sign their book and we take down the name of the fund for the nine families of our neighbors. "Don't forget," our fireman friend says as we leave, "We need your prayers more than we need the donations." I cannot go to work. But I have a film to finish. Our editor has been unable to make it in from New Jersey, but he is there now waiting for some word on what to do. I can't even think about this movie. I don't WANT to think about it because if I think about it I will have to face an ugly truth that has been gnawing through my head... This started out as a documentary on gun violence in America, but the largest mass murder in our history was just committed -- without the use of a single gun! Not a single bullet fired! No bomb was set off, no missile was fired, no weapon (i.e., a device that was solely and specifically manufactured to kill humans) was used. A boxcutter! -- I can't stop thinking about this. A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing? My wife does not want to go down to the memorial to the victims that has spontaneously taken over Union Square in the Village -- she is still in too much shock having returned to this sullen city -- but she encourages me to go, and I do. The Square is filled with hundreds of people. But, more importantly, the walls and fences around Union Square are covered in a blizzard of "MISSING" posters of loved ones. Thousands of handbills, flyers, photos, notes -- all pleading to contact them should anyone know the whereabouts of their mother, father, son, daughter, infant. Yet, all of us who stare at these faces, we know their "whereabouts." And the smoke, the ash, the odor is much thicker down here, just 20 blocks from The Site. The faces of the victims, culled from wedding photos, birthday party home videos, vacation snapshots, are striking in their diversity. Easily, the majority are African-American, Arabic, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish. Their jobs at the World Trade Center are listed. They were clerks, secretaries, janitors, security guards, assistants, dishwashers, waitresses, receptionists -- all the people who HAVE to be at work first thing in the morning, the lower wage workers. The wall is also filled with the faces of brokers, lawyers, managers, accountants, insurance agents -- it is endless, it is everyone, it is America. I am told that there may be over 500 "illegals" -- those less-than-minimum wage workers that the commerce of America depends on -- who are also among the dead, but there are no photos of them. Citizens from over 80 countries are victims of this attack and, remarkably, the country that seems to have the most people who were killed is the Muslim country of Pakistan. For two hours I walk through Union Square, listening to the debates that rage in various small circles, between hippies and Army guys, Israelis and Palestinians, those for war and those against. They are heated, passionate -- but never do I sense the threat of violence between them. No police are in sight. "We are self-policed," one kid tells me. Others are singing or rapping, many are quietly crying. I leave and go down to Canal Street. It is as far as they will allow civilians to go. The odor is now nearly unbearable. I tell the officer I would like to volunteer, to do anything that is needed -- carry buckets, lift, haul, relieve, whatever. He tells me that no more volunteers are needed. He says that, right now, they do not expect to find anyone alive. The job they are doing is one of recovery of the dead and the removal of all the steel and concrete, and they have left these jobs to the professionals. I can't help but think they could still use an extra pair of hands -- surely, at least ONE person could still be alive! I remain upset and appalled that Wall Street has ordered its employees back to work -- to trade stocks! -- next-door to a mass, open graveyard of yet unburied bodies. How cruel is this to the workers who must walk by, or to the dead who are treated to this sacrilege? And, in my mind, what IF someone was still down there alive? How can you be running around a stock market floor when you should be on your hands and knees digging out the possible survivors? I just don't get it... As I sit here in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 22, 2001, I cannot untangle much of the past 24 hours. I am exhausted from the trip, from all that has hit me upon returning to New York. I have to unpack eventually. What was it exactly I had packed all these bags for in the first place? Oh, yeah, The Emmys in L.A! Big friggin' deal now, eh? I tick off the list of everything that no longer matters. I watch Bush speak in front of Congress, but I cannot answer him right now, I am tired. The mayor has drastically upped the death toll. My phone rings off the ... whatever phones ring off of these days. Calls from the BBC, CBC, Canal+, ABC (Australia), Swedish TV, Dutch TV -- all want me to appear live on their national primetime newscasts. Not a single American network has called. Frankly, I don't want to be on anybody's TV show no matter where they are from, but I cannot help but feel this sinking feeling in my gut that the rest of the world wants to hear what I have to say, yet in my own country, I am to have no voice in the media (other than through these letters on the Web). This is MY country. I love MY country. Every channel and it's the same damn repetitive drumbeat WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR... And yet, I have just driven 2,944 miles, a drive that began on the corner of Wilshire and the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California. I have heard the voices of the scores of fellow Americans I met, the average Joes and Janes, who are NOT screaming WAR WAR WAR! Why can't their voices be heard? Forget about me, I can barely utter a sentence anyway; I don't wanna go on no TV. But where is Noam Chomsky, or Howard Zinn, or the editors of "The Nation" or "Tikkun" or "The Progressive" or the thousands of college kids who protested at noon on Thursday on 148 American campuses? Don't they count? Is this still the America we believe in, the one we are being asked to defend? Coming home tonight, I noticed a strange sound in the city. I did not hear a single car horn being honked! I have never heard that sound in New York City. No one was yelling, it was quiet and peaceful. I called my dad on my cell phone. He tells me of things getting even worse back home in Flint, the city now bankrupt, the state preparing to take it over. The fire department has had to lay off over 50% of its firefighters. Fires now are just allowed to burn because they have neither the trucks nor the people left to fight them. Then he said, "Mike, that guy you call 'The Boss' -- he's singing right now on TV!" The nationwide telethon for the September 11th victims has started. I could hear Bruce Springsteen singing in the background. My father (bless him and his Big Band soul at the age of 80!) knows how much I love Bruce and says, "let me hold the phone up close to the set so you can hear him," and he does, and I hear Springsteen sing these haunting words: "My city is in ruins, my city is in ruins... c'mon, rise up!" I love my dad and my mom, my sisters, my wife and my daughter, and I am grateful for this life and for the privilege I've been given to live it with all of them. I come upstairs and Kathleen and I watch the rest of the telethon. Neil Young appears at one point, alone at the piano, and he does not sing one of his own songs. Rather, he sings the banned "Imagine." The Walrus had to have loved that one from where he was watching! My wife looks over at me. The tears won't leave my eyes. I tell her what I was told today. "Woody (our assistant editor) saw a rescue truck going down the West Side Highway to help in the relief effort," I tell her. "On the side of the truck, it read 'FFD.'" The Flint Fire Department. All the way from our home. To our home. It was more than either of us could bear. Yours, Michael Moore |
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22 Sep 01 - 10:13 AM (#556590) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Spaw, how about "And the beat goes on" |
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22 Sep 01 - 10:28 AM (#556594) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall INDEPENDENT (London) 16 September 2001 Robert Fisk: Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity. We cannot understand America's need to retaliate unless we accept this bleak, awesome fact. But this crime was perpetrated -- it becomes ever clearer -- to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing. Mr bin Laden - every day his culpability becomes more apparent - has described to me how he wishes to overthrow the pro-American regime of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and moving on to Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf states. In an Arab world sunk in corruption and dictatorships - most of them supported by the West - the only act that might bring Muslims to strike at their own leaders would be a brutal, indiscriminate assault by the United States. Mr bin Laden is unsophisticated in foreign affairs, but a close student of the art and horror of war. He knew how to fight the Russians who stayed on in Afghanistan, a Russian monster that revenged itself upon its ill-educated, courageous antagonists until, faced with war without end, the entire Soviet Union began to fall apart. The Chechens learnt this lesson. And the man responsible for so much of the bloodbath in Chechnya Ð the career KGB man whose army is raping and murdering the insurgent Sunni Muslim population of Chechnya - is now being signed up by Mr Bush for his "war against people''. Vladimir Putin must surely have a sense of humour to appreciate the cruel ironies that have now come to pass, though I doubt if he will let Mr Bush know what happens when you start a war of retaliation; your army - like the Russian forces in Chechnya Ð becomes locked into battle with an enemy that appears ever more ruthless, ever more evil. But the