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Re: Miami Herald
Hi,
> okay, so i was preparing my argument to respond to
> don's first response to my response
Did I write a response to your response? I don't
remember that. I remember writing a response to
Kelvin's response, but not yours. Or did I?
Now I've gone and confused myself.
> > terrorists. If we insist on
> > pretending that they are irrational, inhuman, and
> > beyond the pale,
>
> how else should we view such cowardly acts, don?
As I've said before, I was talking about *people*, not *acts*.
> okay, i agree here, we as americans have not perfected
> the act of perfection, but there is a standard. a
> standard of diplomacy, of war, of disagreeing, you got
> a beef, you state it for the record and fight for it,
> you don't incinerate thousands of people as they sit
> in their cubicles.
But we have broken this standard repeatedly when we thought
it was in our interests to do so.
> we do not sit idly by in return,
> in an attempt to purpetuate peace, simply because
> violence should not be snuffed out by another type of
> violence. they have issues: i understand this, they
> rightly have a problem with us -- what they did
> however, was open a mammoth can of worms, i cannot
> help but think that this is a fight they deliberately
> started.
Lets keep in mind that they feel we started it many years ago.
> these are crazy people, but they are not
> stupid, what else did they think would happen?
Well, my best guess is they hoped we would react with terrible
force and thus validate their martyr complex and enable them to
widen the gulf between Islamic moderates and secularists, forcing
the Islamic world to chose between extreme positions of either
joining with them in their twisted fundamentalism or siding
with "the enemy". They would be delighted if we played the role
of the bad guy in that story. I think an indiscriminate military
attack would play right into their hands.
> here is a clue for them: the world was not happy with
> us before this -- the entire western world and most of
> the middle east was pretty ticked at America's stand
> for Isreal (another can of worms, please let's not
> open it)
Except it's the same can of worms, from their point of view.
> , this action however has completely alienated
> them from the civilized world -- a world that
> sympathized with them on sept. 10.
Agreed, which is why I fervently hope that our government
will use the momentum and *wonderful* worldwide outpouring
of sympathy not to build a coalition to attack Afghanistan
(or Iraq, as William F Buckley suggests), but to figure out
a world-wide path that will solve the terrorism problem.
I cannot think of anything that would undermine the terrorists
more than if the US, instead of demanding that the world march
to its tune (this same world that we consistently ignore on
other occasions, like pulling out of the Kyoto agreement or
not supporting UN resolutions that we don't like), humbly
asked the world what *they* think we should do. Let's build
something out of the ashes that we can all work toward together,
so that all nations feel they have a stake in it and something
to gain.
Sure, let's by all means pursue the rule of law and prosecute
the criminals who did this. I have never for one iota of a
second suggested anything otherwise. But at the moment, we
are badgering countries to hand over suspects, threatening
to attack, while at the same time refusing to prove our
allegations. Is this correct legal procedure? Doesn't feel
that way to me.
> us what it was for, they acted out terror on us plain
> and simple, with no warning, no debate, no political
> channels and still no explanation.
Although I wonder about the simple part (with no explanation,
how can we know if it's simple or not?), the rest of your point
is very well made. Thank you, I will bear that in mind in the
future.
> do you really think christ was talking about something
> of this mammoth proportion here?
Yes.
> and are we
> forgetting that forgiving someone does not mean they
> necessarily get off scot free?
No.
> we can't hand out water treatment plants
> and fertilizer in the form of aid at this point and
> expect they'll stop terrorizing the world (yes world,
> not just america).
As I understand it, there are two motivations for something
like this: one is because one is so convinced that the enemy
is evil and must be hurt at all costs because they stand against
all that is good and the will of God, and second because the
enemy has taken everything from you such that you have nothing
left to lose and you just want to take some of them with you.
There isn't a whole lot you can do a priori about people who
are zealots. However, there's a lot you can do about the
latter group, and people who are in the latter group are much
more likely to move into the former group. In times of prosperity,
the voices of the crazies are much less likely to be taken
seriously. It's when people feel desparate and oppressed that
they find the crazies appealing. If we had a Marshall Plan
for the Islamic world, when people like Bin Laden tried to say
we were evil and hateful, people would say "what are you talking
about? They're helping us out!" Instead they see us supporting
Israel in terrorist acts, bombing the Sudan and other innocents,
and continuing to embargo Iraq at the cost of childrens' lives.
We can be more careful about the crazies, and we can undercut them
by dealing with other countries in a more respectful and less
self-centered way. It's not a perfect plan (who could lay out a
perfect plan in a casual email?), but I guarantee you it will
work better than bombing Afghanistan.
Why should mililtary strikes be the default position, and those of
us who want to try other options have to defend our position and
show that it would work? Why don't those in favor of bombing
Afghanistan explain how they think that's going to make things
better?
> i am not however saying there
> isn't room for american to live and learn, so that
> once the immediate is out of the way, the future is
> smoother.
Cool. No disagreement here. It's just that things are
very delicate right now, and if we get the immediate out
of the way in a bad way, it's going to make things much
worse down the line. We're at a crossroads, and some
foresight here could be very useful down the road.
> kindest regards,
Thank you. Likewise.
--
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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