From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 11:57 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Conversations and Responses on my Terrorism Article
(All, I received quite a lot of responses from my article on Terrorism in the US.   I wanted to allow some other points of view to be available on the list.  First is my article again, following are each of the individual responses, 7 in all.  After that is a response written by list member Will regarding the recent article "Bin Laden comes home to roost" Some good information is provided regarding the history of affairs in eastern Asia.  Following that article is the original responses again to my article with each one followed by my responses to them and any debates that developed. - Michael)

 
 Terrorism and the US by Michael Dickey
 
The events that unfolded recently have left most of us in this country speechless. They have made us realize how trivial many of our  day-to-day concerns really are, and how lucky we are to have the things that truly make living worth while.
 
The loss of life is unimaginable, and as the stories pour in of the victims, their families and their loved ones, the full impact of this event is beginning to become comprehendible. Trying to find the words that express the sorrow we feel at the loss of thousands of human lives is difficult. I stood in horror and in stunned silence as I watched the first tower collapse with potentially thousands of people inside. No words existed that could convey the emotions we had once the full impact of these heinous crimes against humanity were realized.
 
To many of us, this event did not come as a surprise; it was only a question of when. Many parts of the world deal with terrorism virtually on a daily basis. We have been fortunate enough to be domestically shielded from this. This is the first time our younger generation has experienced an event like this, an event that feels as though it would change the world forever the moment we found out. I hope that this event is never forgotten, and something similar never occurs again. My heart goes out to the people lost in this tragic event and the loved ones and families of those victims. 
 
Imagine yourself getting ready to go to work. You have a beautiful condo that you worked hard saving up for, a beautiful family that you love very much. You work 9 to 5 in an office job with great people. You kiss your spouse in the morning, tell them you love them, wake your children, go through your morning routing, breakfast, newspaper, coffee. Then you turn on the television to check the weather, like always. This is where you hear the news. Your office building has been severely damaged by an explosion and a fire engulfs it. You are standing there watching it on your television, seeing your office building burning, thick smoke pouring from the windows. You worry about your coworkers, your friends. What a horrific site. As the fear and loss rushes through you, you find out it wasn’t an accident, instead it was an intentional attack. Suddenly anger fills you, how could someone do such a thing? These innocent people had nothing to do with this quarrel. They were just trying to feed their families, to live a good and happy life. Now their world has erupted around them. Your nation erupts in anger at the thousands killed, your leaders speak of the perpetrators of this act as Evil, declaring that God is with you and your country. You are angry; you want to get back at these people.
 
But you are not in front of your television watching the World Trade Centers burn, instead you are in Baghdad watching your office  building burn with your friends and co-workers inside. The explosion was not caused by a hi-jacked airliner but by a cruise missile launched from a destroyer hundreds of miles off your coast. A cruise missile that was launched at the order of the US president at the time with approval of the US senate. You are infuriated! What did you and your friends, family, and loved ones do to deserve this?
 
The popular contention is that terrorism is random and unmotivated. It is not. These acts are heinous, terrible, and saddening, with little regard for the sanctity of human life. But they are not random, nor unmotivated.
 
President Bush, following the attack, said that America was attacked because of what it is, because it is a symbol of freedom. America is  our home; it is the land of the free and of opportunity, the diversity and uniqueness of its citizens being its strength. To many people, both domestic and abroad, this symbolizes the opposite of their ideologies. But the US is not the only country like this, there are many other countries that symbolize what America is. Other wealthy post-industrialized nations have an extensive industrial and economic presence internationally. These countries, such as Australia and Switzerland, along with the US, are capitalist; export their culture and religions along with their products and services. They believe in religious freedom, economic opportunity, and respect the rights of the individual. Yet one third of all the terrorist attacks in the world are perpetuated against US targets. The US has no internal civil war and no conflicts with neighboring countries, the things usually present in countries wrought with terrorism. America is attacked because of what it does, not what it is.
 
When was the last time you heard of a terrorist attack in Switzerland.
 
If we were to take a moment, a rational moment of self reflection, to understand what motivates a terrorist attack, to understand our  enemy, then we may be able to change those behaviors which incite terrorist attacks, saving innumerable lives. As the possibility increases of terrorist organizations acquiring nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons of mass destruction, realizing that terrorists have a motivation behind their attacks becomes vitally important. It becomes a matter of life and death for us, our families, our loved ones, and everyone else who lives in this nation. Identifying and ceasing these acts which serve to incite a terrorist response is essential in curbing the upcoming terrorist threat, especially now in light of the potential dangers.
 
Wars and violent conflicts are an extension of the tribalism that has existed for so long with humans. Tribalism depends on the ability to  make people perceive the enemy as something else, something other then “US”. It is this US vs. THEM mentality that has directly been  the cause of every major conflict and is responsible for more loss of life then any other concept in the history of humanity. As political and economic borders fall, the cultural boundaries that are necessary to maintaining this US vs. THEM mentality necessarily fall as well. It would be very difficult in this age of international flights, television, Internet, and international phone calls to convince people in the United States that people in France are  inherently Evil. Yet in countries where borders are not so open, this task is much easier.
 
We must always remain careful when people tell us that someone else is fundamentally different, or wrong, or Evil. President Bush has  already cited numerous times how this is an Evil act. That the people who perpetuated it are Evildoers, and that God is on our side. This  has necessarily led many people to feel that the nation that is the home to these terrorists deserve the blame as much as the terrorists  themselves do, but this is no different then saying the people in the World Trade Center who lost their lives deserved the blame for  bombings in the Middle East just as much as the actual perpetrators of the bombing do, and this is most likely exactly why the attack took  place.
 
If we were to bomb the people of Afghanistan, we are no better then the terrorists themselves.
 
The terrorists acted of their own accord, and were not officially sponsored by the Afghanistan government, while the US military acts in foreign nations as a representation of the US people. This is why the terrorists, the sole perpetrators of these attacks, feel that US citizens are just as much to blame. The now infamous Osama Bin Laden specifically stated that ‘Every US citizen is a valid military target’
 
If we were to visit the Middle East while it was being attacked by a US aircraft carrier hundreds of miles off the coast, a carrier that has firepower that exceeds that of many small countries, we would find the same things being said. That these attackers are Evil, that the perpetrators are cowardly, that they must pay, and that God is on our side. And a small faction of those people take the matters into their own hand and perform these heinous terrorist attacks in protest to previous US actions. These attitudes that our governments perpetuate are essential to maintaining that US vs. THEM mentality that allows us (or them) to feel justified in killing innocent people.
 
The Unites States is the only country that intervenes regularly in affairs outside its own region, and the vast majority of terrorist acts against US targets can be identified as responses to particular instances of US intervention. In the post-cold war world, frequent military involvement overseas is not needed to ensure the security of the United States, especially in light of the devastating consequence that WILL arise from this intervention. The vast majority of post cold war conflicts in the world have involved disputes between parties within states. Conflicts that the outcome will be far less influential on US security but will be far more likely to incite devastating terrorist responses domestically.
 
Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 1993 attack in Saudi Arabia, which left 18 American Rangers dead. His main reason for  attacking was to protest the American presence in Saudi Arabia and Washington’s official support for Israel. If the links to bin Laden we are learning about now prove to be true, was America’s military presence in Saudi Arabia worth the thousands of lives lost with the attack and collapse of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon? Is it worth the chance that thousands more may be killed?
 
Moamar Qaddafi was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland, which killed 270 people, 200 of which  were Americans. He was responding to the United States air strikes of Tripoli and Benghazi, which were apparently meant to assassinate  him.
 
The US has performed numerous more acts in the past that benefited the US or the countries involved very little but raised the possibility of terrorist responses tremendously. I invite readers learn of more of these instances by visiting  <http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-050es.html>
 
Never has it been more important than now that we really think about our response to these actions. A continually escalating cycle of  vengeance will not be good for this country, or for the world, let alone the millions of innocent people whose lives will be lost.
 
These views are not popular, and are not political correct in the United States, I may be labeled anti-American or a terrorist sympathizer. I am none of these things. These were horrendous acts against humanity and the perpetrators should be brought to justice. But the innocent people unfortunate enough to share their homeland with these terrorists should not be forced to pay.
 
I am not on the side of the terrorists, or on the side supporting US intervention in foreign lands. I am on the side of people all over the world, regardless of where they happened to be born. I am on the side of the innocent people that will necessarily get caught up in these conflicts through no fault of their own but who were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
Most people in the world are decent people. They have mothers and fathers and they love and feel pain. Very few people in the world are  inherently Evil, the people of the Middle East are no exception. Most of them work jobs they are probably unhappy at, and have to deal  with the death of loved ones, disease, cancer, affording food and medical care for their children, and finding a safe place to live just like  everyone else out there. They do not deserve to be bombed.
 
I am not an isolationist. Some may say that I am. Some may say that the policy of restrained military involvement that I endorse is not on the side of people, after all, many of the conflicts we are involved in we are fighting for human rights. At least, that is what the conflicts are disguised as. The fact of the matter is that we are involved in these intra state conflicts to protect US economic interests, not to protect the rights of individuals. A cursory examination of history will edify this point. The US has often ignored heinous acts where far more people are being killed in countries which have no economic or military value to the US.
 
But when taken as a whole, our policy of protecting US interests abroad by militarily involving ourselves in political intra state conflicts and then policing our state as much as possible to make it as difficult as possible to perpetuate a terrorist act will, and obviously has, failed. Numerous more lives will be lost if we continue to act in a way that instills hatred and anger in other countries. We have to restrict of military involvement in other nations to situations that directly compromise national security.
 
Adopting a military police of restraint has nothing to do with appeasing the terrorists. Terrorists acts are morally abhorrent and should be punished whenever possible. Instead we would be reducing the motivations that terrorists have to attack the United States in the first place. With the probability of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists increasing, such a stance has become vitally important.
 
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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #1

Mike,

Your letter was certainly thought provoking. I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but, there is a point saying we are doing some things to other countries that are not motivated entirely by ethical concerns for that country's populace.

It's interesting to note that 80% of this country is saying wait to respond - find out who is responsible.

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #2

   Mike,

   I have to disagree with you on this. You are taking (in my opinion, as 
   this whole response is) a small- minded view of things. America has done
   more in the last 50 years to spread democracy and capitalism than ALL other
   democratic/capitalistic countries combined. Although often times we are
   selective about where we push for these reforms, for instance we demanded
   it in Pananma because of it's military interest but asked nicely in
   Indonesia because of it's lack of economic/military importance, we are
   pushing for more freedoms throughout the world. That is really why these
   groups perpetrate their acts against the US, they dont want an educated and
   free population to make rational choices, they want POWER. In countries
   that are "friends" with the US there are constant pressures on that country
   to reform their political and education systems to insure the people are
   (at least nominally) ruling their own country.

   Countries in the Arab/Middle-Eastern world right now have more importance
   than their status on democracy/capitalism would normally allow, due to
   natural resources (oil) that the rest of the world want. When this becomes
   a non-factor due to alternate energy resources, this area of the world,
   for the most part, will unfortunatley become a third world squallor once
   again because they are wasting their chance to educate their populace.

   I don't like to see human suffering at least as much as anyone else, but a
   cold hard fact is this: There are no innocents in Afghanistan, they are
   allowing an awful government to be in control. Allowing is the correct word
   in that sentence, there is currently a resistance movement that controls
   5-10% of their country. If I allowed, by not fighting it, a totalitarian
   government to take ove the US and inflict pain and barbaarism around the
   world, then by my inaction I would be resposible. The Taliban, if they had
   enough guns would take over the world and make a blight that humanity may
   never recover from. The miserable conditions they impose upon their people
   make it non-sensical for anyone to support them. If the people are
   supporting the Taliban (through action or inaction), who in turn are
   supporting terrorism then the people are in fact supporting terrorism.

   Although I dont like or agree with tthe mechanism of using religion and
   comparisons of evil to make a point, the point isn't any less valid.
   Terrorism must be stopped. I am a huge supporter of individual liberty,
   there are balances of security and liberty.

   Normally I agree with you, at least close enough not to bother abot the
   differences, but in this case you are wrong.

    - A 

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #3

   I read through your entire email, as it obviously took you a long time to write.

   However, I can't help but disagree with your remarks. I just deleted a long email as I don't feel like
   getting into a long debate, and it won't serve any purpose as we both know you are very set in your
   ideologies. I will, though, make a couple quick statements:

   1. We're not seen as evil because we kill them from afar, we're seen as evil because we are the symbol
   of everything they are against. They are a society where women cannot drive or be educated, signs are
   not permitted because they are anti-islamic...or at least this countries VERSION of it.
   2. If they didn't do anything to us, we wouldn't give a crap about them. They've killed thousands by
   taking down our planes...but we've sent one cruise missle into their country to destroy a Al Queda
   training camp.
   3. Pulling back and keeping our focus internal is fine and dandy...but do you truely believe these people
   would stop attacking us?
   4. bin Laden turned against us, after we trained people in Afganistan to fight against the Russians,
   because we "desicrated sacred soil". How? When Saudi Arabia asked us to protect them against
   Saddam...we stepped in their holy country.
   5. It's a lot like the moving Training Day....I'd like nothing better than to let these people kill eachother
   off and not get involved, but it's a fact that whenever a group is powerful enough to destroy any
   opposition, they become a serious threat to our interests. Just as I expressed before, if we didn't get
   involved in WWII, Europe would be wearing Nazi pins right now. If we didn't get involved in Desert
   Storm, the middle east would be controlled by Saddam and we'd be paying $10.39 a gallon for gas. I
   don't agree with everything the US does, but I do agree we need to get involved in some of these
   issues because they threaten our interests. These people aren't happy with us because we're large,
   successful, free, and everything they are not. They teach their children to hate us from the day they are
   born and they will do anything and everything to wipe us from the planet.

   You may feel that pulling back and out of world issues is the answer...that's your opinion. Lets do that,
   and I'm sure you'll be shocked when D.C. is obliterated by a nuclear device. "Hey! We didn't do
   anything to you! Okay, we're not going to retaliate...just stop hurting us please."

   My feeling is that terrorism occurrs against almost every civilized, successful country because it is the
   easiest, quickest way for small groups of insane people to get their message across. It has been
   ignored, truely ignored, up until this point. After this event, the powers that be finally realize that all
   that ignorance does is allow them to organize and train. The only way to take care of the situation is to
   assault them, wherever they lie, and make people so frightened to even discuss action, that we either
   LEARN about the plot, or it doesn't occur at all.

   I don't support airbombing a country full of innocents...but I do support assassination and surgical
   strikes against these terrorist camps. However, if they consider US citizens as military targets because
   we support freedom and the US governement, then their citizens are potential targets because they
   support the terrorists. If you don't want to be attacked, turn over the terrorists. If you don't want to be
   attacked, don't fire on us.

   You can't fight terrorists by hiding. You can't fight them by leveling a country. You can only fight them on
   the same level...hand to hand. However, if their citizens want to fire on us when we go in to fight hand
   to hand, they're no longer citizens.

   Anyway, I'm sure you'll respond...but I just wanted to get a few points out there.

- M

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #4

At this point it doesn't matter! Our presence in their country is enough to spark terrorist act and they
   continue to happen. This is NOT a group of people who use logic and reason. They have masterminded
   plans and execute them without regard for innocent human life. SO, guess what??? No matter what we
   do the terrorism will not stop. The only way to stop it is to either, capture the terrorists or completely
   wipe them out. Yes, I know what about the innocent people.... WHAT ABOUT OUR INNOCENT
   PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   Sorry, just heard enough about terrorist and how we should all come together as a nation...should we
   all be together as a nation anyway??? It kills me that everyone is SOOOOO patriotic in times of crisis
   and then stab each other in the back a week later. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!! If you're going to praise the
   USA and respect your brothers and sisters in tragic times, then do it always or shut the hell up!

   Post this if you like Mike.

- J

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #5

 Ok, im sorry Mike but the examples you use dont hold up in this instance.

Let me repeat a paragraph from your email .

(" instead you are in Baghdad watching your office building burn

> with> your friends and co-workers inside. The explosion was not caused

by

> a> hi-jacked airliner but by a cruise missile launched from a

> destroyer> hundreds of miles off your coast. A cruise missile that was

> launched at the> order of the US president at the time with approval of

the US

> senate. You> are infuriated! What did you and your friends, family,

and loved

> ones do to> deserve this?")

So I can infer from what you just said, that the attack , called the gulf

war, which was in response to an attack on

a friendly nation WITH WHOM we are allies, was a BAD THING!!!

Can I also infer from your email , that you belive, we deserve being car

bombed by anyone who belives we wronged them?

Suppose in world war 2 , we never entered the war, but sat on our butts.

because , really,

how much is 2600 casualties(pearl harbor)? Is it enough to go to war?

