why I'm worried by Bush ....

[Golden]

Am I the only one worried by the increasingly warlike and militaristic noises emanating from the Bush administration?

For while I hear a lot of individual Americans including influential commentators making intelligent and measured responses, the government seems to have reached straight for the holster; it betrays a total lack of appreciation of the complexity of the world.

In another thread I read:

You've written much sense, PC, and I am pleased as a non-American to see some reason in these threads.

But you over-simplifiy and this is Bush's error or his stupidity

For don't forget, regarding Israel ... the Semitic race which has historically (5,000 years plus) occupied the lands at the eastern end of the Mediterranean comprises both Jews and Arabs - they are all the same race. Why should it be thought of as Israel's land?

Jerusalem is a holy city for all three religions: it is the centre of Judaism; it is the focal point for Christianity, and when Islam was founded 700 years later the Arabs too saw Jerusalem as a holy city. The Jews which have been oppressed throughout their entire history, in your words, are the same Jewish people who tried to destroy Christianity … and Jesus was a Semite and brought up as a Jew.

Historically, the Jews lived in Arab states; before the 2nd world war, Jewish/ Zionist activists committed a series of murders and bombings in their campaign to get part of the so-called Holy Land set aside as a Jewish State.

After the 2nd World War the Allies - guilty about the holocaust - agreed to these demands. The first Jewish president, David Ben Guryan was a terrorist before the war, leading a bombing campaign against the British rulers of Palestine ...

So why is it wrong for Palestinians not to conduct their protests in the same way? After all their cause is supported by countless UN resolutions which support their demands for a designated homeland of their own? When they set a suicide bomber into a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem they are doing no more than the Jews did half a century ago to achieve identical aims…

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist...

And thinking about it - how did the British view the rebellious Americans in the 1770s? As terrorists …

So on what basis are these men heroes and bin Laden evil? So who is to say which terrorist is wrong, his caused unjust, his methods unacceptable?

For what about the German resistance plot to kill Hitler in 1944 by means of a suicide bomber using a briefcase - the Nazis called Von Stauffenberg a terrorist; we called him a freedom-fighter and a hero …

You all saw the film Gladiator? Our hero's wife and child are dead; he wants to destroy the regime which did that to him; he chooses to die for the cause … sound familiar?

if we understand that, we can understand Mohammed Atta and his pals doing the same.

For - being prepared to die for your cause is the ultimate weapon. The Vietnamese had this weapon; so did the wartime Japanese; so did the IRA hunger strikers …

So terrorists usually win in the end - ask the families not only of all the Russian soldiers who died in Afghanistan in the 1980s; ask the families of the 16,000 British soldiers who died there in the 19th century.

All that was different this week was the sheer scale, the breathtaking audacity of the vision and the scale of achievement because the security and intelligence failures were catastrophic in the extreme…

The truth is that terrorism works, because it does often achieve its aims - it gets publicity, it causes shock, The truth is that this week's events have succeeded: they have created a debate within the US that no amount of UN resolutions was ever going to achieve. We in Europe have long despaired that the US has often chosen to turn its back on some of the realties of life on this planet; the Islamic sects which spawned bin Laden and this week's suicide bombers derive from among the poorest of people this earth; should we be surprised if they look on with envy at us? If they view the charity we preach in our religions as so much hypocrisy?

Terrorism works because it wears us down, and because the terrorist's passion is greater than ours:

Now however we must measure our response. I heard an American Michael Ignatieff on TV the other day remind us that the desire for vengeance brings its own moral temptations. Bush stands on the front of the metaphorical tank and promises to lead us all into war; but against whom and to what end? If anger drives our response, it will be the wrong response.

