A Terrorist's Nursery (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

No, I didn't. Please pay better attention to your attribution.


On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote:

> 
> 
> Jim Choate wrote:
> 
> 
> > But Nato's escape clause won't work this time round. For as the Afghan
> > refugees turn up in their thousands at the border, it is palpably evident
> > that they are fleeing not the Taliban but our bombs and missiles. The
> > Taliban is not ethnically cleansing its own Pashtun population. The refugees
> > speak vividly of their fear and terror as our bombs fall on their cities.
> > These people are terrified of our "war on terror'', victims as innocent as
> > those who were slaughtered in the World Trade Centre on 11 September. So
> > where do we stop?
> 
> Let's see - terrorism has to be accepted because it only kills our
> children on purpose; retaliation is evil because it sometimes kills
> theirs by accident. If we accept the moral equivalence of terror and
> retaliation, the question is not "where do we stop?" but "where do we
> begin?"
> 
> The right of self-defense is as fundamental as the right to life itself.
> Pacifists may comfort themselves with the fuzzy notion that meeting bin
> Laden's demands (and presumably the demands of every other two-bit
> killer with enough cash to buy a Kalashnikov and some plastique) will
> free us of the threat of terrorism; unfortunately, I have studied terror
> for 25 years and know better, so that comfort is denied me. 
> 
> The only real alternatives are (1) retaliate against the attackers, no
> matter who they are or where they lurk, or (2) accept that anybody with
> a grudge against people who are happier than he is has the prerogative
> of taking life with impunity.
> 
> Marc de Piolenc
> Philippines
> 
>