On 8 Nov 2001 18:43:33 -0800, polstuf...@yahoo.com (Francisco Mendoza)
wrote:

I could say the same thing. I was a USAF brat all my childhood.
Un-thinking  pro-America was instilled in me. The US never did
anything wrong in the world etc... I've lived a lot of my adult life
overseas. That has taught me that some non-American views have merit -
even some which are seen as anti-American by people in the same state
of ignorance I was kept in before. If you've "been where I once was"
and moved further on then you have my respect because at least it
shows that you're opinions aren't just determined by upbringing. Too
many people in this group sharing your view are just borderline
fascists who've never been open to argument  and probably never will.

Sorry you think I lowered the tone of the argument. Maybe I got my cue
from your equally sweeping dissmissive comment that the conservative
Financial Times's respect for Chomsky was "scary for Britain". You're
quite the bobber and weaver. You start off trivializing Chomsky, I
respond with an indication of the respect in which he's held by
others. You then trivialize that implying that praise for Chomsky
falls into the same realm as praise for Stalin and the like (and you
*were*- despite your softer follow-up), and accuse me of using weak
tactics when I satirize *your* tone. You setup the straw man, not me.

Well I saw one your posts too, where you try to compare this current
situation with the threat of Hitler. Don't agree at all. Sept 11th was
a *terrorist* act. Not an act of war by Afghanistan. Yet we fall into
the trap of behaving as though our argument is with a government -
because we don't know how to respond any differently.

 We've gone to war with people who won't turn over a criminal suspect
- not thwarting power mad dictators bent on world domination. We
tacitly regard 5000 lives in New York as more important than the
sovereignty of a nation, and the potential deaths there of 10 times
that figure. That's shows a national arrogance of almost unbelievable
scope, and only helps to confirm to Arabs that their suspicion of
America is well founded.

Now the transmogrification is complete, with Tony Blair's unilateral
statement that we should regard bin Laden and the Taliban as the same
thing. Very convenient, because it legitmises the traditional methods.
Any blow against Afghanistan is now a blow against bin Laden, and is
therefore legitimate, no matter how many die.

Drawing specious analogies of the current situation with appeasement
of Hitler doesn't convince me that your view of the complexities of
the world is better than mine. Hitler was the leader of a nation, with
an army, navy, and airforce behind him. He invaded other countries and
conquered them. Your depiction of the British "appeasers" still
defending Hitler's actions even as his bombs rained down on London
defies reality. Chamberlain was the archetypal "appeaser", yet it was
he who declared war on Germany - before any bombs dropped on London,
or military action of any kind was taken against Britain.

It is a fact of the time, by the way, that Hitler initially saw
Britain as a partner in the great Aryan new order. He never wanted to
go to war with Britain, who he viewed as a natural ally (for racial
reasons). Those who wanted to appease Hitler's actions in Eastern
Europe weren't totally head-in-the-sand ostriches who couldn't see the
bad news coming, as much as people who thought they were safe in the
knowledge they were under no direct threat from him. Britain declared
war on Germany, not the other way around, because Hitler invaded
Poland, which meant war due to the Locarno(?) treaty, not because of
direct threats by Germany. So do I think WW2 should have been avoided
at all costs, just like the appeasers you satirize? No of course not.
Just pointing another example of how the world (and even well known
history) is not as simple as commonly believed.

A group of people commandeering civilian aircraft and flying them into
buildings is not the same thing as invading Czechoslovakia or Poland.
It's not even a microcosm of it.

Whether 80-90% of Americans either ignore or just don't know that this
whole thing has a real cause, is neither here nor there. The very idea
of it is never mentioned in the mainstream US media, so it comes as no
surprise. It's accepted outside of the US, even by right wingers. In
fact, just last night Peter Hitchens (Christopher's loony right-wing
anti-brother) declared his complete astonishment at the conduct of the
war with Afghanistan on the BBC's Question Time program. He's as
pro-American as you'll get anywhere outside the US and even he has
doubts about this.

I'm precisely making the point that nothing is cut and dried. It's the
simplistic "they started it. let's finish it - all other
considerations recinded" theme where everything *is* cut and dried.

You think that it's just down to a new virulant brand of Islam that's
taken root, and must be stamped out. I'd say *that's* the naive view.

It was an honestly taken inference that you were taking the (commonly
expressed) line advocating we just wade in and lay waste to the
region.  If it's not what you really implied then sorry. Regardless,
it isn't *me* who trivializes genocide.

You imply this new Islam has designs of worldwide aggression. I say
Arabs are reacting to *our* foreign policy aggression, and religious
fundamentalists are carrying the torch and rallying support for
themselves because they openly stand against it. If I'm right then
stopping the aggression *is* a sensible way forward and not naive
appeasement of a threat to us (that wouldn't exist were it not for our
policies).

Sept 11th was an act of hatred against the US committed by a group of
fanatics, not an act of war worthy of responding with a "real" war
against another country. Damn right we should be asking ourselves why
anyone would hate us enough to do that. And we shouldn't avoid honest
answers. Dismissing it on rabid forms of Islam, who hate freedom and
the advancement of women in Western society is very convenient to
those wishing to feel 100% righteously indignant, but it ignores the
real causes totally.

Perhaps actions such as backing the mujahadeen against Russia
(creating the roots of the Taliban government and teaching bin Laden
everything he knows along the way) then abandoning them as soon as the
war was over and we'd finished putting one over on the Russians...
Backing Saddam Hussein in a horribly costly war against Iran (because
Iran dared to overthrow the US backed Shah - and again, resulting in
making Saddam who he is today)... Then attacking Iraq for 10 years
because they dared to invade Kuwait (to which they have always laid
claim), imposing sanctions on them leading (however indirectly) to the
deaths of 500,000 children - even repeatedly bombing waste treatment
plants in an apparently deliberate effort to spread disease  (source
unicef).... Constant, total, non-wavering, automated support for
Israel, and equally constant disregard for the Palestinians....

Perhaps the sum of those things (and others) is a better explanation
for the "Islamic" hatred behind Sept 11th, than those ridiculous and
self-serving "they hate freedom and democracy" reasons peddled out by
the government, and which you appear to agree with. After all, the
terrorists attacked the heart of American *power* - economic power
(WTC) and miltiary power (the Pentagon). They didn't attack the Statue
of Liberty, or any other symbol of democracy. They didn't attack
Christian symbols either.

It's easy for you to caricature British appeasers to Hitler discussing
unfair reparations, the Sudetenland, and the Danzig corridor as things
we can "blame" ourselves for --  if we're stupid, that is. But the
foreign policy of the US in the Middle-East has been far more
intrusive, active, and directly destructive than our indirect "blame"
for setting up the conditions for the Third Reich to flourish ever
were. No-one in the 20s and 30s started or inflamed multiple proxy
wars in Europe leading to millions of deaths for ever changing
domestically inspired reasons. And if they did, don't you think they
would be hated by the Europeans affected by it?

Hmm, a loaded question if ever there was one. "Appeasing" "them". Who
exactly?. I'm saying that America's foreign policy has negatively
impacted on literally millions of families in the Middle-East. I don't
consider myself as appeasing them. Out of those millions of people,
perhaps a few thousand at most are terrorists the US should be worried
about.  Bombing the shit out of Afghanistan (and Iraq for that
matter), will only add to that figure. And since you don't agree with
genocidally elliminating all possible threats (as mentioned above),
then this should concern you.