Yeah, I know there are already plenty of threads and this could have been covered, but I am too distraught to sift through everything and at this point do not really care if I follow any rules... Bush says the response will be quick and they will pay...but the question is, "how?" They are now saying they are "90%" sure it is Bin Laden. OK, where is he? They have no idea. If they did, he would have been captured or killed by now. Anyway, they have said that they will hold Afghanastan personally responsable, thus the attacks would be against the government there. So, what will that accomplish? Keep in mind that, earlier, citizens of the region were celebrating in the streets. An attack against Afghanastan will not go over well and further feed the frenzy that makes Bin Laden's schemes plausible. Understand that I am not saying we should do nothing, just that it seems we do not really know how to get to the right person, so we just strike at the closest available. I don't know...I am in a world of confusion right now...on one hand, you have to realize that all people in the mid east are not evil...therefore their "evil" reaction to the news of our tragedy -- fellow human tragedy -- is baffling. Except when you consider the fact that the US is essentially seen as evil, therefore, it is not like real life being lost...I guess? This is a result of about 80 years of US policy in the region. We, ultimately, are not completely innocent on this one. We did not deserve this, nor can this be rationalized, justified, or defended in any way, but it is a fact that our country's policy has directly created this anti-US sentiment. So what the hell is my point? I don't know...what do we do? Should we send troops ineverywhere to hunt this guy down? He has been a known threat for several years but has never been taken seriously enough. How extreme do you go? This will play out for many years and we will feel it in many areas. I am worried not only about the attacks, and more attacks, but also in the economic and civil liberties respons to this worldwide. It is obvious that air travel as we know it will change and be a lot more restrictive...but where else do we feel it? How soon and in what way do they rebuild these 3 (as it stands now) buildings that have collapsed...something with which I still cannot come to terms -- no World Trade Center! The image of the plane coming in (intentional by the terrorists -- hit one and then a few minutes later after the media dense city has multiple cameras focused in, send in another, then continue the psychological war by the inevetible collapse of the two and then possibly others because they are so close). The world has changed forever. What do we do, how do we do it, what can we expect? The answers to these will be long in coming...as we will not even know the horrific death toll for a few days, probably. Thoughts?
Good points. I had the same thoughts as well....almost exactly. What do we do? My post ponders these same issues...so I'm listening as well. Surf
They do know or at least with in the last few days have known where he was located is what they said on the CBS news at 6:30
It's a joke that the US is terrorized for trying to create peace in the Middle East. Laden is living in Afghanistan, and the U.S. said that they have almost complete, unwavering proof that he did this. Someone is going to hell for this.
I usually don't post in the hangout, but this topic just screams for my attention. As some of you may or may not now, I'm brazilian, and I happen to have a history degree, btw. Though I'm not american, I'm obviously touched as everyone should be. I'm glad to witness that most people around here haven't lost their minds out of anger, and that has made my respect for this bbs grow even further. It must be said that it's understandable to "hate back" when you see people partying over such a tragedy. However, as it has been pointed out in several posts, the US goverment actions over the 20th century are the ones to be blamed for such hatred. The USA's siding with Israel in the middle east issues, largely due to the lobbying power that jewish-american capitalists have over congress and the government is flat out unnaceptable and should have been reviewed before it allowed things to become as they sadly are. The state of Israel was created in the 20th century artificially and left the palestinian people as a people without a territory to live in. That's something that was done with the blessings of the western powers, and something the United States, for all their supposedely hard efforts to bring peace to the middle east, have never adressed, always having sided with Israel on the issue. Just split the damn land and stop this madness, for chrissakes! This should have been put to rest decades ago. We don't know for sure wheter Bin Laden is responsible for this or not, but the truth is, the hatred exists, and such hatred has been manipulated over and over again by leaders with their own agendas like saddam hussein. It's easier to be a tyrant when you have a scapegoat to point all the misery of your people too. We all must realise that the world is a hellish place. When you have companies and individiduals with far more money than they could ever spend in their lifetimes while people are starving to death in Africa, and the globalization is only a means of making such unequality grow deeper, sooner or later thing were bound to come to the point they reached today. I could go on and on, but i'll save some for later. To the point of the topic, someone will obviously pay for this, with confirmation or not. The american public wouldn't ever accept such a tragedy going without a retaliation. If the guilty party is not found, someone will be the scapegoat, and my bet is on Iraq. It's a shame that the iraqui people may have to pay for a crime they didn't commit. Now, something good may come off this. Some concepts will have to be revised. There's no excuse for mass murder, but the truth is, the powers that be have been blind over the past decades to the cries of hunger and despair of the 3rd world. Things have to change, or this kind of blind hatred fanaticism may become the flavor of the day. thoughts?
