posted
On another thread, I asked Human what else we could or should have done in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
I would like to hear anyone's thoughts on this subject.
Of course, there is always the option of doing nothing at all, as Human seems to be saying below:
quote: I don't know, William...maybe we could have just LEFT THEM THE HELL ALONE! Maybe we could have given them one less reason to hate us! Maybe we could have found another way to get what we wanted than storming in and bombing them and shooting them, then leaving them with almost nothing we promised them! What did we do for them? We promised money, education, reconstruction! Instead we moved on and bombed something else!
Maybe I don't know what the hell we could have done instead. But I know that what we did wasn't RIGHT. Killing isn't right, no matter what the reason! Or maybe I'm just the stupid one.
Permit me to respond:
...maybe we could have just LEFT THEM THE HELL ALONE! Maybe we could have given them one less reason to hate us!
Human, the terrorists already hate us with every fibre of their being. Leaving them alone, IMHO, is not going to make us safe.
IMHO, the die is cast and either us or our grandchildren are going to have to fight these terrorists. We can choose to fight them far away in Afghanistan and Iraq, under circumstances which we can better control or we can fight them in Cleveland and Fresno and in U.S. shopping malls and subways.
Maybe we could have found another way to get what we wanted than storming in and bombing them and shooting them,
See, you keep saying "find another way." WHAT WAY!!! Please tell me. What Way? Singing Kum Bay Yah, and saying lets find a way may make you feel better, but WHAT THE HELL OTHER WAY? Please be specific.
then leaving them with almost nothing we promised them!
Um, hello? We aren't finished yet. We're trying hard to establish a stable democratic government in Afghanistan. Every single person there is about 9 billion times better off RIGHT NOW than they ever were under the murdering Taliban, and we're not even finished.
Iraq is also on its way. We are trying and doing our best to establish a free, democratic government there. We have tried to repair things, and a small group of terrorists have blown them up again. We'll keep repairing them in Iraq until they finally stay repaired.
We're trying our best to get their economy back on its feet.
Maybe I don't know what the hell we could have done instead. But I know that what we did wasn't RIGHT.
You do? If you don't have a reasonable alternative, then how can you say that what someone else did was wrong?
Killing isn't right, no matter what the reason!
Even in self-defense?
Or maybe I'm just the stupid one.
Not really, but I would like to hear you and other like-thinking people give us some ideas, instead of saying "what we did was wrong." Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I went to a birthday party instead. I'm not going to let a bunch of ghouls turn a perfectly good day into death worship! This is playing right into the terrorist's hands.
What I will say about it, though, is that I don't really think that they expected the response that they got. And being in Iraq and Afganistan right now is keeping the terrorists concentrated in that region, pretty much. My views are isolationist views, and are shared by fewer and fewer people as the years go by, so I cannot agree with the quest for oil that the United States' government is constantly persueing.
The question should be: what will you do about it now? Will you live your life in fear? Or will you get on to what the terrorists hate about us:
Freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and every other freedom we enjoy! I'm going to another birthday party for the same friend tonight! And then I will folow Chris's perscription in his recent column.
Posts: 1843 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Well, damn, William, I don't know what to do! I'm 16, and not exactly an expert in geopolitics! I just know what I feel. So mock me for that, belittle me for that, shut me up for saying it, but that's all I have. If I knew an answer, don't you think I might have actually SAID it?
Posts: 3658 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
I'm glad you made this thread so I didn't have to post this in the other nice thread.
quote: MOGHUL KHAEL: On a patch of land next to the bare poles and scorched canvas that was once their classroom tent, dozens of young Afghan girls take a lesson in subtraction.
Their school was torched seven nights ago - apparently by militants opposed to female education - but they show no sign of giving up their chance to learn.
"I like coming here because I like to study and learn," said shy eight-year-old Fahima. "I'd like to be a doctor when I grow up, so I can serve people by giving them medicine."
The scene shows both how far Afghanistan has come since it shot to world attention after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, and how far it still has to go.
The shackles of fundamentalist Taliban rule have been cast off and the capital Kabul buzzes with a freedom and exuberance hard to imagine two years ago.
Step outside the capital, though, and you enter a realm where warlords still hold sway, where opium production is booming, where a US-led war is still being waged and where the Taliban are carrying out hit-and-run attacks.
Part of the blame falls on the West. Foreign aid has been slow to arrive, and appeals by the Afghan government, the United Nations and aid agencies to deploy peacekeeping troops outside Kabul have so far fallen on deaf ears.
The US army paid warlords large sums of money to buy their support in the battle against the Taliban and the subsequent hunt for remnants of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Two years on, those same warlords are a big part of the problem.
quote:Five local workers from the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghanistan (Dacaar) were bumping along a dirt road in an unmarked pick-up truck, just as they had many times before.
They were returning from a mission to supply water to one of the country's thousands of miserably poor villages - a task to which Afghan employees were assigned as the area is deemed too dangerous for international staff. Their executioners were waiting. They held up the truck and ordered the men to line up by the road.
