When Will We Learn? by Harry Browne September 12, 2001 The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn't be a surprise. It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth – that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda. But sanity was a prior casualty: it was the loss of sanity that led to war in the first place. Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty. When will we learn that we can't allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually? President Bush has authorized continued bombing of innocent people in Iraq. President Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. President Bush Senior invaded Iraq and Panama. President Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded Grenada. And on and on it goes. Did we think the people who lost their families and friends and property in all that destruction would love America for what happened? When will we learn that violence always begets violence? Teaching Lessons Supposedly, Reagan bombed Libya to teach Muammar al-Qaddafi a lesson about terrorism. But shortly thereafter a PanAm plane was destroyed over Scotland, and our government tried to convince the world it was Libyans who did it. When will we learn that "teaching someone a lesson" never teaches anything but resentment – that it only inspires the recipient to greater acts of defiance. How many times on Tuesday did we hear someone describe the terrorist attacks as "cowardly acts"? But as misguided and despicable as they were, they were anything but cowardly. The people who committed them knowingly gave their lives for whatever stupid beliefs they held. But what about the American presidents who order bombings of innocent people – while the presidents remain completely insulated from any danger? What would you call their acts? When will we learn that forsaking truth and reason in the heat of battle almost always assures that we will lose the battle? Losing our Last Freedoms And now, as sure as night follows day, we will be told we must give up more of our freedoms to avenge what never should have happened in the first place. When will we learn that it makes no sense to give up our freedoms in the name of freedom? What to Do What should be done? First of all, stop the hysteria. Stand back and ask how this could have happened. Ask how a prosperous country isolated by two oceans could have so embroiled itself in other people's business that someone would want to do us harm. Even sitting in the middle of Europe, Switzerland isn't beset by terrorist attacks, because the Swiss mind their own business. Second, resolve that we won't let our leaders use this occasion to commit their own terrorist acts upon more innocent people, foreign and domestic, that will inspire more terrorist attacks in the future. Third, find a way, with enforceable constitutional limits, to prevent our leaders from ever again provoking this kind of anger against America. Patriotism? There are those who will say this article is unpatriotic and un-American – that this is not a time to question our country or our leaders. When will we learn that without freedom and sanity, there is no reason to be patriotic?
When will they learn? by ROXRAN what day is it? When will they learn they are evil monsters who will die probably ten-fold. When will they know an abide by international rules and laws like everyone else. When will the poor, innocent people realize they will die for who they are and what they harbor? When will they realize they shouldn't screw with the U. S. ? What to do? What should be done? First if you're a terrorist kiss your arse goodbye. Second if you harbor terrorists same thing. Third, realize killing innocent Americans will enact a fury never imagined before. One more thing to these "innocent" people: What do you think you accomplished? Think about it while you have the time...
Jesus, what a crock of Sh.. Of course we need to look at our policies, comparing us to the swiss is idiotic. I would bet you all I have that Israel would just like to be left alone. Too bad, that they constantly have to retaliate against the lunatic fringe. America Love it or leave it. I will buy this guy a ticket to Canada. DaDakota
How to act like a fanatic? by BGM 1) Tell people that they should either blindly follow what you believe or they should go away. 2) Not give a damn about innocent civilians because the leaders of their country are harboring terrorists.
Come on Band Geek, you really should read all the posts. No one is saying that they don't care about innocent civilians being hurt anywhere. I have offered up my opinions of what we should do as a country, I see a few people criticizing, but very few saying what they think we should do. 1. Give Afgahnastan 48 hours to hand over Bin Laden, or suffer the consequences. 2. Make no dileniation between a terrorist and those who openly harbor or support terrorism. 3. Be proactive in waging war on terrorism. 4. Make the strikes as surgical as possible, minimize collateral damages. ( I personally prefer an international Anti Terrorist team of commandos) 5. Take a stance that this group will whipe out terrorism wherever it stands before terrorists can strike. Now, where in there does it say to kill innocent civilians or to bomb anyone? Now, I anxiously await you being man enough to outline what YOU think we should do.... DaDakota
Part 1 of my article was directed towards you and your "Love it or leave it" statement. Part 2 was directed towards ROXRAN. I don't really have the time to read through all of your posts Dakota, but as far as me coming up with my own plan of action... I can't say what I want the US to do other than wait until they have a complete understanding of the situation. I'm getting really tired of reading some of the **** on this bbs about being men of action and rushing into situations just because of anger. I think we should wait for the dust to settle first... I apologize if I didn't give you a manly enough answer...we all can't be studs like you... (I'm logging off now, so I hope you strangers don't start questioning my manhood again)
There are some damn angry people aboooot. Good thing I'm trying on this Christian persona... it helps out in times of confusion and pain. I highly recommend it!
