Joe,
Re:<<This is a second attempt on WTC. The people who attempted to kill 50,000 people the first time (but failed) were comfortably sitting at a table in the prison, eating breakfast at the time the attacks happened, watching their brothers continue their fight.
If this isn't a symbol of weakness, I don't know what is. Punishment for attempting to murder 50,000 people is 3 warm meals per day, warm bed, heating, air conditioning, cable TV...
What I meant by waking up is realizing that the people who are at war with us can't be reasoned with, they have to be destroyed before they destroy us.
That is if we want to survive.>>
I have to say I'm somewhat surprised to see that for someone who so often uses excellent logic in thinking things through, you doesn't seem to understand the underlying import of these attacks - altho the anger and sorrow generated by these events certainly excuse such reactions.
I would contend that it is not the "weakness" in lack of response or retribution that is the problem before us, but the 'weaknesses' in a free society that such an attack reveals and preys upon - and that is this: It is unlikely that a very satisfactory response to such attacks can be successfully crafted. You speak of destroying those responsible - a good thought, but how to practically carry it out and maintain security? Suppose you could get a worldwide consensus, of *every* government, to immediately remand terrorists to a world court for justice? (Unlikely given that you can't hold a coalition long against a criminal state like Iraq for very long, (France and Russia just can't pass up the economic opportunities); or that you can't convince China to stop supplying advanced missle technology to Iran and North Korea.) And suppose you got the country that is harboring them to hand them over and they were dealt with justly (executed, or, more likely given a trial with life term sentences, since many countries won't extradite without such assurances, given their opposition to the death penalty). At that point, what prevents their 'brothers' (as you yourself intimate) from retailiating by hijacking another plane and crashing it into the Chicago Sears Tower? And if you punish those guys,why wouldn't the pyramid building in S.F. be the next retaliatory target in response? And if you impose a police state and x-ray every one and everything that boards a plane in the US, why couldn't they hand-carry a suitcase-sized nuclear device into Dallas? And if you outlawed suitcases, why couldn't they poison a public water supply?
What you end up with is a mess like the endless Israeli-Palestinian problem of endless terrorism and endless retribution. Israeli intelligence is probably the most efficient in the world. And car bombs constantly go off in Israel, killing civilians, and Palestinians continually die in retaliatory raids, and so it goes, on and on. And there, my friend,is the weakness of a free society - there is no good answer to such heinous terrorism, unless you're willing to risk continual counter-retribution. The best justice that can be had without getting caught in this spiral of escalation of retribution is probably what the US did with the Lockerbie terrorism - it took years of endless negotiation, an agreement not to execute the defendants if found guilty, and a sense of ineffectuality and helpless rage on the part of the victim's families - and that's the rub - such attacks expose our underlying helplessless, and that's a nearly unbearable feeling for a country founded in and on action. Sure, we can retaliate devastatingly - we could turn Afghanistan into a nuclear-ravaged moonscape with no sweat - but are we willing to accept the conseuences that such retribution likely will entail? Yes, the urge to action is almost irresistible - but what constitutes effective action while preserving the safety of our loved ones - I see no good answer to that a question.
Regards,
Jamok |
