Nick-and this will be my last post on this subject-This is not a palistinian /israeli thing. It's a moslem/christianity thing. But let me respond-- It's my feeling-we cannot be heros as you say-- There will be no peace between the israelis and palestinians-never-ever. It's been tried and proven time and again. Israel makes huge concessions to the palestinians-at the same time Arafat claims Jerusalem will be his. Even so Israel lets the process continue-as peace appears to be close the lunatics go off again massively to disrupt. So it's not peace their after but the complete and utter destruction of Israel. No amount of talk or compromise can fix it-as I see it. However, I believe the same thing would be happening if there was no Israel. This is where might comes in-and where we sit right now-these groups or countries must be overcome brutally massively whatever--they must fear us even with their wish to die -we must find ways-there is no other way to stop them to preserve and protect our people and country.
**Patriots First...Traders Second**
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Take a picture of the rejoicing people in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, or wherever they were. Take a *good* look. Now fast-forward a few weeks or a month. We have bombed or attacked God-knows-who. Look at the picture again.. That is *us* in the picture, rejoicing at the misery and destruction of others. I'm NOT trying to say "we are no better than them" or "they don't deserve it." What I am trying to say is that this is a cycle. We *ALL* know that. Now the question is how to break the cycle, definitely, assuredly, and unequivocally. All I know is that escalation will *not* break the cycle.
I heard an encouraging (to me) statement on FOX news a few minutes ago.. these might not be his exact words, but all I can remember.
Marine Colonel Ed Bodalto:
"We can launch a cruise missile in a matter of minutes, but in the past that has been ineffective and I think this is a different kind of war. We have to do what will assure a lasting peace for the American people, and the rest of the world."
I have heard what I believe to be other hints that we may not use brute-force military measures to solve this crisis. My feeling is that the media and government are assuming this "bomb the hell out of them" mentality because thats what they feel the public wants. But I believe that the government and military understand that we can't solve this problem with bombs and destruction, and will slowly talk down the bloodlust and convince everyone that the correct long-term route *will* be followed, and that route is *not* "mayhem and destruction."
I heard an encouraging (to me) statement on FOX news a few minutes ago.. these might not be his exact words, but all I can remember.
Marine Colonel Ed Bodalto:
"We can launch a cruise missile in a matter of minutes, but in the past that has been ineffective and I think this is a different kind of war. We have to do what will assure a lasting peace for the American people, and the rest of the world."
I have heard what I believe to be other hints that we may not use brute-force military measures to solve this crisis. My feeling is that the media and government are assuming this "bomb the hell out of them" mentality because thats what they feel the public wants. But I believe that the government and military understand that we can't solve this problem with bombs and destruction, and will slowly talk down the bloodlust and convince everyone that the correct long-term route *will* be followed, and that route is *not* "mayhem and destruction."
hmm, seems like something is missing...
at the very least, i do expect that if things are to go missing now and then that the basis for those decisions be evenhanded, at least as of now...
to change the subject, carokann & nickleeson, sensible and insightful words, i certainly hope that we'll be able to benefit from the innumerous lessons that our often not very noble history has to offer us...
life is too short to focus on symptoms to the detriment of causes.
at the very least, i do expect that if things are to go missing now and then that the basis for those decisions be evenhanded, at least as of now...
to change the subject, carokann & nickleeson, sensible and insightful words, i certainly hope that we'll be able to benefit from the innumerous lessons that our often not very noble history has to offer us...
life is too short to focus on symptoms to the detriment of causes.
[QUOTE
I heard an encouraging (to me) statement on FOX news a few minutes ago.. these might not be his exact words, but all I can remember.
Marine Colonel Ed Bodalto:
"We can launch a cruise missile in a matter of minutes, but in the past that has been ineffective and I think this is a different kind of war. We have to do what will assure a lasting peace for the American people, and the rest of the world."
I have heard what I believe to be other hints that we may not use brute-force military measures to solve this crisis. My feeling is that the media and government are assuming this "bomb the hell out of them" mentality because thats what they feel the public wants. But I believe that the government and military understand that we can't solve this problem with bombs and destruction, and will slowly talk down the bloodlust and convince everyone that the correct long-term route *will* be followed, and that route is *not* "mayhem and destruction." [/B][/QUOTE]
You can be assured that the above Colonel quote has nothing to do with talking, or "lowering" military action. You have interpreted it in its' opposite intention.