Do we know who the enemy really is? Are we willing to look honestly at the answer? Remember: some 5,000 people are dead in Ireland, many were British citizens or soldiers killed over the last 30 years by terrorists; many of the terrorist groups openly raise funds in the US; fortunately the British government hasn't bombed the Irish quarters of New York and Boston to punish those who harbour members of the IRA …

My wife's father was assassinated by terrorists in Cyprus in 1956 - my wife was 6 weeks old. But do you blame the man who pulled the trigger on the cause he espoused? Or should we ask what was the British army doing there in the first place?

September 11 may have changed the world because now, we are going to have to try to understand the hatred we engender and we are going to have to diffuse it somehow. Like it or not, the USA was bombed into the realisation that it lives on the same planet as the rest of us; ignorance is dangerous, not bliss.

The US reaction must be measured also by the fact than people of so many nations also died; it is not for Bush to declare war on terrorists - what is the point of that?

No, what we are all going to have to do is to try, as individuals and as nations, to understand what it is we have done to generate such passionate hatred, and to try to reconcile this; bombing bin Laden isn't the answer - there is always another one. The audacity of this week's attacks show we are not going to defend ourselves by creating fortress nations on a big scale to mimic the fortress buildings Americans live in to keep out the dirty and scary people who roam the streets ...

Instead, we are going to have to use new weapons - reason, humility, the art of listening, charity …

It's not going to be easy!

 

[miles]

No, what we are all going to have to do is to try, as individuals and as nations, to understand what it is we have done to generate such passionate hatred, and to try to reconcile this

We understand why they hate us, but apparently you don't. What do we do now, abolish our country to satisfy them?

They attacked us without provocation and murdered thousands of innocent people. How many motherless or fatherless children did these animals create? How much misery and pain did they inflict?

You're out to lunch, Cha-Cha.

 

[HARDKOREBJ]

war

bush better think hard and clear before he declare war.he doen`t know what he may get us into.they could have some surprise for us.

 

[Problem Child]

So on what basis are these men heroes and bin Laden evil? So who is to say which terrorist is wrong, his caused unjust, his methods unacceptable?

I was actually reading your post, right up until the sentence above.

I don't care how fucking oppressed these people think they are- if you can't see that there is no justification for killing 5000+ people, then there is no point in having this discussion.

 

[ChaoticLil]

What i find sad and frustrating is that historically the USA has not only trained terrorist (oops, i mean "freedom fighters"), they also hire them to fight a cause that we as a nation aren't willing (or able) to do.

When Suddam Hussein attacked Kuwait, we went to Kuwait's aid. No one seems to care that we have sold arms to Hussein for years. Same with Iran. Why in the hell do we do sell our enemies weapons of mass (or not so mass) destruction? Makes no sense to me.

In the late fifties/early sixties we had Castro, an idealistc young man who wanted to overturn his government as much as the U.S. Government did. We essentially hired him and funded his cause. What does Castro do after he wins? He turns against us and almost (with the help of Kennedy) starts WWIII.

To go back even further (into Texas history anyway), General Santa Anna was trained at West Point.

Now back to the present......We originally financed Bin Laden's little holy war. Yes, it was with Russia and not us but what difference does that make? Our government gave a psycho millions of dollars, guns, AND trained them?! That's just nuts.

 

[Golden]

No Miles I am very much IN to lunch; there is no evidence in history that going to war will solve this; the smart and the brave thing to do is try and take this by active pursuit of a peace process and reconciliation, combined with a geneuine effort to try and redress some of the world's economic imbalances. If we go to war we will put western civilisation under seige. Which do you prefer??

 

[Problem Child]

Lil

Every one of the people you named above that we supplied with arms and training was our ally at the time, or at least fighting one of our enemies. Do you really think that we search out people to sell arms to that we KNOW are going to turn around and use them on us?

 

[Problem Child]

No Miles I am very much IN to lunch; there is no evidence in history that going to war will solve this; the smart and the brave thing to do is try and take this by active pursuit of a peace process and reconciliation, combined with a geneuine effort to try and redress some of the world's economic imbalances. If we go to war we will put western civilisation under seige. Which do you prefer??

