Post #63,683
11/18/02 8:37:29 PM
|
Why don't they just treat him like a crook?
This melodrama only heightens his status. In my mind he's just another megalomaniacal mass murderer.
-drl
|
Post #63,695
11/18/02 10:21:55 PM
|
Isn't that the root Question of this debacle?
Whether to go after OBVIOUS &%#@* perps or.. suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by - picking out nicely handy *geographical* locales -like nations- to punish ??
(so much easier.. when your capacity for effective sleuthing sux, via a mindset from years of cold-war tunnel vision.) yada
|
Post #63,701
11/18/02 10:33:29 PM
|
I've thought that the US should treat this like a criminal
matter from the get go. Putting it in terms of crime immediately changes the way people look at the event... and at the people who caused the event. Instead of being warriors or martyrs, they're just criminals. I think they would have ended up with a lot more support in the Arab Middle East if they'd spoken of it as a crime, acted as if it was a crime, and had publicised the nature and effects of the crime.
For example... look at the rules around which a Holy War is fought. 9/11 violates pretty much all of them... and if the US had dropped pamphlets with graphic photos of (for example) some of the dead women from the twin towers (it's totally against the rules of holy war to attack women) they could have put the lie to the act immediately.
Done properly, this could have had a HUGE impact on how muslims around the world would have perceived the act.
Finally, by using the usual methodologies of dealing with crime (which are certainly well understood in the Middle East as a whole), they would have garnered a lot more respect from the moderate majority of muslims there who just want to live their lives and improve their lot... because there's nothing like showing respect to get it. Nobody would blame them for prosecuting the chase for bin Laden with vigour... but generally one doesn't bomb the shit out of a place when you're looking for a criminal.
Instead, they seem to be going about it the hard way, at the same time as they invest bin Laden and Al Qaida with far more gravitas then they deserve. It's almost like they want to help them get more converts to their noisome cause.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Post #63,703
11/18/02 10:36:50 PM
|
not fer nuttin but
the first twin towers bombing was treated as a crime and a few were convicted icluded the mosque leader imam something or other and it completely pissed off the muslims who vowed to bring the towers down because that ignorant fuck was in a jail cell. Been there, done that have the tshirt.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." Correction: All that can be achieved with 51 percent of the voters!" Ilanna Mercer
|
Post #63,714
11/18/02 11:13:11 PM
|
Hey
I said it was a crime - not that I wanted to read him his rights.
You have the right to eat a Hellfire missle.
-drl
I'm so happy I could scalp someone. Mark Twain
|
Post #63,722
11/19/02 12:14:48 AM
|
The only problem with that is...
that a lot of people that had nothing to do with it end up having the right to eat hellfire missiles too.
Some guy from the local version of the KKK goes and does a whackjob on some powerful country, and then the whole place gets bombed flat. You get bombed flat. Everybody gets bombed flat. And most of them had nothing to do with it.
This is not a good place to be, strictly from an ethical perspective. This is bad behaviour. I'm not saying that going and getting these guys is a bad idea at all. Personally, I want to see them get nailed. It was a horrible thing that they did. But killing a lot of people that had nothing to do with it is not going to help.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Post #63,754
11/19/02 9:26:30 AM
|
Ethical Dilemma Yes
We got into the current situation because of what you might call an ethical dilemma - we could have taken out a lot of people on the sly when we had good intelligence from operatives close to the sources (see Bob Baer). But "that wasn't ethical". But, was it ethical to expose the 3000 who died on 9/11 by refusing to "do the wrong thing"? It's a brutal world. Let the ethical "mistakes" happen on the front end. I'm totally in favor of highly targeted attacks against the bad guys, the terrifying kind that keeps them looking over their shoulders. These guys should walk around with a black cloud over them, and people should learn that hanging out with them or near them is a bad idea.
-drl
I'm so happy I could scalp someone. Mark Twain
|
Post #63,725
11/19/02 12:37:22 AM
|
There will always be those.
They are called "fanatics".
The good news is that they are a very small minority of the population.
Unless we start making them famous and heroic.
|
Post #63,743
11/19/02 6:56:41 AM
|
You're way optimistic
Radical Muslims will hate the U.S. no matter what, whether we brand Osama a criminal or a war leader.
Look at the street celebrations when the planes hit the towers. Some people just hate the U.S. for what it is, regardless of who started it or what. Some people jump for joy at seeing Israeli jews blown to bits by a backpack suicide bomber. Portraying the bombers as criminals won't ever change that.
|
Post #63,768
11/19/02 10:32:28 AM
|
That may be...
... but that one percenter isn't the point. It's how the rest of them see the event and the actions around it that is the point.
Allowing the crazies to derail foreign policy that way means that they win. You're right... you'll never reach those people... but that's not most of the people. However, if you do go and kill a lot of innocent people and only a very small number of the guilty, you'll end up with more and more of the normal people moving into the camp of those who just hate regardless of what has happened.