I heard an encouraging (to me) statement on FOX news a few minutes ago.. these might not be his exact words, but all I can remember.
Marine Colonel Ed Bodalto:
"We can launch a cruise missile in a matter of minutes, but in the past that has been ineffective and I think this is a different kind of war. We have to do what will assure a lasting peace for the American people, and the rest of the world."
I have heard what I believe to be other hints that we may not use brute-force military measures to solve this crisis. My feeling is that the media and government are assuming this "bomb the hell out of them" mentality because thats what they feel the public wants. But I believe that the government and military understand that we can't solve this problem with bombs and destruction, and will slowly talk down the bloodlust and convince everyone that the correct long-term route *will* be followed, and that route is *not* "mayhem and destruction." [/B][/QUOTE]
You can be assured that the above Colonel quote has nothing to do with talking, or "lowering" military action. You have interpreted it in its' opposite intention.
Nick, these terrorists don't want peace. Their whole goal in life, their carreer, is devoted to killing innocent people. It fills them with a sense of god-like power and a sense of purpose. They are malignant narcissists like serial killers who get their kicks from having absolute control over their victims, and of course the way to have the most control over their victims is to have their victims dead. That makes them feel like a god who gives life and takes it away, but they decieve themselves because they only are able to take life away, as any human being can, and that only makes them murderers. Common murderers. These people don't care if there is peace between Israel and Palestine. The Israel-Palestine conflict just gave them an excuse to express their true nature. Evil usually operates under the guise of goodness and in this case it's no different. Look at Hitler in Nazi Germany. He used patriotism for The Fatherland and the economic suffering of the people to cause them to rise up against ficticious enemys, the Jews, Poland. When other nations protested what they saw then they too became Germanys enemies. Hitler saw himself as a god, just like these terrorists, who had the power over life and death. He was killing the "enemies of the fatherland", the Jews, the Brits, the Americans. In the last stages of the war people were not dying for The Fatherland, they were dying for Hitler himself. They were worshipping him as a god. He had assumed a god-like personna, he had his worshippers, he thought he had the power over life and death, he went as far as anyone ever has in their sick narcissistic endevour to become a god. In the end he even put uniforms on children and marched them in front of the enemys guns as a last ditch effort to support his belief in himself as a god (sound familiar?). He would do anything, sacrifice anyone, in order to protect his own image of himself. When he failed he found out who he really was and couldn't face it so he killed himself. He was a sick megalomaniac who saw himself as the ultimate authority, the ultimate determiner of what is good and what is evil, of who should live and who should die. Of all the people he decieved, the one person he decieved the most was himself. These terrorists are no different. Peace in the middle east will not stop them. Killing is what they do, it is who they are. They are murderers and they are liers, lying most of all to themselves. They can't be persuaded to stop their killing. They can't be reasoned with (look what happened to Poland, England, Russia, and Italy during the second world war when they tried to reason with Hitler. He signed treaties of non-agression with them and then promptly attacked them). The only way to deal with these terrorists leaders is to stop them. The leaders beyond our help. The followers can be helped, but only after the leaders have been dealt with.
NickLeeson
Guest
First, Hitler was the leader of a country, a clearly defined enemy who could be localised. Terrorism on the other hand is anonymous and mostly highly defragmented, as in zealot terrorism will not disappear just because, say, Bin Laden has.
Anyway, we're all agreed that we want to stop terrorism, we just have to find the most effective way of doing that without aggravating the situation in the process, in order to do that we need to get the leaders and bring them to justice WITHOUT making martyrs out of them in the process, plus, probably more important, we need to get at the roots of the problem.
The A#1 problem espoused by radical fanatics is that they see us as the main funders of their "enemy" Israel, and therefore by association we are also the enemy.
The only way we'll get that out of the way is by not only having SHARON AND ARAFAT SHAKE HANDS FOR NICE TV COVERAGE, but by getting the peace accords through and allowing the peoples of both denominations to find a way of coexistence, AND us being seen as a NEUTRAL HONEST BROKER, interested in lasting EQUITABLE SOLUTIONS, and NOT seen as taking sides.
And to all the naysayers, NOBODY was willing to accept a mere 12 years ago that the Iron Curtain or Berlin Wall were ever going to come down in our lifetimes, or think Apartheid in South Africa, ditto about the peace process in Northern Ireland. Ok, it's not perfect in N. Ireland, but hey, compare that with the situation just a couple of years ago, and any incremental improvement is loads better than everything they had before, and relapses are just a normal part of the process of moving forward. Hey, we're only human, right?
