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Re: Miami Herald
Hi,
First of all, let me say that I hear your anger, and I respect it, even though
I think you're misunderstanding me on a lot of points. Even beyond the details
of the misunderstandings, it's possible that you and I just have differing
views of the world, that no amount of argument will align. If that is the
case, we will have to agree to disagree. But at least, I will try to clarify
the misunderstandings. You don't have to agree with me, but I'd prefer you
disagree with what I actually *meant*. :-)
I realized that in the middle of all the debate about minutia, I had written
a paragraph that really summed up my basic point. I'm going to copy it up
here to the top so that it doesn't get lost in the mechanics of the argument
below:
Look, lest this gets lost in the debate about facts, I am *not* trying to
assign *blame* here. The people that planned and executed these attacks bear
sole blame for them, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the
law (note: *law*, not the indiscriminate bombing Bush has intimated -- he said
"we will not discriminate".). What I am saying is that violence exists in a
complex social matrix, not in a vacuum, and if we are truly going to eradicate
terrorism, then we have to look at our own connection to that matrix. That
doesn't mean we created the matrix; I'm not saying it's our *fault*, but we are
*involved*. There's a difference. I am not saying we should forgive the
attackers (although as a Christian, I believe we should, I'm just not making
that argument *here*), nor am I saying we should justify their actions. I am
saying that we should *understand* them.
Now I will respond point by point.
> People just
> > don't get up in the morning and decide to be
> > terrorists.
>
> Well guess what...They DECIDED to come over and kill
> thousands of innocent people. They DECIDED to do
> evil. The DECIDE it on a regular basis. What the
> CRAP are you trying to say here?
You misemphasized my sentence. My emphasis was on "just get up in the
morning". Certainly they decided. They decided lots of things. Note my use
of the word "and". That means "both". My point was that these sorts of
decisions have roots. Lots of factors over many years lead up to events like
this. These are not people like Jeffery Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy who just
have a screw loose and there's nothing you can do about it. These are fellow
human beings, made in God's image, who have been so abused in their lives that
they have lost anything to keep them alive except hatred. In saying "get up in
the morning", I meant that whatever these people's lives were like, I doubt if
they just woke up last tuesday morning and decided "I'm going to crash a plane
today" without there being any kind of basis or background or reasons leading
up to it.
> If we insist on
> > pretending that they are irrational, inhuman, and
> > beyond the pale
>
> So now I'm supposed to believe that what these beasts
> do on a regular basis is rational, humane, and
> completely acceptable. How naive!
False dichotomy. Unworthy rhetorical tactic. Also, you changed the statement
from refering to the *people* to their *acts*. Different subject. Rational
people can do irrational acts. Human beings can (and do) perform inhumane
acts. Dehumanizing the people does not help us understand what drove them
to such horror.
> Unless America really
> > looks at our own
> > culpability in acts of terror around the world, and
> > makes changes to stop it,
> > this will happen again.
>
> I am so damned sick of hearing people bend over
> backwards to try to find our "culpability" in this.
> There is none.
Who's bending over backwards? I don't even have to think very hard to think of
imperialist American foreign policies that benefit us while exploiting poor
people in other countries. American oil in Nigeria. It took a long time and a
lot of work (by people who were accused of being "unamerican" at the time) to
divest from supporting Apartheid in south africa. Supporting the Contras in
Nicaragua (by selling weapons to Iran), and oppressive right-wing dictators in
Chile and other south american countries. How much longer do I have to go on?
> We got up to go to
> work/school/wherever last week, thinking it was a
> typical blah day, and were instead victims of the most
> horrendous act of violence imaginable. How the crap
> to you figure that we are responsible?!?
I never said responsible. I am saying that violence does not occur in a
vacuum, and we are not aloof and disconnected from what goes on all over the
world.
> as long as
> > American-made weapons kill innocent Palestinians,
>
> Yeah, that's exactly what we intended to happen.
