Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: politics

Amen to that.

Since we've all been a bit "argumentative" lately, I'd like to state for the record that I still like you all and would share a beer/meal with any of you. Heck, if Kerry wins, I'll buy everyone here a beer -- provided you can make it to Ben & Nicks in Oakland on November 3rd.

After all, we're all Americans and we all love our country enough to want to change things that we think need improvement. Participating in open debate and hearing differing opinions are an important part of being a productive citizen.

This whole "what to do about terrorism" debate seems to boil down to the old "where do you draw the line", aka "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

I think you cross a line when you target innocents.

If country A is occupying country B and some of country B's people use guerilla tactics to attack a superior occupying forces I don't have a problem with those people even if some of A's forces get killed. I call that war, even if undeclared and "low intensity".

If they start killing off non-military people (aid workers in Iraq, kids & parents in Russia) that is a different story. Hunt 'em down and hang 'em high.

Yes I realize where this leads. In WW2 both Axis and Allied powers crossed that line when they bombed major cities outside of the industrial areas. We probably crossed that line in Vietnam in a few cases as well (burning villages etc..).

IMO the big question is "what happens if you leave them alone -- do they go back to being farmers and doctors or do they grow into an arrogant, repressive dictatorship ?".

Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but I do not see any inherent good in the groups capturing and killing workers in Iraq or the group who occupied the school this week. Those are not freedom fighters, those are the animals which breed in conflict situations and which grow into the worst kind of regimes if we let them flourish.

For the record, I don't think Bush was completely honest about his reasons for going into Iraq, but "someone had to do it". My big criticism of the move into Iraq was that the US was not really ready for what happened after Hussein's forces were defeated.

If the post-war logistics had been handled better I don't think this debate would be happening. Every Iraqi ex-pat I know was cheering when the US took Saddam down -- but 6 months later they are all squirming a bit because it's hard to say that the Iraqis are better off today on balance.

It's easy to snipe from the sidelines, but if Calpine can set up 10 or 20 natural-gas-fired power plants in 6 months in the US I can't understand why we couldn't get the power back on faster in Iraq. You don't win hearts & minds by waging a war then fumbling the rebuild.

What do I know. I live in Canada and we wimped out anyways...

JB

In another generation, when France's Muslim population hits the +25% mark and we hear demands for an independent Islamic state in what was France, do French authorities become occupiers? If French Islamic "freedom fighters" blow up French nurseries, busses, pizza parlors, will we hear the explanation that these atrocities are merely zealous warriors against occupation?

Why are US forces seen as occupiers in Iraq? We have removed a criminal, totalitarian Nazi regime, pumped massive amounts of aid into the country, rebuilt infrastructure a bit faster than the "freedom fighters" blow up the infrastructure, permitted the emergence of political institutions which have generated a constitution, prepared for national and local elections ... we are "occupiers" because we are seen as Christians present on holy Islamic soil.

What some folks don't seem to get is that we did not start this clash of civilizations. September 11, 2001 is the anniversary of a bloody wake up call - that a civilization is engaging in a religious war against the West.

Want to hear what that civilization is saying about 9/11?

Check out the current MEMRI

Here is a part of their recent review of Middle East media coverage of the anniversary - tell me there isn't a religious/cultural war going on:

Introduction
Days following the release of the September 11 Commission report this summer, Sheik Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former dean of the faculty of Shariah at the University of Qatar and a leading Arab reformist, wrote an article in the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat on August 2, 2004, asking, "Why won't we [Arabs] take the opportunity of the appearance of the September 11 commission's report to ponder why destructive violence and a culture of destruction have taken root in our society? Why won't we take this opportunity to reconsider our educational system, our curricula, including the religious, media, and cultural discourse that cause our youth to live in a constant tension with the world?"
Within hours of the September 11 attacks, conspiracy theories began to emerge in the Middle East.(1) They were repeated by the highest echelons of powers, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was quoted in the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram weeks after the attack: "I find it hard to believe that people who were learning to fly in Florida could, within a year and a half, fly large commercial airlines and hit with accuracy the towers of the World Trade Center which would appear, to the pilot from the air, the size of a pencil. Only a professional pilot could carry out this mission." A year following the attacks, Saudi Arabia's powerful Interior Minister Prince Nayef more explicitly blamed "the Zionists."

During this past year leading up to the third anniversary of the attacks, there has been a consistent stream of articles and TV programs in the region's government-controlled media continuing to focus on conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks. The commemoration within the region's media includes statements made by leading professors, religious leaders, government officials, and even Muslim-Americans.

These conspiracy theories primarily state that Arabs and Muslims were not involved and that the U.S. government and/or Jews/Israel are the true culprits. While it should be no surprise that Iran, a country with no official ties with the U.S., is supporting many lies regarding September 11, the U.S.'s closet Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are also supportive of these lies.