Problem A#2 is our troops in Saudia Arabia, that being the custodian land of their holiest sites, and us being "infidels", ok ok, but, let's face it, some Americans would probably have a severe problem with the idea of, say, Japan, massively stationing troops here, heck, loads of Americans already have problems with the UN being in New York and see "Black UN helicopter gunships" threatening our freedom. People, definitely including us, just aren't always that rational, right?
Let's deal with A#2 when A#1 is underway.
London's Guardian Newspaper warns that a harsh response to the terror could be inefective and, worse, create "enemies not just among governments but their citizens as well. ... Right now America needs a statesman, but wants a cowboy. Bush must steel himself to lead, not allow himself to follow."www.slate.com
OK, who helped create Osama Bin Laden and the evil Taliban regime anyway, just to keep some perspective here?
A bitter harvest
Sep 13th 2001 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition
The sufferings of Afghanistan come to New York
IN ITS understandable rage for justice, America may be tempted to overlook one uncomfortable fact. Its own policies in Afghanistan a decade and more ago helped to create both Osama bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban regime that shelters him.
The notion of jihad, or holy war, had almost ceased to exist in the Muslim world after the tenth century until it was revived, with American encouragement, to fire an international pan-Islamic movement after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. For the next ten years, the CIA and Saudi intelligence together pumped in billions of dollarsâ worth of arms and ammunition through Pakistanâs Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) to the many mujahideen groups fighting in Afghanistan.
The policy worked, but after withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, a terrible legacy remained: Afghanistan was left awash with weapons, warlords and extreme religious zealotry.
For the past ten years that deadly brew has spread its ill-effects widely. Pakistan has suffered terrible destabilisation. But the afghanis, the name given to the young Muslim men who fought the infidel in Afghanistan, have carried their jihad far beyond: to the corrupt kingdoms of the Gulf, to the repressive states of the southern Mediterranean, and now, perhaps, to New York and Washington, DC.
Chief among the afghanis was Mr bin Laden, a scion of one of Saudi Arabiaâs richest business families. Recruited by the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al Faisal, to help raise funds for the jihad, he became central to the recruitment and training of mujahideen from across the Muslim world. Mr bin Laden fought against the Russians on the side of the ISIâs favourite Afghan, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, whose Hezb-e-Islami party became the largest recipient of CIA money.
After the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the Americans quickly lost interest in the country and a struggle for power erupted among the mujahideen. But since no group was strong enough to capture and hold Kabul, the capital, Afghanistan slumped into anarchy. In 1995-96, a movement of Pathan studentsâTalibanâfrom religious schools in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan swept the country, promising a restoration of order. They enjoyed Pakistani backing, and almost certainly the approval of the Americans.
Meanwhile, Mr bin Laden had become a self-avowed enemy of America, appalled at the presence of American troops on holy Saudi soil during the Gulf war. Exiled to Sudan, he was soon forced to leave. He secretly returned to Afghanistan, becoming a guest of the Taliban, whose interpretation of Islam and hostility to the West he shares. After attacks on two American embassies in 1998, America tried to persuade the Taliban to surrender him. When the regime refused, the Americans retaliated by raining cruise missiles on guerrilla camps in Afghanistan. The Taliban have steadfastly refused to hand Mr bin Laden over. As their guest he remains.
The Economist
And, how do you EFFECTIVELY deal with terrorism, FORCE or GOING AFTER THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEMS?
Coping with Terrorism
Should a state respond to terrorist attacks with force or seek to address root causes through political dialogue?
Rescue workers carry a woman over the rubble of a building destroyed during the terrorist bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in August. (AP/Wide World)
Some experts view terrorism as the antithesis of politics, as a profoundly threatening assault on the state that demands a forceful military response. Others argue that terrorism is a form of political communication, one that seeks to discredit a particular political system through violent means and warrants a political response if the response is to be effective.
According to the latter view, politically marginalized groups or individuals use terrorism to engage the state apparatus in some form of âdialogue,â whether the state likes it or not. An act of terrorism says, âYou cannot ignore us,â explains Paul Arthur, a former senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and professor of politics at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.