If Miles doesn't mind I will answer.

We are already under seige. We have terrorists living among us and planning the next big attack. Instead of being naiive and ignoring them, and hoping they won't keep ass-raping us, I would much rather declare it as a war, attack the problem head on, and make them realize that if they want to continue to terrorize us, we are not going to sit back and take it.

I really don't understand how "redressing the world's economic imbalances" is going to do shit for this problem.

Why is it that there are destitute people all over the world, yet 95% of the world terrorist activities come out of the middle-east?
Why aren't the poor people in south America and Africa blowing up buildings to protest their economic mistreatment by the US and other developed nations. I don't see it happening, at least not on the scale that it happens in the Mid-east.

I wonder if maybe the answer could be traced more to religious fundamentalism and land, rather than economics.

 

[Guest]

Why?

Do some of them hate us miles?

Which parts of Golden's brief history lesson do you dispute? Or do you simply dismiss it as untrue because it doesn't fit with the mindset you want to have. Or maybe you think they have no right to be angry.

They had no right to do what they have done..ever but that doesn't lessen the West's responsibility in the present state of things in the middle east.

We (not just the US) and the Soviets (gone) pretty much used them as pawns during the cold war.

The Shawnee learned the art of scalping from the white man. But who was cast as the savage for doing it?

 

[Problem Child]

Sorry for continuing the discussion after I said I wasn't going to.

I'm such a wuss.

 

[Golden]

Re: Re: why I'm worried by Bush ....

I was actually reading your post, right up until the sentence above. /B]

Pity; I had you down as a thinking person.

Can't you see that the sheer scale of what happened last week is stopping the US government from thinking its way to a solution; which is exactly what the terrorists want to achieve? Knee-jerk reactions only fulfil the terrorists' expectations.

So let me try to figure this one out... The Zionists murdered hundreds of people between 1918 and 1948 when the West took land previously under Palestine and created Israel. but in round numbers, how many dead British and French would have been too many for the West to allow them to have their own country???

Or another one: the IRA has murdered about 2,000 people since 1968; but their political wing Sinn Fein is now involved in the government of Northern Ireland; would you have excluded them if say, they'd murdered 5,000 instead of 2,000, and done it over the space of 2 hours not 35 years?? On what basis?

As I write, Israel is sending tanks into territory which the UN says should be a Palestinian state ... why does the west let Israel do this?

 

[Thumper]

C

is for cookie..that good enough for me.

Up there.

 

[morninggirl5]

PC,

You're not a wuss. If you were you wouln't continue beating your head against brick walls.

 

[Problem Child]

Re: Re: Re: why I'm worried by Bush ....

Pity; I had you down as a thinking person, not a bigot.

Ad hominem attack, how nice. Feel free to continue without me.

 

[miles]

Golden

Golden, where do you get this stuff?

There is no such thing as a "Semitic Race" any more than there was an "Aryan Race." Arabs are Caucasians. Jews are Caucasians. Arabs and Jews are ethnic groups.

I have no idea what in the world you are talking about. That makes two of us.

 

[Thumper]

Maybe....

it is because we didn't use the Africans and the South Americans as pawns.

And that would probably be due to the oil factor. That made it a strategic region to both us and the Soviets. Africa and South America are not.

Religion plays a big part and the establishment of Israel also...many reasons.

 

[Thumper]

Some people

like to ignore the parts of history that do not fit into the ideal image they create for themselves.

Selective amnesia.

Just a whole lot easier pretending America has been the perfect neighbor since 1776.

 

[Golden]

Why is it that there are destitute people all over the world, yet 95% of the world terrorist activities come out of the middle-east?
Why aren't the poor people in south America and Africa blowing up buildings to protest their economic mistreatment by the US and other developed nations. I don't see it happening, at least not on the scale that it happens in the Mid-east.

Sorry it is not just a middle east thing, it is just that other parts of the world the problems don't spill onto Western soil.