They tied their hands. They lectured them on the evils of local Afghans collaborating with international organisations and accused them of ignoring a previous fatwa banning them from doing so. Then they opened fire, spraying them from close range.
quote: ISLAMABAD, 10 Sep 2003 (IRIN) - Less than one percent of the money requested by US president George W Bush, in an overall funding request of US $ 87 billion to cover post-war activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, would go towards Afghan reconstruction, the representative of a leading NGO in the country said on Wednesday.
"Actually, less than half of a percent, as much of this money will go to security priorities of training and supporting the ANA [Afghan National Army] and police," Paul Barker, country director for the US-based humanitarian organisation CARE International in Afghanistan, told IRIN from Kabul.
Let's see, what else could we have done? How about actually capturing bin Laden? Wait, we didn't want a premature capture to interfere with PNAC.
quote:No serious attempt has ever been made to catch Bin Laden. In late September and early October 2001, leaders of Pakistan's two Islamist parties negotiated Bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for 9/11. However, a US official said, significantly, that "casting our objectives too narrowly" risked "a premature collapse of the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr Bin Laden was captured". The US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Myers, went so far as to say that "the goal has never been to get Bin Laden" (AP, April 5 2002).
Once again, what could we have done? Well, we could have finished the job. We could have decided to rebuild Afghanistan, instead of moving on to Iraq. We could be spending more that 800 million on Afghanistan now. We could be making sure the country has a decent infrastructure and government before we bail and take over another country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Of course, that's just me. I could be wrong. I mean, if the government thinks is a good thing to pay off the drug producers for the war production number in their war distraction, who am I to question the tactic over a year later, when we've achieved none of our goals there?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
What we could have done, and can still do, is move to show our side of events.
I don't mean the propaganda we see now, aimed at securing US approval of the wars and their left overs.
I mean we need a way to tell our side of the story to the various Islamic communities. We need to show them the fatherless children left after 9/11, and the fatherless families created by the Taliban and the Ba'ath parties.
We are losing the war for the hearts and minds of the Islamic world, because our leaders are too caught up in trying to win the war for the hearts and minds of their own voters.
posted
Dan, I love ya, man, but the whole loose thing is just killing me. My pants are loose and baggy, because I'm losing weight.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I don't know what to do! I'm 16, and not exactly an expert in geopolitics! I just know what I feel. So mock me for that, belittle me for that, shut me up for saying it
I was not trying to belittle you in any way, just holding your feet to the fire.
Frankly, I thought I was giving you respect by asking for your opinion regarding solutions.
There are a lot of people who aren't experts in geopolitics, but from their many swipes at this country's leadership, you'd think they were Henry Freakin' Kissinger.
Here's the thing, Human:
When you get on here and post, not everyone knows that you are "only 16." If you want to speak up like an adult, then be prepared to back it up (or not).
I was going to say "back it up like an adult," but there are a few adults on here that toss off one-liners like "Bush is Satan" but they don't offer any plausible alternatives either. Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Thank you Dan. Thank you Kayla. Very enlightening responses.
Kayla: Once again, what could we have done? Well, we could have finished the job.
Not to "pooh, pooh" the rest of your excellently researched and informative post, but you're okay with the whole Afghanistan adventure? Just wondering.
I think I'm beginning to agree with you on Iraq. The fact that we have not found any WMD's or captured Saddam is bugging me.
IMHO, Saudi Arabia had more to do with 9/11 than Iraq did.
Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Human, I think you'll find as you get older things aren't always as black and white as "all killing is wrong."
I don't know what could've been done differently or what. But I do know that however the president reacted to 9/11 there would've been people opposed to it.
Posts: 374 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Sweet William, we had discussions about Afghanistan and the taliban here long before 9/11 and what they were doing in that country. The thing that bothers me the most is that it appears we were actively trying to not capture bin Laden. Well, that's not the thing that bothers me the most, but in that particular part of the "war on terror," not capturing him is up there on the list.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Human, I'll also note, that if you decide, "when you grow up", that killing is wrong, at all costs, there are people out there, who, while disagreeing with you (say, a person like me), will respect that as a valid moral choice.
posted
The thing that bothers me the most is that it appears we were actively trying to not capture bin Laden.
Yeah, that seriously bothers me, if it is the case.
If it turned out that we let him go so that we could have a big military intervention in the Middle East under the guise of "the war on terror," that would pretty much completely destroy my faith in our government.
Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
You mean finding out that the Warren Commission fudged where the entrance wound for the "magic bullet" was located so that the magic bullet theory would work didn't do it for you?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Well, we could have done what I suggest... namely, cut down on our military presence abroad (and on our military size in general), shift more focus on international bodies like the U.N., and create a broad, truly global effort against terrorism. In general, my thoughts were that we needed to first figure out what we are doing that provokes this anger and adjust ourselves accordingly if we are doing anything wrong (which we are.)