In the short term, it may be viscerally satisfying, but in the long term you're creating more problems for yourselves.
The fact that there is all this movement towards curtailing the things that make you you (liberties, expectation of privacy, and so on) as a result of those actions means that they are achieving exactly what they set out to do. Terrorism is not about military victory... it's about changing the way people live, and therefore changing what people are. So far, it seems they are succeeding admirably well at this goal.
Ashcroft is handing them (al Qaida) their goals on a silver platter. Do you want them to have their success? I don't.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Post #63,848
11/19/02 3:40:47 PM
|
Lockheed and Martin-Marietta don't increase their Profits...
...by chasing a mere criminal.
Sheesh, jake, don't you get it yet?
(Otherwise, yet another lucid and excellent post from you...you're definitely on a roll!)
jb4
"They lead. They don't manage. The carrot always wins over the stick. Ask your horse. You can lead your horse to water, but you can't manage him to drink."
Richard Kerr, United Technologies Corporation, 1990
|
Post #63,850
11/19/02 3:55:05 PM
|
Oh, I get it.
What I don't get is why the rest of the US is going along with it so meekly. It's not like it's hard to figure out what's going on.
--\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\r\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\r\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Post #63,877
11/19/02 6:52:34 PM
|
Baa... Baa...
DM: "OKay, you round the corner, and entering the alleyway, you see two men standing on eachother's shoulders."
*silence at the table*
Player: "F#$% it, we're fighting Cirque de Soleil! Run for your life!"
|
Post #63,903
11/19/02 9:08:49 PM
|
The political naivete and historical ignorance of
The Murican Peepul - permits this environment of massive duplicity to linger, apparently indefinitely.
You can't become alert, interested and ept overnight - and a few can ram through unConstitutional restraints on that same half-voting flock of consumers EZ. Just ramp up the jingoism and the slogans, as we have seen.
There can be no quick-fix; it's taken decades to sink this low on the awareness scale. The level of speech! in the populace and from the cabal and its supporters demonstrates what this level is today.
Believe these are the classical prerequisites for the loss of 'democracy' and the onset of Authoritarian regime: to er "ensure law n'order for your comfort and convenience at the mall".
Ugly is just a word,
Ashton
|
Post #63,914
11/19/02 9:47:25 PM
|
More people can name the spouses of the stars of their
favourite TV show than can name the leaders of the various nations in the mid-east.
Hey, skip the leaders, most can't even name the NATIONS!
|
Post #63,920
11/19/02 10:18:22 PM
|
For sure neither can Motorola or Intel
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." Correction: All that can be achieved with 51 percent of the voters!" Ilanna Mercer
|
Post #65,060
11/26/02 12:49:44 AM
|
The meekness is easy to understand
Anything else would lead to the realization that we've done some real, real stupid things.
And what if we were to notice that the attacks have turned us from "the land of the brave" to a bunch of pansies willing to trade everything we stand for for the mere feeling (never mind that we all know it's a complete illusion) that we might be safer than we were before? We'd be embarrased to wave the Red White and Blue.
No, for our mental health we must trust that our leaders know what's best. To even consider the alternative - in other words, to be Americans - is just too painfull. There is no sarcasm at all in this paragraph. Horror, not sarcasm.
----
Whatever
|
Post #65,068
11/26/02 1:19:28 AM
|
Meekness? cupidity where it Count$.
Augmented by pure dumbth, distraction, indifference in the mass.
There's MONEY to be made in this atmosphere of total surrender to a cabal. Compensations. Dreams of incredible [literally] ABM and other *'security' massive windfalls, spread among the largest contributors / Corporations - quite enough for maintaining the daily pabulum in the newsfotainment, the
Urgent! news releases on Dubya's talk to schoolchildren in that bucolic Incest County "old fashioned schoolhouse" -- and nada, zippo on what a few overseas Parliaments or (real, elected) Presidents are saying about it all.
* like the password boilerplate - which enabled instant! 1st priority on any materiel requisitioned for the Manhattan Project. Want a 400# sphere of Gold for neutron tests? Done.
Dunno.. it all seems so utterly STUPID; some days I can't quite believe that I haven't been transported to a parallel universe organized by Tweety Bird and Sylvester.
Bad puddy tat
Gonna fix puddy tat
*BOOM*
|
Post #65,159
11/26/02 12:41:53 PM
|
Same phenomenon
You describe the wolves, I describe the sheep. Neither exists without the other.
Both are driven by fear. The wolves by the fear of missing out.
----
Whatever
|
Post #63,723
11/19/02 12:34:02 AM
|
Because crooks don't give the justification we want.
I agree with your analysis.
But our government NEEDS Osama to be a world threat (think of any Bond villian).
That way, we can deploy our military to take over other countries.
|