In Chile and Nicaragua, to name but two, left wing governments were elected which objected to the US influences in their countries and to the endemic corruption which enabled a few weatlhy feidsn of the US to rule while most people lived below the poverty line ...

The US reaction was to interfere in the democratic process, promote counter-revolution including arming rebels and enabling acts of terrorism, then to install puppet regimes and then in the case of Chile especially, to allow these governments to committ unforgivable human rights abuses such as torture and murder.

In Grenada when the US didn't like the government, it invaded!

In Africa, The British, French, Belgians and Germans have withdrawn and left them to massacre each other.

In Somalia the US tried military power to counter acts of terrorism against US interests, and withdraw, having totally failed!

 

[ChaoticLil]

Re: Lil

Every one of the people you named above that we supplied with arms and training was our ally at the time, or at least fighting one of our enemies. Do you really think that we search out people to sell arms to that we KNOW are going to turn around and use them on us?

Personally, i have always considered suppling arms, training, and money to anyone who is fighting a holy war/revolution is not only stupid but potentially damaging to the U.S. When it comes to religious zealots as in Bin Laden, they have no loyalities except for their God.

We have seen how our polititians work; they will promise us the world and when elected all promises go out the window along with their ethics. Why is that so inconceivable for a freedom fighter to do? They've won, they got what they were fighting for.
We are no longer needed, so now we are the pawns, or worse yet, they look at us as a potential threat.

If our government feels that a cause is so important to fight, then we should send our soldier to the cause. Instead, they know that not only it isn't worth the fight, that the public wouldn't allow our soldiers to be sent there in the first place. If we would do that and allow the countries to take care of it themselves, this probably would not have happened. We're not the morality of the world, and we need to stop acting as such.

 

[Problem Child]

You know 'Lil, that's a pretty good answer.

 

[Golden]

Re: Golden

Golden, where do you get this stuff?

There is no such thing as a "Semitic Race" any more than there was an "Aryan Race." Arabs are Caucasians. Jews are Caucasians. Arabs and Jews are ethnic groups.

Oxford English Dictionary: "Semite [Shemite] - a person belonging to the race of mankind which includes most of the peoples mentioned in Genesis, X, as descended from Shem, son of Noah, as the Hebews, Arabs, Assyrians and Aramaeans"

Genesis, happly, is one fo the few authorities which Jews, Muslims and Christians would all acknowledge ...

 

[miles]

G-o-l-d-e-n....I-g-n-o-r-e

 

[Cheyenne]

Golden, I think you have been living in London so long that terrorism is an accepted part of your life, your world. You don't flinch when there is a car bomb down the street from you. It is "normal."

Terrorism isn't normal here in America, and we don't ever want it to become normal. Will we be successful stopping terrorism? I don't know. But I know we must try, not stick our head in the sand and accept that being afraid is "normal." That just isn't the American way.

While Bush is talking about military involvment, I don't think that is the only approach being used. Just now, TV news announced that Pakistan is cooperating in freezing bank assets of the Taliban. Economic attack to limit resources available is another way to fight.

 

[SimplySouthern]

What scares me...

Now perhaps I am making this more simplistic than it needs to be, but I have always heard that "plain talk is easy understood".

Those of you with children will understand me.

It is imperative with children, and in my opinion with the terrorists that befall tragedy on this nation, that we be consistent in order to establish respect and/or fear. Whatever happens to be necessary at the time.

Idle threats of retaliation are of no use. As a matter of fact, I find them more detrimental than simply sitting on our laurels (notOUR Laurel) and doing nothing at all. With people of low cognitive reasoning skills (and children) you have to "make a believer of them". How many children have you seen out in stores or perhaps even in your own home that are, to put it mildly, brats. If you examine the parenting skills they are subjected to, I would be willing to bet that they have no action/reaction consequences in place.