Hmm? Let me see, they were

soldiers anyway right? Did'nt they know they had the possiblity of dying?

Fast forward 40+ years, how much is 5000, lives worth? is it worth going

to war?

I would say yes, this country is a great nation, and contrary to some

people, I belive it should be defended.

I also belive that we should help defend people who want a democratic

form of government, but I might be too old fashoned.

Most people also belive that the right for you to argue against these

points should be protected by American soldiers.

Go to the peoples republic of china(PRC) and try to argue with the

politburo, youll get shot. Go to afganistan argue with the taliban, youll

get shot. Go to Iraq and Iran and argue, with the leadership, guess what?

youll get shot. Try it here in the US of A and guess what, they'll let

you say anything , and you are protected.

And another thing, where do you get this figure that 1/3 of the terror

acts take place here?

Are you kidding me? have you ever been outside the country? the african

nations are constantly dealing with it on a daly

basis. Also just so you know the Taliban sponsers terror acts in lots of

other countries, china for instance is waging full on war against taliban

sponsered forces in their southern border. Iran is constantly hit by

taliban sponsered terrorists every day, which is why they

closed thier borders to afganistan people last week. Almost all of the

european nations have extensive counter terrorist units now

because of the amount of terrorst attacks and threats in those countries.

 

Now about 2 contries you name to have supposedly no terrorist actions

taking place? you should know that They twart actions

in their country on a daily basis, because they are so good at counter

terror activities , the United States and NATO(which I might add has a

counter terror group of its own) frequently train troops with them.

Finally , I think that the only way to stop these terror groups is show

of force. Obviously bieng nice hasent worked.

If they bomb one building bomb 10 back, if they take out a block of our

area take out a town of thiers, weve got to make the cost so unthinkable

that they wont bother trying to park a truck bomb in front of a daycare

center , cause they know we will take out their whole city.

Just the 2 cents of an american who realises, we make mistakes, but so do

they,


- C 

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #6

 

Mike - These articles are in response to your position that we should not involve ourselves in global
   politics and our foreign policy is to blame. You have some potentially valid points, but you are eclipsing
   other issues just as significant by standing on the soap box for this ONE aspect too much. (I am a
   father of 2, say the same thing too many times and they just stop listening.)

   The next posting is from Richard Dawkins in an article to The Guardian Unlimited. In the article after that
   offering a counterpoint to this (and you can interpret who is correct for yourself) is the Rev. Pat
   Robertson who "laid blame at the feet of homosexuals, abortion-rights supporters and the American
   Civil Liberties Union, saying their beliefs prompted God to allow terrorists to attack America."

   Lastly comes an article about what the Taliban has done for Afganistan, specifically the women.
   Interestingly enough, the women there now weren't born into their reign and remember life before
   Taliban rule. 70% of teachers and 40% of the doctors were women, they didn't wear veils at all, public
   beatings by men (age 12 is old enought to be a "man" and accuse then beat women of any age, who
   naturally are not allowed to defend themself, after all, what are they doing out in public anyway?) Read
   the whole thing, it is very long and full of specific individual accounts. Then imagine your own Mother
   getting shot for trying to take you, her sick infant child, to a doctor.

   Not to re-hash a previous posting, but it sounds like a horrific hguman rights issue, plus an attack on
   our home soil, and potentially overlaps the State Religeon (Capitalism.) All the fixings for military
   involvement.

 

 - DBC

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RESPONSE TO ARTICLE #7

 

Hi Mike,
>
> I just wanted to write to you about some of the articles you've been
> sending out over the last two weeks, while I had the time.  (I'd post this
> on the forum, but I'm still waiting for my forgotten password to show up
> in my inbox.)  As a friend, I apologize for not reading your articles in
> their entirety.  However, as an American, I don't.  I believe that you are
> entitled to voice your opinion, but I think, at least for me, it's too
> soon to talk about the business and the politics of the tragedies in NYC
> and DC.  There are still well over 6,000 people missing.  Some are heroes
> and some are the people that just went to work, or to visit family or
> friends that morning.  And didn't come back. 
>
> Over the last few years, patriotism has waned.  We had a surge of it
> before, during and after Desert Storm.  But, DS was different.  We were
> fighting for a business.  Here, we are fighting for the survival of our
> country.  Most Americans realize that.  George W. Bush now has a 90%
> approval rating with the American public.  It isn't because of his
> politics now.  It has to do with his humanity.  He is a "president of the
> people."  Even if it doesn't last forever, he is that person now - when it
> counts the most.  He is our leader and I have faith in "George, the man."
>
>
> I'd also challenge anyone that states that Americans don't have
> patriotism.  Every person has been touched by this tragedy.  And the
> fundraising speaks for itself...
> All-Network Telethon  $150 Million +
> Burke's Tavern on Sunday $49,000 raised in 10 hours
> PGRD - Groton   3500 lbs. of goods in one work day
>
> And these are just a few.  How many people went to amazon.com on September
> 11th and the days following to make a donation to the Red Cross?  I know I
> did.  And when the racetrack I attend had a ceremony, I gave there too.
> I'm not above giving my personal monies to help those in need, because I
> have faith in the American people that they would do the same for me if I
> needed it. 
>
> The bottom line is that our country is wounded.  As a citizen, I am
> emotionally drained and incapable of understanding the severity of the
> last two weeks.  But, it's not about politics just yet.  That's for the
> government to worry about.  Our main concern should be for those just like
> us...the ones that aren't here anymore, those who lost family and friends,
> and those (like me) who just feel empty because there are 7,000 less
> people in this world.
>
> Thanks for listening to me...

 

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RESPONSE TO  "Re: MFD List -  Bin Laden comes home to roost, His CIA ties are only the begi..."

 I have only a few points on this article. First, I am tired of hearing
how the United States government created Osama Bin Laden. "Blowback", as it
were. Soviet expansionism created Bin Laden. The mujahadeen would have
existed with or without our help. Yes, the Soviet Union was in decline. The
Soviet Union was in inevitable decline since Stalin's purges began in 1934.
That's all well and good. This contemporary thought process that downgrades
the threat of the Soviets and somehow downplays the importance of the Cold
War is hindsight at its worst.
    Second, I wish the author had taken the time to elaborate further on
Cambodia. I figure that I am one of five people under the age of 35 who knows
who Lon Nol is, so I doubt that example provided much insight for the reader.
I assume that you and other educated readers are aware that Pol Pot was the
leader of the Communist Khmer Rouge that massacred a 1/3 of the populace.
    A little more Cambodian background. Cambodia was ruled from 1954 to 1970
by Prince Noradam Sihanouk. Sihanouk, in his infinite wisdom, stated that
Cambodia was neutral in the Vietnam conflict. This policy remained in effect
throughout his reign, in spite of the fact that after 1964, the North
Vietnamese began occupying his nation. By 1970, 40,000 No. Viets were in
Cambodia, several thousand no more than 40 miles from Phnom Penh, the
capital.
    By this time the Prince decided to have a good will tour in the Soviet
Union and China. In his absence the military, who for some reason questioned
his leadership abilties, took over the government. They were led by General
Lon Nol. In response to this, Sihanouk sent word back to his country for all
citizens to show support for the communist Khmers. Admittedly, Lon Nol
attempted to crack down on personal liberty in an attempt to prevent
subversive activities. He was of course painted by the morally superior
western news media as "tyrannical." The same media, I must again point out,
who in 1973 said it would make "no difference" if Lon Nol or Pol Pot ran the
country.
    Lon Nol, or the "villain" if you prefer, attempted to put together a
cohesive fighting resistance against the now North Vietnamese backed Khmers.
With minimal U.S. help aside from bombing raids on No. Vietnamese
sanctuaries, the Gov't held out for five years. President Nixon fought off
the efforts of Democrats in Congress to cut off funding and air support for
three years, until August 1973. At that point, mired in Watergate, he was
unable to prevent the Cooper-Church amendment which ended U.S. involvement in
Cambodia. This is the same Frank Church (D-ID) whose report led Gerald Ford
to sign what I consider to be the ill-thought out ban on assassinations.
    And, as I have told you before, on April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge overran
Phnom Penh and the government. Lon Nol chose to leave the country. His
brother, General Lon Non, did not. Within two days he was dead, strung up for
all to see. Prince Sihanouk returned briefly, but he fled in 1976, realizing
the true designs of the Khmer Rouge. Now I ask you, is the comparison of Lon
Nol and Josef Stalin fair? As we know, "Uncle Joe" was responsible for the
deaths of between 12 and 17 million Russians. Lon Nol limited civil
liberties, but attempted to save his country from butchers. And what of the
Prince? His wisdom allowed North Vietnam to occupy a 1/4 of Cambodia without
firing a shot. I hope my little tangent proves useful. Somehow I doubt most
of the readers of the article will receive something similar.

-Will 

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 RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #1

Mike,

Your letter was certainly thought provoking. I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but, there is a point saying we are doing some things to other countries that are not motivated entirely by ethical concerns for that country's populace.

It's interesting to note that 80% of this country is saying wait to respond - find out who is responsible

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 I am glad to hear that. Initially the polls were like 90% for war, it has since lowered to less then 60% as of friday. Either way, we definatelly should not act without thinking it over first.

What part do you disagree with?

 Mike

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There are ways to respond to our actions (i.e., United States) that are not militaristic and/or terrorism. We (US) can send out a statement or imprison someone who has actually committed a crime, or send supplies somewhere, or simply not agree with something, and we get a militaristic reaction to a non-military action.

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"There are ways to respond to our actions (i.e., United States) that are not militaristic and/or terrorism."

What do you mean? Do you mean there are ways that people who object to our presence can respond? I am not justifying their actions by ours, I make no moral claims about whether they are valid, instead I am making a causality correlation with our military interventions and inciting terrorism. There is no question as to the validity of this, and it is not an argument of whether it is right for terrorists to respond this way. I am saying that we KNOW they will respond this way yet we continue to intervene more and more so in other nations in affairs that do not concern national security.

Something I think we could do, offer to pull out of pakasistan, remove official support for isreal, if afghanastan hands over bin laden. After all, that is what the Taliben wants, and bin Laden would have accomplished his goals and would probably give himself up. The key argument is that there is a reason this has happened, bin Laden has objections beyond merely just wanting to kill people for fun. His goal is to get the US out of the middle east. Why is the US there in the first place? Read the paper I linked to in the article, its very interesting.

"We (US) can send out a statement or imprison someone who has actually committed a crime, or send supplies somewhere, or simply not agree with something, and we get a militaristic reaction to a non-military action."

But that is not what we do, I have no objection to sending humanitarian aid, but once people are there with guns that represent america, all american citizens become targets. It is unreasonable to think that ALL terrorism will go away, but the vast majority of it is in response to the US specific military interventions. By pulling out of the middle east, we could remove the incentive that 95% of terrorists have to strike. some of our non-military intervention will necessarily be responded with military and terrorist reactions, but ALL of our military intervention will always be responded to with military or terrorist response.

Mike

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Why should we abandon our support of Israel?

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Why should we not? Its not like we are defending the Oil producing countries against Russia anymore, after all, the cold war is over.

We might want to think about abandoning it because A) it has nothing to do with national security B) it instills hatred and animosity among people there which plants the seeds of terrorism and has the opposite effect of A, actually endangering the average person more *especially* with the availability of weapons of mass destruction (Imaging a nuclear bomb detonated in san francsico!!) C) innocent people are killed in retailative attacks by the US (bombings, surgical strikes, etc)

do you know why we are there?

Mike

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #2

   Mike,

   I have to disagree with you on this. You are taking (in my opinion, as 
   this whole response is) a small- minded view of things. America has done
   more in the last 50 years to spread democracy and capitalism than ALL other
   democratic/capitalistic countries combined. Although often times we are
   selective about where we push for these reforms, for instance we demanded
   it in Pananma because of it's military interest but asked nicely in
   Indonesia because of it's lack of economic/military importance, we are
   pushing for more freedoms throughout the world. That is really why these
   groups perpetrate their acts against the US, they dont want an educated and
   free population to make rational choices, they want POWER. In countries
   that are "friends" with the US there are constant pressures on that country
   to reform their political and education systems to insure the people are
   (at least nominally) ruling their own country.

   Countries in the Arab/Middle-Eastern world right now have more importance
   than their status on democracy/capitalism would normally allow, due to
   natural resources (oil) that the rest of the world want. When this becomes
   a non-factor due to alternate energy resources, this area of the world,
   for the most part, will unfortunatley become a third world squallor once
   again because they are wasting their chance to educate their populace.

   I don't like to see human suffering at least as much as anyone else, but a
   cold hard fact is this: There are no innocents in Afghanistan, they are
   allowing an awful government to be in control. Allowing is the correct word
   in that sentence, there is currently a resistance movement that controls
   5-10% of their country. If I allowed, by not fighting it, a totalitarian
   government to take ove the US and inflict pain and barbaarism around the
   world, then by my inaction I would be resposible. The Taliban, if they had
   enough guns would take over the world and make a blight that humanity may
   never recover from. The miserable conditions they impose upon their people
   make it non-sensical for anyone to support them. If the people are
   supporting the Taliban (through action or inaction), who in turn are
   supporting terrorism then the people are in fact supporting terrorism.

   Although I dont like or agree with tthe mechanism of using religion and
   comparisons of evil to make a point, the point isn't any less valid.
   Terrorism must be stopped. I am a huge supporter of individual liberty,
   there are balances of security and liberty.

   Normally I agree with you, at least close enough not to bother abot the
   differences, but in this case you are wrong.

    - A 

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 - MY RESPONSE -  

I have to disagree with you on this. You are taking (in my opinion, as
 this whole response is) a small- minded view of things.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I enjoy the opportunity to discuss things and develop my ideas, although I disagree with the 'small
 minded' view, I think the opposite is true. Realizing what the motivations behind these attacks are and
 that they were acts that we perpetrated in the first place forces us to judge the value of these against
 against the likely recipricol acts that the terrorist may committ. With the growing probablity of terrorist
 groups attaining weapons of mass destruction, will our presence in saudi and official support for israel
 be worth the million lives lost should a nuclear, checmical, or biological weapon of mass destruction be
 let loose in a densely populated US city?

 America has done
 more in the last 50 years to spread democracy and capitalism than ALL other
 democratic/capitalistic countries combined.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I agree that it has, but most of it wasnt not from direct military force. Most of it was from the mere fact
 that we ARE capitalist and FREE, being capitalist no non-capitalist nation can compete economically.
 This is, after all, what the cold war was. It was a war of spending, and we out spent the non-capitalist
 nations into bankruptucy, non capitalist economic systems and governments that support them can not
 compete in a global market place with capitalistic ones. Being free gave a much greater depth to our
 uniqueness and individualism which is required for capitalistic innovation. But most of our spread of
 capitalism was through merely trading and exporting our goods, products, services, and ideas.

 Although often times we are selective about where we push for these reforms, for instance we
 demanded it in Pananma because of it's military interest but asked nicely in Indonesia because of it's
 lack of economic/military importance, we are pushing for more freedoms throughout the world.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Pushing freedoms but bombing, shooting, and starving people who are unfortunate enough to live in
 unfree societies?

 That is really why these groups perpetrate their acts against the US, they dont want an educated and
 free population to make rational choices, they want POWER.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 And the very fact that the US is intervening in these countries militarily (necessarily forcing US ideals
 about freedom on them) is why these countries despise us and why so much hatred and animosity has
 been instilled in them. But they do not perpetuate thier violence against us merely because of what we
 represent, do you agree with that? Instead, they do it because we force it upon them.

 There are other ways to push the ideas of freedom into non-free societies. Simple exchanges of
 information are the most powerfull weapon available, and one of the most difficult to block. Just before
 this happened I was going to send out an article about how the taliban has banned the internet. As
 afghanastan's people learn of the freedoms that are available in the reast of the world, they protest
 the lack of freedoms more and more in thiers.

 In countries
 that are "friends" with the US there are constant pressures on that country
 to reform their political and education systems to insure the people are
 (at least nominally) ruling their own country.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 The record of US intervention is Central America doesnt agree with that statement. The US routinely
 encouraged dictatorships to emerge that were US friendly, and democracies where the dictotorships
 were not US friendly. US foriegn policy is neither consitent, ethical, nor democratic.

 Countries in the Arab/Middle-Eastern world right now have more importance
 than their status on democracy/capitalism would normally allow, due to
 natural resources (oil) that the rest of the world want. When this becomes
 a non-factor due to alternate energy resources, this area of the world,
 for the most part, will unfortunatley become a third world squallor once
 again because they are wasting their chance to educate their populace.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 I dont disagree with anything there.