Oh, you think we sold weapons, never thinking they would be *used*?
*Now* who's naive?
> as
> > long as we train people
> > like Bin Laden (yeah, if you haven't heard that yet,
> > he's CIA-trained),
>
> Why don't you do us the decency of giving us the rest
> of the facts here. He was trained as part of a group
> who were fighting against the Soviets 20 years ago.
> It's not like we picked out a few people and trained
> them to kill for no reason at all. We weren't training
> terrorists.
Yes, we were. They were anti-soviet terrorists, and that made them "okay".
We, as a country, have got to stop discarding our values when it seems
convenient to achieve our short-term goals. So how do you feel about the Bush
administration giving $43 million to the Taliban last May?
> Yeah, we do things to hack people off. Been doing it for years. Fer
> instance, we let the Nazis know they couldn't continue their reign of terror,
> and they hated us for it. Making people angry isn't an indication that we
> are doing wrong.
But Germany is now one of our best friends. Why? Because after the war, we
treated them with respect, compassion, and humanity, instead of taking the
opportunity of victory to keep punishing our enemies, like after WWI. We
didn't treat them like unreasoning crazies, deserving only of destruction,
whether or not specific people were guilty of specific crimes. Granted,
our attempts to mete out justice after the war were of limited effectiveness,
but at least we were trying.
> And I am not "pretending" these people are "crazy, evil, madmen". That's
> exactly what they are. People who are sane, good and rational don't do what
> they have been doing for years. Surely you know better than that.
Can you not see what the US looks like from a third-world perspective? Here's
a quote from an Alternet article: "In an email, author Micah Sifry, a longtime
follower of the Middle East conflicts, observed, "Does anybody think that we
can send the USS New Jersey to lob Volkswagon-sized shells into Lebanese
villages -- Reagan, 1983 -- or loose 'smart bombs' on civilians seeking shelter
in a Baghdad bunker -- Bush, 1991 -- or fire cruise missiles on a Sudanese
pharmaceutical factory -- Clinton, 1999 -- and not receive, someday, our share
in kind?" I would point out that this pharmaceutical factory made medicines,
not weapons, and how about the estimate million children who have died in Iraq
in the last ten years due to US-enforced sanctions? Are *we*, as a country,
"sane, good, and rational"? Then why do we have we been doing these things for
years? Why do we do them now? Why was a Sikh man killed the other day for
looking too Arab? Why are Mosques being attacked? We buy cheap coffee and
cheap oil, which is cheap because poor countries have people labor under
conditions and for pay scales that we would never allow in this country, and we
let that economic violence go unchallenged because it's far away, and it's part
of our worship of the God of Free Trade.
Look, lest this gets lost in the debate about facts, I am *not* trying to
assign *blame* here. The people that planned and executed these attacks bear
sole blame for them, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the
law (note: *law*, not the indiscriminate bombing Bush has intimated -- he said
"we will not discriminate".). What I am saying is that violence exists in a
complex social matrix, not in a vacuum, and if we are truly going to eradicate
terrorism, then we have to look at our own connection to that matrix. That
doesn't mean we created the matrix; I'm not saying it's our *fault*, but we are
*involved*. There's a difference. I am not saying we should forgive the
attackers (although as a Christian, I believe we should, I'm just not making
that argument *here*), nor am I saying we should justify their actions. I am
saying that we should *understand* them.
> "Don't destroy our peaceful, daisy-ridden, we just
> want to get along, terrorist existence"? Please...
You seem to think that "terrorist" is a natural state of existence, and they
would be terrorists even if no one were fighting against them. Have I
understood you right? I don't comprehend how anyone can believe that.
> I'm sorry, Don. I like you a lot. But your post made me mad. Forgive me.
Nothing to forgive. I'm not offended or hurt. These are really important
issues, and if we can't talk about them, we will never be able to solve
anything.
Fiat pax,
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
http://www.zmag.org/zinncalam.htm
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