That, of course, would not have stamped out terrorism yet. But, it would have done everything our current policies have achieved, except getting Saddam out of Iraq (which doesn't do much for stopping terrorism anyway). And on the plus side, we would not be finding ourselves increasingly hated abroad, and I'd like to think there would not be the high degree of support for bin Laden that we find today in the Muslim.
I suspect we'll eventually end up on this course in some form or another anyway, because I don't really see any other solution that could successfully resolve anything with any permanence - unless maybe if the terrorists succeeded in destroying us.
posted
Dear Lord Sweet William. What happened to you? You've obviously been hanging around too many liberals lately. (Though isolationist is kind of a republican thing. )
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I know, I've been taken over by Sweet Little Liberal William. I can usually keep him under wraps, but he got a magic potion from one of the Charmed ones, and now Mr. conservative is temporarily toast.
But I really would love to see a few things happen:
1. More fuel efficient cars (higher CAFE standards)
2. Less dependence on Mideast Oil.
3. Bring home every freakin' soldier that we possibly can (after we've rebuilt Iraq and Afghanistan).
4. No new military adventures.
5. Militarily leave Europe completely.
6. Do something to clean up the cultural crap that we export so that all those nice Muslims don't think we're this moral cesspool.
There are more things, but I can't think of them right now.
Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Tresopax and SW> You know, that sounds like a good way to get ourselves blown to bits.
Middle Eastern countries have been angry at us since the Ottoman Empire got broken up after WWI. They're still riled over that, never mind that nearly everyone who had anything to do with it is dead. Apparently cross-generational vengeance is normal there.
Helping the Jews out by letting them go home after a couple thousand years really ticked them off too. It seems a tiny slice of land next to the Mediterranean that hardly anyone was living in anyway is worth a lot to Middle Easterners. They don't like it that we help keep the Israelis from getting blown up, either.
If we didn't do anything in the least to offend them, they'd probably become happy with us in a couple hundred more years, long after the military pullouts made it possible for some lunatic to unite the whole region, build nuclear weapons with the oil revenues (there's no getting completely away from it, believe me), and blow the US to bits. They'll regret it then, but we'll all be dead.
Basically, there really is no way to make them happy with us and there's no point in even trying. The only possible defense is to keep doing what we're doing. They'll be angry with us forever, but they'll never be strong enough to do anything about it.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Perhaps you right, maybe we can't make them happy with us. But do we have to make them hate us? Like starting a pretext war in Iraq, or keeping troops in Saudia Arabia, or supporting other repressive Islamic dictatorships?
I have mixed feelings about the Israeli-Palestinian conlict. I used to be more pro-Israeli, but lately I've felt maybe we should say a pox on both your houses and withdraw. Maybe.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
I don't think for a second that the war in Iraq was a pretext. Whether or not there were any weapons of mass destruction, it was important to get rid of the maniac. That's true regardless of Bush's motives.
Saudi Arabia is about the only place we _could_ station large numbers of troops, without which the region would probably be even less stable than it is. Oh, nowadays we could put them in Afghanistan or Iraq, but then we'd hear even more people screeching about how we're occupying a perfectly innocent country.
You're right about the dictators. For the most part, we started supporting them because they were the only game in town--the alternative was to have one big dictator in Moscow instead of a bunch of little local ones. Nowadays we should be doing to them what we did to Saddam, one after the other as rapidly as possible. (Hopefully catching and executing them, but you can't have everything.)
You may be right about Israel and Palestine. Sometimes I feel that we should just pull out. But, then, the times I say this are the times I feel we should just let them kill each other off--maybe sell them both all the weapons they want--and then take the land ourselves. I'm not sure that's an appropriate attitude. But I'm fairly certain now there will never be peace; neither party really wants it.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Basically, there really is no way to make them happy with us and there's no point in even trying. The only possible defense is to keep doing what we're doing. They'll be angry with us forever, but they'll never be strong enough to do anything about it.
You don't have much faith in the Middle East, do you?
But there is one thing you're dead wrong about, provably. They ARE strong enough to do something about it. They've shown that they can terrorize us, and there isn't much we can do to stop it. Eventually, if they are willing to sacrifice all to do it, they'll get through and blow up our buildings - and if they ever get their hands on nukes, they may blow up our cities too. Our military dominance may mean they can't invade us, but they can get around that with acts of terrorism that will hurt us just as bad.
So, we better at least have some faith in the abiity of the Middle East to see the right thing to do, because as long as they continue to hate us enough to use these suicide terror tactics, they've got us. We can continue on this path, but it will only guarantee a neverending stream of 9/11s in the future.
Or does anybody think we can close up every hole in our security and find every hidden terrorist facility?
posted
Tresopax, I have no faith in the Middle East at all. Or in much of the rest of humanity--not even us, really.
And I meant, of course, that they won't be able to attack us once we have them well and truly subjugated.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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