 I don't like to see human suffering at least as much as anyone else, but a
 cold hard fact is this: There are no innocents in Afghanistan, they are
 allowing an awful government to be in control. Allowing is the correct word
 in that sentence, there is currently a resistance movement that controls
 5-10% of their country.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

 from another mailing - The unarmed general populace have no voice in the matter. The Taliban has a
 near monopoly in weapons and supplies since the collapse of the Russian economy. The Russians
 supported the once stronger Massood group, but not well and not enough. So the Taliban forces will
 remain in control until and if the Massood group is better supplied than the Taliban.
 They have continued to fight a rear guard action for years, but have
 gradually been forced back so they now control only five percent of the
 country, i.e. the end closest to Russia. Massood, incidentally, was
 assassinated a few days ago, according to his aide, by a Taliban agent. Too
 bad, he was a charismatic type who was a competent tactician---you need that
 for a military buildup and he will be difficult to replace. Don't know who
 his successor will be---it is possible he will come from one of the smaller
 groups with a reputation for competence.

 Also, implying that since the citizens of afghanastian should realize how wrong it is and overthrow thier
 government is judging from your own perspectives. These people have not lived a life _without_ the
 taliban to understand that there is a valid life with out it. Its like saying that your average white man is
 just as responsible for slavery in the 1700's as the slave owner and slave trader were. We are judging
 them from our own moral standards, you say that because they allow this to happen then they are just
 as much to blaim, I whole heartedly disagree, they are people, they are just trying to live, to get up
 and go work thier crappy jobs and feed thier families. We know that if they stood up to the Taliban
 (assuming that had access to the weapons and munitions, which they do not) they could overthrow it
 (eventually) But tell the mother who is putting a gun in her only son's hands to go fight the taliban that
 to give her comfort.

 Also, since they allowed this to happen and they are just as much to blame, then we (including the
 victims in the WTC and Pentagon attack) are just as much to blame, as we are citizens here and we
 *allowed* it to happen. Whats the difference?

 If I allowed, by not fighting it, a totalitarian
 government to take ove the US and inflict pain and barbaarism around the
 world, then by my inaction I would be resposible.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Ok, what if your government pretended to be democratic with regards to domestic issues but was as
 far from democratic when dealing with other nations as you can be. In fact, the US could much more
 accurately be described as imperialistic or totalatarian in the eyes of other countries. Are you as much
 responsible now and are you a valid military target to liberators of those countries which your
 imperialistic government routinely bombs?

 The Taliban, if they had
 enough guns would take over the world and make a blight that humanity may
 never recover from. The miserable conditions they impose upon their people
 make it non-sensical for anyone to support them.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Sure, when you have lived a life without them to compare it to... You are expecting these people to
 imagine a world which they can not even comprehend, and then to fight for it, when they just barely
 manage to get enough food for themselves and thier families. And then you are blaming them and
 claiming they are valid targets when they fail to.

 If the people are
 supporting the Taliban (through action or inaction), who in turn are
 supporting terrorism then the people are in fact supporting terrorism.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 If we are allowing our government to attack forien nations then we are just as responsible by that
 reasoning. You say that our goal is more valid, as we are spreading peace, freedom and democracy.
 But we spread it through totalitarian like forieng interactions and with dropping bombs and bullets
 flying.

 Although I dont like or agree with tthe mechanism of using religion and
 comparisons of evil to make a point, the point isn't any less valid.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 It is a dangerous thing as it dehumanizes the 'enemy' and makes us able to justify killing them, when in
 reality they are just people too who are trying to make a living.

 Terrorism must be stopped. I am a huge supporter of individual liberty,
 there are balances of security and liberty.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I definately agree with you there. I dont get all the hubub over airport security. If you dont like going
 through three metal detectors, then dont fly. Air transport is a private institution and should be open
 for private competition in this area as well. One airline my have much more strict security measures
 including an armed guard on board. It would be more expensive, but the passengers would choose to
 use that company. Another airline would have less stringent security measures and be cheaper to fly
 in. Maybe another would allow concealed carry. Makeing the cockpit pyhsically inaccessible would be an
 option, but would be expensive as new doors would have to be cut into the hulls of airplaines. I
 personally dont think I hijacking will be a serious threat anytime soon, as any passengers on a plane
 now will automatically presume they will be used as a human cruis missile and will most likely
 immediately rush the hi jackers (especially if they only have knives)

 Normally I agree with you, at least close enough not to bother abot the
 differences, but in this case you are wrong.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 I am 'wrong' you imply that you have absolute claim to the truth. I am wrong about what? Why
 terrorists attack? What should be done about the attacks? You may disagree with me, but you have
 not shown me to be 'wrong' (as in my assumptions are fundamentally invalid, which is unlikely, as the
 evidence agrees with me) See the document that I referenced in my original piece.

 Anyway, I enjoy having these exchanges with you A and value your opinions of my articles.

 Thanks!

 Michael.

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 Mike - you harassed me this morning to post, so I am, but don't expect a single factual support for
 anything because as I said then, I haven't researched it sufficiently to do so...nor am I going to. What
 follows is My Opinion (tm):
 ===============================================================

 DBC: I wouldn't call your view small minded, I would say short sighted. While it may seem intuitive that
 US Military involvement has a correlative relationship with terrorist acts, possibly even supported by
 reports, you yourself say we have done more to change the world by simply existing. It seems to me
 just as possible that strikes out against us can be coming from our presence in the world and our
 overwhelming influence on their cultures. Good and Bad alike. We give money to Israel; Pakistan hates
 us. We intervene in China for human rights; Chinese government hates us. We do far more to help
 other nations than we do to harm.

 This (from a Canadian newspaper, no less) is worth sharing.

 America: The Good Neighbor.

 Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from
 Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his
 trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

 "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the
 least appreciated people on all the earth.

 Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the
 Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries
 is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

 When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their
 reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

 When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59
 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

 The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now
 newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

 I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar
 build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet,
 the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the
 International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

 Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about
 Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get
 automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but
 several times and safely home again.

 You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look
 at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of
 them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to
 spend here.

 When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the
 Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke,
 nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

 I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you
 name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was
 outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

 Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get
 kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled
 to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not
 one of those."
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

 - Response from DBC on same thread -

 DBC: Now lets hypothesize you are in a small middle-eastern nation. Your own articles paint the people
 as simple, pleasant, courteous, rustic. A Westerner in Afganistan is full of nice images, yet the cab
 driver is yanked out of the car and dragged away for an AUDIO CASSETTE! Lets not forget the article
 from months ago about the professor in the medical school that received the DEATH SENTENCE for
 disclaiming that it wasn’t the historical practice “to scrape the hair from one’s body” in Mohammed’s
 time. It isn’t the people I see as a problem, it is the ruling order. The same ones who permit Osama bin
 Laden (worth $300 million) safe haven wield their economic might to keep their people oppressed and
 ignorant (they have to hide their T.V. set!) You know the people watch T.V. and listen to short wave.
 “Hey, look! Americans get blown up just like we do! Guess their life isn’t as great as we thought.” Keep
 ‘em down. Keep ‘em ignorant. Take out the embassy so they can’t smuggle in rap music.

 DBC: One could argue The Slippery Slope incited by your position that “will our presence in saudi and
 official support for israel be worth the million lives lost should a nuclear, checmical, or biological weapon
 of mass destruction be let loose in a densely populated US city?” What price does inaction bear Mike?
 You are asking a country of immigrants to disregard their homelands. Is the Jew in Boston supposed to
 turn his back on his parents in Israel for the stranger in North Dakota? Is my wife’s grandmother in
 Hartford to break contact with the Ukraine because of others in Texas? I am not one to walk down the
 street and ignore a man hitting his wife. I may get a black eye, stitches, but I am not going to ignore it.
 I give to charities, so does my country. I am my brother’s keeper, so is my country. Sometimes I err, so
 does my country. Neither of us are perfect.

 MFD: Why not we abaondon our friends in Isreal? What about the 300 millions citizens who call this
 land thier home? Are the ~5,000 people who died with the collapse of the world trade center an
 'acceptable loss' because of our support of israel? Do YOU want to tell that to thier family members?
 Would that bring you solace if you knew you died because the US did not want to 'abandon' thier
 'friends' in isreal?

 DBC: Do YOU want to tell the 13% of that 300 million that they have to turn their backs on their family
 members in Israel? That they have to stand idly by while their kin obey treaties and their enemies
 blithely disregard them when it appeals to them? Watch as weapons are stockpiled and soldiers stoned
 to death because they aren’t allowed to return fire when bludgeoned by rocks?

 MFD: “And the very fact that the US is intervening in these countries militarily (necessarily forcing US
 ideals about freedom on them) is why these countries despise us and why so much hatred and
 animosity has been instilled in them.”

 DBC: We do not walk in on our own and pick a fight. Neither do most of the citizrenry of these countries
 hate us, despise us, nor line up to die killing us. Afganistan is in fear of US reprisals, yet a clearly
 American journalist is on T.V. now from that very nation with footage from a few hours ago. There can’t
 be so much hate if he is that calm amid the crowd. I don’t recall Osama bin Laden saying it was done as
 an act of revenge.

 AND: In countries that are "friends" with the US there are constant pressures on that country to reform
 their political and education systems to insure the people are (at least nominally) ruling their own
 country.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 MFD: The record of US intervention is Central America doesnt agree with that statement. The US
 routinely encouraged dictatorships to emerge that were US friendly, and democracies where the
 dictotorships were not US friendly. US foriegn policy is neither consitent, ethical, nor democratic.

 DBC: This reads in support of the statement you purport to disagree with. If they are US friendly, we
 don’t mess with them militarily. We allow social interaction to win them over. If they aren’t US friendly,
 we remand the governing to the public and let them decide.
 It looks consistant (generally) sounds ethical (least risk to our citizens, minimal costs) and democratic
 (eventually.)

 DBC: Lets take a look at evolutionary forces here. There are 2 ways a culture can achieve unity. One,
 eliminate all the variety and form a successful homogenous culture (there is no God but God and we are
 His people) or eliminate the acknowledgement of the differences and form a successful heterogenous
 culture (all just get along.) Our culture took one branch; theirs is along another. However, evolution
 doesn’t have ethics, she is a creature red in both tooth and claw. She only measures successes. If it
 isn’t interfered with, there is no reason to expect it to NOT succeed and potentially supplant our
 influence for their entire continent. The best doesn’t ALWAYS win.

 MFD: The evidence shows that A) terrorism is not without motivation and most instances of terrorism
 perpetuated against the US have been in direct response to an act of military intervention and
 B) If the military intervention was reduced then the incentive for terrorist attacks would be reduced,
 and necessarily the number of attacks as well.

 DBC: A)Your interpretation of the evidence says it is not without motivation. Osama bin Laden says he
 wants all non-muslims out of muslim nations. He never said we had it coming for Bahgdad.
 B)You claim that “I agree that it <the US> has, < done more in the last 50 years to spread democracy
 and capitalism than ALL other democratic/capitalistic countries combined> but most of it wasnt not from
 direct military force.“ Ignoring the double negative it looks like we are doing a pretty good job NOT
 resorting to the military. Are you saying there are NEVER grounds to use a military action?

 MFD: When was the last time you saw a terrorist attack against Switzerland?

 DBC: When was the last time I monitored ANY Swiss activities? When was the last time the Swiss
 forgave billions upon billions of debt to troubled nations? What was the Swiss political stance in the last
 world war? How much influence do the Swiss have on the world as a whole? Just how big is
 Switzerland? Kind of tough to want to grow up to be a microscopic country whose greatest gift to the
 world is a utility knife, yodeling and hot coa-coa.

 MFD: “…are for human rights. At least, that is what the conflicts are disguised as. The fact of the matter
 is that we are involved in these intra state conflicts to protect US economic interests, not to protect the
 rights of individuals. A cursory examination of history will edify this point.”

 DBC: I think the reality is our state religeon is capitalism. Anywhere the altruistic love of fellow man
 intersects with protecting our state religeon, we will use whatever means necessary. I cannot accept a
 thinly “disguised” Conspiracy Theory that greed alone drives us to bloodshed.

 DBC: One of your articles claims that a terrorist is not born, he is made. I agree, but I disagree by
 whom. I believe that terrorists are made by charismatic leaders like Osama bin Laden when they fund
 training and charm them into ‘heroic’ firey deaths to change their world and rush straight into Allah’s
 embrace. You get to stop herding goats in a desert and go to America on a super cool top-secret
 mission? Is it any wonder that the demographics of a terrorist is a young man with few strong family
 ties between the ages of 25 and 35?

 MFD: Also, since they allowed this to happen and they are just as much to blame, then we (including
 the victims in the WTC and Pentagon attack) are just as much to blame, as we are citizens here and we
 *allowed* it to happen. Whats the difference?

 DBC: The difference my friend is action vs. inaction.

- DBC

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #3

   I read through your entire email, as it obviously took you a long time to write.

   However, I can't help but disagree with your remarks. I just deleted a long email as I don't feel like
   getting into a long debate, and it won't serve any purpose as we both know you are very set in your
   ideologies. I will, though, make a couple quick statements:

   1. We're not seen as evil because we kill them from afar, we're seen as evil because we are the symbol
   of everything they are against. They are a society where women cannot drive or be educated, signs are
   not permitted because they are anti-islamic...or at least this countries VERSION of it.
   2. If they didn't do anything to us, we wouldn't give a crap about them. They've killed thousands by
   taking down our planes...but we've sent one cruise missle into their country to destroy a Al Queda
   training camp.
   3. Pulling back and keeping our focus internal is fine and dandy...but do you truely believe these people
   would stop attacking us?
   4. bin Laden turned against us, after we trained people in Afganistan to fight against the Russians,
   because we "desicrated sacred soil". How? When Saudi Arabia asked us to protect them against
   Saddam...we stepped in their holy country.
   5. It's a lot like the moving Training Day....I'd like nothing better than to let these people kill eachother
   off and not get involved, but it's a fact that whenever a group is powerful enough to destroy any
   opposition, they become a serious threat to our interests. Just as I expressed before, if we didn't get
   involved in WWII, Europe would be wearing Nazi pins right now. If we didn't get involved in Desert
   Storm, the middle east would be controlled by Saddam and we'd be paying $10.39 a gallon for gas. I
   don't agree with everything the US does, but I do agree we need to get involved in some of these
   issues because they threaten our interests. These people aren't happy with us because we're large,
   successful, free, and everything they are not. They teach their children to hate us from the day they are
   born and they will do anything and everything to wipe us from the planet.

   You may feel that pulling back and out of world issues is the answer...that's your opinion. Lets do that,
   and I'm sure you'll be shocked when D.C. is obliterated by a nuclear device. "Hey! We didn't do
   anything to you! Okay, we're not going to retaliate...just stop hurting us please."

   My feeling is that terrorism occurrs against almost every civilized, successful country because it is the
   easiest, quickest way for small groups of insane people to get their message across. It has been
   ignored, truely ignored, up until this point. After this event, the powers that be finally realize that all
   that ignorance does is allow them to organize and train. The only way to take care of the situation is to
   assault them, wherever they lie, and make people so frightened to even discuss action, that we either
   LEARN about the plot, or it doesn't occur at all.

   I don't support airbombing a country full of innocents...but I do support assassination and surgical
   strikes against these terrorist camps. However, if they consider US citizens as military targets because
   we support freedom and the US governement, then their citizens are potential targets because they
   support the terrorists. If you don't want to be attacked, turn over the terrorists. If you don't want to be
   attacked, don't fire on us.

   You can't fight terrorists by hiding. You can't fight them by leveling a country. You can only fight them on
   the same level...hand to hand. However, if their citizens want to fire on us when we go in to fight hand
   to hand, they're no longer citizens.

   Anyway, I'm sure you'll respond...but I just wanted to get a few points out there.

- M

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whats with this 'we both know you are very set in your idealogies' I could just as easily say the same
   thing about you! In fact, I think this is very untrue about me, I came to my ideologies and beliefs
   through my study of philosophical skepticism. I test my world view against the evidence and see how
   the world really works instead of just how I think it works. The evidence shows that A) terrorism is not
   without motivation and most instances of terrorism perpetuated against the US have been in direct
   response to an act of military intervention and B) If the military intervention was reduced then the
   incentive for terrorist attacks would be reduced, and necessarily the number of attacks as well.

   I will write more soon, after I respond to the three other people who disagree with me. =)

   Mike

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- My response -

I read through your entire email, as it obviously took you a long time to write.

 However, I can't help but disagree with your remarks. I just deleted a long email as I don't feel like
 getting into a long debate, and it won't serve any purpose as we both know you are very set in your
 ideologies.

 [MFD]
 Ok, I disagree with that, obviously, as I mentioned in my other email. I base my opinions on what the
 evidence suggests, the evidence suggests that A) most terrorism is not random B)most terrorism is in
 response to a particular instance of US foriegn intervention Do you disagree with either of these?