Great post, Thanos. I agree. I'm pleasantly surprised at the balnaced understanding of these issues by many on this board. Certainly exceeds that of the majority of the dubya supporters in Texas. This raises the interesting question of whether basketball fans are more cosmopolitan than the public at large.
RocksMillenium: The US and other Western powers artificially created the state of Israel in a place where there were already a radically different sort of people. This imposed state then denied them citizno taxation with representation ring a bell?)... drilled only two wells for Palestine compared to dozens in Jewish lands. They denied them sufficient electricitiy while Jewish Israelis had plenty, and kept mainstream economic development away from Palestinian-dense areas. They also limited educational funding for Palestinians. Is this right? Yet we backed up the Israeli government 110% for a long time. Finally, Clinton admits: hey, maybe both sides have a point. Talks to create a Palestinian state begin. Then they break up. Hundreds are killed. Some innocent babies are shot by both sides. Then the new American President doesn't seem interested anymore, despite requests to mediate the issue. Wouldn't you be pissed? THIS WAS EVIL AND WRONG. Yet the angst and creation of the madmen is something we're partially responsible for, or at least, our grandparents were. If you beat a child, he may beat others. Beat him enough, and you get a serial killer, sometimes. That's what happened here, in my opinion. Great post, rimbaud.
Well if this is looked as a US created problem, and they had this bombing coming to them, then I think the United States will deal with this. If this is looked at as the U.S. creating the monster, don't get upset when the U.S. destroys this monster. And they will. Whoever did the bombing, whether you think the United States is wrong or not, hell is coming.
The attacks on the Pentagon, and especially the WTC, were cowardly. The cheers of the Palestenians were sickening. I am disappointed that some here would rationalize this tragedy, for any reason.
Rationalizing implies justification. Nobody here has justified anything. Nobody here wants to. We are saying that we don't want: 1. Every Palestinian to be blamed. 2. People to get lost in a blind rush for vengeance that ignores causal factors. EDIT: MSNBC is reporting that if bin Laden is deemed responsible and Afghanistan does not cooperate, the use of tactical NUCLEAR weapons are under active consideration. http://www.msnbc.com/news/627086_asp.htm Hopefully, it won't come to that. Such would be awful. Other options that sound much better were listed.
Haven, I hope it doesn't come to that. However, I think everyone would agree that the retaliation on Bin Laden or whoever did this should be so severe that no other person/nation will ever think about doing something like this again. It's so incomprehensible that so many innocent lives have been lost and are going to be lost over the actions of some demented bastards.
Using nukes would compound the problem by several degrees of magnitude. And I don't want to blame innocent Palestinians for acts they didn't commit, even if some of them cheered the acts after they happened. In fact I've seen no hard evidence that they were even involved in this attack. Every indication is that it is bin Lauden, a Saudi operating out of Afghanistan, who instigated the operation. Therefore, it is foolish and premature to claim a causal link between the events that took place today and the Isreali/Palestinian conflict. Further, even if it were true that it was Palestinians behind these attacks, it would be shameful to capitulate to terrorists by "Just split[ting] the damn land and stop this madness, for chrissakes!" You don't reward terrorist attacks like these by giving in to their demands (forgetting for a moment that splitting the land would do nothing to create long-term peace in Isreal). To me there was no legitimate motive behind these tactics, period, just like there was no legitimate motive for Hitler's actions in WW2 or McVeigh's bombing in Oklahoma City. This was the work of evil, insane men who need to be eliminated with extreme prejudice.
I have no idea what to do. Obviously some retaliation is in order, if for nothing else, than to show that this **** will not be tolerated. No doubt that this tragedy saddens me, but it will be compounded even further by risking the life of soldiers and having even more innocents killed when the US takes it out on whatever country is deemed responsible or even sympathetic to this bombing. It sucks that the US is FORCED to go to war. I never thought the US was so fragile. What a wake up call. This is only the beginning ...
