10/11/2001 10:00 PM

 

You know... I'm really proud of my friends.  I know these really wonderful, intelligent people.  Yes, we often have differing opinions about issues, and Tim's opinion rubs a lot of us the wrong way, but it's his opinion.  He's somewhat well-educated, and this rant took a lot of thought, even if I happen to think it's wrong.  Read on...

-Robert

 

This was what sparked the discussion, started by Tim...

Feel free to respond with comments (Argumentative, or supportive).

Over the past week or so, I've received a few emails from friends,
co-workers, and just about everybody else in the world, about why we should
not attack Afghanistan.  The arguments generally have the feel of "If we go
in and attack them, then we are just as bad as they are" and "an eye for an
eye. blah blah blah."  I've thought about the statements made in these
emails, and the more I think about it, the more people just piss me off.
This is my response to all the bleeding heart, hippy liberals out there:

The United States has its faults.  Slaughtering and Murdering THOUSANDS of
innocent men, women and children is not one of them.  I know there are those
people out there who say, "But the US killed civilians in Afghanistan", or
"What about Iraq?  Half a million people died there."  This is bullshit.
Pardon the language, but there is no other word that accurately describes
these statements.

Yes, the United States has likely killed a few civilians who were too stupid
to get out of the area of military targets.  If you live next to a radar
tower, a communications station, or a military depot, and you know that the
United States is likely going to attack your country, then you need to get
your stuff together, and you move away from that area.  And if you don't,
then the United States isn't responsible for your inaction.  Those targets
had to be destroyed, if we are to protect the men and women who are to bring
to justice the cowards who planned and funded the unholy mission to destroy
the World Trade Center and attack the Pentagon.

Next: Iraq.  Yes, we may have screwed up in Iraq.  We (and the rest of the
UN) placed an embargo upon them, and that may have contributed to the poor
conditions there.  However, we did not do it alone.  I believe that even if
the embargo were not placed, Iraqis would still be suffering, and starving.
Saddam Hussein knows what he is doing.  He knows that in order to conquer a
people, you must first break their spirits, as well as their bodies.  If
Saddam gave a damn about his people, he would allow weapons inspectors in,
so the UN would lift the embargo.  But he doesn't.  All he cares about is
the power he has over the lives of the people he dominates.

Also, part of the reason we don't give Iraq much humanitarian aid, is what
happens to those supplies we do send, through the Oil-for-food program was
in operation.  What this program does, for those unfamiliar with the
program, is gives Iraq the option of selling 5.2 billion dollars worth of
oil, every six months, in order to buy food and medical supplies.  Iraq has
been selling the oil, getting the supplies, then turning around and selling
the majority of these supplies to other countries.  Does anybody else see
anything wrong with this?  $5.2 billion, every six months, could save a lot
of lives, but Saddam, and the other Iraqis in power don't give a damn about
their own people.  In effect, the Iraqi government is the government to
blame for the half a million deaths in Iraq.  In fact, in areas where
humanitarian aid is handed directly to the people, instead of through
Baghdad, the mortality rates are far lower.  And the areas where Baghdad
receives the humanitarian aid, and is supposed to distribute those supplies,
the mortality rate is unbelievably high.

The only thing that needs to be done, in order for the U.N. to lift the
sanctions that has been placed upon it, is allow U.N. weapons inspectors to
come in and verify that Iraq has no Weapons of Mass Destruction.  That is
all.  Saddam doesn't have to step down.  He can still rule his little
piss-ant country.  But what he wants is propaganda.  He wants his country,
and other Arab nations, to believe that the United Nations, primarily the
United States, has caused all this suffering.

No, we are not "Just as bad as the terrorists" if a few innocent civilians
are accidentally killed in the attacks that are going on right now.  That is
the price of war.  It is unfortunate, but it is a reality.  The difference
between their deaths, and ours, is intent.  We do not intend to kill
civilians.  The terrorists intended to kill as many Americans, civilian, or
military, as possible.  I'm sure that they tried to kill every person in the
WTC at the time (30,000+).  Any death of civilians that may occur over the
next few days, weeks, or months, is going to be an unfortunate accident.
The deaths of the 6,000 people in the September 11th attacks were no
accident.  They were deliberate.  That is why we will always be better than
those who would attempt to strike fear in our hearts.