 I will, though, make a couple quick statements:

 1. We're not seen as evil because we kill them from afar, we're seen as evil because we are the symbol
 of everything they are against. They are a society where women cannot drive or be educated, signs
 are not permitted because they are anti-islamic...or at least this countries VERSION of it.

 [MFD]
 But switzerland and Australia represents those same things as well. Why are we then targeted? 1/3 of
 global terrorism attacks are perpetuated against US targets. This goes back to the 'we are attacked
 because of what we are' the evidence suggests otherwise, although there is some terrorism that is a
 result of what we are, these are things about our society we will not change, the majority of terrorist
 attacks are because of what we do, not what we are. If that is the case, as the evidence suggests,
 then should we look at the things we do that incite this terrible hatred and animosity against the US,
 see if they are indeed rational and necessary (as a military intervention) and ask ourselves if we should
 continue with them while terrorists groups become more and more likely to acquire weapons of mass
 destruction

 2. If they didn't do anything to us, we wouldn't give a crap about them. They've killed thousands by
 taking down our planes...but we've sent one cruise missle into their country to destroy a Al Queda
 training camp.

 [MFD]
 Actually the opposite is the case, the terrorist attacks are in response to our interventions. Read the
 paper that I cited <http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-050es.html> which cites specific terrorist
 incidents and the incidents of military intervention that sparked them. You say that if "they didnt do
 anything to us, we wouldnt give them crap about it" wouldnt the opposite statement then be true? "If
 we didnt do anything to them, they wouldnt do anything to us"

 3. Pulling back and keeping our focus internal is fine and dandy...but do you truely believe these people
 would stop attacking us?

 [MFD]
 I dont think terrorist attacks will ever stop all together, at least not for another 50 years or so when
 global social - economic conditions completely erradicate the desire for terrorist attacks, but in the
 meantime, toneing down US forieng military intervention to cases of absolute national security concerns
 would definately affect the likely hood of terrorist attacks. The opposite stance would be that all
 terrorist targets are completely random and nothing anyone can do will change that, but if that is the
 case, why this retaliation at all? Of course our actions influence terrorist attacks, they can both incite
 them and encourage against them (as it looks our long, sustained, covert 'war on terrorism' may do)
 but an all out war on say afghanastian, or bombing kabul, would certainly incite terrorist attacks down
 the road. Not killing innocent people will make the retribution less severe and less frequent. Are we in
 agreement there?

 4. bin Laden turned against us, after we trained people in Afganistan to fight against the Russians,
 because we "desicrated sacred soil". How? When Saudi Arabia asked us to protect them against
 Saddam...we stepped in their holy country.

 [MFD]
 I honestly dont know enough about bin Laden particular reasons for terrorism to argue this point, but
 many of the articles I sent out mention it. Something on my list of things to do is follow the progression
 of these events and the reasons of these things and lay them all out in a document.

 5. It's a lot like the moving Training Day....I'd like nothing better than to let these people kill eachother
 off and not get involved, but it's a fact that whenever a group is powerful enough to destroy any
 opposition, they become a serious threat to our interests.

 [MFD]
 Yet, as I stated in my article and is referenced in that other document, the majority of conflicts we have
 militarily involved ourselves in have been intrastate conflicts, not interstate ones (something like 95 of
 106 since the end of the cold war) Is it absolutely necessary to involve ourselves in ALL of these?
 Would it not be a good idea to adobt a policy of restraint (we already do, its just that we measure the
 economic value of protecting our interests militarily instead of the humanitarian value, perhaps we
 could add measureing the domestic repercussions to that list of things we keep in mind)

 Just as I expressed before, if we didn't get involved in WWII, Europe would be wearing Nazi pins right
 now.

 [MFD]
 I personally dont think that is the case, and we did get involved in WWII when it became a matter of
 national security (bombing pearl harbor) but at the same time pearl harbor was attacked to protest the
 US oil embargo.

 If we didn't get involved in Desert Storm, the middle east would be controlled by Saddam and we'd be
 paying $10.39 a gallon for gas.

 [MFD]
 In which case it would be cheaper to manufacture synthetic fuels instead of importing oil. In fact, if we
 built a nuclear infrastructure that could manufacture synthetic fuels we could completely dissolve our
 reliance on foriegn oil, an infrastructure that could easily be paid for with the money spent on
 maintaining a military presence in the middle east, combatting the terrorism that results from it, and
 maintaining national security in general. In reality, a gallon of gas is about that much when you add
 those costs in, they are paid for in our income tax which is supporting the military though, not at the
 pump.

 I don't agree with everything the US does, but I do agree we need to get involved in some of these
 issues because they threaten our interests.

 [MFD]
 And I do not disagree with you. Perhaps we may disagree on what constituts a threat to national
 security and the number of things the US should be involved in.

 These people aren't happy with us because we're large, successful, free, and everything they are not.

 [MFD]
 That is surely one of the reasons, but is it the only reason? Are we only attacked because of what we
 are, and not what we do? From my article

 "To many people, both domestic and abroad, this symbolizes the opposite of their ideologies. But the
 US is not the only country like this, there are many other countries that symbolize what America is.
 Other wealthy post-industrialized nations have an extensive industrial and economic presence
 internationally. These countries, such as Australia and Switzerland, along with the US, are capitalist;
 export their culture and religions along with their products and services. They believe in religious
 freedom, economic opportunity, and respect the rights of the
 individual. Yet one third of all the terrorist attacks in the world are perpetuated against US targets."

 They teach their children to hate us from the day they are born and they will do anything and
 everything to wipe us from the planet.

 [MFD]
 Because often they had an innocent brother, cousin, nephew, father, or uncle that was killed in one of
 our bombing attacks *or* thier totalitarian leaders had someone who was killed in one of our attacks
 and propoganizes the population into hating us.

 You may feel that pulling back and out of world issues is the answer...that's your opinion.

 [MFD]
 I do not feel that is the answer, I feel a policy of restricted military restraint would be a good one to
 adopt.

 My feeling is that terrorism occurrs against almost every civilized, successful country because it is the
 easiest, quickest way for small groups of insane people to get their message across.

 [MFD]
 I agree that sometimes that is the case, and there is nothing you can do about that kind of terrorism.
 But the evidence suggests that most of it is directed against specific targets (usually the US) for specific
 reasons (retailiations for specific events) This kind of terrorism, which is likely most of it, could be almost
 entirely reduced by adopting a policy of restraint.

 It has been ignored, truely ignored, up until this point. After this event, the powers that be finally
 realize that all that ignorance does is allow them to organize and train. The only way to take care of
 the situation is to assault them, wherever they lie, and make people so frightened to even discuss
 action, that we either LEARN about the plot, or it doesn't occur at all.

 I don't support airbombing a country full of innocents...but I do support assassination and surgical
 strikes against these terrorist camps.

 [MFD]
 So do I, and I am glad as of late that the general US sentiment is begining to swing away from 'nuke
 afghansatan' to 'get those who are responsible'. But the airbombing of innocents was likely one of the
 things that incited this terrorist response in the first place. If you do not support them, then you
 basically agree with my stance.

 However, if they consider US citizens as military targets because we support freedom and the US
 governement, then their citizens are potential targets because they support the terrorists. If you don't
 want to be attacked, turn over the terrorists. If you don't want to be attacked, don't fire on us.

 [MFD]
 Its not the citizens though, especially in afghanstan, there is not much the average citizen can do
 against the taliban, which controls the entire civilian infrastructure. They are more concerned with not
 being beaten to death and finding food then overthrowing thier corrupt government. Should they be
 bombed for that?

 You can't fight terrorists by hiding. You can't fight them by leveling a country. You can only fight them on
 the same level...hand to hand. However, if their citizens want to fire on us when we go in to fight hand
 to hand, they're no longer citizens.

 [MFD]
 I agree with you there as well...

 Anyway, I'm sure you'll respond...but I just wanted to get a few points out there.

 [MFD]
 It seems we agree on a good many things, perhaps I did not represent my point well initially.

 Michael

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #4

At this point it doesn't matter! Our presence in their country is enough to spark terrorist act and they
   continue to happen. This is NOT a group of people who use logic and reason. They have masterminded
   plans and execute them without regard for innocent human life. SO, guess what??? No matter what we
   do the terrorism will not stop. The only way to stop it is to either, capture the terrorists or completely
   wipe them out. Yes, I know what about the innocent people.... WHAT ABOUT OUR INNOCENT
   PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   Sorry, just heard enough about terrorist and how we should all come together as a nation...should we
   all be together as a nation anyway??? It kills me that everyone is SOOOOO patriotic in times of crisis
   and then stab each other in the back a week later. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!! If you're going to praise the
   USA and respect your brothers and sisters in tragic times, then do it always or shut the hell up!

   Post this if you like Mike.

- J

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 - My Response -

At this point it doesn't matter! Our presence in their country is enough to spark terrorist act and they
   continue to happen.

   [MFD] It matters for future events. If our foriegn intervention breeds the animosity and hatred for the
   US that catipults someone to be a terrorist, then removing that foriegn intervention would remove the
   hatred and animosity for the US that is responsible for that terrorism. It will not cause an instant
   ceasation of all terrorist attacks, but just as our acts 10 or 20 years inspired the terrorist attacks
   recently then 10 to 20 years from now our lack of intervention will dissipate most incentives for terrorist
   attacks.

   This is NOT a group of people who use logic and reason. They have masterminded plans and execute
   them without regard for innocent human life.

   [MFD] How could they mastermind these plans and not use logic and reason? These people were likely
   bred to believe in an afterlife and thier holy cause from the time they were born (read that richard
   dawkins article on 'Religions misguided missiles' that I sent out. Also, the thought paradigm is based on
   convincing the perpetrators that we are not human, that we are less then human or intrinsically evil.
   This tribalism is what these people use to justify thier acts. All throughout history this has been the
   case, people always villify or demonize those they are attacking because if you realize that the people
   you are attacking are people as well, it is much more difficult to justify killing them.

   SO, guess what??? No matter what we do the terrorism will not stop.

   [MFD] This is where I disagree and what the point of my argument is. If foriegn intervention breeds
   terrorism (which the evidence shows it does) then with the growing threat of terrorists acquiring
   weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, biological) then we should restrict our current forieng
   intervention to matters of direct national security. This is independant of the retailiation for these
   strikes, which should be enacted against the people actually responsible, not the people unfortunate
   enough to live in the same country as the terrorists. If we were to adopy a policy of non-aggresion or
   military restraint overseas then we would breed far less hatred and animosity for the US population in
   the future, and minimize the threat of terrorist retailiation.

   The only way to stop it is to either, capture the terrorists or completely wipe them out. Yes, I know
   what about the innocent people.... WHAT ABOUT OUR INNOCENT PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   [MFD] Captureing all of them and completely wiping all of them out is impossible.

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #5

 Ok, im sorry Mike but the examples you use dont hold up in this instance.

Let me repeat a paragraph from your email .

(" instead you are in Baghdad watching your office building burn

> with> your friends and co-workers inside. The explosion was not caused

by

> a> hi-jacked airliner but by a cruise missile launched from a

> destroyer> hundreds of miles off your coast. A cruise missile that was

> launched at the> order of the US president at the time with approval of

the US

> senate. You> are infuriated! What did you and your friends, family,

and loved

> ones do to> deserve this?")

So I can infer from what you just said, that the attack , called the gulf

war, which was in response to an attack on

a friendly nation WITH WHOM we are allies, was a BAD THING!!!

Can I also infer from your email , that you belive, we deserve being car

bombed by anyone who belives we wronged them?

Suppose in world war 2 , we never entered the war, but sat on our butts.

because , really,

how much is 2600 casualties(pearl harbor)? Is it enough to go to war?

Hmm? Let me see, they were

soldiers anyway right? Did'nt they know they had the possiblity of dying?

Fast forward 40+ years, how much is 5000, lives worth? is it worth going

to war?

I would say yes, this country is a great nation, and contrary to some

people, I belive it should be defended.

I also belive that we should help defend people who want a democratic

form of government, but I might be too old fashoned.

Most people also belive that the right for you to argue against these

points should be protected by American soldiers.

Go to the peoples republic of china(PRC) and try to argue with the

politburo, youll get shot. Go to afganistan argue with the taliban, youll

get shot. Go to Iraq and Iran and argue, with the leadership, guess what?

youll get shot. Try it here in the US of A and guess what, they'll let

you say anything , and you are protected.

And another thing, where do you get this figure that 1/3 of the terror

acts take place here?

Are you kidding me? have you ever been outside the country? the african

nations are constantly dealing with it on a daly

basis. Also just so you know the Taliban sponsers terror acts in lots of

other countries, china for instance is waging full on war against taliban

sponsered forces in their southern border. Iran is constantly hit by

taliban sponsered terrorists every day, which is why they

closed thier borders to afganistan people last week. Almost all of the

european nations have extensive counter terrorist units now

because of the amount of terrorst attacks and threats in those countries.

 

Now about 2 contries you name to have supposedly no terrorist actions

taking place? you should know that They twart actions

in their country on a daily basis, because they are so good at counter

terror activities , the United States and NATO(which I might add has a

counter terror group of its own) frequently train troops with them.

Finally , I think that the only way to stop these terror groups is show

of force. Obviously bieng nice hasent worked.

If they bomb one building bomb 10 back, if they take out a block of our

area take out a town of thiers, weve got to make the cost so unthinkable

that they wont bother trying to park a truck bomb in front of a daycare

center , cause they know we will take out their whole city.

Just the 2 cents of an american who realises, we make mistakes, but so do

they,


- C 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 - My Response -

 

Ok, im sorry Mike but the examples you use dont hold up in this instance.
   Let me repeat a paragraph from your email .

   (" instead you are in Baghdad watching your office building burn
   > with> your friends and co-workers inside. The explosion was not caused
   by
   > a> hi-jacked airliner but by a cruise missile launched from a
   > destroyer> hundreds of miles off your coast. A cruise missile that was

   > launched at the> order of the US president at the time with approval of
   the US
   > senate. You> are infuriated! What did you and your friends, family,
   and loved
   > ones do to> deserve this?")

   "So I can infer from what you just said, that the attack , called the gulf
   war, which was in response to an attack on
   a friendly nation WITH WHOM we are allies, was a BAD THING!!! "
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
   Actually I was not referring to a specific instance or attack. But here is the list...

   - US official Israeli support in the palestinian conflict

   - US often trains and funds people who later become or train and aid other terrorists

   - US Bombing of Bagdhad / Gulf War /

   - Bosnia intervention (while ingoring worse genocides in other countries)

   - President Bush has authorized continued bombing of innocent people in Iraq

   - President Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Serbia

   - President Bush, senior, invaded Iraq and Panama

   - President Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded Grenada

   - Church Committee -- the U.S. Senate inquiry that 20 years ago exposed the long history of CIA
   manipulation of foreign governments and subsidizing of torture

   - Pol Pot? Rode to power after formerly neutral and stable Cambodia was flattened by American bombs

   - The Taliban? Detritus of the anti-Soviet Afghan guerrilla movement financed and trained by the U.S.
   Chechnya guerrillas

   "Can I also infer from your email , that you belive, we deserve being car
   bombed by anyone who belives we wronged them?"
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

   No you can NOT infer that. If you do, you are inferring what was not implied.

   From my essay

   "These acts are heinous, terrible, and saddening, with little regard
   for the sanctity of human life"

   "America is attacked because of what it does, not what it is."

   "These views are not popular, and are not political correct in the United
   States, I may be labeled anti-American or a terrorist sympathizer. I am
   none of these things. These were horrendous acts against humanity and the
   perpetrators should be brought to justice. But the innocent people
   unfortunate enough to share their homeland with these terrorists should not
   be forced to pay."

   Nobody deserves to be bombed, yet that is apparently what you support, as you say we are justified in
   bombing them because we feel they have wronged us. Why is it OK for us to bomb them because we
   have been wronged yet not OK for them to bomb us? People are people, regardless of where they
   were unfortunate enough to be born, and they do not deserve to be bombed.

   "Suppose in world war 2 , we never entered the war, but sat on our butts.
   because , really,
   how much is 2600 casualties(pearl harbor)? Is it enough to go to war?
   Hmm? Let me see, they were
   soldiers anyway right? Did'nt they know they had the possiblity of dying?"
   --------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Well, A) we are not talking about WWII B) pearl Harbor was a direct military assault and definately
   constitued a threat to national security (unlike the ongoing conflicts in the middle east, which are intra
   state conflicts whose outcomes have little bearing on the US in the post cold war era and whose
   intervention may have drastic consequences as we piss of more people and breed more terrorist. In an
   age where terrorist may get very well be able to get ahold of weapons of mass destruction, our foriegn
   policy definately deserves some critical examination.