Americans need look no further than Ariel Sharon's futile war with the Palestinians to understand the folly of retaliation. In Lebanon, it was always the same. A Hizbollah guerrilla would kill an Israeli occupation soldier, and the Israelis would fire back in retaliation at a village in which a civilian would die. The Hizbollah would retaliate with a Katyusha missile attack over the Israeli border, and the Israelis would retaliate again with a bombardment of southern Lebanon. In the end, the Hizbollah - the "centre of world terror" according to Mr Sharon - drove the Israelis out of Lebanon. In Israel/Palestine, it is the same story. An Israeli soldier shoots a Palestinian stone-thrower. The Palestinians retaliate by killing a settler. The Israelis then retaliate by sending a murder squad to kill a Palestinian gunman. The Palestinians retaliate by sending a suicide bomber into a pizzeria. The Israelis then retaliate by sending F-16s to bomb a Palestinian police station. Retaliation leads to retaliation and more retaliation. War without end. And while Mr Bush - and perhaps Mr Blair - prepare their forces, they explain so meretriciously that this is a war for "democracy and liberty'', that it is about men who are "attacking civilisation". "America was targeted for attack,'' Mr Bush informed us on Friday, "because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." But this is not why America was attacked. If this was an Arab-Muslim apocalypse, then it is intimately associated with events in the Middle East and with America's stewardship of the area. Arabs, it might be added, would rather like some of that democracy and liberty and freedom that Mr Bush has been telling them about. Instead, they get a president who wins 98 per cent in the elections (Washington's friend, Mr Mubarak) or a Palestinian police force, trained by the CIA, that tortures and sometimes kills its people in prison. The Syrians would also like a little of that democracy. So would the Saudis. But their effete princes are all friends of America - in many cases, educated at US universities. I will always remember how President Clinton announced that Saddam Hussein - another of our grotesque inventions - must be overthrown so that the people of Iraq could choose their own leaders. But if that happened, it would be the first time in Middle Eastern history that Arabs have been permitted to do so. No, it is "our" democracy and "our" liberty and freedom that Mr Bush and Mr Blair are talking about, our Western sanctuary that is under attack, not the vast place of terror and injustice that the Middle East has become. Let me illustrate what I mean. Nineteen years ago today, the greatest act of terrorism - using Israel's own definition of that much misused word - in modern Middle Eastern history began. Does anyone remember the anniversary in the West? How many readers of this article will remember it? I will take a tiny risk and say that no other British newspaper - certainly no American newspaper - will today recall the fact that on 16 September 1982, Israel's Phalangist militia allies started their three-day orgy of rape and knifing and murder in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila that cost 1,800 lives. It followed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon - designed to drive the PLO out of the country and given the green light by the then US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig - which cost the lives of 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians. That's probably three times the death toll in the World Trade Centre. Yet I do not remember any vigils or memorial services or candle-lighting in America or the West for the innocent dead of Lebanon; I don't recall any stirring speeches about democracy or liberty. In fact, my memory is that the United States spent most of the bloody months of July and August 1982 calling for "restraint". No, Israel is not to blame for what happened last week. The culprits were Arabs, not Israelis. But America's failure to act with honour in the Middle East, its promiscuous sale of missiles to those who use them against civilians, its blithe disregard for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children under sanctions of which Washington is the principal supporter - all these are intimately related to the society that produced the Arabs who plunged America into an apocalypse of fire last week. America's name is literally stamped on to the missiles fired by Israel into Palestinian buildings in Gaza and the West Bank. Only four weeks ago, I identified one of them as an AGM 114-D air-to-ground rocke made by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin at their factory in - of all places - Florida, the state where some of the suiciders trained to fly. It was fired from an Apache helicopter (made in America, of course) during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when hundreds of cluster bombs were dropped in civilian areas of Beruit by the Israelis in contravention of undertakings given to the United States. Most of the bombs had US Naval markings and America then suspended a shipment of fighter bombers to Israel Ð for less than two months. The same type of missile - this time an AGM 114-C made in Georgia - was fired by the Israelis into the back of an ambulance near the Lebanese village of Mansori, killing two women and four children. I collected the pieces of the missile, including its computer coding plate, flew to Georgia and presented them to the manufacturers at the Boeing factory. And what did the developer of the missile say to me when I showed him photographs of the children his missile had killed? "Whatever you do," he told me, "don't quote me as saying anything critical of the policies of Israel." I'm sure the father of those children, who was driving the ambulance, will have been appalled by last week's events, but I don't suppose, given the fate of his own wife - one of the women killed - that he was in a mood to send condolences to anyone. All these facts, of course, must be forgotten now. Every effort will be made in the coming days to switch off the "why'' question and concentrate on the who, what and how. CNN and most of the world's media have already obeyed this essential new war rule. I've already seen what happens when this rule is broken. When The Independent published my article on the connection between Middle Eastern injustice and the New York holocaust, the BBC's 24-hour news channel produced an American commentator who remarked that "Robert Fisk has won the prize for bad taste''. When I raised the same point on an Irish radio talk show, the other guest, a Harvard lawyer, denounced me as a bigot, a liar, a "dangerous man'' and - of course - potentially anti-Semitic. The Irish pulled the plug on him. No wonder we have to refer to the terrorists as "mindless''. For if we did not, we would have to explain what went on in those minds. But this attempt to censor the realities of the war that has already begun must not be permitted to continue. Look at the logic. Secretary of State Colin Powell was insisting on Friday that his message to the Taliban is simple: they have to take responsibility for sheltering Mr bin Laden. "You cannot separate your activities from the activities of the perpetrators,'' he warned. But the Americans absolutely refuse to associate their own response to their predicament with their activities in the Middle East. We are supposed to hold our tongues, even when Ariel Sharon - a man whose name will always be associated with the massacre at Sabra and Shatila - announces that Israel also wishes to join the battle against "world terror''. No wonder the Palestinians are fearful. In the past four days, 23 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza, an astonishing figure that would have been front-page news had America not been blitzed. If Israel signs up for the new conflict, then the Palestinians Ð by fighting the Israelis Ð will, by extension, become part of the "world terror'' against which Mr Bush is supposedly going to war. Not for nothing did Mr Sharon claim that Yasser Arafat had connections with Osama bin Laden. I repeat: what happened in New York was a crime against humanity. And that means policemen, arrests, justice, a whole new international court at The Hague if necessary. Not cruise missiles and "precision'' bombs and Muslim lives lost in revenge for Western lives. But the trap has been sprung. Mr Bush - perhaps we, too - is now walking into it. ====================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the original source. ***
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22 Sep 01 - 10:30 AM (#556596) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Does anyone remember Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby? |
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22 Sep 01 - 10:40 AM (#556601) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Ah so kendall you know that when bush leads with his fist he becomes so preditable as to become the biggest pawn in the world. |
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22 Sep 01 - 10:50 AM (#556607) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall It is so obvious to anyone with a teaspoon full of brains what Bin Ladan is up to. I think we should drop bread on the Afgahans, along with flyers stating our real purpose, to munish a criminal, NOT Islam. If that doesn't work, Make Jimmy Dean Secretary of Defense, and let him drop hamgrenades on them. (sorry, but humor is the only thing that keeps me sane) |
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22 Sep 01 - 11:38 AM (#556629) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Greg F. Err, with Muslims, I think you meant LAMBgrenades, Kendall... |
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22 Sep 01 - 01:14 PM (#556683) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles The UK TV programmers may have our interests at heart but in truth it would be better if they left the schedules alone and left us to decide if we wished to see them.
