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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: unclewest who wrote (15513)1/4/2002 9:29:48 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Uncle, a Kiwi was on the last plane and having some martial arts skills and not being shrinking violet would certainly have been rolling along with the others.

I could easily have been on that plane. I could easily have been working in those buildings. I don't need attacks in Helengrad [nee Wellington] or Auckland to make me understand the threats. Perhaps you think I'm sitting here dopey in a South Pacific idyll and don't know what's going on. The attacks are not just on Americans. People from all over the world are arbitrarily killed.

Historic threats include 20 megatons on the WTC. Millions of Soviet soldiers and tanks swarming over Europe. Millions of Japanese on the rampage over the Pacific. Insurrection has been on a grand scale. The WTC attacks were trivial in historical context though they were supremely effective [done with a few people with boxcutters and one way tickets rather than fleets of bombers over Dresden, Tokyo, London].

Osama in historic context is no threat. He and his gang can crash a few aircraft but that is getting more difficult. They can poison a few wells and mess with some bridges. They hit an amazing jackpot with their WTC attack. Thanks to modern structural engineering, loss of life was minimized.

I've lived a life of fear of nukes and attacks. I don't need <after your country is nuked...and it is getting close to you> shroud-waving to make me aware of threats.

But a bit of shroud-waving doesn't make me panic and sign a blank cheque and support press-ganging people into service. Osama and Omar are cruel jokes. But they are jokes. They have no political constituency outside manic medieval superstitious luddite Moslem extremists. Within Afghanistan they had some support because they are better than Dostum and even more primitive marauders. The answer is to sort out the UN and make Taleban-type 'civilisation' a thing of the past.

Mqurice
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