Still don't believe we should attack them?  Look up someone who has lost a
friend, or a family member that died in the attacks on the WTC or Pentagon.
Call them up, and tell them that you don't support bringing to justice, the
people who funded or otherwise contributed to their pain and suffering.
Because military action is the only way to do so.  See what kind of response
you get.

The United States not only should respond, but we MUST respond.  We cannot
"turn the other cheek."  We cannot stand by, while our people live in fear
to go to work, or even to stay in their own homes.  We cannot allow the
bastards who did this to be able to strike again, and again, and again.  If
we back down, then they have not only won, but will continue to fight.  But
if we fight back, we have a chance to bring a little more peace to the
world.  We owe it our children.  We owe it to our parents.  We owe it to
men, women, and children who died on September 11th. We owe it to ourselves.
But most importantly, we owe it to our country.  I have the guts to support
my country in what must be done.  Do you?

 

Jeremy's reaction...

I am unamerican too.  I don't think that just because x nations decide to do
the wrong thing (economic sanctions on Iraq that include things like
blankets, medicine, textbooks... items that have almost no military value
whatsoever and are clearly designed to harm civilians) that it then is
excused.  In our national delusion, we're leaders of the world; why don't we
show leadership and change the situation in Iraq?  I don't know what the
answer IS, but I know which answer hasn't done anything to improve the
situation: sanctions.  Surely we can come up with something smarter.  Maybe
if our president didn't always sound like he was reading from a children's
book...

We also give $3.5bn in aid to Israel every year, which they then turn around
and give back to us in the form of arms purchases.  Why do we defend them?
How can we send that kind of tonnage over there without sending a clear f%ck
you to anyone who doesn't like Israel?  In my tree-hugging world, I figure
the $10+bn dollars we spend on destabilizng the middle east every YEAR would
be better spent on a) getting the hell out of Israel and b) trying to reduce
our hag addiction to foreign oil.

 

George's reaction...

"Numerous comments in the media recently have reiterated a widely
circulated but incorrect notion that the CIA once had a relationship
with Usama Bin Ladin. For the record, you should know that the CIA
never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever
with Bin Ladin."
-Bill Harlow, Director of Public Affairs, CIA 10/5/2001

I open my response with this quote because I think it's a good
example of the underlying theme in all these events: misinformation.

Recently there has been an article going around on the internet titled
"The Americans."  The emails claim that the article, which dons a
very strong nationalistic light on the US, was published "last week
in a Canadian news paper."  I did some research and found out that
the article, which isn't really an article, but a radio broadcast,
was made in 1973 by Gordon Sinclair in response to America's loss on
the stock market at that time.  The emailed version of the article
has words rearranged, sentences taken out of context and even entire
paragraphs omitted.  It's important now more than ever to remain
critical of all our news sources, especially since most of them are
entirely American sources, subject to the censorship advertisers
inherently place on them.  For example, Comedian Bill Maher, host of
the television talk show Politically Incorrect, apologized the week
after the attacks for saying that launching cruise missiles from afar
is cowardly, whereas crashing planes into buildings was not.  Maher
backed off from his comment after advertisers reportedly threatened
to pull ads from the show in protest.  This raises a question:
are the American people seeing the whole picture?

In an article published in LA Times, author C. Alton Robertson, asks
the question that was on my mind during the attacks (after the initial
rage and shock), namely "why"?  He states "President Bush said in
his speech to the nation on Tuesday that we were attacked because the
United States is 'the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in
the world,' and the perpetrators of the attacks want to stamp out
this beacon."  He continues to ask "Does this satisfactorily explain
why the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took place?
A general interviewed on ABC said that this was an attack by an enemy
who hates us. He gave no reason for this intense hatred nor was he
asked to do so."

Does anyone honestly believe that we were attacked because we're
"the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world"?
Is that enough reason to cause a group of 20 or so people to have
enough intense hatred to kill themselves and murder thousands of
innocent people?  Or is there something more?

