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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 10:20:56 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 23153

Kb: Thanks for sharing your views....I tend to agree that we MUST utilize some brutal tactics to work to eradicate global terrorism. The leaders of ALL the major terrorist cells around the world should carefully and systematically be targeted. Yet, we need to have the resolve to take out their teams AND those who support & sponsor them. I agree with Colin Powell when he said yesterday that we MUST 'get terrorism by its branch and by its root.' Lets hope our leaders and our people have the stomach to do what it takes. Best Regards, Scott

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 11:00:36 AM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23153

dont underestimate the hippy generation we fought tiny battles in a guerrilla war on college campuses during the riotous times of spring'70 I was part of it in Ohio if it had escalated, I EASILY could have taken shots at Ohio State Police we overturned and burned a bus filled with 30 stateys they all escaped, but we were capable of violence some of the wilder students wanted to kill some cops jump him from behind, treat him to a garretting we wanted revenge for students being shot I saw a kid with a blown off knee standing next to me it easily could have gotten ugly never underestimate the killer instincts of humans we are from the animal kingdom first we learned civilization practices later but we can unlearn them American elite Delta warrior soldiers have felt their hands have been tied for years we have kept to a "no assassination" policy since Allende in Chile they are eager to unleash the dogs of surgical warfare / JW

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 11:12:12 AM
From: hdrjr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

kb, If you have not had a chance to read this, its well worth the time. DOCUMENT: DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST THE AMERICANS OCCUPYING THE LAND OF THE TWO HOLY PLACES by the Mujahid Brother Sheikh Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin The Idler, v.III, n.165, 13 September 2001. the-idler.com hdr

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 11:30:06 AM
From: que seria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

KB: Saw same CBS piece, but there's a more troubling part. You cited: CBS had an incredible interview on TV last night with the mullahs in Pakistan. They were bragging about how easy it would be to bring America to its knees, how easy it would be to take over a jetliner and ram it into the White House; the interview was only a month or so old. . . . I don't know the game plan for beginning this war but those guys would be a likely starting point. Most ominous was a question or statement by one of the holy terrors that the US can't accept "100,000 dead, 200,000 injured." I took the implication to be that such is a viable option for the holy terrors, and will cause the US to back off from retaliation and perhaps even from the Middle East. Sadly, I fear that the long-reported disappearances and sales of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium from former Soviet stockpiles, coupled with Arab oil money and genocidal intent, means we could easily see a far more savage attack later. Maybe such an attack couldn't be stopped even if we'd not neutered much of our covert operations. However, we'd stand a much better chance of avoiding attacks now if the US senators and congressmen in power for the last 25 years had been realistic about our need to deal with our enemies before they deal with us. I fear that our nation now lacks the will to eradicate radical Islam worldwide if such terror escalates. If the terror does continue or escalate, I believe that will change as even the decadent embrace revenge. I believe we owe it to our children and grandchildren--not to speak of our forefathers' sacrifices for our freedom--to go to any length necessary to avenge our dead and eradicate the threat to our nation. I disagree with the otherwise insightful Charles Krauthammer that we should declare war. We can't declare war in any meaningful sense against individuals. We shouldn't declare war against nations because we need to offer no tipoff that we intend to destroy their military and their holy terror support infrastructure. We should have a policy of being silent but deadly in dealing with individuals, and giving after-the-fact explanations about whatever we had to do to nations that support them. International law cannot be applied to terrorist-supporting nations without tipping them off and vitiating the response. I am sure our intelligence agencies, curtailed as they have been, can sift through the usual suspects--Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, etc.--to determine where support has come from. I expect they already know. I think it is crucial to realize that the short-term cost, no matter how great, logically cannot be greater than the ongoing threat. A demand to forbear retaliation today is a demand to withdraw from the Middle East tomorrow, then a demand for money, then . . . You get the idea; it never ends with hostage situations, and now the stakes will be vastly greater. The president needs to be candid with the nation about any asserted and credible threats, although of course that won't happen yet. Let the people make informed decisions about their votes and their lives, and see what kind of nation we are. I haven't favored our ME policy for a long time but now I can't help but feel much more aligned with Israel and less sympathetic to the legitimate Palestinian grievances. It is either destroy our enemies or perpetually dance to their tune as we wonder where and when the next blow will come. We have to wonder anyway; we can at least have the solace that we are trying to eradicate them in the meantime.

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 12:14:08 PM
From: Ploni	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

"...we will have to get down and dirty with the terrorists and begin to assassinate them, one by one and two by two, and their financial backers. That's right, assassinate their financial backers, people who've never held a gun in their lives." Many residents of America (some of them citizens) have donated huge sums of money to Hizbulla, Hamas, and Bin Ladin. How will we deal with them? We have allowed websites to operate from the U.S. that seek to raise funds for these groups. How will we define a terrorist? Is Arafat a terrorist, a freedom fighter, or a politician? I know how I'd vote, but I'm not calling the shots. Saudi Arabians have provided millions or billions of petrodollars to terrorists, and Saudi Arabia hasn't provided much assistance to us. In one case, they executed alleged terrorists, without allowing the FBI to talk to them. Do we declare war on Saudi Arabia? If we have to attack Saudia Arabia and Egypt, how do we deal with the fact that they have U.S. fighter jets and AWACs? Pakistan has previously refused to help us. If we need to attack them, can we first destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons? How do we make high-profile buildings safer in the future? Can temperature-resistant ceramics be included in addition to the steel structure? The ceramic may not be able to bend or withstand hurricanes, but if ceramic structural members had been able to keep the upper floors of the WTC from collapsing, the melted steel beams could have been replaced and the buildings restored. There are many questions that must be answered on many levels of our country.