   Fast forward 40+ years, how much is 5000, lives worth? is it worth going
   to war?

   "I would say yes, this country is a great nation, and contrary to some
   people, I belive it should be defended. "
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------
   How does bombing libya, serbia, baghdad, and iraw constitute 'defense'?

   "I also belive that we should help defend people who want a democratic
   form of government, but I might be too old fashoned."
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   So do I, but not with a military force sticking guns in peoples faces and dropping bombs on thier kids.
   Libertarians are never opposed to private humantarian aide.

   "And another thing, where do you get this figure that 1/3 of the terror
   acts take place here?"
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
   Take place against American TARGETS not in here in the domestic US. Try checking the paper I cited

   <http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-050es.html>

   All the references and government studies are there.

   or the Government Terrorist Index

   <http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/1999index.html>

   "Now about 2 contries you name to have supposedly no terrorist actions
   taking place? you should know that They twart actions
   in their country on a daily basis,"
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   So, are you saying these countries are targeted for terrorist attack just as often as the United States
   is? Just that we arent as good as stopping them? Just because you have a terrorist response unit
   doesnt mean you are attacked as often as the United states. Mind citing some references?

   Finally , I think that the only way to stop these terror groups is show
   of force. Obviously bieng nice hasent worked.
   If they bomb one building bomb 10 back, if they take out a block of our
   area take out a town of thiers, weve got to make the cost so unthinkable
   that they wont bother trying to park a truck bomb in front of a daycare
   center , cause they know we will take out their whole city.
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Well, thats a good idea, considering behavior like that is what caused the hatred and animosity
   towards americans in the first place. I thought it was not OK to bomb people just because you felt
   wronged by them? Never mind the thousands of innocent people who will be killed. But its ok, right?
   They arent americans, so they arent people.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ok, mike, enough is enough.
   Just get off the "U.S. started this so feel bad for the terrorist "
   stuff .

 

-  c

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Dude you obviously have not read anything I said if you think I am trying to get people to feel bad for
   the terrorists. You may disagree, and that is fine, but do not misrepresent my position. Here it is, clearly
   stated...

   US FORIEGN INTERVENTION BREEDS THE ANIMOSITY AND HATRED FOR THE US THAT IS THE CAUSE OF
   TERRORISM


   THEREFORE

   STOP US FORIEGN INTERVENTION UNLESS IT IS AN ABSOLUTE CASE OF NATIONAL SECURITY


   BECAUSE


   THAT WILL DECREASE THE INCIDENTS OF TERRORISM IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE THE MOTIVATION FOR
   TERRORISM (HATRED OF THE US) HAS DIMINISHED


   WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER BECAUSE

   TERRORIST GROUPS MAY SOON BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.


   Where in this statement do you see 'Feel bad for the terrorists because we started this'

   Every article I have sent out and everything I have said specifically states that the terrorists should be
   brought to justice for these horrendous crimes against humanity. Nobody is excusing thier actions. Here
   are the references...


   My article...


   Terrorism and the US


   "The popular contention is that terrorism is random and unmotivated. It is
   not. These acts are heinous, terrible, and saddening, with little regard
   for the sanctity of human life. But they are not random, nor unmotivated."

   "Identifying and ceasing these acts which serve to incite a
   terrorist response is essential in curbing the upcoming terrorist threat,
   especially now in light of the potential dangers."

   "The Unites States is the only country that intervenes regularly in affairs
   outside its own region, and the vast majority of terrorist acts against US
   targets can be identified as responses to particular instances of US
   intervention. "

   "These views are not popular, and are not political correct in the United
   States, I may be labeled anti-American or a terrorist sympathizer. I am
   none of these things. These were horrendous acts against humanity and the
   perpetrators should be brought to justice."


   Terroists are made, not born


   "What do we make of a rage so deep that it could prompt a few individuals
   to convert box-cutters, pilots' licenses and airline schedules into weapons
   of mass destruction? "

   " it's essential to point out just how many of the world's more baleful
   terrorists and mass murderers were born precisely from the kind of
   operations now advocated by the bomb-and-assassinate crowd"

   "None of this diminishes the responsibility of the perpetrators
   of this week's attack, or diminishes the need to bring the full
   force of domestic and international law to bear. "


   When Will we learn


   "The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy.
   But they shouldn't be a surprise. "

   " It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have
   to suffer for the sins of the guilty."

   "The terrorist attack was a horrible tragedy and I feel enormous
   sympathy for those who were personally affected by it"

   ".I hope anyone responsible for the attack who didn't die in it
   will be found, tried, and punished appropriately"

   "I hope the people who were involved are found, tried, and
   punished. I don't consider that a soft response. But I don't
   want any more innocent people hurt - Americans or foreigners. "

   The price we pay: Coming to terms with a dangerous new reality

   "then it is safe to conclude that whoever did carry it out,
   did so because they wanted the nation to pay a price for its foreign policy. "

   "Nothing could dishonor the dead quite as profoundly than to kill
   more innocents in the name of vengeance and let the true perpetrators
   get away with their crimes. "


   An Important Decision and Distinction


   "There should be no doubt - no question whatsoever - that the United States should find the
   perpetrators of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and use whatever military force is
   necessary against them. If the mastermind behind these heinous acts is indeed Osama bin Laden, then
   our goal should be the total destruction of his al Qaeda terrorist network"

   " more broad-scale attack against terrorist groups could potentially have the effect of galvanizing
   fundamentalist Islamics to engage in an all-out holy war against the "American infidel." "


   On and on and on...


   Do you _at least_ understand my position on this now?

 

-   Mike

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Look man, you are basicly saying, that the reason the world trade center
   was taken out, was because of the us meddleing in ppls affairs,
   not because of someone who hates us
   not because of a few men that decided to give thier lives in a plane
   crash
   but because of the meddling of the united states,
   you need to stop,
   at least for a time, cause while i respect your freedom of speach.
   people do not need to hear on 14 seperate emails that the reason some
   wack job
   decided to take out 3 buildings and over 6 thousand ppl was because we
   interfeared with some dirt farmers policys.
   you need to think about this before you start deluging us with your
   truth,

 

-   C

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

   "Look man, you are basicly saying, that the reason the world trade center was taken out, was because
   of the us meddleing in ppls affairs, not because of someone who hates us not because of a few men
   that decided to give thier lives in a plane crash but because of the meddling of the united states,"


   [MFD] No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that the _reason_ they hate us is _because_ we
   meddle in thier affairs. This is a fact, as I have said (feel free to look at the evidence) indeed, 1/3 of
   terrorist attacks in the world are prepetuated against US targets, yet many other countries represent
   what the US does but are not the target of terrorist attacks (certainly not to the extreme that the US is)
   So, it is not because of who we are, but because of what we do that this hatred and animosity is
   instilled enough to drive a person to kill. That drive is not random nor unmotivated. The acts are
   retailiative acts. I am not saying they are justified, and I am not saying we are to blame. I am pointing
   out this casual location so we can remember this when we judge our response to these attacks. With
   the threat increasing of terrorist organizations acquiring weapons of mass destruction and escalating
   cycle of vengance that we could perpetuate with our response (or start new cycles of vengaence if
   other innocent people are killed) may have death tolls in the hundreds of millions in the years to come.
   It is a dangerous game, and we need to realize just how dangerous it is.


   "you need to stop, at least for a time, cause while i respect your freedom of speach. people do not
   need to hear on 14 seperate emails that the reason some wack job decided to take out 3 buildings and
   over 6 thousand ppl was because we interfeared with some dirt farmers policys."


   [MFD] Why do people not need to hear it? Because it is the truth? Because it is something we should
   remember when we think about what our retailiation will be? As I said when I sent the first article out,
   for the next few days I will be focusing on this topic because I think it is vitally important, if you dont
   want to hear it, just delete the emails, if you disagree (as you obviously do) thats fine as well. But if
   you are sure of the validity of your position (I am not sure what it is) then you shouldnt mind reading
   opposing viewpoints.


   "you need to think about this before you start deluging us with your truth,"


   [MFD] 'My' Truth is the only truth I have yet seen that is empirically edified, and as I said I am only
   pushing the knowledge of the causual link of US foriegn Intervention to terrorist responses. If you have
   a better explanation for terrorism, please present it, but also present the evidence to back it up.

 

   Michael

 

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RESPONSE TO MY ARTICLE #6

 

Mike - These articles are in response to your position that we should not involve ourselves in global
   politics and our foreign policy is to blame. You have some potentially valid points, but you are eclipsing
   other issues just as significant by standing on the soap box for this ONE aspect too much. (I am a
   father of 2, say the same thing too many times and they just stop listening.)

   The next posting is from Richard Dawkins in an article to The Guardian Unlimited. In the article after that
   offering a counterpoint to this (and you can interpret who is correct for yourself) is the Rev. Pat
   Robertson who "laid blame at the feet of homosexuals, abortion-rights supporters and the American
   Civil Liberties Union, saying their beliefs prompted God to allow terrorists to attack America."

   Lastly comes an article about what the Taliban has done for Afganistan, specifically the women.
   Interestingly enough, the women there now weren't born into their reign and remember life before
   Taliban rule. 70% of teachers and 40% of the doctors were women, they didn't wear veils at all, public
   beatings by men (age 12 is old enought to be a "man" and accuse then beat women of any age, who
   naturally are not allowed to defend themself, after all, what are they doing out in public anyway?) Read
   the whole thing, it is very long and full of specific individual accounts. Then imagine your own Mother
   getting shot for trying to take you, her sick infant child, to a doctor.

   Not to re-hash a previous posting, but it sounds like a horrific hguman rights issue, plus an attack on
   our home soil, and potentially overlaps the State Religeon (Capitalism.) All the fixings for military
   involvement.

 

 - DBC

 

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Religion's misguided missiles
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,552388,00.html

  Promise a young man that death is not the end and he will willingly cause disaster

  Special report: terrorism in the US

  Richard Dawkins
  Saturday September 15, 2001
  The Guardian


  A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple
  ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as
  far away as Boston.


  That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart
  missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the north tower of the
  World Trade Centre. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf war, but they are
  economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier
  alternative?


  In the second world war, before electronics became cheap and miniature, the psychologist BF Skinner did some research on
  pigeon-guided missiles. The pigeon was to sit in a tiny cockpit, having previously been trained to peck keys in such a way as to keep a
  designated target in the centre of a screen. In the missile, the target would be for real.

  The principle worked, although it was never put into practice by the US authorities. Even factoring in the costs of training them, pigeons
  are cheaper and lighter than computers of comparable effectiveness. Their feats in Skinner's boxes suggest that a pigeon, after a
  regimen of training with colour slides, really could guide a missile to a distinctive landmark at the southern end of Manhattan island. The
  pigeon has no idea that it is guiding a missile. It just keeps on pecking at those two tall rectangles on the screen, from time to time a
  food reward drops out of the dispenser, and this goes on until... oblivion.


  Pigeons may be cheap and disposable as on-board guidance systems, but there's no escaping the cost of the missile itself. And no such
  missile large enough to do much damage could penetrate US air space without being intercepted. What is needed is a missile that is not
  recognised for what it is until too late. Something like a large civilian airliner, carrying the innocuous markings of a well-known carrier and
  a great deal of fuel. That's the easy part. But how do you smuggle on board the necessary guidance system? You can hardly expect the
  pilots to surrender the left-hand seat to a pigeon or a computer.


  How about using humans as on-board guidance systems, instead of pigeons? Humans are at least as numerous as pigeons, their brains
  are not significantly costlier than pigeon brains, and for many tasks they are actually superior. Humans have a proven track record in
  taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers.

  The natural assumption that the hijacker ultimately values his own life too, and will act rationally to preserve it, leads air crews and
  ground staff to make calculated decisions that would not work with guidance modules lacking a sense of self-preservation. If your plane
  is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining. A
  rational pilot complies with the hijacker's wishes, gets the plane down on the ground, has hot food sent in for the passengers and leaves
  the negotiations to people trained to negotiate.


  The problem with the human guidance system is precisely this. Unlike the pigeon version, it knows that a successful mission culminates in
  its own destruction. Could we develop a biological guidance system with the compliance and dispensability of a pigeon but with a man's
  resourcefulness and ability to infiltrate plausibly? What we need, in a nutshell, is a human who doesn't mind being blown up. He'd make
  the perfect on-board guidance system. But suicide enthusiasts are hard to find. Even terminal cancer patients might lose their nerve
  when the crash was actually looming.


  Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a
  plane smack into a skyscraper? If only! Nobody is that stupid, but how about this - it's a long shot, but it just might work. Given that they
  are certainly going to die, couldn't we sucker them into believing that they are going to come to life again afterwards? Don't be daft! No,
  listen, it might work. Offer them a fast track to a Great Oasis in the Sky, cooled by everlasting fountains. Harps and wings wouldn't appeal
  to the sort of young men we need, so tell them there's a special martyr's reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed eager and exclusive.


  Would they fall for it? Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to
  go for 72 private virgins in the next.


  It's a tall story, but worth a try. You'd have to get them young, though. Feed them a complete and self-consistent background mythology
  to make the big lie sound plausible when it comes. Give them a holy book and make them learn it by heart. Do you know, I really think it
  might work. As luck would have it, we have just the thing to hand: a ready-made system of mind-control which has been honed over
  centuries, handed down through generations. Millions of people have been brought up in it. It is called religion and, for reasons which
  one day we may understand, most people fall for it (nowhere more so than America itself, though the irony passes unnoticed). Now all
  we need is to round up a few of these faith-heads and give them flying lessons.


  Facetious? Trivialising an unspeakable evil? That is the exact opposite of my intention, which is deadly serious and prompted by deep
  grief and fierce anger. I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice:
  religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don't mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do
  that too), but devaluing one's own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.


  If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place,
  just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are
  convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to
  another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical
  escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises,
  and is it any wonder that naive and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions?


  There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart
  missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a
  cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap.


  Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the
  vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless
  and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would
  pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.


  It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of
  this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill
  a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.


  Richard Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science, University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind
  Watchmaker, and Unweaving the Rainbow.

 

- DBC

 

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I'm Sorry'
   Falwell Now Says Gays and Feminists Not at Fault for Attacks
   http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/gma/goodmorningamerica/gma010920falwell_sorry.html

 

   L Y N C H B U R G, Va. , Sept. 20 — The Rev. Jerry Falwell is taking back comments he made after last
   week's terrorist attacks, saying he shouldn't have blamed gays, civil libertarians and others for making
   America a target.

 

   As the nation was still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks, Falwell appeared on the Christian television
   program The 700 Club. He and the show's host, Pat Robertson, were expressing their sorrow over the
   death and destruction when Falwell broke into a speech about who should take some of the
   responsibility for the attacks. 

   He laid blame at the feet of homosexuals, abortion-rights supporters and the American Civil Liberties
   Union, saying their beliefs prompted God to allow terrorists to attack America.

 

   Here is what Falwell said on The 700 Club:

 

   "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we
   destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the
   abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an
   alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them have tried to secularize
   America — I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

 

   Remarks Called Inappropriate

 

   Falwell's controversial comments came two days after the attacks. His words drew fire not only from
   community leaders, but also a rebuke from President Bush, who said the remarks were inappropriate.

   Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights
   group, said Falwell's public comments were "stunning."

 

   "They were irresponsible at best, and a deliberate attempt to manipulate the nation's anger at worst,"
   Birch said in a statement.

 

   TomPaine.com, an online journal of opinion that places an advertisement on the Op-Ed page of the New
   York Times every Wednesday, focused on Falwell this week. The ad, which pictured Falwell and
   Robertson with the title "American Taliban" across the bottom, stated, "We needn't look halfway around
   the world for intolerance and zealotry. We have them right here at home."

   Falwell Apologizes for Comments

 

   On Thursday on Good Morning America, Falwell said he "misspoke" when he said gays, lesbians and the
   ACLU made the attacks happen.

 

   "I do not believe they endanger America. I misspoke totally and entirely," Falwell told ABCNEWS' Diane
   Sawyer.

 

   When shown a replay of his 700 Club remarks and the ad accusing him of intolerance, Falwell said, "In
   that particular interview you just showed, I did do that."

 

   He went on, saying, "I did not intend to do what obviously I did do. I am sorry."

 

   On the 700 Club, Robertson said he totally concurred when Falwell finished his controversial comments.
   Since then, Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network released a statement calling Falwell's remarks
   "severe and harsh in tone and, frankly, not fully understood" by Robertson at the time.

