On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 09:03:58AM -0700, Ben Weber wrote:
'Complain'? "We kill millions of innocent civilians unjustifiably"? Give me a break, Americans are not the DEVIL, this sounds like something the only the devil himself would do. To kill millions of innocent civilians; this is not the American Foreign Policy, never was and never will be. The real American Foreign Policy, not the garbage propaganda you've obviously been reading:
[WWII history stuff]
This has little to do with US middle east policies. I understand people are emotional at this point, but to be living under the impression that the US has no part in the escalation is ignorant of history. The fundamentalists behind these terrorist attacks are justifying their actions on the basis of US sponsorship of Israel which in their view is terrorising Palestinians, and various US interentionist military acts -- missile attacks, assassination attempts, blanket bombings etc. They may or may not have other agendas, but these historic grievances are what allow them to gain supporters. It seems likely that we will see an escalation: - Israel and Palestine conflict, Israel funded by US, both sides have greivances in their escalation of violence - previous WTC bombing, and US reactions to that if both sides continue to react with increasing violence where does it end? I'm not saying there is an easy answer, but escalation seems unlikely to help long term political stability. Unfocused escalation "no distinction between perpetrators and harborers" it would seem will be likely to create more victims, who have had family members killed who were bystanders and previously neutral or antagonistic to the perpetrators who will then be fodder for future supporters of that currently small minority of fundamentalist islam calling for jihad on the US. Pre-emptive strikes if any should be focused on military targets only not for the purpose of revenge but for the purpose of reducing the chance of further attacks. If a strike would in fact increase chance of further attacks and contribute to further escalation, I think it would be a bad idea, and instead attempts should be made to suppress the current cycle of escalations. Adam