From: Carlos Gonzalia (gonzalia@cs.chalmers.se)
Date: Sat Aug 17 2002 - 18:39:08 MDT
>From: "Brian Phillips" <deepbluehalo@earthlink.net>
>
> I suspect that a aesthetically appropriate non-CL response would be
>really irrational. And I mean *really* irrational.
> Like say public Crucifixions for all proven members of Al Quaida.
>Seriously... if you need to change the minds of a large number of people
>and you don't care how brutal a show of force is required (obviously
>I am not at this point, neither is the U.S. thankefully)
>then public torture/executions are the sort of thing it escalates to.
I realize now I sort of sounded too literal when I said "the US should
probably try to find some non-Cl. way of retributing". Yikes. For the
record, I don't propose bringing back the Crusades or any similar
fantasy ideology tactic that the words "non-Cl. retribution" might imply
for the West in such a literal view.
What I was trying to say is: the US seems to be too stuck into a "reply
in Cl. terms to a Cl. menace", which the article I linked talks about
and makes a good point of arguing it's mistaken and unproductive. I was
trying to say that the US, in the hypotetical single nuke attack
we are discussing, should use Cl. responses tuned to cause a collapse
of the non-Cl. worldview of the attackers. How that should be done,
or even if it's possible, are things I have no clear idea about, as I
also tried to say in my post.
I can imagine that hi-tech psyops could quickly become a moral dilemma.
And backfire. And who knows what else. So this is the point when I go
back to lurking and reading what you people have to say about it. ;-)
>Let's NOT go there.. Clausiwitz said politics is the womb of war.
>People make politics, and our Gods ARE dead.
>Let's keep them that way.
Can't agree more myself, as I hope this post has now made clear.
Carlos
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