 

- DBC

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  Buried Alive: Afghan Women Under the Taliban by Jan Goodwin
  http://mosaic.echonyc.com/~onissues/su98goodwin.html
  (visit the link for full photos)

  February 27, 1998 
 

 --Thirty-thousand men and boys poured into the dilapidated Olympic sports stadium in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. Street hawkers
  peddled nuts, biscuits and tea to the waiting crowd. The scheduled entertainment? They were there to see a young woman, Sohaila,
  receive 100 lashes, and to watch two thieves have their right hands amputated. Sohaila had been arrested walking with a man who was
  not a relative, a sufficient crime for her to be found guilty of adultery. Since she was single, it was punishable by flogging; had she been
  married, she would have been publicly stoned to death.

 

<IMG border=1 height=143 width=323 SRC="su98afghan1.gif">
  Talibs, like these boys, are authorized to use weapons and whips on women if they decide any are breaking the Taliban's repressive
  laws.

  <IMG border=1 height=144 width=237 SRC="su98afghan2.gif"> 
 

Afraid of the Taliban's long reach, these Afghan schoolgirls cover their faces to avoid recognition, even in a refugee camp in Pakistan.

 

As Sohaila, completely covered in the shroud-like <B>burqa</B> veil, was forced to kneel and then flogged, Taliban "cheerleaders" had
  the stadium ringing with the chants of onlookers. Among those present there were just three women: the young Afghan, and two female
  relatives who had accompanied her. The crowd fell silent only when the luckless thieves were driven into the arena and pushed to the
  ground. Physicians using surgical scalpels promptly carried out the amputations. Holding the severed hands aloft by the index fingers, a
  grinning Taliban fighter warned the huge crowd, "These are the chopped-off hands of thieves, the punishment for any of you caught
  stealing." Then, to restore the party atmosphere, the thieves were driven in a jeep once around the stadium, a flourish that brought the
  crowd to their feet, as was intended.

 

These Friday circuses, at which Rome's Caligula would doubtless have felt at home, are to become weekly fixtures for the
  entertainment-starved male residents of Kabul. Now that "weak officials" have been purged from key ministries, says the city's governor,
  Manan Niazi, who like many of the regime's officials is also a mullah, the way has been cleared for such displays. "We have a lot of such
  unpunished cases, but the previous civil servants didn't have the courage to do what we are doing. These people have now been
  replaced, and these events will continue." In fact, the next scheduled program, as announced, would be one stoning to death and three
  amputations.

 

After 19 years of conflict, Kabul, once Afghanistan's symbol of modernity, is now the most war-damaged and landmined capital in the
  world.<

 

<IMG border=1 height=144 width=254 SRC="su98afghan3.gif">
  Not so long ago, this avenue was a major, international shopping center. Today, these ruins reflect conditions in the rest of the country

  <IMG border=1 height=144 width=254 SRC="su98afghan4.gif"> 
 

Earlier that same week, three men accused of "buggery" had been sentenced to death by being partially buried in the ground and then
  having a wall pushed over on them by a bulldozer, a bizarre and labor-intensive form of execution dreamed up by the supreme leader of
  the Taliban, the 36-year-old Mullah Mohammad Omar. After another man, a saboteur, was hanged, his corpse was driven around the city,
  swinging from a crane. Clearly, there is nothing covert about the regime's punitive measures. In fact, the Taliban insure they are as
  widely publicized as possible. Last March, for example, the regime's radio station, the only one permitted to operate, broadcast to the
  nation that a young woman caught trying to flee Afghanistan with a man who was not her relative had been stoned to death. On another
  occasion, it was announced over the airwaves that 225 women had been rounded up and sentenced to a lashing for violating the dress
  code. One woman had the top of her thumb amputated for the crime of wearing nail polish. And when the Taliban castrated and then
  hanged the former communist president and his brother in 1996, they left their bloodied bodies dangling from lampposts in busy
  downtown Kabul for three days. Photographs of the corpses appeared in news magazines and newspapers around the world.

  The Taliban now control between 65 and 85 percent of Afghanistan, a country where statistics are anyone's guess. (Even the population
  size of Afghanistan is uncertain: possibly 15, maybe 22 million. The U.S. Department of State's figure on war fatalities-1.5 million- has not
  changed since 1985, although the armed conflict there is now in its 19th year.) For the last two years, the Taliban have been trying to
  win both a seat at the United Nations and international recognition. Thus far, only three countries have recognized the regime: Pakistan,
  the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. And even Pakistan is becoming embarrassed by its neighbor.

 

Until the Taliban came to power, Saudi Arabia was the most oppressive country on earth for women, and many of the Taliban's
  restrictions are rooted in that hardline Gulf state's gender apartheid. Saudi Arabia has also been financially supportive of the Taliban and
  the religious schools in which they are indoctrinated. "We have long regarded the Saudi kingdom as our right hand," says the head of the
  Taliban governing council.

 

The Taliban regime claim they are restoring Afghanistan to the "purity of Islam," and the Western press invariably parrots them. But
  authorities in a number of Muslim countries insist that few of the regime's dictates have a basis in Islam. And just as the U.N. has denied
  the Taliban a seat in the General Assembly, so too, the Organization of Islamic Conference, a 55-country body, has withheld both a seat
  and recognition from the regime. "The Taliban is not the image the Islamic world wants to project," says one Muslim diplomat. And with
  good reason.

 

Now in its fourth year of existence, the pariah regime has expunged all leisure activities. Their list of what is illegal grows daily: music,
  movies and television, picnics, wedding parties, New Year celebrations, any kind of mixed-sex gathering. They've also banned children's
  toys, including dolls and kites; card and board games; cameras; photographs and paintings of people and animals; pet parakeets;
  cigarettes and alcohol; magazines and newspapers, and most books. They've even forbidden applause -- a moot point, since there's
  nothing left to applaud.

 

Below (left): Afghan women begging to survive. Below (right): Banned from college, women students continue their education in an
  underground school. 
 

<IMG border=1 height=190 width=145 SRC="su98afghan5.gif">
  <IMG border=1 height=190 width=290 SRC="su98afghan6.gif"><BR>

  Veiled women at a supplementary feeding center for children. Forty percent of Kabul is now reduced to living on food handouts.
  <IMG border=1 height=216 width=373 SRC="su98afghan7.gif">

 

"Whatever we are doing in our country, it is not in order for the world to be happy with us," Sher Abbas Stanakzai, who until recently was
  the Taliban's 36-year-old deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, told me during my visit. Explaining why his regime has banned virtually all
  forms of entertainment, he says, "Time should be spent serving the country and praying to God. Nothing else. Everything else is a waste
  of time, and people are not allowed to waste their time."

 

For women, the restrictions are even harsher. Female education, from kindergarten through graduate school, banned. Employment for
  women, banned. It's now illegal to wear makeup, nail polish, jewelry, pluck your eyebrows, cut your hair short, wear colorful or stylish
  clothes, sheer stockings, white socks and shoes, high-heel shoes, walk loudly, talk loudly or laugh in public. In fact, the government
  doesn't believe women should go out at all: "Women, you should not step outside your residence" reads one of the Taliban dictates.

  If women do venture out, it must be for an essential, government-sanctioned purpose, and they must wear the all-enveloping burqa.
  Even then they risk their lives. Not so long ago, a young mother, Torpeka, was shot repeatedly by the Taliban while rushing her seriously
  ill toddler to a doctor. Veiled as the law requires, she was spotted by a teenage Taliban guard, who tried to stop her because she
  shouldn't have left her home. Afraid her child might die if she were delayed, Torpeka kept going. The guard aimed his Kalashnikov
  machine-gun and fired several rounds directly at her. She was hit, but didn't die on the spot, as she could have. Instead, Afghans
  watching the incident in the crowded marketplace intervened, and Torpeka and her child received prompt medical attention. When her
  family later complained to the Taliban authorities, they were informed that it was the injured woman's fault. She had no right being out in
  public in the first place.

 

The <B>burqa</B> is a garment that covers women from head to toe, the heavy gauze patch across the eyes makes it hard to see, and
  completely blocks peripheral vision. Since enforced veiling, a growing number of women have been hit by vehicles because the burqa
  leaves them unable to walk fast, or see where they are going. Recently in Kabul, a Taliban tank rolled right over a veiled woman.
  Fortunately, she fell between the tracks. Instead of being crushed to death, she was not seriously hurt, but was severely traumatized.

  To insure women are effaced as effectively as if they never existed, the government ordered all exterior windows of homes to be painted
  black. The only public transport permitted women are special buses, which are rarely available, and have all windows, except the driver's,
  covered with thick blankets.

 

  It is now illegal for women to talk to any men except close relatives, which precludes them from visiting male physicians, no matter how
  sick. At the time of my recent visit, the evening curfew began at 7:30 p.m., after which no one, except government troops, was allowed
  out, even for medical emergencies. Even women in labor and needing hospital care must remain at home until morning.

 

  It would probably be quicker to list what the Taliban haven't banned. The regime has even outlawed paper bags. Like many of their
  edicts, this would be laughable if the penalties for infractions weren't so severe. Break the Taliban's law and you risk imprisonment,
  flogging, or worse. And to insure their dictates are followed, religious police, part of the "Department for the Propagation of Virtue and
  the Suppression of Vice," constantly roam the streets. Often teenage boys armed with automatic weapons, they also carry broken-off car
  aerials or electrical cabling to whip women they decide are not properly observing the regulations.

 

  Despite its disastrous and very public record on human rights, when the Taliban was petitioning the United Nations for a seat in the
  General Assembly last May, its then New York representative, Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, claimed his government was "protecting human
  rights and liberties in Afghanistan." He also stated that, having put a stop to the "miserable living conditions under which our women
  were living," they had "restored women's safety, dignity and freedom." He then went on to justify the Taliban's ban on women's
  education: Afghanistan lacks the resources to educate them, he said, adding that the Taliban also do not trust the values that became
  part of the education system under previous governments. Those reservations, however, only apply to women, since the regime
  continues to educate boys.

 

  Mujahid omitted to mention a personal detail-how he circumvents the ban for his own daughter by sending her to an English-language
  school in Pakistan. But this kind of hypocrisy is common in Afghanistan today. Under the regime, cigarette smoking is severely punished,
  yet in every Taliban office I entered in Kabul, even that of the head of the department of Virtue and Vice, Mullah Qalam-ad-Din, from
  whom most of the restrictions originate, used ashtrays were always in evidence. A senior official in the foreign ministry chain-smoked
  throughout our hour-long conversation. "Isn't that illegal?" I asked. "I can't help it, I'm addicted," he replied with a smile.

 

  While touting to the U.N. the Taliban's "improved" living conditions for women, Mujahid didn't mention the regime's banning of women's
  employment, or any of their myriad other restrictions, which have so constrained women's lives that half the population of the country is
  now effectively confined to house arrest.

 

  Amnesty International calls Afghanistan under the Taliban "a human rights catastrophe." Afghan women, struggling to survive in what
  has become a police state claiming to be a theocracy, describe themselves as the "living dead."

 

  It is hardly surprising, then, that the U.N. has not seated the Taliban delegation; or, indeed, that the credentials committee has refused
  even to meet with the regime's representative in New York, and most officials prefer to duck his phone calls. But the U.N. has seated the
  representatives of some pretty brutal regimes in the past, and the ostracism is unlikely to last forever-especially with lobbyists for
  American oil concerns entering the picture.

 

  Unocal, a California-based global energy company, heads up one of two consortiums engaged in fierce competition to build gas and oil
  pipelines from landlocked Turkmenistan to Pakistan through war-torn Afghanistan. In testimony to the U.S. Congress this February, John
  Maresca, vice-president in charge of Unocal's international relations, referred to the $4.5 billion, some 790-mile project as the "new Silk
  Road...a commercial corridor that can link Central Asia supply with the demand, once again making Central Asia the crossroads between
  Europe and Asia."

 

  Iran offers an alternative pipeline route, but because of U.S. sanctions legislation, American companies would not be able to participate in
  its construction-or, as a result, gain any benefit from what are considered the largest untapped oil and gas reserves outside the Middle
  East. And while Unocal says it cannot sign any deal with the Taliban until they are formally recognized, this hasn't stopped them from
  wining and dining Taliban officials, and arranging shopping trips for them to purchase luxury items on their visits to the oil company in the
  U.S. Unocal already has a $900,000 training program underway, in collaboration with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, for pipeline
  construction personnel, a program limited to Afghan males. Additionally, the duo has established two technician training centers in
  Afghanistan, also benefitting men only.

 

  Unocal's main partner in the consortium is Delta Oil Co., a Saudi-owned company, in whose behalf former White House legislative
  assistant Paul Behrends and Delta's American vice-president Charles Santos, a recent U.N. peace negotiator in Afghanistan, are busy
  lobbying in Washington.

 

  The pipeline would bring the Taliban some $100 million annually in transit fees, in addition to providing thousands of jobs and improving
  infrastructure-building roads, supplying electricity, telephones, etc.-in the war-devastated country. The Clinton administration reportedly
  supports the Afghan pipeline, which would free the new nations of Central Asia from dependence on Russia, avoid the Iranian route, and
  bring needed energy to the Indian subcontinent.

 

  Competing with Unocal to build the pipeline is Bridas International of Argentina, whose managing director, Mario Lopez Olacireegui, has
  gone on record saying he is not concerned about the Taliban's human rights violations. "We are just an oil and gas company," he says.
  "We are not bothered by human rights or politics." The Taliban, for their part, say they will award the pipeline contract to the consortium
  that is first able to start construction. Unocal's deadline to begin is this coming December.

 

  A number of American women's organizations, headed by the Feminist Majority and the National Organization for Women, have mobilized
  to prevent the Clinton administration from recognizing the Taliban government unless it radically changes its treatment of women. They
  are also campaigning for Unocal to include women in their training programs. As we went to press, sources within Unocal admitted this
  campaign is beginning to have an effect. A split has occurred within the oil company-those who want to press ahead, and those who do
  not want a politically embarrassing "rogue operation." As the U.S. women's campaign gains momentum, Unocal is also finding foreign
  investors suddenly unenthusiastic about being affiliated with a regime with such a disastrous public relations record. None of which has
  affected the Taliban, however, who have since clamped down harder on women, this time ordering that all foreign Muslim women working
  with the U.N. or NGOs be accompanied by male chaperones, which in effect will halt their employment in Afghanistan.

 

  While it may be some time before Taliban coffers are swollen by petrodollars, one of the mainstays of the regime's economy is heroin
  production, which they use in part to supply their war machine. Afghanistan now produces more of the narcotic than any other
  country-and much of it ends up on the streets of the U.S. Despite promises by the Taliban to eradicate the industry, according to a report
  released last February by the U.N. Inter- national Narcotics Control Board, the harvest of opium poppy, from which heroin is derived,
  increased by 25 percent in Afghanistan during 1997. The Taliban control 96 percent of Afghanistan's total opium output, this country's
  only real remaining cash crop.

 

  Though it was always impoverished, before the Soviet invasion Afghanistan was able to feed its people. Today, after almost 20 years of
  war, this is no longer true. Afghan women, in the rural areas, have always worked alongside men in the fields. In the capital, until the
  Taliban took over, they often wore Western dress, served in parliament, and worked in a variety of professions, including medicine,
  engineering, architecture, the media and law. During the long years of fighting, as men were killed, went missing, or became disabled, the
  survival of many families came to depend on women's income.

 

  Before the Taliban ban on female employment, 70 percent of the teachers in Kabul were women, as were 50 percent of the civil servants
  and university students, and 40 percent of the doctors.

 

  Why does the regime insist that women be confined at home? Reducing women to mere objects, the minister of education says, "It's like
  having a flower, or a rose. You water it and keep it at home for yourself, to look at it and smell it. It [a woman] is not supposed to be
  taken out of the house to be smelled." Another Taliban leader is less poetic: "There are only two places for Afghan women-in her
  husband's house, and in the graveyard."

 

  I have been visiting and reporting on Afghanistan since 1984, and have traveled extensively throughout the country, but it was only
  during my visit last fall that I saw for the first time legions of women and children reduced to beggary, the result of the Taliban's ban on
  women's employment. Many families, having sold all their household items, even blankets, are surviving on bread and sugarless tea.
  Supplementary feeding centers, funded by foreign agencies, are dotted across the capital. Here, malnourished children-four-year-olds
  weighing 16 pounds, 18-month-old toddlers weighing 9 pounds-are fed. Their mothers are not, even though they, too, are malnourished.
  Women often eat once every two or three days, preferring instead to give whatever food they have to their children. According to new
  U.N. figures, some 40 percent of the Kabul population now exists on food handouts, either from humanitarian agencies or from begging.

  The legally mandated <B>burqa</B> has also become a severe financial hardship. The veil now costs the equivalent of five months
  salary-if any women were still receiving one. Most cannot afford to buy the garment, and whole neighborhoods must share one. It can
  take several days for a woman's turn to come round; even if she has money to shop for food, she can't go out until then.