This week the scrapping the showing of a film with Sylvester Stalone rescuing people from a flooded tunnel under New York, may have been understandable? Not showing a film about the making and history of the Empire State Building but still showing Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back, about how he became WW 2's most decorated US soldier, is less so….. |
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22 Sep 01 - 02:10 PM (#556708) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. |
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22 Sep 01 - 02:24 PM (#556715) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Justa Picker Kat, I believe Rosie DiManno, columnist for the Toronto Star, summed it up well, in her editorial published in today's Toronto Star. [begin copy] Our Moral Ambiguity Disturbing Rosie DiManno - Toronto Star - September 22, 2001 EVERYTHING WAS SO much clearer in New York City. Despite the sulphurous cloud that still hovered over the remains of the World Trade Center, there was a clarity of purpose and public resolve that distinguishes the American character. No moral ambiguity, no collective angst over the propriety of a military response against terrorists, no cowardice. I envy Americans their simple sense of right and wrong. I am appalled that some of my fellow Canadians - and several of my fellow commentators - have such a shaky grasp of moral imperatives. I am ashamed of a Canadian government that drags its feet on political and military commitment to a global war against the purveyors of terrorism. I am enraged by the barely concealed gloating, in some quarters, that the U.S. ``got what it deserved,'' as if any errors of foreign policy could ever justify the murders of thousands and thousands of civilians. It turns my stomach that some Canadians have no stomach at all for the self-sacrifice that Americans accept without question, in their defence of righteous principles. It chills my blood, listening to the litany of grievances from America-haters who are busily rationalizing the hateful attacks of fanatics, exculpating the actions of evil-doers as if there were some logic to it, if we'd only stop to connect the geopolitical dots. This is the posturing of apologists and fifth columnists. Not, I don't believe for a minute (or as has been shown by recent opinion polls), that this attitude is a reflection of the Canadian majority. But there is a minority, whose views enjoy a disproportionate presence in the Canadian media, that insists on mitigating the horrors inflicted on our American neighbours - not to mention the nationals from some 62 other countries, including Canada, who were among the victims in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. Why is it that, in Canada, some seem more preoccupied with a backlash against Arabs and Muslims - verbal unkindnesses, for the most part, rather than physical confrontations, but unacceptable in any form - than the fate of more than 6,000 ordinary people, of all faiths and ethnicity, who were incinerated, dismembered, crushed, or jumped to their deaths? There are those who lecture on the beautiful qualities of Islam, and how these terrorist cabals have perverted a loving faith. This isn't about Islam. And to hijack such horrific events, to misappropriate them, transform them into an intellectual debate about long-standing political and cultural grievances, is a grotesque disservice to those who died. It invests the heinous acts of murderers with a moral dimension they do not merit. Surely, it was no mere oversight that President George Bush - in his admirable Thursday night address to the nation - neglected to include Canada in the list of brother-nations that have rallied to the American initiative against terrorism, one that will undoubtedly include a combat element. In a time of crisis, you judge your friends by the robustness of their support. And while ordinary Canadians rallied commendably to Americans under siege - whether opening their homes to stranded airline passengers, sending messages of goodwill, even helping in the search and rescue efforts - the response from Ottawa has been pitifully meek. Small wonder Bush considers Great Britain its strongest ally. There was no shilly-shallying from Prime Minister Tony Blair. Of course, the Brits have a muscular military to attach to any pan-global mobilization and we've cannibalized our own army, navy, air force. But even a symbolic solidarity - pledging Canadian fighter pilots, our pathetic naval fleet, our few special ops units - would have been preferable to the indecision, the hand-wringing, the pitifully self-absorbed response of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. I'm told that Canadians should not sacrifice our sovereignty to the American agenda, that we should safeguard our own distinct values. I thought I knew what those values were, that we hold so dear. I no longer do. [end copy] |
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22 Sep 01 - 02:32 PM (#556718) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Rosie DiManno, you are a helluva girl! Thanks for the heart!! I applaud. Amos |
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22 Sep 01 - 03:05 PM (#556725) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing Thanks, JP! Not sure I'd agree with some of what she seems to admire, but it is an interesting perspective on Bush's omission. Donuel, I do appreciate your postings of Michael's pieces, too. kat |
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22 Sep 01 - 03:30 PM (#556735) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Scenario 1-B -- next universe over: Across the rugged mountain-laced sky, in the faint purple of dawn, a sound more terrifying than even the Russian's tanks is heard -- the gigantic lethal drone of jet bombers in formation. They come over the mountain peaks in waves, spanning hundreds of miles in even, controlled formations. They are larger and more powerful than any weapon ever seen in the country -- they seem unstoppable, irresistable. The formation widens on pre-assigned mission tracks, some flying over the capital, some diverging to span the airspace of smaller towns and villages across thousands of miles of rugged terrain. They come closer,t heir engines blotting out the songs of birds and the cries of small, malnourished children. One by one the incredible machines arrive on target and the men who serve the distant international power called America press their finely machined switches, send obscure messages on their high-tech headsets, and prepare to drop their weapon load. The bay doors under each gigantic metal belly open slowly and their payload rains down upon the countryside in numbers so thick they look lie an invasion of locusts ---- Parachutes. Millions of paper parachutes, swinging in the dawn breeze from the rugged mountains, drifitng down upon the city blockks, the town squares, the village centers of Afghanistan. They flock like a blizzard of white birds descending from the morning sky. Under each parachute is a container, a simple squared tan box marked in Persian characters, which translate intoa greeting -- not a threat, but a greeting the best sense of open human communication. In the boxes is found food, or medicine, or bandages, water, vitamins, grilled shishkabob, vegetables, and home-made cookies with chocolate chips. And in every one a brightly colored letter from the people of the United States of America to the poeple of Afghanistan, expressing friendship under the benevolent care of the Infinite, expressing concern for their rights as individuals, and expressing grief and mourning for the lives lost in both countries. Another letter explains the Bill of Rights. Another page describes the difference between process and terrorism, and the problem that terrorism has caused us, and what we need to cure it. Each is signed, "Your friends in America", and has pictures of friendly Americans. For many families who gather the packages, it will be the first square meal in months.
