Ray and Rigel I am in agreement with your posts-I'd also like to make reference to vvv's post(maybe 3 back) and the statement-" hmmm somethings missing". vvv (he/she??) refers to 2 moderator deleted posts. vvv chose to attack me and my return answer. I understand the new site rules and will abide by them. However, in this case perhaps the moderation was alittle overzealous. To sort of summarize without getting into trouble here vvv basically thought that I was a hopeless case(with stronger wording of course) with regards to my posts- opinions- etc.- probably refering to my militaristic stance. My reply was simply that if there was a war-I'm really pretty darn sure he would be beggin me to join him in the foxhole. Furthermore vvv-I have to say that I do find it troubling that at this particular most sensitive time you have chosen to speak of, as you say, our "not very noble history". I can not say what I want to say. Suffice it to say I'm disappointed with you
Nick, you said "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 clue here is the word "espoused". I believe the reason they are killing is because they like to kill. Their saying that we are enemys is only their excuse. CaroKann, you said "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." Do you seriously think that the terrorists murder of 5000 innocent people should cause us to take a look at OURSELVES! and see what we need to change? And your reasoning that "we are not purely good, and they're not purely evil" and that you "cannot accept that our position is completely right, and theirs is completely wrong" leads to the the erronious conclusion that there is "no such thing as good and evil, we are all just people and nobodys perfect, can't we just all get along", and is also the root of the popular contemporary saying "I need to do whats right for ME". This kind of thinking is at the root of the terrorists personaities (and others). The focus for these people is not on good and evil, right or wrong, but on ME (meaning themselves). ME, god. Your argument is similar to the argument of the terrorist in that it is morally relitavistic. A basic question each of us has to answer in our lives is "is there an ultimate good that is greater than myself, or am I (ME)the ultimate good." It looks like you're a long way along in answering that question for yourself. Jaan, in responding to my post you said "a) the fear of death is not a demotivator for them, obviously, as hard as it is for us to fathom" I didn't reccomend threatening the terrorist leaders with death, that will not stop them. What I reccomended was stopping them, which can be achieved by either putting them in prison or by killing them. Prison or lack of life are efficient demotivators. It's hard for a person to be motive if they are behind bars or dead. These are the only ways to keep them from killing more innocent people. You also said " b) indiscriminately killing a bunch of muslim civilians will gain them megatons of fresh, shrink-wrapped public support." I never reccomended indiscriminantly killing Muslim civillians. That would be wrong. The words you seem to be trying to put into my mouth are not my own, they are yours. Where do your words come from?
excellent and accurate analysis, particularly RE the importance of addressing underlying causes in order to achieve lasting peace... limbo, i wrote: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. and the reference to history was NOT intended to be an exclusive refence to us history... i was talking about the history of mankind.
shortnfool, nobody is advocating that. as jaan put that very succinctly already RE nick i'll just let his words stand, but let me add Ambassador Oakelys poignant assessment of what finally made the northern irish peace agreement possible after almost a century of armed conflict, the fact that they finally started addressing the underlying causes as opposed to taking the presumptively easy albeit ineffective way out, ie using force.
i'm sorry, you are right. i was over-generalizing your post. i'm in full agreement with you that the terrorists need to be disabled, i just wanted to take the opportunity to re-stress the reasons why the response needs to be very discriminate in order to be effective. - jaan
the past three months, previous to the "attack", i kept asking, "why is this Gary Condit story dominating the news media? there's a war going on in palestine/israel and we keep hearing about what gary condit is throwing away in the garbage." something smells in the "american news media" and it's been cooking for quite sometime.
vvv-The idea of comparing the Northern Ireland conflict with the terrorist monsters of the middle east is preposterous and pollyanna for obvious reasons.