What I mean is that, at least in my household, we have rules and boundaries. There are things that are expected of each of us here. If we don't do what is expected, there are consequences to those contrary actions. If I find toys in the floor of the living room, they go in a box in the top of the closet for a week. The boys now understand that if they want to have toys to play with...they better keep them off the living room floor.

Can you imagine the chaos (or have you seen it firsthand) of a family that constantly issues idle threats to the children. They may be young, but they aren't stupid. Eventually, they realize that Mommy and Daddy aren't actually going to punish them, but we should pretend we are afraid/believers.

It concerns me that as a nation; the US might get themselves into this trap. This was a very serious attack on our nation, but can you imagine the magnitude of the next one if this one is not handled correctly.

Am I advocating that we head out and start bombing each and every person rumored to be linked with this act of terrorism? Certainly not, but I am saying that we need to lay out a plan of what our reaction to this cowardly crime is to be, and that we STICK WITH that plan.

 

[Kymberley]

Why I worry about Bush....

I voted proudly for this man. I believed then as I believe now that he was the best man to run our country. You look at the man's face, you see the tear stained cheeks, the blood shot eyes, you can see that man is in as much pain as we are, but he has to show such incredible courage to this nation that put him in office.

George Bush has character, he has the strength of his personal convictions and morallity to lead us through this. He will not rest until he is certain that his nation will once again be safe.

If you are not from this country, you will never be able to understand why this place is such an awesome place to live and call home. You will never understand how the sight of the American flag or the bald eagle can stir such powerful emotions inside of every citizen regardless of their race.

Our freedoms and liberties are not governed or handed out based on your status in society. Everyone who is born here, or chooses to become a citizen is given equal rights no matter what.

Sure we argue about those rights in petty political battles, but they are all there, protecting us from terror, oppression, and death by the hands of those whose beliefs differ from yours.

In this country you are allowed to say what you think, pray to whom you care to pray too, vote if you wish and if not, just sit back and bitch about it when the elections are over.

I have spent countless hours wondering about the future of this world we live in. I worry that my sons, who in my eyes are just two boys. One is 12 and one is 14. Now I hear my sons talking about their future.

My 12 year old, Jonathon, has always wanted to be a fireman, after seeing so many of them perish doing the job they were called to do, I asked him, "do you still want to grow up to be a fireman?"

His response, as loudly as he has ever put it, with the strongest conviction I have ever heard from him was simply this, "more now than ever Mommy."

My oldest baby, as I call him, Christopher, asked me, "Mommy, will you be okay when I go off to war?"

I was floored. I can't begin to tell you how I felt, how my heart burned and ached when those words left his lips. Nor, can I tell you how proud I was that my son believed so much in our rights that we have held so high for so long in this country, that he is thinking 4 years into the future about defending them.

The tears that sting my eyes almost hourly with each patriotic song I hear on the radio, every newscast that I see, every American flag gracing the horizon brings to mind that I love this country and what it stands for far more than I ever realized.

We are now forced to question our every move. When you go to a store, will you not wonder if someone is there in the crowd with a bomb strapped to their body waiting to kill more innocent people in the name of "their cause"?

Will you drive into traffic without wondering if the car next to you is going to blow up? Will you not wonder if the baseball stadiums, football stadiums, shopping centers, banks, hospitals, grocery stores, your own place of business is a safe place to be?

Imagine all the years we have watched the Middle East and the small towns in Ireland mourning over victims of faceless terrorists willing to give up their own lives to further "their cause".

Through our tears, this Nation has once again come together. Enough is enough! For every country that has faced these kind of senseless attacks, for every child left orphaned by some murderous animal, for every nation that has had to hide in fear, pray in silence in order to live, We will stand up for these countries and pray to bring to them justice for all.

The United States will take the lead in this battle. WE will be strong enough to survive this. Although our pain is written across our faces, our hearts are broken, our lives are forever changed, WE WILL NOT HIDE IN FEAR FROM ANYONE.