The Egyptian Media
In Egypt, Former Dean of Humanities at 'Ein Shams University, Mustafa Shak'a, was interviewed by Iqra TV on June 16, 2004. Shak'a attributed the September 11 attacks to the U.S. and the Jews: "To this day, we don't know who attacked the U.S. on September 11. Why is the attack attributed to bin Laden although it has not been proven that he was involved in the operation? It is way above his capabilities. Those who created him have made him a legend. The operation was 100% American, and this is not the place to elaborate, but what proves the operation was a Jewish one is that five Jews climbed up a high building and filmed the first attack of the first plane…"(2)

Another Egyptian professor, Galal Amin of the American University, wrote an article for Al-Ahram in April 2004: "The claim that the Greater Middle East Initiative aims, wholly or partly, to eliminate terror of the type seen on September 11, 2001 is unconvincing, for several reasons. One is that there is still doubt that the September attacks were the outcome of Arab and Islamic terror. No conclusive proof to this effect is yet available. Many writers, American and European, as well as Arab, suspect that the attacks were carried out by Americans, or with American assistance, or that Americans knew about them and kept silent. Such doubts are strong and rest on damning evidence, but the U.S. administration forcefully censors them and bans any discussion of the matter – something that, by the way, makes one suspect the U.S. administration's commitment to 'knowledge.' But enough of that."

In an article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya titled 'The Secret Israeli Weapon,' published on April 23, 2004, deputy editor Abd Al-Wahhab 'Adas accused the Jews of perpetrating all terrorism throughout the world, including the September 11 attacks: "Actually, it is they who are behind the events of September 11. Proof of this is what was broadcast by the Canadian news agency on September 17 … that prior to the events the CIA had received a report that the Mossad would carry out an attack operation on American territory, in a new attempt to divert attention from the barbaric Israeli operations against the Palestinian people. Further [proof] of this is the news in the American papers at that time, that 4,000 Jews of American origin who worked at the World Trade Center received instructions from the Mossad not to go to work that day. We also find a heavy blackout by America regarding the results of the investigations into the September 11 events. So far it has published no conclusions, and has not told us who the real perpetrator of these events is, as revealed by the investigations. Since America knows very well that the Jews and the Mossad are behind these events, it will never declare the results of the investigations..."

On August 9, 2004 Galal Dweidar, editor of the Al-Akhbar Egyptian government daily, wrote an article titled 'Barbarian Imperialist Occupation,' questioning who was really behind the attacks: "…There are strong doubts on the identity of those who schemed the terrorist action that targeted the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York…"

To commemorate the attacks of two years earlier, on September 11, 2003 Al-Arabiyya TV conducted an interview with Egyptian Muhammad Al-Amir Atta, father of Muhammad Atta, a leader of the 19 hijackers. He characterized the September 11 attacks as "100% made-in-America. All the facts that have been verified and published in the press, on television, and in the statements of officials in the U.S. and abroad prove definitively that this even is an American product, as I said on Egyptian television 72 hours after the event… The subject [at hand] is not my son; it is more general. Is my son or any of the other 19 young men – four of whom died over a year before the event – are these young men the ones who went to the 4,000 Jews and Americans who work at the World Trade Center to tell them not to go [there]? What I am saying was not stated in the newspapers, not stated by you, and not by me; rather, it was stated by America, and that is the truth. Four thousand American Jews did not come to work on September 11. [Moreover], none of the 101 Jewish businessmen – without exception – who booked tickets for business purposes for the four flights in America boarded the four planes, and none of them notified the airlines [that they would not be boarding]. About a week after the event, the American authorities arrested 117 Israelis – and not only Jews but Jewish Israelis – who had come from Israel to the U.S. and live in different groups located in the same vicinity in Florida. They were found to be holding detailed maps on the routes of the four planes. They were questioned, but no information was released. [Moreover], the FBI announced it had recorded two telephone calls on the 11th made by two congressmen at the Capitol to two American newspapers, in which they said, 'The zero hour has come, and the competition begins tomorrow.'"

For its September 10, 2003 edition, the Egyptian weekly Akher Sa'a interviewed several experts for articles commemorating September 11, 2001. Among them was General Mahmoud Khalaf, an Egyptian strategic expert, who said: "What took place on September 11 was a conspiratorial plan by the U.S. to justify invading Afghanistan and later Iraq. In 1999, books were published exposing a plan by far right-wing American hawks to fulfill the dream of a large empire, and there was an opportunity [for this] on September 11. They did not wait for investigations to expose the perpetrator of the operation, not even for those exposing the negligence in preventing the event. The American invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, in other words, only three weeks after the September 11 event. This is not at all a sufficient period in which to transfer [military] forces, train them, and draft the operational plans. This proves these plans were ready at an earlier date and that the forces were close to Afghanistan, the results of which are unknown to this day. [In addition], the declared goals were not achieved. Afghanistan did not develop, it has not democracy or control, and bin Laden was not caught. But what was achieved is that the Americans positioned themselves along the borders of Russia, China, central Asia, and in the center of Islamic countries."