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22 Sep 01 - 03:44 PM (#556739) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: SharonA Nice idea, Amos, but wouldn't the Taliban just spread some propaganda about the contents of the packages being either poisoned or forbidden to touch on the grounds that the US is their enemy? |
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22 Sep 01 - 06:30 PM (#556789) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall A starving coyote will eat poisoned meat. And, I did mean HAM grenades |
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22 Sep 01 - 06:44 PM (#556792) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: GUEST,Jenna Bush This Kendall idiot calls my dad "a moron." Well, at least we know that you press the "Submit Message" button once, not three times. If anyone's "a moron," it's that Kendall. I told my dad about him and he agreed with me. Jenna |
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22 Sep 01 - 06:55 PM (#556795) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Gareth Ahhh ! If only it were that simple. Sorry, speaking as one who was rejected for military srevice in 1970 on medical grounds I feel I have no moral right to say what should be done regarding terrorists. It won't be me up the sharp end, and what right have I to say to another "Go and die for the "Cause". But, ( and you expected that ) something must be done and wether or not ben Laddin was the ultimate authority I do not expect Bush or Blair to sit back and do nothing. A quandery - perhaps - but I hope that whatever is done in the way of countermeasures if both accurate and effective. Gareth |
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22 Sep 01 - 07:29 PM (#556803) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos The accuracy depends on intelligence. The effectiveness depends on well-thought out Special ops against correct targets. The long term effectiveness depends on managing the PR of war, always a hard trick to turn, A |
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22 Sep 01 - 08:03 PM (#556811) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: katlaughing I like it, Amos. Some of the people would get them regardless of whatever the Taliban claimed. I think it was near the end of Robert Fulghum's first book, "Eeverything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarden," where he talks about the sheer joy in colouring books and crayons and suggests that we "bomb" the countries against us with those instead. It's much more eloquent and explained in more depth in his book, but it's what he meant. kat |
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22 Sep 01 - 08:50 PM (#556814) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Your dad IS a moron sweetie, have another drink. |
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22 Sep 01 - 09:04 PM (#556817) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Did you ever hear the old saying, "She shames her mother, she who does not resemble her father"? Well, you dont have to worry, you do resemble your father, at least in the boozing department. At least GWB and I have one thing in common, we both have the balls to use our real names. |
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22 Sep 01 - 11:58 PM (#556820) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Perhaps if Quebec declared its official religion to be Islam it would get Sheriff Tumbleweed Bush's attention. Talk about taking your best friend for granted. |
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23 Sep 01 - 06:05 AM (#556911) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall If Bush gets us into a hit and hit back struggle, my opinion of him will be vindicated. However, if he can avoid an attack of testosterone, and use his head for a change, I will apologize right here. Doug and Troll, I will "kiss your ass on the quarterdeck, and give you a week to sell tickets" |
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23 Sep 01 - 06:45 AM (#556917) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Scotland the brave I don't how to say this, but why don't forget about what happened in America instead of dwelling on it. I mean this if getting a bit paranoid As George Bush says just get on with your lives and just try and treat each day as normal. I thought that the mudcat cafe was all about folkmusic and looking up songs or tunes, and helping people out there who are looking for songs or tunes. I know what happened in America was terrible however that was over a week ago and you're still going on about it. Let's get back to what this site was for Please. |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:10 AM (#556922) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Scotland the brave, this might be a bit difficult for you to understand, but it's important. This country is on the brink of something. We don't know exactly what yet. It could be something good. Or it could be something very, very scary. And it could effect you, too. Wherever you live. So being able to talk about these things and bring greater understanding to these issues, and then doing what we can to try to help our leaders understand what we want them to do, is probably a good thing, and could potentially have an impact the lives of all of us. Even you. |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:38 AM (#556927) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles Many views about the suitability of this subject on the Mudcat forum, can be found here What has happened here>. Can we not clutter this one up with that issue?
We could think that former Presidents or current alternatives to our present one, maybe would have a better grasp of the situation? It could be however that we are in reality far safer in not trusting entirely that we are now in safe hands?
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23 Sep 01 - 08:12 AM (#556933) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll Forget it Kendall. You are just NOT my type. troll***BG*** |
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23 Sep 01 - 08:59 AM (#556945) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall I'm not worried about having to pay up! |
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23 Sep 01 - 09:28 AM (#556952) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Sorry kendall, but I'm going to be hopeing you'll have to kiss some asses on the quarterdeck. I might even light a candle for it. *g* Not that I have anything against you, personally, but that's just so much better than the alternative. |
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23 Sep 01 - 09:36 AM (#556955) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Scotland the brave This is the first Big terrorist attack that has happened to America, here in Britian for 30 years when haves suffered terrorist attacks, and where I live in Scotland hence the name Scotland the brave, I live on the west coast of Scotland and there is a place called Faslane and Hunterson, which if where bombed, then the whole of the central, and south west Scotland would be wiped out, because Faslane is the base for Nuclear submarines and Hunterson is a Nuclear Power station, and it's only a few miles away from where I live. |
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23 Sep 01 - 09:45 AM (#556958) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Well then, Scotland the brave, you have reason to be very concerned. The event on Sept. 11 wasn't the end of it. That event was only the beginning. The only question right now is, how far is this going to go? The fact that your country didn't declare war on anyone after the terrorist attacks should give you great comfort. It's different here. Our president has declared war. And it's a situation that has the potential to escalate so out of control that it could end up involving many countries, and possibly even nuclear weapons. Some of us are working very hard to try to help prevent that. |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:42 AM (#556987) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos September 23: Powell said dismantling the al-Qaida network is the first goal. He also indicated that any military action in Afghanistan, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding, will not be on the scale of the Gulf War. ``Let's not assume there will be a large-scale move,'' Powell said. ``I don't think we should even consider a large-scale war at this point.'' |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:46 AM (#556990) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC These are the key words in your quote from Powell, Amos... "at this point." |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:49 AM (#556994) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos "At this point" is about all you can ever hope for, Carol. You get enough of 'em and you've covered a whole lifetime! A |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:56 AM (#556996) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Better keep your fingers crossed then, Amos, and maybe you'll get lucky. Personally, I'd rather put my faith in political and military leaders who are more concerned with solving problems than with whupping ass. |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:58 AM (#556997) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC Let me rephrase... I'd rather be able to put my faith in political and military leaders who are more concerned with solving problems than with whupping ass. |
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23 Sep 01 - 11:03 AM (#557000) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Under the current circumstances, I would say that whupping certain carefully selected ass is possible the needed solution. Butya gotta select the right ass first, as the actress said to the bishop. A |
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23 Sep 01 - 11:22 AM (#557011) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Scotland the brave I just hope that peace will come out of this, and that fighting in not the way of sorting things out. ie Israel and Palestine. I just pray for the world and that something good comes out of it. |
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23 Sep 01 - 11:25 AM (#557014) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Scotland the brave As I said I just pray that world leaders all see sence and that going to war all that does is kill people. |
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23 Sep 01 - 12:02 PM (#557036) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow Does anybody seriously think that wiping out Bin Ladin's camps in Afghanistan is going to do anything to reduce the likelihood of suicide attacks in America and Europe?