In the case of Northern Ireland, the governmentâs shift away from a military response to terrorism to a political responseâits willingness to engage in political dialogue, to examine the roots of the problem, and to search for political solutionsâfinally led to the recent peace agreement there, Arthur says. A military response to terrorism is the easiest for a state to undertake. âHowever, the consequences of a military response cannot always be, and only rarely are, anticipated,â Arthur says. Such a response mostly simply galvanizes terrorist movements or drives sympathetic elements of a society to support it.
Author: Robert Oakely of the National Defense University, former Director of the Office of Combating Terrorism at the State Department and former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Somalia, and Zaire.
United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC
Anyway, we're all agreed that we want to stop terrorism, we just have to find the most effective way of doing that without aggravating the situation in the process, in order to do that we need to get the leaders and bring them to justice WITHOUT making martyrs out of them in the process, plus, probably more important, we need to get at the roots of the problem.
The A#1 problem espoused by radical fanatics is that they see us as the main funders of their "enemy" Israel, and therefore by association we are also the enemy.
The only way we'll get that out of the way is by not only having SHARON AND ARAFAT SHAKE HANDS FOR NICE TV COVERAGE, but by getting the peace accords through and allowing the peoples of both denominations to find a way of coexistence, AND us being seen as a NEUTRAL HONEST BROKER, interested in lasting EQUITABLE SOLUTIONS, and NOT seen as taking sides.
And to all the naysayers, NOBODY was willing to accept a mere 12 years ago that the Iron Curtain or Berlin Wall were ever going to come down in our lifetimes, or think Apartheid in South Africa, ditto about the peace process in Northern Ireland. Ok, it's not perfect in N. Ireland, but hey, compare that with the situation just a couple of years ago, and any incremental improvement is loads better than everything they had before, and relapses are just a normal part of the process of moving forward. Hey, we're only human, right?
Problem A#2 is our troops in Saudia Arabia, that being the custodian land of their holiest sites, and us being "infidels", ok ok, but, let's face it, some Americans would probably have a severe problem with the idea of, say, Japan, massively stationing troops here, heck, loads of Americans already have problems with the UN being in New York and see "Black UN helicopter gunships" threatening our freedom. People, definitely including us, just aren't always that rational, right?
Let's deal with A#2 when A#1 is underway.
London's Guardian Newspaper warns that a harsh response to the terror could be inefective and, worse, create "enemies not just among governments but their citizens as well. ... Right now America needs a statesman, but wants a cowboy. Bush must steel himself to lead, not allow himself to follow."www.slate.com
OK, who helped create Osama Bin Laden and the evil Taliban regime anyway, just to keep some perspective here?
A bitter harvest
Sep 13th 2001 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition
The sufferings of Afghanistan come to New York
IN ITS understandable rage for justice, America may be tempted to overlook one uncomfortable fact. Its own policies in Afghanistan a decade and more ago helped to create both Osama bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban regime that shelters him.
The notion of jihad, or holy war, had almost ceased to exist in the Muslim world after the tenth century until it was revived, with American encouragement, to fire an international pan-Islamic movement after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. For the next ten years, the CIA and Saudi intelligence together pumped in billions of dollarsâ worth of arms and ammunition through Pakistanâs Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) to the many mujahideen groups fighting in Afghanistan.
The policy worked, but after withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, a terrible legacy remained: Afghanistan was left awash with weapons, warlords and extreme religious zealotry.
For the past ten years that deadly brew has spread its ill-effects widely. Pakistan has suffered terrible destabilisation. But the afghanis, the name given to the young Muslim men who fought the infidel in Afghanistan, have carried their jihad far beyond: to the corrupt kingdoms of the Gulf, to the repressive states of the southern Mediterranean, and now, perhaps, to New York and Washington, DC.
Chief among the afghanis was Mr bin Laden, a scion of one of Saudi Arabiaâs richest business families. Recruited by the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki al Faisal, to help raise funds for the jihad, he became central to the recruitment and training of mujahideen from across the Muslim world. Mr bin Laden fought against the Russians on the side of the ISIâs favourite Afghan, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, whose Hezb-e-Islami party became the largest recipient of CIA money.
After the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the Americans quickly lost interest in the country and a struggle for power erupted among the mujahideen. But since no group was strong enough to capture and hold Kabul, the capital, Afghanistan slumped into anarchy. In 1995-96, a movement of Pathan studentsâTalibanâfrom religious schools in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan swept the country, promising a restoration of order. They enjoyed Pakistani backing, and almost certainly the approval of the Americans.
