In addition, there are the endless attacks of terrorism all over the world
Of course there are. They have been going on for a long time, but of course a nation cannot be awakened to its horrors elsewhere, before an attack happens on its own soil.
Fred - I think it is extremely dangerous, not only for our principles but also for the eventual goal of safety and prosperity, to bulk together all terrorism anywhere on this planet. Some is carried out by religious fanatics, others by people fighting a mighty state with an army for their independence.
This is exactly the error that Putin is pushing the world to commit - right after the Moscow theater incident, Putin made a TV appearance and said they were now joining America in the war against terrorism. No mention, of course, of the fact that the Chechens have been fighting for their independence for a long time against the occupation of the Russian army.
Terrorism is a method, it is not an entity. Therefore it cannot be an enemy. The enemy are the groups who currently use terrorism to fight. Tomorrow they could use some other method to fight and the enemy would not change.
I know you realize that I am not making excuses for anything. This little disclaimer is for others...
What the west is fighting right now is religious fundamentalism of Islam. That religious fundamentalism is feeding on the general resentment towards America's policies in the Middle East, which is generally perceived as causing suffering for Palestinians, Iraqis, etc.
Defining the enemy, I feel, is extremely important.
However--IMO--having the inspectors in Iraq will prevent war and not provoke war.
I hope so. For now, it looks like Bush will have his war, regardless of the fact that inspectors found nothing so far.
I don't want to see a war in Iraq without clear and compelling reasons, and I agree with you that we haven't seen them ---yet. We will see if the inspectors neutralize Saddam in a peaceful manner.
I agree with you - I don't want to see war in Iraq without clear and compelling reasons, and that we have not seen them yet. However, you might be forgetting the small possibility that there is nothing there to be seen and nothing for the inspectors to "neutralize". What then?
What is puzzling to me is that if the US administration is so sure that Iraq has WMDs, if they really have proof, why don't they point the inspectors in the right direction so that they may be found?
The test had previously been interpreted to mean that I had exposure to the bug, but studies have shown that the scratch results are reversible with massive amounts of medication.
So you were infected but your body fought so well that you never got TB? Wow. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it must be Fred! <g>
Seriously, does it mean that you were infected but never got sick due to high natural defenses? Or what?
By the way, I looked around the net a bit and what I have read suggests that one will not neccessarily develop the disease as long as the immune system is in good shape. And that symptoms (coughing, nightly sweating and unprovoked weight loss) could appear years after the infection. So take good care of yourself! <smile>
By the way, I think staphylococcus aureus would serve better your argument than TB - it is present everywhere on our skin. But then again sometimes it causes very painful skin infections (I know from experience). Anyway, we come to your point below:
Therefore, the causality is not merely the presence of the pathogen, but the condition of the immune system.
Granted that the immune system is an important factor, even this statement is incomplete, I think. There are genetic and environmental factors that trigger or inhibit the onset of a disease.
since determining causality is difficult, intervention is frequently done without consideration of causality
I am not sure I agree with you there. If a guy comes in the emergency door of the hospital in the middle of a heart attack, of course, nobody seeks to find immediately the causes but intervene to alleviate the cardiac arrest at hand - symptomatically - dilute the blood with an aspirin or two, give the patient a tranquilizer, etc. However, right after the symptoms pass, the real cause is sought and found (ex: a clogged artery) and the treatment is done (ex: by-pass).
Symptomatic treatments are not favoured over the long term, as they do nothing to cure the problem. A friend of mine had a yeast infection after a long antibiotic treatment, which she thought she was alleviating with drugs that stopped the symptoms of pain/itching/etc. She collapsed one day and had to be urgently operated because the yeast had spread all over and she was apparently about to die.
In fact, until very recently--the molecular revolution-- there was no theory in pharmacology. Most drugs were discoved by serendipity.
Of course. And for how long there was no real treatment but people were being bled as a treatment to most diseases? And how many patients were lost through trial and error of trying various remedies?
Still going on the analogy of a disease with the current problem at hand, I dare say we have only one patient (the world) who is of utmost importance. We cannot depend on serendipity or trial & error. We have to look at the underlying dynamics of the disease, its causes, and fight them. |