Anything which is not designed to achieve that end is surely a distraction from the main objective. |
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23 Sep 01 - 12:22 PM (#557046) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Wiping out bin Laden's camps -- assuming that is where the ops are trained and staged possibly -- would certainly deter the next round by a significant amount. The reason terrorists do what they do is they believe they can get away with it. That's fundamental. If the consequences of terrorism are themselves terrifying, a deterrent has occurred. It's a much greater deterrent to think of your own body parts being spread to Kingdom Come than it is to think of Satan's Minions -- the evil minds who worked in the WTC -- suffering the same fate. So I do think it would reduce the abover-mentioned likelihood; but it would not cure the root issue. The network that drives operatons like this one operate from closed small groups or cells, and the only way to operate against them is either disassemble them from the top down, or locate and take out the highest level of cells you can find. A better way is to create conditions such that there is no motivation for such cells to form -- prosperity, for example is the best deterrent against revolution. How to ensure that comes about is not a military question but an economic and diplomatic one. The problem is that in conditions of poverty, any psycho with a stable answer is likely to be given power, even if all they do is worsen things in fact. The only attraction the Taliban has, I believe, is a certain kind of stability -- much like Tito's Yugoslavia, which was stable because of his iron fist, and deteriorated into Balkan wars the minute that control was taken off. With radical, anti-social groups in power, diplomacy becomes highly problematic, a lesson learned by your man with the umbrella. "Peace in Our Time" Chamberlain. However, a new view of Chamberlain's mission is recently being floated which implies not incredible naivete but disingeuous collusion between his Tory government and the rising Reich. See this review. Anyway, you are completely right about focusing on the end -- the dissolution and discontinuation of terrrorist solutions. Another long term remedy to terrorism would be an effective forum. Seems to me, aside from sheer fanatascism, the strongest motivation for terrorism is being unheard and striking out in sheer frustration. Bin Laden, however, is more on the fanatic side of the equation. Against fanatacism, dialogue and accomodation fail and only firm control works. A
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23 Sep 01 - 12:46 PM (#557065) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Greg F. Kevin, I'm very much afraid that a substantial number- at least in the U.S.- do indeed think so. By what twisted 'logic' they arrive at this conclusion, I'm at a loss to explain. Expect its the same lot that keep harping that the death penalty is a "deterrant" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and that stiff drug sentances are 'winning' the "War on Drugs"- the dismal failure of which "war" should be an instructive example for the future of Dubya's so-called "War on Terrorism". I'm just hoping that once the cloud of testosterone dissapates, calmer heads will prevail. Best, Greg |
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23 Sep 01 - 01:01 PM (#557076) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Skeptic Does anybody seriously think that wiping out Bin Ladin's camps in Afghanistan is going to do anything to reduce the likelihood of suicide attacks in America and Europe? Lots of people seem to. Mostly, I think, we desperately want to believe it will be over once we deal with bin Laden. The Pew Charitable Trust did a survey last week that said the 7 in 10 Americans were showing signs of depression and one in three were having trouble concentrating on their day-to-day lives. We are not used to being this afraid and at the same time not seeming to be able to do something about it. Maintaining the illusion that dealing with bin Laden will cure the problem is a comforting illusion. And a lot of people need that illusion, right now. Going forward, we need to deal with realities. I doubt that we will. Down here in Gainesville, Florida, the reality of organizations like al Qaeda haven't really sunk in yet. (And may never). A lot of the people I know are still looking at this (or maybe feeling emotionally about this), like these groups are like the gangs that plague the inner city. Throw enough police at them, offer free clinics and urban renewal and they'll go away. And it sort of worked. The gangs moved to another area, the politicians could point to reduced crime in the old area as "proof" that it worked and lament about the breakdown of law and order in a new part of town to which the gangs had relocated. And there is never a realization of the common causes. I don't think we understand what drives the terrorists groups. It's much more comforting to think of them as psychotics and criminals without considering the critical importance of their religious beliefs in what they have done. That starts to get close to home as we have our own, home grown fanatics that we don't want to label as terrorists. Regards John
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23 Sep 01 - 01:28 PM (#557098) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos John: Any religous belief carried to extremes will appear psychotic. To kill 6000 people is a psychotic act no matter what significance or delusion is used to justify it. The people who grow up under radical Islamism are taught from birth that as individuals they amount to nothing and that only Allah counts. This is a very difficult belief to build a society on. The only path to acclaim and admiration, which is the most treasured commodity there is among humans, is to become a priest of Allah or sacrifice yourself in His service. Otherwise you're just a dustmote in Allah's scheme. The language itself reflects this interesting inversion. If you promise to meet someone in two hours, in this country you say, "I'll be there." In Arabic tongues you say, "If God wills it, I will be there.". In Westernlanguages, if someone thanks you, you say "You are welcome", implying that you had some say in whether or not to do or give. In Arabic countries you say, "Laachokrane -- Alla'ouadjib" (phonetically) which means -- "No, don't thank me, thank Allah". So one of the prime motivations in agreeing to die taking out Allah's enemies is the desire for a little glory or recognition for your own actions, even if posthumously. In my opinion it is this suppression of self-hood which leads to the dramatization of psychosis. It is a neat trick for channeling the power of society to the mullahs. The Jesuits and others used the same stunt throughout the Middle Ages, causing all kinds of wars and oppression. That's wy we insist on the separation of Church and State, and the freedom to worship as you choose. A |
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23 Sep 01 - 01:59 PM (#557112) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow The reason terrorists do what they do is they believe they can get away with it. That's fundamental.
Fundamental - but not true in this case.
The men hijacked those planes didn't think they wer ewgoing to get away with it without being blown to poiueces. No, they thought that their deaths would advance their cause. The same will be likely to apply in the case of zealots who get blown into little pieces by American bombs in the Hindu Kush mountains, including I have no doubt Bin Ladin himself.
Incidentally, there weren't any Jesuits in the Midddle Ages. The order was only founded in the 16th century. And saying "God willing" or "Please God" when making arrangements is hardly restricted to Islamic societies. Pretty normal among anyone from an Irish Catholic background, just for a start.