As I write this, America is bombing Afghanistan.  Has
everyone forgotten the fact that nobody has been convicted yet?
Does anyone believe that a military attack will seriously stop
the terrorist threat?  Let's say that hypothetically Osama Bin
Laden is killed.  Will that change anything, or will he become
a martyr to muslim fundamentalists?  His death could spark a
united effort in the muslim world to literally start a "holy war."
While it's true that America is by and far the world's largest
super power, having unrivaled military strength, it's also true
that many countries deemed "terrorist" in nature harbor nuclear
and biological weapons.  If one of them attacked us in retaliation,
then America will be prompted to use more force (perhaps nukes of
our own), which could prompt their allies to attack our allies
using nukes, more biological weapons and everything at their
disposal, causing years of nuclear fallout, destruction of
power grids, and an unprecedented epidemic of cancer and
disease.  Moral issues aside, any sane tax paying American
can't possibly advocate this attack.  We're dropping $1,000,000
missiles on $1,000 shacks.

Death of civilians?  Even if America doesn't harm one innocent
civilian, there are rumors that the Taliban government is
simultaneously launching missiles into its own cities and
destroying civilian villages, claiming that the attacks are
American in origin, how's that for propaganda?

The terrorist attacks were bad, but let's not forget that
America is far from the noble world leader that western media
has painted it as being.  For hundreds of years, dating back to
the Revolutionary war, America has been attacking other countries
in methods similar to the terrorist's attacks (in magnitude if
not in scope).  Know how germ warfare began? Settlers would trade
disease covered blankets to the indians to wipe out their villages
quickly (envioronmental imperialism at its best).  In a way, what
happened to America parallels the US bombings of Vietnamese
villages (less the killing, raping and torturing civilians).  Feel free
to substitute Vietnamese with any of the following words: Nicaraguan,
Chilean, Salvadorean, Guatemalan, Turkish [excerpt from Dan's email].
Since 1997, the United States has refused to endorse an international
treaty banning future production and use of traditional landmines.
This has been largely due to worries that the United States would
have to replace its installed base of roughly 1 million traditional
landmines in the 155-mile long and 2.5-mile wide demilitarized zone
between North and South Korea.

Robertson put it best when he said: "I love this country. I am
grateful for my freedoms and for the opportunities that
citizenship has provided. I am proud of the many achievements we
have made.  But I also know that my government, acting on behalf
of myself and all my fellow citizens, has perpetrated unspeakable
acts of violence against the citizens of other states.  Why were
Palestinians celebrating in the streets of Jerusalem and in the
putrid Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon on Tuesday? Why were
people dancing in the streets in Tehran? Why did Chile have to go
through 17 years of terrible oppression under Gen. Augusto
Pinochet after our government instigated the coup that led to the
death of the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende,
in a country that had a history of 100 years of democracy? Why
did we oust Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala? Why did we spend billions
of dollars decimating the countryside of Nicaragua? Why were we
bombing Cambodia?  How long did we support apartheid in South
Africa and keep oppressive regimes in office?"

Don't get me wrong, I love America.  I would die for my country,
but I would not kill for it.  Everyone is searching for a solution
to this crisis, and I have my opinions like everyone else.  The
key to surviving through this is understanding, tolerance and
compromise.  I'm not suggesting that we just sit on our asses and
do nothing about these unthinkable atrocities; whoever is
responsible for the murders on September 11'th will come to
justice.  I'm not claiming to have the solution, but I know
that the solution isn't to bomb the hell out of some third world
country full of fundamentalists anxious to kill themselves in
suicide attacks against the American people, perpetuating more
hatred, more fear, more terrorism, more anger and more chaos.
Hippy?  Far from it.  I'm just a guy that likes to eat candy and
play video games.

George
maddox@xmission.com

Finally... my reaction...  10/13/2001 12:45 PM

            The world is quite certainly a mess right now.  We’re still bombing the shit out of Afghanistan.  The Taliban has, of course, declared jihad against the US and its allies.  There have been four (now nine) confirmed cases of anthrax infections in the US, with a few more scares that are unconfirmed so far.  Were these related to September 11th?  We don’t have enough evidence to say yet.

