Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Malcolm Winfield who wrote (8763)	9/27/2001 1:52:44 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

I wasn't going to respond to his post due to the fact that he, and others, really wouldn't like my answer. The bottom line is this: You have to communicate to your opponent using their "language", NOT YOURS! Russia realizes this and does it effectively, perhaps too effectively. Most americans do not understand this. Hopefully our leaders do. It appears the Bush administration understands how to communicate with our opponents AND our friends, and the moronic media. Has anyone listened to the incredibly stupid questions reporters have been asking at the live press conferences? I'm glad to see Pentagon workers aren't leaking what we are doing to the press. Now ask yourself, JUST WHAT IS IT THAT TERRORISTS UNDERSTAND? It certainly isn't law, order, or justice, or morality. It's death, destruction, terror, and fear, especially fear. FWIW I am all for filling the terrorist caves with gasses that cause horrible pain and disfigurement for anyone inside.

To: Malcolm Winfield who wrote (8763)	9/27/2001 2:16:45 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Malcolm, we don't disagree on the problem or the danger, only the solution. Forgetting about ethics and international law entirely, then depending on the time frame you are looking at, different measure make sense. We could destroy the infrastructure in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and others. We have that capacity and if we did that and imposed restrictions on travel, we would probably be much safer than we are now over the short run. I think we don't want to go where that would lead us over the longer run. In the long run it is only with the help and cooperation of the people and governments where these radicals are spawned that we can hope to control terrorism and avoid the catastrophic acts of terror which can occur in today's high tech world. We will get that cooperation when we have created a world and Middle Eastern view that the bad guys are the terrorists, not us, and that their acts do not benefit the countries or religion that they purport to champion. That's the reason that moral relativism, as you put it, is an important ingredient of any long term fix, along with selected strikes at non-innocent targets and effective economic and political measures. Ed

To: Malcolm Winfield who wrote (8763)	9/27/2001 2:38:54 PM
From: que seria	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

OT Malcolm: Wanting to try less polarizing and counter- productive (even if no less lethal) means of waging war than neutron bombs is not moral relativism. Ed simply presents what ought to be an unremarkable plan: For sure we don't sacrifice such important ideals until we have tried everything else. As you say: we can be like them. We just haven't lost enough life yet to prove it, but in time, with our existing policies, lives will be lost. For sure it is who you kill, more than how, that presents the moral issue. But yes, we should use conventional forces, even full-scale invasions, before resorting to WMD, simply due to the huge difference it will predictably make to Muslims not yet committed to careers as martyrs in a fight against the US. In planning for as much peaceful co-existence as possible with the huge majority of Muslims who would never murder our innocents, I think it helps to think of the significance they would attach to the types of weapons used, deaths being equal. It is not a foregone conclusion that WMD will be used against the US. Although I see a good chance of it, I think we should hold off on first use of our own nukes. If terrorists detonate a nuke against the US, or use other WMD, then we should systematically wipe out all military capacity of all terrorist-supporting regimes, using our nuclear weapons. I would also be identifying the locations where Muslim clergy encourage terrorism, and destroy them if this continues. I would liberally define the guilty, but not to include masses of civilians (not to imply you would). Using even small WMD in such retaliation would likely cause huge civilian loss, which is why Bush should be (and I hope, is) warning Muslim gov'ts what will happen if WMD are used against us by groups they harbor or support. We need to tell Muslim leaders who don't support the terrorists of the reality that they and their civilization will be caught in the crossfire of nuclear weapons if that is where the terrorists are going. At some point it could indeed become our innocents against theirs, and as a matter of national survival we could have to target the innocent. But it should be a very last resort, and we should preserve the odds against it, not worsen them.