 

  In Kabul, the number of street children has risen from an estimated 28,000 to 60,000 in the last year. This city, once a symbol of
  modernity for Afghanistan, is now in ruins-the most bomb-damaged capital in the world. It is also the most land-mined. Mines maim
  and/or kill an average of 25 people a day in Afghanistan. Two-thirds of them are children. It is predominantly children who herd animals,
  or search for fuel or for scrap metal to sell to help support their families. Scrap metal merchants will only purchase unexploded bombs or
  shells if the children disarm them first. Kids doing this highly risky work earn on average enough to buy just two or three pieces of bread
  per day.

 

  Despite the terrible toll mines are taking, the Taliban have interfered with programs to teach women and children how to locate and stay
  clear of mines. Board games used by foreign humanitarian agencies to instruct a mostly illiterate population in mine-awareness have
  been disallowed because they use now-banned pictures of humans or animals coming too close to a mine; an alternative, flash cards,
  has also been outlawed-as gambling.

 

  Conditions are so deplorable for women under the Taliban that many are now severely depressed. Without the resources to leave the
  country, an increasing number are now choosing suicide, once rare there, as a means of escape. A European physician working in the city
  told me, "Doctors are seeing a lot of esophageal burns. Women are swallowing battery acid, or poisonous household cleansers, because
  they are easy to find. But it's a very painful way to die."

 

  Spoghmai, a 24-year-old former teacher, refers to herself as being "buried alive." The young woman lost her right arm up to the shoulder,
  and her right leg to the thigh, in a shelling attack three years ago. After her injury, when she spent weeks in a poorly equipped hospital,
  Spoghmai was, not surprisingly, so depressed she wanted to die. A lifesaver, literally, was a job she found with a Western relief agency
  that enabled her to work with the disabled. But four months later, when the Taliban took Kabul in September 1996, she was forced to
  stop working.

 

  Today, she wears a badly fitted, and painful, prosthesis-badly fitted because, in Afghanistan now, false limbs come in only three sizes.
  Disabled as she is, walking is difficult, and is impossible if she is wearing a burqa veil. Since she cannot go out without one, she hasn't left
  the house in two years. "There are so many days when I am too depressed to get out of bed. Why should I? There is nothing for me to
  do. So many times I ask, Why didn't I die when I was injured?"

 

  I offered to take Spoghmai out for a short excursion in my jeep. She refused. "I am afraid. It is too dangerous, for you and me. Afghans
  are not allowed to be with foreigners, or talk with journalists. If we are caught, the Taliban will beat us, maybe worse. And anyway, to go
  out briefly would be too painful. It will remind me of what I have lost. One day of freedom will make this prison so much worse."

  International Complicity

 

  A major concern today is how most of the international community operating in Afghanistan is going along with the Taliban's restrictions
  on women out of fear of having their agencies forced to close. Complicating this issue is the fact that a number of U.N. officials posted
  there in senior positions are from developing countries where women are traditionally second class. Consequently, they consider the
  Taliban's restrictions on women unimportant, or choose to look the other way. One such head of a U.N. agency in Kabul has often told
  colleagues, "the gender issue is too dangerous, I don't plan to risk my career over it."

 

  The director of a major American humanitarian agency in Kabul, who asked that his name not be used for security reasons, admitted he
  found it "personally abhorrent," but felt he had no choice when he had to tell his female employees first to wear the burqa, and then to
  stay home. "I felt awful that I was forcing them to veil. When you only see women in burqas, you realize the power of covering a woman
  like that. You don't treat them like people anymore, just bits of cloth moving down the street. But on a pragmatic level, that's what had to
  happen to keep everybody safe, and to keep our program moving.

 

  "When the Taliban started threatening and then beating our guards and drivers, we had no choice. When I realized that no one, no
  authority, was going to stop the Taliban from beating women if they worked, it became an issue of protecting the staff. I know that is a
  rationalization, but they have demonstrated what the consequences are of not complying with their edicts. And so you compromise."

  He admits that there is an "incredible drift in the international community here with regard to the gender issue. Women are told: 'Stay
  home, suffer your fate, it's easier for everyone.' It's a slippery slope we're on."

 

  One agency in Kabul, Oxfam, which is headed by a retired American professor, Nancy Smith, chose to make a stand against the regime,
  and closed down her multimillion-dollar program until such time as the Taliban remove the restrictions on women. With her agency
  charged with restoring 40 percent of the water supply system to Kabul, a project that would also benefit the Taliban, Smith, a wiry
  65-year-old, told the regime her agency's mandate was to relieve poverty, distress and suffering, and that included women's. "We
  concluded that our core principles are not negotiable," she says. "Oxfam will work with women in Kabul, or not at all."

 

  Afghan women also defy the Taliban. I visited several underground schools that women were running for girls out of their homes.
  Operating one-room school houses accommodating students aged six to 24, these dedicated women were breaking the Taliban law on a
  number of counts, including the one forbidding gatherings of unrelated people. In a city where paper and pencils are now hard to acquire,
  the teaching aids were handmade from scraps of whatever they could find, including stones and twigs.

 

  While these women risk their safety to keep teaching, much of the regime that threatens them are either illiterate or nearly so. Even the
  Taliban's Ministers of Education and Higher Education have little schooling. Most Talibs (the name means religious student) are young
  zealots, graduates of the regime's madrassas, so-called religious schools that are based, for the most part, in Pakistan, and funded in
  part by the Saudis. In these cloister-like environments, boys grow up totally segregated from any women, including those in their own
  families. The highest honor they can earn there is that of qari, a Muslim honorific given to those who memorize and can recite the entire
  Koran, and a number do. Sadly, however, they learn to do so in Arabic, a language they do not understand, and is not taught to them.
  Consequently, they have no idea of the rights given to women in Islam.

 

  "Islam dictates that education is mandatory for both males and females," says Zieba Shorish-Shamley, Ph.D., chair of the Women's
  Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan, based in Washington, D.C. Hassan Hathout, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the outreach
  program at the Islamic Center of Southern California, agrees: "At the time of the Prophet, Muslim women attained such scholarship they
  became teachers to prominent men." They also worked. In fact, the Prophet met his first wife because she was his employer. "The
  medical corps of the Prophet's army was an all-woman corps, and in some battles, women took up swords and joined active combat.
  Women participated in public affairs, were involved in negotiating treaties, were even judges. Islam declared gender equality through the
  Prophet's words, 'Women are the siblings of men.'"

 

  Islamic scriptures are very clear on the veil: Only the prophet's wives were required to cover their faces. In fact, when women undertake
  the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, they are required to do so with their faces uncovered. They also mingle with men not related to
  them.

 

  "Obviously, the Taliban's military prowess far exceeds their knowledge of Islam," says Dr. Hathout. Perhaps the regime's most important
  oversight is the Prophet Mohammad's teaching: "There is no compulsion in Islam."

 

  When I raised these issues with the chief mullah of the Department of Virtue and Vice, and asked him why, if such things were good
  enough for the Prophet, they weren't good enough for the Taliban, he grinned and changed the subject. The regime's Sher Abbas
  Stanakzai was more honest when he admitted, "Our current restrictions are necessary in order to bring the Afghan people under control.
  We need these restrictions until people learn to obey the government."

 

  Jan Goodwin, editor of On The Issues, is an award-winning journalist and human rights activist. She is the author of Caught in the
  Crossfire (E.P. Dutton), a book on the conflict in Afghanistan, and Price of Honor (Plume-Penguin Books), which examines how Islamic
  extremism is affecting the lives of Muslim women.

 

- DBC

 

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Combating the ungodly violence that stains many religions
 http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/260/focus/Combating_the_ungodly_violence_that_stains_many_religions+.shtml

 By Richard Higgins, 9/17/2001

 

 So what's Allah got to do with it? Nothing and a lot. Nothing because Tuesday's murderous attacks were, by a wide
 consensus, acts of hate clothed in religious terms. A lot because the actors were apparently guided by devotion to a
 particular, and extreme, interpretation of Islamic duty.

 

 A copy of the Koran was found in bags linked to the terrorists. A small number of Muslims, however misrepresentative
 of the whole, were filmed crying "God is great" in Palestine. How could this be? How holy was this "holy hell" Osama
 bin Laden crowed about in an intercepted e-mail last week?

 Muslims joined non-Muslims in blasting the blasphemy at the heart of the attacks.

 

 The Koran does not justify aggression. It condemns suicide. However, it allows for holy war when Islam is under
 attack. The suicide bombers may have constructed a twisted geopolitical distortion of that idea - that the killing of
 thousands of innocent people was standing up for Islam.

 

 Worse, they may have believed that it would earn them martyrdom, that Allah - or God - would somehow smile on
 their slaughter and take them into heaven. An abominable belief, yes, but Christians should recall that it was the
 buying and selling of indulgences to secure wealthy people a place in heaven that provoked Martin Luther to leave
 the Roman Catholic Church.

 

 Khalid Duran, a reform-minded Muslim scholar who has been attacked by extremist groups because of his writings on
 Islam, called the terror attack the "mother" of all perversities.

 "What they have concocted, theologically, is an enormous perversion of Islam," said Duran, author of "Children of
 Islam," a book that seeks to explain Islam to Jews. "On the other hand, we do have these groups of fanatics. This
 cannot be denied."

 

 Duran noted that Muslims have no corner on fundamentalism. "No religion is safe against this kind of
 misinterpretation. Look at South Africa, where apartheid was justified on a certain way of reading the story of Noah's
 descendants in the Bible, or the Orthodox Jew who assassinated Rabin in the name of God and Judaism."

 Duran, who has taught Islamic studies at several universities, said that a movement sometimes called Islamicism or
 Jihadism was subsuming classical Islam in countries around the globe. Its adherents, such as the Taliban in
 Afghanistan, are able to spread a misinterpretation of Islam by exploiting the illiteracy and poverty of their people.

 "If they say, as the Taliban does, that women should not wear white socks, and they claim that this is based on
 Islamic law, people believe them, even though in 14 centuries of Islam it has never before occurred to any Muslim
 country that women should not wear white socks. To say it comes from the Koran is ridiculous."

 

 If the terrorists are found to be operatives of Osama bin Laden, their religious imperative to attack the centers of
 American power may derive from bin Laden's emphasis on combating the "defilement" of Muslim holy land by
 Americans, whom he calls "Crusaders and Jews."

 

 "Bin Laden teaches that the prophet Mohammed, on his deathbed, told his followers to throw the heathens out of
 the Arabian peninsula, the land, he always says, that is dearest to God," Duran said.

 

 Bin Laden also sees the presence of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia during and since the Gulf War as a test of
 Muslim resolve, as in the early days of Islam. "It is this sense in which Islam is under attack and in which it is the duty
 of Muslims, in his view, to fight back."

 

 But nowhere in the Koran, Duran added, is jihad defined in a way to justify a massive slaughter of innocents - not to
 mention the uncounted Muslim innocents at work in the World Trade Center towers Tuesday morning.

 Some defenders of Islam, angered at the focus this week on Islam's reputation for violence, turned the tables on
 other religions. In an interview on Beliefnet.com, John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim Christian
 Understanding at Georgetown University and an author of numerous books on Islam, said Muslims are offended that
 Islam is seen as more violent than either Christianity or Judaism.

 

 "Read your Hebrew Bible, the conquests of Judaism," Esposito said. "In Christianity you have the Crusades. Both
 have a tradition of holy war. All three suffer from the fact that this notion can be manipulated by extremists."

 

 But Muslim reformers like Duran and others were more unsparing and agreed that examining Islam's warts was
 necessary.

 

 In a global e-mail to moderate Muslim scholars, Ishtiaq Ahmed, a prominent political scientist at the University of
 Stockholm, urged his colleagues and supporters not to hold their tongues for fear of fatwahs.

 

 Events last week have convinced him "more than ever before," he wrote, "that violence, terror, religious bigotry,
 sectarianism and narrow-minded and mean apologies for oppression within Muslim groups must be challenged
 uncompromisingly and with utmost honesty."

 

 Richard Higgins writes about religion.
 This story ran on page D8 of the Boston Globe on 9/17/2001. 

 

 - DBC
 

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Some other articles that may be of interest:

   Anti-terrorism Laws erode civil liberties:
   http://www.msnbc.com/news/632058.asp#BODY

   Pat Robertson's Gold:
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7124-2001Sep21.html

 

- DBC

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Not to throw in with him...[RESPONSE # 5]  but basically, I was saying something similar in a more polite fashion. We
   have had 14 e-mails from you since then, most in an approx. 4 day window almost all sending the same
   message. Essentially, we did this to ourselves - coupled with articles, reports and facts to support it.
   Personally, I blame the religion more. My postings were in support of that. Also I think the country it
   came from politically has a huge influence. My point being that there are other facets to this scenario
   that make it possible to have occurred and shifting focus to some them (diversity of subject matter) may
   help those of us on the receiving end of your oratory to appreciate it more. I endorse the idea to
   surgically strike at ben Laden, I do not endorse carpet bombing of goat herders (poppy fields maybe.) I
   would like to see economic sanctions either bend the Taliban to seize ben Laden's wealth and identify
   all Afghan military installations (and us blast the crap out of anything they don't ID); or assassinations
   to clean out their radical pervislamic cabinet and a more humanitarian regime set in place (or both!)
   Meddlesome? yes. Consistent foreign policy? seems so to me. Clear conscience? You betcha! I am not in
   favor of the War on Terrorism. I suspect it will follow in the footsteps of the Drug War. Time will tell.

 

 -    DBC

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

- My response -

 

Not to throw in with him... but basically, I was saying something similar in a more polite fashion. We
   have had 14 e-mails from you since then, most in an approx. 4 day window almost all sending the same
   message. Essentially, we did this to ourselves - coupled with articles, reports and facts to support it.

 

   [MFD] I did not say say that we did this to ourselves. I am saying that we now know that these things
   were in response to something we have done in the past, that does not justify it on thier part
   (anymore then our actions in the past were justified) I am not making a moral claim validity of these
   actions. Instead I am focusing on establishing that casual link. We know that our actions can and
   probably will have severe reprocussions down the line, especially with the possibility of terrorists
   acquiring weapons of mass destruction. With that in mind, we should re-examine our current foriegn
   policy and keep in mind that our current foriegn policy will effect terrorist actions 10 or 20 years from
   now. I am not placing blame on US, because that would imply that I think reacting to violence with
   violence is a morally justified stance, being a kantienest and a pacifist, that position is definately NOT
   something I support. What I am saying is that they felt these actions were justified because of
   something we did in the past. If that is the case, then was that something we did in the past worth the
   7,000 people lives who died on September 11th. And our the actions we are partaking in now worth
   the potential millions of lives they may cost down the line?

 

   Personally, I blame the religion more. My postings were in support of that. Also I think the country it
   came from politically has a huge influence. My point being that there are other facets to this scenario
   that make it possible to have occurred and shifting focus to some them (diversity of subject matter) may
   help those of us on the receiving end of your oratory to appreciate it more.

 

   [MFD] Understandable, youll get no argument from me on the dangers of being a 'true believer'
   regardless of the subject. I was focusing my articles on the simple fact that our foriegn actions are
   directly responsible for inciting most of these terrorists responses. The responses may be focused,
   directed, or planned better because of the religious or political stature of the country, but the original
   animosity would have never originated had we not bombed, assasinated, or tried to overthrow thier
   governments. Similiarly, what we do now can effect what the countries feel about us in the decades to
   come, which is why I was stressing how important it is to realize this causal relationship. This whole
   'They will attack US no matter what so lets get them' is the attitude that annoys me, as it could not be
   farther from the truth. I wont have many more articles on the subject going out though...

 

   I endorse the idea to surgically strike at ben Laden, I do not endorse carpet bombing of goat herders
   (poppy fields maybe.)

 

   [MFD] Same here

 

   I would like to see economic sanctions either bend the Taliban to seize ben Laden's wealth and identify
   all Afghan military installations (and us blast the crap out of anything they don't ID); or assassinations
   to clean out their radical pervislamic cabinet and a more humanitarian regime set in place (or both!)
   Meddlesome? yes. Consistent foreign policy? seems so to me. Clear conscience? You betcha! I am not in
   favor of the War on Terrorism. I suspect it will follow in the footsteps of the Drug War. Time will tell.

 

   [MFD] These actions are where the situation gets iffy. Will we succeed in wiping out the Taliben? Will we
   piss more people off and incite more terrorist reactions in the future? I am leary of actions like these for
   those reasons.
   

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 - DBC's Respons -

 

 

[MFD] I did not say say that we did this to ourselves. I am saying that we now know that these things
   were in response to something we have done in the past

 

   [DBC]: The same thing. We started the chain of events running, this is the result...same thing. and I still
   question the KNOW part.