Meanwhile, Mr bin Laden had become a self-avowed enemy of America, appalled at the presence of American troops on holy Saudi soil during the Gulf war. Exiled to Sudan, he was soon forced to leave. He secretly returned to Afghanistan, becoming a guest of the Taliban, whose interpretation of Islam and hostility to the West he shares. After attacks on two American embassies in 1998, America tried to persuade the Taliban to surrender him. When the regime refused, the Americans retaliated by raining cruise missiles on guerrilla camps in Afghanistan. The Taliban have steadfastly refused to hand Mr bin Laden over. As their guest he remains.
The Economist
And, how do you EFFECTIVELY deal with terrorism, FORCE or GOING AFTER THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEMS?
Coping with Terrorism
Should a state respond to terrorist attacks with force or seek to address root causes through political dialogue?
Rescue workers carry a woman over the rubble of a building destroyed during the terrorist bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in August. (AP/Wide World)
Some experts view terrorism as the antithesis of politics, as a profoundly threatening assault on the state that demands a forceful military response. Others argue that terrorism is a form of political communication, one that seeks to discredit a particular political system through violent means and warrants a political response if the response is to be effective.
According to the latter view, politically marginalized groups or individuals use terrorism to engage the state apparatus in some form of âdialogue,â whether the state likes it or not. An act of terrorism says, âYou cannot ignore us,â explains Paul Arthur, a former senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and professor of politics at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.
In the case of Northern Ireland, the governmentâs shift away from a military response to terrorism to a political responseâits willingness to engage in political dialogue, to examine the roots of the problem, and to search for political solutionsâfinally led to the recent peace agreement there, Arthur says. A military response to terrorism is the easiest for a state to undertake. âHowever, the consequences of a military response cannot always be, and only rarely are, anticipated,â Arthur says. Such a response mostly simply galvanizes terrorist movements or drives sympathetic elements of a society to support it.
Author: Robert Oakely of the National Defense University, former Director of the Office of Combating Terrorism at the State Department and former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Somalia, and Zaire.
United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC
Rigel, not sure I agree with the comparisons to Hitler.. every situation is different. And I thought the agenda of these moslems was for the US to change its policy regarding Israel and perhaps the middle east in general. One thought of yours that I completely agree with is that the leaders, at least, cannot be convinced to change their ways. They cannot be negotiated with or converted. Even so, I don't think the solution is to eradicate them from the face of the earth. I don't think "annihilate your enemies" is a workable long-term policy in any case. I think the solution will take generations.. I think the children will have to be raised with a different understanding than their parents. Let's not punish the children for the sins of the father, though I'm sure we will to a certain degree. Also, let's look at ourselves to see what we need to change. I can't accept the "good vs evil" cry, because surely we are not purely good, and they are not purely evil. I cannot accept that our position is completely right, and theirs is completely wrong. What they DID was completely wrong, but I am talking about their reasons and their image of us.
rigel,
i think you misunderstood nick's position. he is not advocating being nice to terrorists or having peace talks with them. i believe his point is that to be truly effective, US should give terrorists something that they are afraid of: something that would undermine their MOTIVATION and PUBLIC SUPPORT.
as it has been pointed out repeatedly, an all-out war against muslims is something THE TERRORIST ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO, because:
a) the fear of death is not a demotivator for them, obviously, as hard as it is for us to fathom, and
b) indiscriminately killing a bunch of muslim civilians will gain them megatons of fresh, shrink-wrapped public support.
on the other hand, furthering the israeli-palestinian peace talks would gradually strip them of both resources.
- jaan
i think you misunderstood nick's position. he is not advocating being nice to terrorists or having peace talks with them. i believe his point is that to be truly effective, US should give terrorists something that they are afraid of: something that would undermine their MOTIVATION and PUBLIC SUPPORT.
as it has been pointed out repeatedly, an all-out war against muslims is something THE TERRORIST ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO, because:
a) the fear of death is not a demotivator for them, obviously, as hard as it is for us to fathom, and
b) indiscriminately killing a bunch of muslim civilians will gain them megatons of fresh, shrink-wrapped public support.
on the other hand, furthering the israeli-palestinian peace talks would gradually strip them of both resources.
- jaan
NickLeeson
Guest
Phew, Caro, that means more work for me, doing abstracts and all, but hey, sure:eek:
just thought pasting here would make it easier, but OK
Jaan, yeah, that's pretty much what I'm on about.
just thought pasting here would make it easier, but OK
Jaan, yeah, that's pretty much what I'm on about.
- Status