You know, the more I hear about how radically different the way Muslims are suppose to think, the more familiar it seems. Even when it turns to fanaticism, it isn't that different from the fanaticism you can get from Christian cultures in certain circumstances. Which is hardly surprising, since Islam is an offshoot of Christianity and of Judaism, like Mormonism in America. |
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23 Sep 01 - 02:42 PM (#557130) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall I dont understand why any religous fanatic whether it be Bin Ladan or Pat Robertson, and his clone, Falwell, get the idea that they know what God wants, and, that they are doing Gods work and speaking for God. Didn't he/she do pretty well in dealing with Pharos' army? and with Sodom and Gommorah? How can these arsholes top that? |
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23 Sep 01 - 03:05 PM (#557141) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Wiping out bin Laden's camps -- assuming that is where the ops are trained and staged possibly -- would certainly deter the next round by a significant amount. The reason terrorists do what they do is they believe they can get away with it. That's fundamental. If the consequences of terrorism are themselves terrifying, a deterrent has occurred. Amos, just to weigh in on this, I'm afraid I can't quite agree. The only consequences that the terrorists are interested in this inflicting the maximum possible death and destruction on their targets. Once this is accomplished, "getting away with it" doesn't matter. In the attacks on WTC and the Pentagon and in many other terrorist attacks around the world, the perpetrators have amply demonstrated their willingness, perhaps even eagerness, to die for their cause. I think there is cause to believe that attacks, military or otherwise, on bin Laden or the terrorist training camps will be the trigger to launch a series of massive attacks on a large number of targets within the United States and perhaps other places in the world. That's not the way to handle this situation. In your next post you say . . . one of the prime motivations in agreeing to die taking out Allah's enemies is the desire for a little glory or recognition for your own actions, even if posthumously. Exactly my point. I don't know what kind of "expert advisers" George W. Bush and our military leaders have available to them, but recent history seems to demonstrate that the aspects are anything but promising. If I were in charge (which, thank God, I am not), one thing I would do is hire the services of authors such as Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and others like them. Why? Because many of these people have the imagination and the demonstrated ability to create scenarios which our politicians and "experts" so obviously lack. In my own mind, I can conjure up all manner of horrors that I'm afraid we might have to learn to defend against, and Clancy et al are much better at this sort of thing then I am. It may sound like a far-out idea, but I think it should be seriously considered. Something like that, I think, is essential for any kind of realistic defense against terrorist attacks. Diplomacy, persuasion, and example are going to be our best weapons against our self- proclaimed enemies. I know this idea won't go down well with people who want vengeance, immediate responses, and those who assumed that military action is the only solution. Nevertheless, this is a whole new kind of conflict, and we better learn how to handle it if we're going to have any chance of surviving. Don Firth |
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23 Sep 01 - 03:09 PM (#557142) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos McGrath: I spoke in haste -- please forgive my anachronism. My point is -- dates aside for the moment -- that the insistence on a non-secular basis for secular affairs has a lethal flaw in it, namely the oblliteration of self. Along with it comes a loss of personal hope, and a loss of responsibility. These things are not peculiar to Islam or any other group. But wherever they oiccur they are debilitating and they reduce the quality of life. Because the quality of life on the secular plane is deemed a distraction to the real goal of pursuing the myth. The snide superiority of cults the world over is based on this notion. Yet those who exercise it are still bound by the fundamental dynamics of human exostence -- they still eat, they still want comfort, they still hunger for admiration, still want to win at something, they would like to raise children. It isn't as though they have actually transcended material existance -- they just suppress it. And if I may say so, it is not as though they are actually following the trail of the Infinite -- they are merely getting spun up over someone else's picture of what that would be, as Kendall points out. It may be true that actual enlightenment brings with it the transcendence over self. But pretend enlightenment does not. Pursuing such a pretense is certainly an inividual choice -- but forcing a whole society to do so, whether for the good of Allah or the good of Jesus or the good of Goofball the Spirit of Good Humor, is leading others down a very steep and slippery slope. Kendall: That was then, this is now!! God told me we must drop everything and eat Fritos. Get to it!! Love, Amos |
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23 Sep 01 - 03:30 PM (#557151) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Amos, now that I agree with. Don Firth |
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23 Sep 01 - 03:32 PM (#557154) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Not the eating Fritos (although that's okay too), but what you said about non-secular basis for secular affairs. Don Firth |
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23 Sep 01 - 03:41 PM (#557162) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Roger in Sheffield bbc correspondent |
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23 Sep 01 - 03:46 PM (#557165) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: heric Yesterday I was rambling and writing to myself as I pondered the question of whether any specific population in the Middle East had affirmative duties in regard to quelling the Al Quead (sp?) monster, and came to a vague conclusion in the negative. Today I will try not to ramble, but the questions I'm absorbed with are those concerning the objectively rational guidelines for use of military force, the extent thereof, and the threats thereof ("coercive diplomacy.") There is an excellent short essay on this topic as it applies to recent history to be found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/force/article.html This essay will not give anyone much comfort. There ain't no easy way out. I am reminded of a fungus identified a few years back which is a single organism in the subsoil and which can extend over many acres. If this fungus were ecologically damaging, its eradication would require exceptional sophistication. Flamethrowers wouldn't work. Strengthening the affected populations to increase resistance would be a likely partial solution. Oh oh, I'm rambling.
"... when the stakes warrant, where and when force can be effective, where no other policies are likely to be effective, where its application can be limited in scope and time, and where the potential benefits justify the potential costs and sacrifice. There can be no single or simple set of fixed rules for using force .... Each and every case is unique." -- President George Bush, "Remarks at the United States Military Academy," January 5,1993 |
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23 Sep 01 - 04:05 PM (#557179) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll Ok, lets negotiate with them and find out what them want. Well, bin Laden has already stated what he wants: nothing less than the death of every American -man, woman, and child- and their allies. And why does he want that? Because we have more than his people do? Because we are the worlds major consumers? Nope. It's because we have a military base in Saudi Arabia and we support the existance of Israel. He has said this in his fatwa. He wishes to free the sacred soil of the Arabian pennisula of the pollution of our presence and free the Dome of the Rock and the El Aqsa Mosque from the Jews. Then he wants to go on and spread Islam by the sword throughout the world until all infidels are dead. So. What should we do. Negotiate? How about this. We'll leave Saudi Arabia and abandon Israel and then we'll all be given the chance to convert to Islam. Those who don't, well, they are on their own. Think that would satisfy him? Understand, people. This is not political. It's not about our support of any opressive govt. or our lack of sharing what we have or any of the things that you are used to hearing. This is about religious fanaticism and you have as much chance negotiating with them as you do with a rabid rottweiler. Some of you obviously believe you have the answers. And you do. Only they're the answers to the wrong questions. It's not political and the usual solutions won't work. To forestall any sarcastic posts, I don't have the answers either. I'm not sure there is any answer. troll |
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23 Sep 01 - 04:16 PM (#557186) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Skeptic Amos, I agree that religions seem to thrive on obliteration of self. The idea of what is right and wrong is based on God, Allah or the Big Green Rock on the Hill Behind the Village. It would seem that in purely secular ethics, the individual is the vital and validating element of right and wrong. The ethic grows out of and is intrinsic to the individual, making it more difficult to justify harm to another person. With any degree of honestly and integrity, very difficult. Religions based on some force outside the individual don't suffer from the same constraint as right and wrong exist independently of the individual. I think you misheard. I'm sure God said "Doritos". Ranch flavored. Regards John |
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23 Sep 01 - 04:28 PM (#557195) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos It isn't the pilots who thought they could "get away with it." I was unclear. A suicide bomber or hijacker wants to 'get away with it' by taking out his target. But the one who sends him, briefs him, recruits him, trains him...that guy does it because he thinks he can pull it off and still get laid the next Saturday. If any of these yahoos had the clear and unshakeable impression that one peep of terrorist blather from them and their whole cell would wake up in Allah's arms with no coup counted, they would back off and plan something else. There'd be no gain for the cost, even in their wacky method of accounting. Regards, A.