Damn, they are now estimating 800 deaths at the Pentagon...the lesser of the two attacks, originally only supposed to be about 100. **** **** **** **** ****. Take that, censor! Sammy, I agree with you and hope you do not think I was trying to justify or create rationale. Obviously, whoever did this is sick, demented, useless, waste of human life...I was just saying that there, unfortunately, has been fuel to feed the fires of insanity in the mid-east. I, personally, was not even talking specifically about Israeli-Palestinian relations, but multiple evets over many years. No matter, this is not right...this is catastrophic. It is funny because I have gotten worse as the day has progressed. I had a little initial panic because I knew my wife was going to be released from her work, then classes were shut down, everything was a madhouse and I had no way to communicate with her...I had to meet her because we were in one car, so it was disturbing...and I knew that she was in no danger. There are, however, countless New Yorkers and Washingtonians who are suffering similar feelings, only there is the very real possibility of death for them. I have broken down quite a bit the last few hours...remember that thread, "do you cry much?"? Well...I have today. OK, back to hugging the wife...
Manny, The problem is that how do you deter people who have so little value on life itself? I think the only way is eduction and free discourse. Of course some countries have to change their ways in order for this to happen, and you guys can read my thread to see my views on that. DaDakota
I agree with you about this, Dakota. Another problem is that these people (Bin Laden and his supporters) actually feel that it "looks better" to God to take your own life while taking the lives of countless others. Being a martyr really appeals to them. It is very scary and disturbing to deal with people who are not afraid to die.
Rimmy, my comments were mainly in regards to the section that I quoted from Thanos's post. I agreed with the majority of your comments, and am happy that your wife and family are OK.
I think we're going to be seeing this story ten years from now on "History's Blunders" on the History Channel - Bin Laden and the Taliban have just made the biggest mistake since Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Nearly every war has at its inception some miscalculation or other, and Bin Laden has made a severe miscalculation regarding our emotions - he has underestimated the effect such a monstrous attack on our own soil; he probably based his estimation of response on our emotions following the Africa embassy bombings. He has no idea the can of worms he's just unleashed. I have some experience with defense issues, and a few connections - no I am not going to elaborate - and I can tell you this: there are going to be alot of dead mujahadeen within 72 hours. Don't go to Afghanistan for your fall vacation. We are not going to squabble over what airbases we can fly out of, we are not going to worry about airspace issues, we are going to contact parties that would previously have been classified as enemies - we are going to retaliate. Massively. Osama Bin Laden is a dead man, he just hasn't stopped breathing yet. Everyone around him is going to die. The Taliban will be a bad memory in 6 months. We are at war. And this war has an urgency to it that probably wasn't even felt 60 years ago. They are going to pay. It's one thing to attack our military personnel - that's pretty much expected. But there were at least 5 day care centers in those towers, with maybe 800 children... They are going to pay. All B-2s fly out of CONUS. It's a 14 to 16 hour flight at maximum speed. They will probably lower speed to allow other elements to prepare. Bush went to Offit before he went to the White House. ACC has those planes in the air right now. After they take out the Afghani AD system, the 7th Fleet, along with AF elements in Turkey, Saudi, and Kuwait will commence offensive operations. If the Pakistanis refuse airspace passage then they too will be regarded as hostile. The Iraqis are already hostile, but we'll plow through them anyway. Prepare to see what the full force of the US military can do, because it is about to be unleashed. It will make Desert Storm look like a picnic. Bin Laden has just signed his own death warrant.
Oh, and as for the Palestinians - they're idiots. We've been leaning towards them throughout this whole intifada, we thought that they had the moral upper hand. But the scenes of them dancing through the streets today have erased - totally - any support we were going to give them. Tough sh*t.
SamCassell: I think that 90% of the problems with the Arab world can be traced to the situation of Israel. bin Laden actually commented on that when interviewed, today. He said something to the effect of "I didn't do it, but I support such actions. The United States didn't care when innocent Palestinians were slaughtered." If he did it, there's a link right there. Throughout the years, we've politically, economically, and militarily supported Israel, the bane of many Arab nations. I'm not even arguing that it was a mistake to do so necessarily during the Cold War. I don't think we should "cave in." But I don't think you can separate the Israeli situation and Arab dislike for America. It's all about perception.