Band Geek, I am trying really hard not to be rude, but you are making it very difficult. I too want us to get all the details before acting, however, we have to act with extreme prejudice. The government may already have the details with all of the arrests they made today. I am sure they would not alert the American people...and thus the media, and thus the enemy if they had. No one, is advocating acting on a knee jerk reaction, however, most of us want the action to be one that is carried out to the end. If you are making light of my man of action comments then so be it, you are entitled to your own opinions, I guess you just won't put them down for everyone else to see. Too bad, it might have spurred a valuable discourse between intelligent people. DaDakota
BGM, when you read this realize the quotations surrounding the word: "innocent". This implies I question the validity of the so-called innocent people from the crap piece originally written. I have not blind faith, but I am pretty damn sure our past Presidents are not geeked into killing "innocent" people in IRAQ, PANAMA among other countries listed. I declare many, perhaps all aren't the poor, "innocent" people so said. Ahhhh too bad the "innocent" people couldn't go into Kuwait and take over. Bad U.S. policy, bad, bad.... O, no. How can we intervene in an "innocent" dictator's abrupt drug trafficing operation and other international misdeeds. That bad 'ol U.S. .....Maybe Band Geek, the country is better off as an isolationist policy. Ain't our business. Let's let "innocent" people take over other countries. Let's allow "innocent" state heads to feed the drug-trafficing business. Other examples surely abound. None of our cotten picking business, right? Let's go crawl in a hole like a yello belly snake and say: We want to be Swizz. la la la......well I would like to say in a manly way: Bullsh^T!!! We are the world's superpower! As a result we do intervene when so-called "innocent" people try to get over and wrong REAL innocent people...We make mistakes no doubt - not perfect. But by and large we monitor the on-goings in the world not to be a perverted voyeur, but to make sound decisions which allow the world to be a better place. BGM ask any History teacher if isolationism is a cool thing.....Think about it.
OH MY FRIGGIN GOODNESS!!! Can this guy possibly be serious. I mean OH MY FRIGGIN GOODNESS!! This is easily the worst thing written in response to these attacks I have seen. There are people on this board with views in the same arena(who are free to have them) but they have a grasp of reality and are being reasonable. This guy is just plain wrong IMHO. Yes I'm sure Dubya just sits in his comfy little chair in the Oval Office and says "Dammit, I oughta take out a few innocents today in Iraq. What do you think Pa? Oh hit a few in Panama too, good idea." And he complains that we invaded Iraq?!!!!! WTF were we supposed to do. Last I recall most of the world agreed with us. But I guess we shoulda said "Hey crazy motherf*cker Hussein, do whatever the hell you want to others, we don't really care." Ask if Switzerland, in the middle of Europe has problems? Then he says because they mind their own business. Maybe it's b/c they are a bunch of p*****s who like to be neutral and take in Nazi gold and money. OK cheap shot, but it happened (at least from everything I've heard) and I feel like I'm on a roll. The gall to compare us to switzerland and say we should be like them is unbelievable. "Second, resolve that we won't let our leaders use this occasion to commit their own terrorist acts upon more innocent people, foreign and domestic." What does domestic mean, they're going to start terrorizing americans too? "Third, find a way, with enforceable constitutional limits, to prevent our leaders from ever again provoking this kind of anger against America." What, stop bearing any responsibility for what happens in the rest of the world. That's ludicrous. "There are those who will say this article is unpatriotic and un-American." Oh really. Maybe b/c it's a complete crock which seems to specifically state we had this coming and should do nothing about it. Perhaps he would like to go stand on the rubble of our fallen buildings and read this for all of America and New York to hear. I'm thinking he wouldn't. I've refrained from posting anything too extreme in these past few days (mostly because I want to be as calm and rational as possible in the face of this) but this really rubbed me the wrong way. How he can write this and believe it is beyond me. At least our horrible gov't gives you the damn right to print it.
As I have pointed out in a previous post that didn't get much attention, I do love this country and I am very sad about the tragic events. I do believe that our government will make the right decision in the end. I honestly don't know what the "right decision" is, but I'm tired of reading such hateful posts on this board. I'm not referring to any posts by anyone in particular, just random posts that I have read on this board ever since tuesday. Anyway, I don't plan on posting on this subject or even reading this forum for a very long time because I really don't like what I'm reading from certain posters towards other posters...
