On Wednesday, November 28, 2001, at 08:45 AM, Brian D Williams wrote:
>> From: "Pat Fallon" <pfallon@ptd.net>
>
>> Some thoughts on the subject of terrorism, for what it's worth.
>
>> I think it is very important to understand why we were attacked.
>> Understanding why someone attacked you may help you avoid a
>> similar situation in the future, for one thing.
>
> <the rest of a long post distilled down to one sentence>
>
> "Give the terrorists what they want and they won't be terrorists
> anymore."
Well, yeah, I'm not really worried about what the terrorists themselves
want. They went over the line and should just be killed. However, I'm
worried about the half a billion other Middle Easterners who haven't
done anything to us directly, but sympathize with the cause of the
terrorists. Some of them might sympathize enough to take up the
terrorists' banner after we wipe out the current crop. How many
billions of dollars and thousands of lives will that cost us?
> The first thing they want is for us/U.S to stop supporting Israel,
> so they can try/fail again to destroy it, and that is not going to
> happen.
As an American friend of mine whose parents came here from Palestine
said to me recently, "Yes, Palestinians at one point were only
interested in the destruction of Israel, but they lost that battle.
After fifty years of eating shit, though, they'd just settle for having
control over most of the original Palestine that they were apportioned."
Instead, Israel refuses to give up more than a token amount of the land
that they took. They're importing "Jewish" citizens by the thousands,
and setting them up on Palestinian land. Looks like a recipe for
eternal turf battles to me.
Also, this is more than just about Israel. This is also about continued
US support for puppet regimes like in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Sure, the US talks a good game about democracy and freedom, but Middle
Easterners who would wish to have freedom and democracy in their own
countries have to not only battle their own governments, but also the
dollars and military of the United States.
The Cold War is over. This support of the "lesser of evils" no longer
makes the sense that it did a couple of decades ago.
I'd rather see us withdraw from the Middle East completely than continue
to be embarrassed about our policies there.
> What the terrorists are going to get is dead.
I certainly hope so.
Regards,
Chris Russo
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:23 MDT