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 2:14:59 PM
From: CpsOmis	Respond to of 23153

KB, you said: >>>I see people with candlelight vigils, singing "Lean on Me," and it strikes me it's very much like an anti-execution watch outside a prison. How soft we've become while the world grew up hard and nasty around us. Again, you prompt me to look outwardly in at our culture and its relationship with the rest of the world. Your image here reminds me of the novel "Time Machine" by H.G. Wells (an avid anti-capitalist pro-socialist of his day) In his novel, thousands of years in the future, mankind had evolved into two races. The "Eloi" were descendants of the capitalist elite, a gentle, wispy "beautiful people" who were totally cared for by the "Morlocks", the descendants of the workers of the world, a tough, crude people who kept the world technically working. The "Morlocks" gave the "Eloi" every thing they wanted. And then they ate them. They were like cattle to the Morlocks. A lesson to ponder, as we sing "Lean on Me", and "Amazing Grace"... Cosmo

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 3:38:38 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 23153

Hi KB, Thanks for that most impressive musing. If there were a point of difference in our world views, I believe, it would be that you are a partisan and an advocate, and a very good one, and I'm a mere observer, and I try very hard to see the issues from every point of view, remaining largely ambivalent until a clear choice can be made. Sadly, in the discussion of the events of Tuesday and the history leading up to it, all I see are shades of gray, excepting of course the horror of the loss of life which clearly is to be deplored. You commented: . We didn't start this thing, and it remains to be seen whether we will have the will to finish it. I suppose if by "we", you mean the U.S., then technically you are correct. But looked at in longer term, the disputes between the pragmatic West and the mystical East have been on-going for a couple of millenium. We are merely the latest iteration of a long sequence not necessarily starting with, but including the depradations of Alexander the Great, the Roman occupation, the Crusades, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and on and on. The West has always loved to meddle in the affairs of the Arab world, and they in kind were happy for their part to conquer part of the Iberian peninsula and a fragment of the Balkans, creating another present mess in the geopolitics of that region. To suggest that the U.S. didn't start the fight is to miss the point, I'm afraid. The resentments of East v. West are an entrenched heritage that our generation will not solve. The best we can hope for is to live in relative peace, and do whatever we can to reduce the fertility rate among those Arab states that simply don't have the means to sustain their populations, and thus export a hateful youth to poison the rest of the world. I'm being only half facetious when I say that the solution is saltpeter in the water. -Ray

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (7806)	9/13/2001 3:47:07 PM
From: el_gaviero	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

Kodiak Bull, You are right, we have to fight, but before we start, we better spend time figuring out who the enemy is. Threats, pronouncements such as “these aren’t Marquis of Queensbury rules anymore” sound to me like bluster, silliness, a substitute for determination. If those who attacked us are small and isolated, the last thing we want is a messy show of force that causes flames to spread. What we do -- how we respond -- depends upon our enemies and their circumstance. My fear is that our enemies will become a Rorschach ink blot, with our ideas about them reflecting little except our own interests, stresses, institutional and political requirements. The disease of Viet Nam, IMHO, was that no one with any altitude in our government was able to SEE the opposition. I hope we don’t make that mistake again. Fact is, I suspect that Bin Laden’s organization is small, but far from isolated. Among the hijackers were Egyptian nationals, Saudi nationals, people of rank (an airline pilot, for example). This does not bode well. Indicates that much tender exists in the Arab world, not only among the lower orders but higher up. It would be best if this tender not catch on fire. I don’t think most Americans have even the slightest hint concerning how the people who attacked us see themselves. Let me quote something I came across yesterday out of the vastness of the internet -- a sympathetic view of the terrorists. Don’t jump out of your chair -- I don’t quote this because I think terrorists should be tolerated. I don’t. But I do think they have to be understood, in order to understand the challenge ahead. Here is the quote: “I am sorry for the victims of this violence, but this morning I awoke feeling some admiration for the perpetrators. These acts seem to me to be the true finale to the 20th century. The morale of modernism seems to be unfettered pursuit of knowledge, materialism, rational self-interest. Yesterday's deed showed that passion and sacrifice have reasserted themselves, in contrast to "rational" and self-interested values. Such may even be a sign for the re-spiritualization of history -- though I suppose one could get carried away. Everything comes at a cost. Re-spiritualization, passion, metaphysics, culture. Is it destiny for these things to be born into the world anew out of Fanaticism? The West has retired into citadels of comfort, and the "feminization of society”. (And I do not mean that this happened consciously or on purpose. It seems to be the destiny of successful societies to become soft. It is human nature.) Yesterday's deed was a Memento Mori for the West concerning this softness, as well as a rebuke to Western materialism. The reason I quote this is because I suspect that it puts into language accessible to us some hint of how the people who attacked us view themselves. They would of course use a vastly different, harsher, Islam inspired vocabulary but I suspect they see themselves in a way that this little quote manages to capture -- purity of heart, unsullied will versus softness, corruption, confusion, a cowardice that only fights from 15,000 feet.. It might be useful to keep all this in the back of our minds. Fighting will be necessary, but somehow I suspect that Islamic fundamentalism, with it's sacrificial impulses, its continual renewal in the cauldron of Palestine, its proximity to oil, is going to require something that in the end has nothing to do with it and everything to do with us.