In addition to all replies to this series of "unspeakables", I'd like to add, "What is the point of your questions?"
There are always those that will die for their religion or political cause. The Crusades come to mind. The Filipinos fighting against the imperialism of the U.S. comes to mind. American Indian attacks. Others have mentioned other suicidal warriors. Should we "Remember the Alamo?"
Currently, the most notable suicidal warriors are Muslim. However, I don't think that their religion is the root cause. Some people aren't open to discussion of root causes - it can be painful to do it. It can't be our fault in any way, in their opinion. Well that's all well and good, but one can provoke an attack by several mechanisms. One is to simply be visible. We are that. The other is to p!ss people off. We've done that. The other is to be complacent. We, unfortunately, have been that.
Does this mean that I am sympathetic to the attackers. Absolutely not. I'm an ex-Navy guy and I volunteered. I don't think I need to defend my patriotism for my dissent and rejection of jingoistic, simple-minded words. A lot of the people that have criticized the patriotism of others who ask these kinds of questions have no track record of service of their own, but I won't use ad hominem attack to discredit them. This should be a forum for ideas which stand or fall on their own merit, not the merit of the speaker.
We have to pretend that we are on the other side of the fence looking in at us. What would we see? If we can do that, then at least we can gain some insight into the minds of the attackers. We also need to protect ourselves. Security in the U.S. will increase. We are, sadly, no longer secure in our cocoon |