Also interviewed for Akher Sa'a was General Ali Hafzi, governor of the northern Sinai district: "The September 11, 2001 event was meant to determine and direct the events of the 21st century in order to force American hegemony on the world and to enable it to be the sole superpower in the world and prevent the Soviet Union from returning, or prevent the emergence of new superpowers, such as China, Japan, and others… The Americans have not yet announced the results of the investigation of the event. Moreover, an important document published after the event says that 6,000 Jews who used to work daily with the companies and offices housed in the World Trade Center did not go to [that area] on the day of September 11. Let us take a look at what [the U.S.] has achieved so far, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. has already reached the border of the former Soviet Union in order to prevent an attempt on the part of [the Soviets] to reemerge. It has also reached the Chinese border in order to keep it from spreading to a particular local or regional border so that it does not reach the stage of becoming a world superpower…"

>>In another generation, when France's Muslim population hits the +25% mark and we hear demands for an independent Islamic state in what was France, do French authorities become occupiers? If French Islamic "freedom fighters" blow up French nurseries, busses, pizza parlors, will we hear the explanation that these atrocities are merely zealous warriors against occupation?

Yikes. No. Sorry, I thought I was being more clear.

If a military force moves into a country and supports a new government I think we can expect some friction. If immigration and differential birth rates in France result in >25% Muslim population that does NOT make the French an occupying power. We have the same stresses in Canada, almost 50% of the population in Toronto is recent immigrants or their first-generation descendants. Scary.

If some Iraqis have a problem with the current government in Iraq and take potshots at the US military forces I could argue that they are "freedom fighters" but we mostly call them "Iraqi casualties". I'm trying to say "take your fight to the military, they are organized to handle your complaints. Don't pick on the unarmed innocents".

Anyone who targets non-combatants in France, Iraq, or anywhere else IMO is a murderer and deserves to be hunted down and killed.

There is a lot of sabotage to the oil infrastructure but I'm not hearing about much sabotage on the civil infrastructure (power, water, phone etc..). I could be wrong there, of course...

Again, I do agree there are some fundamental problems here. We do have a religious war going on in the sense that there is an organized Muslim movement against what they perceive as a decadent and heavy-handed West, but *most* Muslims are not part of the struggle.

This is going to be an ugly struggle, no question. I am trying to weigh in on the side that has zero tolerance for terrorism but obviously not doing a very good job.

In reply to:

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you forgot bribing the Supreme Court to put the final touches on a stolen election...

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I an SO FRIGGIN' TIRED of hearing this whine from the Democrats. The votes were counted no less than three times, and Bush won every recount. If there was any problem with the election, it was a ballot that was confusing to some voters that was chosen by a DEMOCTRATIC administration. Y'all need to get over the "stolen election" thing, because it is complete bull$#!!!

Mark

In reply to:

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And Israel - how far have they gotten by coming down very hard on the Palestinans?

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How can you combat a group that is willing to strap a bunch of explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up on a bus full of schoolchildren? The only way to deter such attacks would be to make it known that every family member of every suicide bomber would be searched out and eliminated, and I don't think that even the Israeli secret police has the stomach to do that.

Mark

How do you account for eliminating 1,000's of (mostly black) Democratic voters from even being able to vote?

Russia is not entirely innocent. They let so many other provinces break away but not the Chechens who they deported wholesale years ago, and have been awful to - so the Russians just upped the ante I think. They have not gone to the extent SOME of the Chechens have gone to - true.

Not that being nice is the solution now, but addressing some of the injustices done would help. Meanwhile - yes we have to be strong in our approach to them. Military strength with work toward justice.

It would also help in our situation with Al Queda (here come the flames!!!) not that we could get anywhere by talking to them - but by dealing more fairly with the Palestineans it would take away some of their recruits.

I do apprecuiate other points of view - this is what I think would be the best way. Even the best case scenario kills off a lot of people on both sides - but less, hopefully, than what we have done recently.

This is not a wholesale condemnation of our approach - we do try at times to negotiate fairly and we are MUCH different than the terrorists, I agree.

Awaiting incoming...

The Miami paper said that the newspaper combine that looked the situation over a few months later determined that there were three possible outcomes depending on which standards one used. Two of those outcomes of the vote in Florida had Gore winning, the third had Bush winning. (If my memory serves me - it is probably still on line somewhere).

The headline read something like "Bush would have won regardless"

???????????????

Maybe there was a later article that rebutted this 2-1 finding? Or maybe I did not get the nuance of how Bush would have won anyway?

By the way, I do get the sense here that everyone loves their country and wants to be fair and just to other peoples while defending innocent lives.

And I am botheirng to post because I learn from rebuttals.

Just a reminder to myself in the midst of the arguments.