limbo, absolutely not, terrorism is terrorism, anyway, that was not the point, the point in the article was a generic **how should states most effectively deal with terrorism in order to achieve lasting solutions** and the answer is that violence has not and cannot eliminate terrorism in either the israeli/palestine nor the northern ireland conflict, violence only serves to exacerbate the violence, and that is exactly what Ambassador Oakeley demonstrated in his analysis of what finally made the peace agreements possible in northern ireland after the uk had previously attempted, albeit without success, to eliminate terrorist forces through the use of military force, the net result only having been almost a century of bloodshed on all sides involved, and as in where oakeley wrote: Such a response (the use of force) mostly simply galvanizes terrorist movements or drives sympathetic elements of a society to support it. what however enabled the peace agreements was when the involved parties to the conflict started addressing the underlying causes, exactly what we have to continue attempting RE israel/palestine, and, hmm, seems like i'd better explicitly add this just to prevent any misunderstandings on my stance about that, obviously in addition to bringing the perpetrators of last weeks atrocities in the us to justice. hmm, what do the israelis have to say about the current cycle of violence and revenge vs achieving some real solutions? excerpt from TIME.com: TIME/World September 10, 2001 Vol. 158 No 10 By David Grossman The way things are now between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, every act of folly can be justified by the deed that preceded it. The situation is so violent and chaotic, and seems so inexorable, that both sides feel they are bound, even doomed, to respond with ever increasing force to each enemy action. The attack on Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was, however, foolish and dangerous, even within this tangled context. It was an act of revenge meant, first and foremost, to bolster Israeli deterrence. It was also aimed at dealing a blow to Palestinian morale, one that would force the Palestinian Authority to talk with Israel. Neither of these goals was achieved. It seems to me that it shouldn't have been difficult to guess that the action would achieve the precise opposite and only make matters worse. Nevertheless, even as the heart churns at the site of seven innocent murdered Israelis--the act that led to the attack in Ramallah--I remind myself of a few simple truths. Violence will not bring peace, only more violence. Killing influential leaders will not eliminate their beliefs or support of their ideas. It will do the opposite. You can't break a people's spirit by hitting its leaders. On the contrary. I also remind myself, and Israel's leaders, that a conqueror who does not open a window of hope to the conquered cannot, with an entirely clear conscience, lecture them for being pushed, more and more, into a desperate and violent extremism. So, in the current circumstances, Israel and the Palestinians must show less "creativity" in killing and attacking each other and more in seeking a resolution of the conflict. Both parties must resume negotiations unconditionally. Without negotiations we will all be helplessly caught in a spiral of murder and revenge. Without hope, we will all be doomed to be battered time and again by the deadly symptoms of our disease until, perhaps very soon, we will find ourselves powerless to treat the illness itself. --Translated by Haim Watzman David Grossman, one of Israel's pre-eminent commentators and novelists, is the author of The Yellow Wind, a book about the first Palestinian intifadeh, and the novel See Under: Love END TIME
yes. otherwise our thinking is purely one-sided and there will never be a resolution. i cannot believe that people have so much hatred, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER! i cannot believe that this hatred magically appeared from a void. you didn't really address my main point (maybe it was unclear).. look at them rejoicing at the destruction and suffering they have caused. how will it be different when we retaliate against them? won't we surely kill some innocents? won't they then be justified in retaliating against us? or will they be expected to "suck it up" and concede that the U.S. didn't want to kill innocents, but they were just collateral damage and should be forgotten. i dont follow your logic at all. i dont understand how my statement leads to that conclusion. i didnt say that but i do believe that "we are all just people and nobodys perfect." dont you? if you dont believe that, you should be able to provide a counter-example. i agree with this statement. i.e. "what do I have to do to get ME into heaven/paradise. what rules do I follow to save MY soul." i honestly dont follow most of the rest of what you said..
vvv--I thought my point was obvious--I guess not---one group of feuders comes from a civilized world--the second group of feuders(at least one party) comes from a primitive barbaric culture that cannot be reckoned with-reasoned with -whatever.