            Why did the terrorist attacks on September 11th happen?  One would think that this is a very important and valid question to have answered.  The president and the media don’t seem to think so.  We should be content that we’re faced with a great evil that attacked us because we are the beacon of greatness in the world.  Evil hates that.  Anybody that believes that load of shit is an idiot.  That’s what our media propaganda machine would like us to believe, that we’re just, and they’re monsters.  Let’s start out with some history, shall we?

            Based on our track record, one might assume that the United States is the major destabilizing factor in the Middle East.  We tend to make the Arab nations fight amongst themselves. 

            Back when we really hated Iran, we supplied Iraq with weapons and military equipment.  We did this in an attempt to make Iraq wipe out an enemy of ours, and our hands would be free of the blood.  Wait, that’s not all with the Iraq issue.  I’ve even heard that we provided both Iraq and Iran with biological and chemical agents.  The sole purpose of doing this was the hope that they’d use them against each other.  Why eliminate two enemies when they can eliminate themselves?  So, why did Iraq finally invade Kuwait, only to have us blow the shit out of them?  Well, like any kid, you give them a rush of power, and they’ll get greedy.

            What about Afghanistan?  Back in the terrible decade called the 80’s, Afghanistan was trying to win back its freedom from Russia.  We were bitter enemies of the USSR at the time, so we naturally wanted to help the Afghani cause.  So, we again provided indirect support.  Hell, the CIA even trained bin Laden and his men.  What did bin Laden want in return for helping the US attack its enemy?  If memory serves, he wanted us to stop supporting the Israelis, who were oppressing the Palestinians.  Bin Laded did his part, and the US abandoned their part of the deal.  Again, our hands were free of blood.

            That leads us to Israel.  To start, this country WAS Palestine.  It became Israel after the holocaust.  What I remember is this:  The UN felt sorry for the Jews, so they decided to give them someone else’s country.  Would you be pissed if someone gave away your country?  You bet.  Back to modern times.  The US basically provides Israel with the equivalent of $500 per capita.  What does Israel do with this money?  The buy very advanced military equipment from us.  They use this equipment to continue to wage war with the Palestinians.  Now, we know Israel does this, but we keep on providing them with funds and equipment.  Are we not an accomplice to the murders that Israel commits?  Yes we are, but once again, our hands are clean because we are not the ones doing the killing.  How convenient. 

            These are only a few of the examples of how unfairly we wage war.  Based on this information, it might look like we’re at war with the Arab world.  I like this nation, but I don’t like our foreign policies.  I believe that bin Laden did justifiably declare war against us.  This is the point where I might lose you…

            Killing civilians is never justifiable.  Not even now as we’re bombing Afghanistan.  “Collateral damage” is never acceptable, even though the American public seems to think it is.  To understand the enemy is a very important thing indeed.  If we understand what motivates these terrorists, we might be able to prevent the events of September 11th from happening again.  Why do these people wage war with these methods?  It’s because we don’t fight fairly.  Where’s the honor in getting others to fight your battles instead of fighting the enemy yourself?  Where’s the honor in launching cruise missiles from a thousand miles away?  The missile will most-certainly kill the enemy at no risk to yourself.  Is that fair at all?  No, neither is turning passenger airlines into missiles.  Do you see my point?  They’re fighting with whatever weapons they can get their hands on. 

            What’s the solution to the problem?  It certainly isn’t attacking each other until only one of us is left standing.  It isn’t sanctions that starve and kill innocent people.  A Saudi prince gave NYC $10 million, which Guilliani rejected.  Why?   The prince had suggested that we think about our policies in the Middle East when we look for a cause.  When one of our strong allies offers us aid and suggests why the tragedy happened, they are trying to be a good friend.  They are trying to say you’re being an ass and maybe you should stop.

            We should stop this war.  We should declare a cease-fire period and apologize.  We should sit down at the negotiating table and listen to each other’s grievances.  We should take the complaints against us seriously and hammer out a way to prevent war from breaking out again between us.  We should stop fighting these wars with puppets and yes men.  We should stop being the bully of the world.  The United States says it doesn’t deal with terrorists… but I guess they just deal with them when they’re terrorizing an enemy of theirs. 

-Robert