 

   ==============================

 

   [MFD] I was focusing my articles on the simple fact that our foriegn actions are directly responsible for
   inciting most of these terrorists responses. The responses may be focused, directed, or planned better
   because of the religious or political stature of the country, but the original animosity would have never
   originated had we not bombed, assasinated, or tried to overthrow thier governments.

 

   [DBC]: I am saying lay off the focus. Shift it to one of the many Many MANY other aspects of all this.
   What about the human rights they violate? What about the culture still loving us anyway? How about
   the tremendous display of love all the people pulled together to produce? We are getting weary of the
   doom repetition. Also this passage repeats what I said above. You are saying we are at the root of it. I
   was in a candle light vigil with 8,000 people in NY that Thursday. No one was crowded, we all sang
   together, lots of people cried, strangers hugged, it was an experience unlike anything in my lifetime,
   and I have quite a breadth of exposure. There are other topics, let's move on.

 

   ==============================

 

   [MFD] These actions are where the situation gets iffy. Will we succeed in wiping out the Taliben? Will we
   piss more people off and incite more terrorist reactions in the future? I am leary of actions like these for
   those reasons.

 

   [DBC]: You stand atop the slippery slope. To choose inaction is a choice. To wait too long before
   choosing is to choose regret. I think everyone is agreed that something needs to be done. Given that,
   all we can do is tread warily on the slope to prevent falling. You really have no basis for assuming we
   are going to make the errors you are doom-singing about. We have sent military forces there but
   haven't invaded or destroyed anything. Until we do or Shrub gives orders for us to, there isn't a reason
   to presume it. Furthermore, I STILL question the syllogism you are using to re-inforce your conclusions.
   There is a co-relation, ok. Are there other co-relations that influence? Don't know, you haven't explored
   them.

 

   ==============================

 

   Honestly Mike, do you really think everyone is getting defensive about your message because we are
   all hearing you wrong?

 

   ~ Dave

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

- My response -

 

 

[MFD] I did not say say that we did this to ourselves. I am saying that we now know that these things were in response to something we
  have done in the past

 

  [DBC]: essentially the same thing. We started the chain of events running, this is the result...same thing. and I still question the KNOW
  part.

 

 [MFD] No, its not the same thing. One assumes that it is morrally acceptable to respond to violence with violence, and that it is not only
  acceptable, but required. If that were true, then our violent action would require a violent retaliation, and then we would have caused it,
  we would have brought it upon ourselves, we are to blame, etc. etc. etc, whatever you want to call it. But, as I have stressed multiple
  times, we did not do this ourselves. Those terrorists acted of thier own accord and chose of thier own free will to perform the acts that
  they did. To say that something we did influenced the choice of us as a future target is absolutely NOT the same thing as saying we
  caused this. We did not 'CAUSE' this, the terrorist who flew jet liners into the World trade centers and pentagon caused this. They directly
  caused the death of thousands of people. If i push you, I did not CAUSE you to push me back. You chose to act that way. But what I am
  saying is that by pushing you, I should realize that I may piss you off and you may choose to push back. If you kick a dog enough times,
  he might bite back. If you shoot at people, you piss them off. But if the shoot back, they CHOSE to shoot back, saying that the cause lays
  on us implies directly that the terrorist had no free will and were forced to act the way they did.

 

  But what are the chances of you randomly walking up to me and pushing me? Now what are the chances of you pushing me AFTER I have
  pushed you? Are they equal? If I see you have a knife in your hand, would it be wise for me to push you? If I see you have a nuclear
  bomb in your hand, would it be wise for me to bomb your homeland?

 

  Both the evidence and logic suggest the *know* part is valid. A) 1/3 of terrorist attacks in the World are perpetuated against US targets.
  B) The majority of the rest of those attacks occur between factions internal to one state (96 of the last 106 conflicts since the end of the
  cold war) C) No other countries that represent the same freedom, uniqueness, global markets, religions, and exporting are attacked by
  terrorists. D) The US intervenes internationally more than any other country in the world D) many terrorist attacks are admitted to be in
  direct response to a particalar US action (the shooting at the Empire state building a few years back). With these observations in mind,
  tell me what part of this seems to be an invalid conclusion?

 

  The US is attacked more than any other country and the US intervenes in other countries more than any other country. Is this a
  coincidence?

 

  ==============================

 

  [MFD] I was focusing my articles on the simple fact that our foriegn actions are directly responsible for inciting most of these terrorists
  responses. The responses may be focused, directed, or planned better because of the religious or political stature of the country, but the
  original animosity would have never originated had we not bombed, assasinated, or tried to overthrow thier governments.

 

  [DBC]: I am saying lay off the focus. Shift it to one of the many Many MANY other aspects of all this. What about the human rights they
  violate? What about the culture still loving us anyway? How about the tremendous display of love all the people pulled together to
  produce? We are getting weary of the doom repetition. Also this passage repeats what I said above. You are saying we are at the root
  of it. I was in a candle light vigil with 8,000 people in NY on Thursday. No one was crowded, we all sang together, lots of people cried,
  strangers hugged, it was an experience unlike anything in my lifetime, and I have quite a breadth of exposure. There are other topics,
  let's move on.

 

  [MFD] I will switch the focus when I am ready to. People still do not understand what I mean, even you still mis represent my position
  (e.g. we caused this). I know there are many other things that I could discuss or focus on, but there is no shortage of that in the news
  today, I want to relate A) the thing that is least often reported (which happens to be the least popular thing) and B) the thing which, I
  feel, will directly affect more people in the world then anything else. Even if you disagree with my position or the conclusions that I have
  drawn, they are the simplest explanation to observed phenomena I have seen. Which means that I feel they are the truth, as they seem
  to be the best explanation. If that is the case, then, from my perspective, continued foriegn intervention could incite and breed even more
  terrorist attacks with even more deadly consequences. I shudder at the though of a sail boat cruising into a major US harbor city and
  detonating a nuclear bomb (nor do I wish to see a nuclear bomb dropped on any people). This is something that I feel can really happen
  if this escalating cycle of vengeance is not controlled, and if more cycles are not prevented from starting. And it scares me, so if I
  reasonable suspect it to be true and be a valid conclusion, then how could you not expect me to do what I can to prevent it? How could
  you not expect me to focus on it? It would be like asking Pasture to stop shouting about penicillin. I have yet to receive a single argument
  pointing out why this conclusion is invalid. I have been called a terrorist sympathizer and an isolationist, but no one has yet to point out
  why this line of reasoning is invalid. That scares me even more.

 

  ==============================

 

  [MFD] These actions are where the situation gets iffy. Will we succeed in wiping out the Taliben? Will we piss more people off and incite
  more terrorist reactions in the future? I am leary of actions like these for those reasons.

 

  [DBC]: You stand atop the slippery slope. To choose inaction is a choice. To wait too long before choosing is to choose regret. I think
  everyone is agreed that something needs to be done. Given that, all we can do is tread warily on the slope to prevent falling.

 

  [MFD] I completely agree. I am not saying what, specifically, our actions should be. I am just saying we should keep these historical
  correlations in mind when deciding what we will do.

 

  You really have no basis for assuming we are going to make the errors you are doom-singing about.

 

  [MFD] A cursory examination of US history of foriegn intervention gives me enough reason to suspect that it may happen. If we have
  done it 10 times before, why assume we all the sudden will not this time?

 

  We have sent military there but haven't invaded or destroyed anything. Until we do or Shrub gives orders for us to, there isn't a reason
  to presume it. Furthermore, I STILL question the syllogism you are using to re-inforce your conclusions. There is a co-relation, ok. Are
  there other co-relations that influence? Don't know, you haven't explored them.

 

  [MFD] I am sure there are many other factors influencing these things. But do they all influence it to the same extent? I choose to focus
  on the thing that appears to have the greatest single influence on future events and may potentially cost the world more lives then
  anything else has ever cost it.

 

  ==============================

 

  Honestly Mike, do you really think everyone is getting defensive about your message because we are all hearing you wrong?

 

  [MFD] I dont know. I think it is because people arent reading them, or dont want to agree with them, look at some of the other
  responses. Every single article I sent out said that the perpetrators of this act must be held accountable and made to pay, yet people
  come back to me and 'so what, you think we should ignore it, feel bad for the terrorists, and move on?' Obviously that is not what I am
  saying, and I was quite clear about that in the very first article I wrote that I sent out.

 

  When you have a different topic or new subject matter to introduce aside from the well worn trench about us doing this to ourselves,
  please include me in the distribution. Until then, I ask you not to mail to me further articles.

 

  [MFD] If thats what you want, I will remove you until I send non-related articles out. I would, however, like to send out the comments I
  have recieved on this subject on the mailing list so people can hear a different side. If its ok, I would like to send your comments out as
  well (removing any reference to you of course)

 

  Michael

 

 

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Honestly Mike, do you really think everyone is getting defensive about your message because we are all hearing you wrong?

[MFD]  I dont know.  I think it is because people arent reading them, or dont want to agree with them, look at some of the other responses.  Every single article I sent out said that the perpetrators of this act must be held accountable and made to pay, yet people come back to me and 'so what, you think we should ignore it, feel bad for the terrorists, and move on?'  Obviously that is not what I am saying, and I was quite clear about that in the very first article I wrote that I sent out.

[DBC]: Mike, I think what happened has scared you.  I read your writing and it feels like you are hammering desperately at topic and fanatically holding on to it.  I am not saying you shouldn't be scared, but don't let it color everything you look at because of it. I also think the tone of the articles you are choosing reflect something you are choosing to ignore.  The underlying message is "we originated the cause of this" and irrespective of the relative truth of that, no one wants to hear it over and over.

 When you have a different topic or new subject matter to introduce aside from the well worn trench about us doing this to ourselves, please include me in the distribution.  Until then, I ask you not to mail to me further articles.

  [MFD]  If thats what you want, I will remove you until I send non-related articles out.  I would, however, like to send out the comments I have recieved on this subject on the mailing list so people can hear a different side.  If its ok, I would like to send your comments out as well (removing any reference to you of course)

Feel free to mail me anything NOT related to our foreign policy concerning this as well as all the usual interesting stuff.  I believe in what I am saying, you don't have to edit references to me out, just the personal notes between us that are not pertinent to the discussion (as marked above.)

Dave

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[MFD]  These actions are where the situation gets iffy.  Will we succeed in wiping out the Taliben?  Will we piss more people off and incite more terrorist reactions in the future?  I am leary of actions like these for those reasons. 

[DBC]: You stand atop the slippery slope.  To choose inaction is a choice.  To wait too long before choosing is to choose regret.  I think everyone is agreed that something needs to be done.  Given that, all we can do is tread warily on the slope to prevent falling.

[MFD]  I completely agree.  I am not saying what, specifically, our actions should be.  I am just saying we should keep these historical correlations in mind when deciding what we will do.

[DBC]: You really have no basis for assuming we are going to make the errors you are doom-singing about.

[MFD]  A cursory examination of US history of foriegn intervention gives me enough reason to suspect that it may happen.  If we have done it 10 times before, why assume we all the sudden will not this time? 

[DBC]: A detailed examination of US history also has a lengthy list of times we did NOT resort to military force.  There are thousands of Military movements every year and most go unreported.  There were hundreds of events in our history where a US Battleship was stationed in a location or sent to execute "maneuvers" in some section of waters where it got a message across and no shots were fired.  There are "training exercises" we go on every year where our marines and army soldiers train in foreign "climates" or practice outside CONUS  Large numbers of troops get stationed in a region so our numbers are intimidating, then are transferred when the 'nothing' we needed accomplished is complete.  Just how much news would sell if the story ran "Nothing happened in the south pacific today where a USS aircraft carrier circled a foreign powers international water line and flexed for the crowd."

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[DBC]: We have sent military there but haven't invaded or destroyed anything.  Until we do or Shrub gives orders for us to, there isn't a reason to presume it.  Furthermore, I STILL question the syllogism you are using to re-inforce your conclusions.  There is a co-relation, ok.  Are there other co-relations that influence?   Don't know, you haven't explored them.   

[MFD]  I am sure there are many other factors influencing these things.  But do they all influence it to the same extent?  I choose to focus on the thing that appears to have the greatest single influence on future events and may potentially cost the world more lives then anything else has ever cost it.

[DBC]: I am sure the Rev. Graham chooses to narrow his scope of vision as well.  I think looking at all the factors and adjusting on all fronts is wiser.  If you are on a slippery slope you don't just look at your left foot.  Surgery requires examination of the whole patient and analysis of all the symptoms, not just the one you choose.  Extracting bin Laden should be a surgical act, not turning Afghanistan on it's side and shaking until he falls out.  This is not a situation for 'cursory' examination or ignoring other variables.
[matus] 

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        [MFD]  Yes, I am relaying a relationship of casuality, but it is not an absolute relationship, which I thought was implied.  Our foriegn policy influences the terrorist responses, it does not absolutely dictate them, because that would mean the people responding have no mind of thier own, obviously that is not the case and that is not what I though.  Just as genes influence our behavior, blowing up your neighboorhood will make you far more likely to despise those who blew up your neighboorhood then simply buying a lot of thier products would.  You state exactly what I dont want this to come off as when you say 'Our choices as a nation led inevitably around to this consequence'  It is not inevitable, as the terrorist can always choose to not perform this act.  But our choices as a nation have obviously influenced the likelyhood of that response.  That is what I am saying.  This is an important distinction to me because saying 'we caused this' as you think I am, is no different then saying 'Its our fault' in which case people get blindly irate thinking 'how can you say that when all these people died!!!!'  Saying our foriegn policy influences the reactions of terrorist is very different then saying our foriegn policy is the direct and absolute cause and leads inevitably to these current events, the later of which is how you seem to interpret my statement.  From my first essay "then we may be able to change those behaviors which incite terrorist attacks", "Numerous more lives will be lost if we continue to act in a way that instills hatred and anger in other countries."  and "Instead we would be reducing the motivations that terrorists have to attack the United States in the first place"  It may not be an important distinction to you, but it is a very important one to me.  

[MFD]  I would like to keep the personal references in there as I want to take the oppertunity to better myself through constructive criticism.  I dont mind sharing that with people on the list, and there is nothing wrong with pointing out something you disagree with in me.  I will keep them out if you still desire though. 

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[MFD]  Yes, I am relaying a relationship of causality, but it is not an absolute relationship, which I thought was implied.  Our foreign policy influences the terrorist responses, it does not absolutely dictate them, because that would mean the people responding have no mind of their own, obviously that is not the case and that is not what I though.  Just as genes influence our behavior, blowing up your neighborhood will make you far more likely to despise those who blew up your neighborhood then simply buying a lot of their products would.  You state exactly what I dot want this to come off as when you say 'Our choices as a nation led inevitably around to this consequence'  It is not inevitable, as the terrorist can always choose to not perform this act.  But our choices as a nation have obviously influenced the likelihood of that response.  That is what I am saying.  This is an important distinction to me because saying 'we caused this' as you think I am, is no different then saying 'Its our fault' in which case people get blindly irate thinking 'how can you say that when all these people died!!!!'  Saying our foreign policy influences the reactions of terrorist is very different then saying our foreign policy is the direct and absolute cause and leads inevitably to these current events, the later of which is how you seem to interpret my statement.  From my first essay "then we may be able to change those behaviors which incite terrorist attacks", "Numerous more lives will be lost if we continue to act in a way that instills hatred and anger in other countries."  and "Instead we would be reducing the motivations that terrorists have to attack the United States in the first place"  It may not be an important distinction to you, but it is a very important one to me.  

[DBC]: Mike, the position you have taken is well represented by your essay, however, the articles you have distributed are not in keeping with the tight distinction you put forth in your original essay.  They are a chorus of each other and deliver the same message repeatedly.  Furthermore "we caused this" is different from "It's our fault" the same way taking responsibility for an accident is different from laying the blame for one. 

Statistically, a certain percentage of any gross national population is insane.  The argument that an individual chose to perform an act is valid on a granular scale, from individual to individual only.  On a grand scale of an entire society, it IS inevitable that some person who fits the profile for a suicide bomber will exist.  Something we do somewhere will always generate hate.  How many French people have you met?  I know several and they are extremely polite, yet they have a reputation for being rude.  This is how prejudice works, lazy mental generalizations to escape critical evaluative thinking with typically self aggrandizing underpinnings.  Add to that a life time of cultural brainwashing in zealotry, factor in a charismatic leader like bin Laden with the patience and agents to collect several nuts then fund him with a few hundred million and you have a schoolmaster and backer to take random lunatics and make them into a devestingly organized and educated force of terror.  There are a lot of other links in the chain from a random car bomber to a world class tragedy besides just our foreign policy.

btw, good article about the asbestos.


David B. Collier