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23 Sep 01 - 04:32 PM (#557199) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: heric >>>I think you misheard. I'm sure God said "Doritos". Ranch flavored. <<<<< Henceforth the two factions did declare war on the faith of each the other, and one thousand posts did reek of venom and bile, and the two peoples gathered their adherents. . . |
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23 Sep 01 - 04:46 PM (#557206) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Troll, when I advocate diplomacy and persuasion, I am not suggesting that we try to negotiate with bin Laben and his bunch. I'm not that naïve. Nor am I naïve enough to believe that overt military action is going to be of much use. Quite the contrary. It will cause little but "collateral damage," turn potential allies against us, and "prove" bin Laden's contention that we are the Bad Guys. It will play right into his hands. The only things that are going to pull us through in this are restraint (have enough self-control to keep from screwing things up entirely by going off half-cocked), intelligence (of all kinds) and subtilty. He and those like him can be rendered ineffective and ineffectual in ways other than killing or capturing them. But taking military action at this point would make that impossible. Don Firth |
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23 Sep 01 - 05:19 PM (#557221) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles The lifting of the sanctions on India and Pakistan imposed for their nuclear testing, are no small thing in themselves. I wonder what is to be expected in return? A little more than we have seen thus far, I suspect? |
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23 Sep 01 - 05:35 PM (#557230) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Amos Darn betcha. |
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23 Sep 01 - 05:42 PM (#557232) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Greg F. Has anyone seen yet in the news media which areas of the U.S. Dubya has decided to bomb if we don't agree to: disband the School of the Americas, turn over the Americans responsible for the deaths of Allende and Letelier, those that supported the Nicaraguan 'Contras', the American associates of Manuel Noriega, deliver Henry Kissinger and the others responsible for the bombing of Cambodian civilians (way more than 6,000 of them) to the World Court for crimes against humanity, prosecute all those who collected and delivered (& still do so) money and arms to the IRA and..... well, you get the idea. I'd heard Wolfowitz had targeted South Boston due to IRA support, but I can't confirm this. Best, Greg |
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23 Sep 01 - 05:57 PM (#557241) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: DougR Don Firth: you're not on the governments "Need to know" list?" I think it's totally illogical that the government doesn't show all their cards to anyone who asks to see them, don't you? Do you really think, were our government present evidence to the Taliban that Osama Bin Laden was involved, that they would accept the evidence? Justa Picker: thanks for posting that editorial from the Canadian newspaper. Don't understand what kat doesn't agree with, but whatever. I have a suggestion for all of you "second guessers." Write a letter to your Congressman, your Senator and send a copy to the President. You may be able to make a meaningful contribution to the effort! Kendall: I ain't baring my ass for any purpose. Not that it's not a nice one. It has served me well for 71 years, but it's not designed for mooning, or kissing. DougR |
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23 Sep 01 - 06:11 PM (#557249) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: CarolC The reason terrorists do what they do is they believe they can get away with it. That's fundamental. If the consequences of terrorism are themselves terrifying, a deterrent has occurred.
--Amos If that were true, Israel's problem with terrorists would have been solved a long time ago. It hasn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. |
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23 Sep 01 - 06:23 PM (#557259) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall Those whackos who flew the planes into the buildings didnt expect to get away with it. We are dealing with people who dont think like we do, and our track record in this area sucks. |
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23 Sep 01 - 06:59 PM (#557295) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel quote From: Skeptic Date: 23-Sep-01 - 04:16 PM Amos, I agree that religions seem to thrive on obliteration of self. The idea of what is right and wrong is based on God, Allah or the Big Green Rock on the Hill Behind the Village. It would seem that in purely secular ethics, the individual is the vital and validating element of right and wrong. The ethic grows out of and is intrinsic to the individual, making it more difficult to justify harm to another person. With any degree of honestly and integrity, very difficult. Religions based on some force outside the individual don't suffer from the same constraint as right and wrong exist independently of the individual..............
from donuel : This is very close to the truth from a Hobbsian nihilist point of view. I would go on to say that any group be it religious, corporate OR governmental will create its own "ethics" to get an upper hand on their neighbor. The rare individuals like Ghandi ,Dali Lama ,Pete Seager or Big Bird do not have different constraints of ethics than the collective that they lead , they simply may be more in control of themselves.
However I wish to strongly condemn your SACRELIGIOUS , BLASPHEMOUS , DEFILING OF THE BIG GREEN ROCK ON THE HILL BEHIND MY VILLAGE !!!!!!!!!!!!!iiyyiyiyiyi AVENGE THE BIG GREEN ROCK |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:08 PM (#557301) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel FATWA ON BIG GREEN ROCK DEFILERS IS DECLARED |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:11 PM (#557303) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow A suicide bomber or hijacker wants to 'get away with it' by taking out his target. But the one who sends him, briefs him, recruits him, trains him...that guy does it because he thinks he can pull it off and still get laid the next Saturday.(Amos)
Well, it may be true of course that the people behind the people who flew the planes are a totally different sort of people, who don't have the same degree of commitment, including a willingness to die. But I certainly wouldn't bet on it.
It'd be nice to believe it, because it would reduce the danger we are in. Somebody who is willing to die is the most potent weapon that there is. I suppose that is one reason why politicians and media people love to throw out the word "coward" whenever this kind of thing happens. It is reassuring.
The English media and politicians regular have done it in relation to the IRA, and it is nonsense. If they listened to the songs they'd know it was nonsense.
Whether on the scaffold high
There are important differences here - I'm not saying that the IRA is identical with whatever we are up against here. One important difference is that the IRA have never come close to the scale of instant mass slaughter of civilians involved here. (To find anyone who has done that you have to turn to the nation states.) Which is not to say that the IRA have not killed enough non-combatants, God knows.
On top of that there is the almost unimaginable horror of the hijack process here - the idea of looking in the eyes of scores of innocent travelers as you fly them to their death.
That is indeed hard to imagine - but what is familiar enough is an army made up of people who are willing to die, and aware that their death, no matter how it come about, can in itself be a weapon against the enemy - that is familiar enough.
And this means that the kind of deterrent effect that Amos talked about just cannot be relied upon. The only gain from killing people in the Hindu Kush, from Bin Ladin down, is that they as individuals will not be able to play any further part in this strange conflict.
But if their deaths serve to recruit replacements who outnumber them...We could see something equivalent to a human chain reaction.
It would be great if we could believe that the people who are in control could be relied upon to keep their eye on what might actually serve to reduce danger, and to weaken the opponents, whoever they are. If instead they go in for grandstanding, and in the process do things that actually make things worse, the world is in very serious trouble. |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:14 PM (#557305) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Decisions based on what God says or decisions by a corporate memo , governmental decree etc. are all prone to the same collective human failings. However the next time god speaks to someone I want to review the tape recording. |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:36 PM (#557323) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Skeptic Doneul, You can stand down from full alert. Word has just arrived that the Big Green Rock was green becasue it was spray painted by a bunch of radical-liberal folk singers as some sort of incomprehensible protest having to do with the Doritos War. As they used environmentally friendly vegetable based paint, it washed off after the first hard rain. Currently a debate is raging as to whether the folk singers were divinely inspired by the Big Green Rock from the future or whether it's greenness was really spiritual rather than literal allalong. Then there are the revisionist's who insist that it was always supposed to be the Big Grey Rock and that the Green was a typo. They view the folk-singer types as the vilist of blasphemers and are demanding that they be forced to sing songs from the Barney the Dinosaur Show before an audience of punk rockers as penance. Regards John NOTE: It is just this sort of blatant mockery of religion that is going to get folks like bin Laden pissed at us so it had better stop. |
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23 Sep 01 - 07:37 PM (#557324) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: GUEST,guest, Deda at home My huband has an old friend who has worked for a US airline for at least a couple of decades -- as has his wife. He sends the following email: Subject: Email from a US Pilot Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:52:09 -0700 (PDT)
Removed by request of the poster
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23 Sep 01 - 08:10 PM (#557334) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Where are the air Marshalls? Where are the double walled luggage containers?
Small planes have been grounded but that may lift soon.?? Skeptic, Perhaps.......-this has been censored for Osama internet operatives- ..........and worship blatant mockery otherwise you are just a chip off the big green rock.