What's amazing is that this guy's term "innocent". I'm not sure why he didn't include the innocent bombing of Berlin, Tokyo, etc. We have not been a perfect country and I think if we had things to do over again, we would, but there is no reason for Tuesday. None.
Harry Browne is a piece of crap. Obviously he had no attachments to anyone in NYC or DC and really should think about leaving our great country to find "innocent" people to befriend. Take down EVERY terrorist and supporter they have. I totally agree with DaDakota. Tell Afganistan to hand over the other peice of crap with no strings attached. If they don't, well it's their decision. Destroy the Capital and Laden's most likely site. Ask again to give us Laden (dead or alive) if they refuse take out 10 more locations. Ask again. Then take out every other strategic location. Ask one last time. Send in the troops find the peice of crap and take him out with any means necessary (air support, missles, bombs). I don't think it would get that far. After the first or second bombing someone (government or citizens) will turn him over.
For Browne and the others that are telling the United States to sit back and wait a bit, why don't you tell the terrorist to stop for little bit. About 10 of them were arrested in the New York. The United States waited for 8 years and thousands died. 2 embassies were bombed, another one was almost bombed in China, the mightiest tower in the U.S., and possibly the world, crumbled, half the Pentagon is gone, and the president and Vice president's lives are in danger. These aren't diplomats we're dealing with these are cold blooded murderers. Period. No 'if', 'ands', or 'buts'. Innocent people died. And if the United States wait more people will die.
Switzerland? Harry, if the US "acted" like Switzerland, when it comes to international affairs, Hitler would still be in power. The SWISS can sit around in those green jump suits, eating chocolate, wearing funny hats and generally acting with as much SPINE as a common jellyfish, because their are nationS on this earth who are willing to fight for what they believe in and STAND up to tyranny. Harry if George Washington took the attitude you prescribe to, you would be ending all of your articles in long live the king.
***Or that with our level of freedom comes a huge responsibility to project our power in causes that we feel are the right course in helping others achieve stability and freedom.***
I don't have time to respond to most of the posts here but hopefully this will be indicative of my resonses... You missed the point. It's not that the presidents WANTED to bomb civilians, he (and I) just think that they didn't particularly care much if civilians got in the way of making a statement. It is a FACT that innocent civilians in all of the countries mentioned were killed by the US. Some may think it was justified. Some may think it was necessary even. But that does not change the fact that civilians in other countries were killed by the US many times in the 80's and 90's. But they're living p*****s who aren't counting their dead right now. As you said, cheap shot, but what the hell. Btw, both the Bush and the Kennedy families got very wealthy from investing in Nazi businesses. The lesson is that you can be neutral w/o immoral and you can be on the good-guys side w/o being completely good. I imagine he is referring to the somewhat "overzealous" raids at Ruby Ridge and the Koresh compounds. I could easily see further incidents occuring in the wake of this horrible tragedy. No, just don't go rushing into every little hot spot in the world. If we can't make it better, don't freaking try. It'll just stir up resentment. For the last part, did you read what he said we should do? Find for me where he said we should do nothing? Please. I'm waiting. Oh, that's right, he didn't. He said we need to be careful about killing civilians on our way to getting the bad guys. That's (supposedly) the same thing DaDakota et al have been saying, only more emphatically. Do you object to being careful about civilians? And for everyone who claims thuis guy doesn't love America or needs to go to Canada, GROW THE F*CK UP! Loving America doesn't mean blind acceptance that everything our leaders do is right. It means wanting to make it better, to make it safe. Hell, I could argue that this guy loves America more than you do, but it's besides the point. Noone is in a pissing argument over who loves America more. What I imagine Harry Browne would like to do (and I am now putting words into his mouth so I could be incorrect) is WAIT. Wait until facts are clear. Wait until we know we can go in, get the guy we want, and get out. Maybe it'll take a month. Maybe 6 months. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. I think it should pe pretty obvious that with the alertness of the US Osama isn't going to send anything our way for quite a while. And I know that I'd rather be sure we know what we're doing than invade a country, killing more civilians and pissing more people off, in a gesture that seems to be entirely symbolic at this point. I'm tired of people dying for symbolism.
Yes wait, meanwhile let them plan another attack from their safe havens. Yes wait, make sure they have more time to recruit more suicide bombers. Yes wait, give them a chance to escape and to run and hide making it harder to find them. Yes wait, for them to strike again. I am all for getting to the bottom of this, but as soon as we know...and I think we already may, we HAVE to act. This is a war, and war is not pretty, and it will get ugly, but I have faith that we will prevail. DaDakota