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23 Sep 01 - 08:18 PM (#557338) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Greg F. Worthwhile keeping in mind, too, that every attempt at increasing & improving U. S. airline security for the last 20 years was fought tooth and nail by the Airline Industry & their lobbyists, effectively blocking most of it, with the result we saw on the 11th. These same Airline companies are now being rewarded for this deep concern about passenger and employee safety with a 15 billion dollar gift from Uncle Dubya. Ain't that America- somethin' to see. Best, Greg |
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23 Sep 01 - 09:27 PM (#557373) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: DougR Uh, you rather not have any airline companies, Greg F.? That would put a crimp in transportation, wouldn't it? Best, DougR |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:24 PM (#557406) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Greg F. I hate myself already, but I'll rise to the bait: Gee, Doug, I thought you were a champion of allowing The Market to operate freely without unnecessary Government intervention? Shouldn't market forces & competition sort out the airline companies? Or are you turning into a liberal? Put your glasses back on & try again - where did I say what you allege? Greg |
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23 Sep 01 - 10:47 PM (#557411) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll We bailed out Chrysler, New York City, and who knows what else, so why not bail out the airlines? There is ample precident. troll |
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24 Sep 01 - 02:00 AM (#557485) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles The answer to the hi-jackings and this terrible flying bomb, if not just blowing up the plane by plcing bombs aboard, would appear to be a plane designed with no access to the flight cabin?
The security should be then easier to handle, as you would just have to ensue that only the intended flight crew were on board.
They would be no point in anyone in the plane threatening other passengers or staff, as they could not then control the plane. Is this just too obvious or just too expensive? Do we now have any choice? |
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24 Sep 01 - 08:12 AM (#557589) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: GUEST Perhaps it's too early on a Monday, but the idea of increasing security to the cockpit/flight cabin seems rather futile, short of hermetically sealing the pilots in for the duration of the flight. Certainly there are scenarios in which one could think it necessary for the pilots/crew to have access to the passengers, and vice versa, and such contingencies provide enterprising terrorists the opportunity to exploit those weaknesses, which they seem very adept at doing. Then it becomes a game of one-upmanship, sort of like the current state of affairs with computer viruses/hackers, and the network security guys who go around "putting out fires." |
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24 Sep 01 - 09:22 AM (#557639) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow That would put a crimp in transportation, wouldn't it? After last week would that be such a bad thing? We managed before aeroplanes came along, and that was even without all the things we have now like computers and mobile phones.
If people to be put into keeeping airlines going, that means they own part of the airlines. If it's public money, that means the public own them. That's as much capitalism as it is socialism. |
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24 Sep 01 - 10:03 AM (#557665) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall W is on right now, stumbling all over himself, stuttering, misspronouncing words, ending every sentence on the upswing like it was a question. Still insisting that "They" hate freedom. I just find it very difficult to take this guy seriously. |
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24 Sep 01 - 12:13 PM (#557762) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Donuel Note he said someone was playing politics "trying" to "twist" his words. I have a hard enough time trying to straighten out he says into some coherent sentences. Sometimes it is like trying to straighten out a pretzel. |
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24 Sep 01 - 12:35 PM (#557775) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Anybody watch "60 Minutes" last night? Don Firth |
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24 Sep 01 - 12:50 PM (#557784) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Mrrzy All "laid-off" airline employees should be immediately hired as consultants by the new office of homeland protection or whatever it was. Don't bail out the airline companies, who cares about their profits. Bail out the people who are about to lose their jobs - and in so doing, get all their expertise in answering the question How would you get past yourself if you were a terrorist? Baggage handlers would then help close the baggage loopholes, pilots the cockpit ones, attendants the passenger ones, and so on. When we get out air traffic back and people are rehired into the industry it will then be a lot safer, at least... and if people don't go back to flying, no need to bail out the companies. This applies to travel of humans, of course. Cargo would still need to go, but not ever on a plane with passengers. What we'll do about crop dusting, or rich folks with personal planes, I haven't thought of yet. |
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24 Sep 01 - 12:52 PM (#557785) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow That last sentence in that last post I made got garbled - it should have read: If people put money into a business, such as an airline to keep it going, that means they own part of that business. If it's public money, because the representatives of the community believe it is necessary to keep it going, that means the public own's that part of the business. That's just as much capitalism as it is socialism.
If an airline company goes broke, the aeroplanes are still there, the people who operate them are still there. If it's important to the community that they keep flying, it keeps flying, and the government picks up the bill, if the fares don't cover the cost. That's common sense. |
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24 Sep 01 - 12:53 PM (#557786) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth DougR, I think you have me confused with somebody else. Where did I say anything like that? Don Foirth |
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24 Sep 01 - 12:56 PM (#557794) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth (Hells Bells! Can't even spell my own name this morning.) |
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24 Sep 01 - 01:09 PM (#557801) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Troll Don. 12:56 P.M. is afternoon. Go take a nap. You've been working too hard. troll***BG*** |
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24 Sep 01 - 02:00 PM (#557824) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: The Shambles I am trying to see any of the senarios when the flight crew would need to come back to the passengers and vice versa?
I am sure there may be some problems involved in doing this, but would these be bigger problems than more future potential suicide bombers hi-jacking planes? Until the flight crew is completely sealed off from the pasengers, I cannot see the passenger confidence that the industry needs, ever returning. |
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24 Sep 01 - 02:19 PM (#557842) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall the cheapest and most effective way to put a stop to this crap is the install cockpit doors that are secure. Second to that Sky Marshals on every flight. |
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24 Sep 01 - 02:26 PM (#557848) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Justa Picker The cockpit doors can be ten inches thick and made of solid lead. If a terrorist demands "open the cockpit door now or we blow up the plane", doesn't matter how secure the doors are, if they carry through on the threat. I do however endorse the Sky Marshalls idea but with several not just one on board each flight, and also the flight crew being trained in some method of self defense. As grotesque as this also might sound, all commercial aircraft should also be equipped with a self destruct mechanism to minimize the chances of what happened on September 11th ever happening again. |
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24 Sep 01 - 02:38 PM (#557855) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: McGrath of Harlow If they'd blown up the planes on September 11th we'd be mourning the terrible deaths of 200 people or so instead of 6000 plus.
I suppose sealed-off compartments would mean that, if something happened to disable the flight crew, the geek in tourist class who knows how to fly wouldn't be abe to go up front and heroically save everyone. And if the captain has a heart attack, there won't be a chance for a doctor from among the passengers to come to the rescue. And you won't have the scenario where the pilot nonchalently strolls down the pkane so as not to worry bthe passengers, and has a look at what has gone wrong in teh tail section.
But I doubt if these things happen too often in real life.
But I'd still sooner go by airship, if there isn't a way you can get there by train. |
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24 Sep 01 - 02:39 PM (#557856) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: heric AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is so bright I gotta wear leaded shades. |
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24 Sep 01 - 04:18 PM (#557892) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: Don Firth Troll, I'm in Seattle. I posted that at 9:56 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Don Firth |
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24 Sep 01 - 06:24 PM (#557959) Subject: RE: AMERICAN ATTACKS*PART TEN-&the future is From: kendall El Al has sturdy doors. As far as a self destruct program goes. what makes the difference if the pilot blows it up or the terrorist does it? Also, if they say they will blow it up, what would be gained by opening the door? These are the threads in the series on the World Trade Center Tragedy. Please post only to the most recent thread in the series. The others are closed because they are too long for some browsers to open. There is no need to "refresh" old threads in this series. These links should be sufficient. Thanks -Joe Offer-
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