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War In Afghanistan -47 Questions and Answers

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Oct 17, 2001, 4:05:00 PM10/17/01

http://www.zmag.org/55qaframe.htm

The War In Afghanistan
47 Questions and Answers
and additional links for further Information

By Michael Albert
and Stephen R. Shalom
Oct 14, 2001

In the course of our discussions since the bombing of Afghanistan
began, we have encountered certain questions over and over. Here we
assemble those questions and provide short answers to each. In some
cases we also provide a link or two for additional immediately
relevant information or commentary. Much more information can be found
via: ZNet's Complete Terrorism & War Coverage.

Also, we have ourselves previously offered September 11 Q/A Talking
Points and Five Arguments Against War which provide backdrop for this
essay.

1. What is Islamic fundamentalism?

The term "fundamentalist" is used in a number of different ways. One
definition is someone who interprets the texts of his or her religion
in a literal way or who adheres to the original, traditional practices
and beliefs of the religion. Another definition is someone who is
intolerant of the views of other religions or sects. These two
definitions often overlap -- traditional religions tend to be
authoritarian and misogynist, which lend themselves to intolerance --
but they are not the same. (For example, some pacifist religious sects
might be fundamentalist in the first sense, but not the second. )
Every religion has its fundamentalists -- Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Hindus, and so on -- and some of these engage in terrorism.

Fundamentalists in the second sense have been on the rise worldwide.
One reason has been the absence in so much of the Third World of a
meaningful Left. Without a left alternative to the oppression and
alienation of modern capitalism, many have sought solace in the easy
explanations and promises of intolerant religion. Left organizations
in many Arab and Muslim nations have either been smashed by right-wing
forces (often backed by the major Western states) or discredited by
ruthless dictatorships (as in Iraq) or Soviet-style parties. In this
void, fundamentalism flourished. Fundamentalism was also supported by
the opportunism of various states (for example, the United States
backed reactionary fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden, against
the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and aided mullahs against the left in
Iran; Israel gave early backing to Hamas in an effort to provide a
counter-weight to the secular PLO).

The Taliban, the rulers of most of Afghanistan, adhere to a
particularly extreme and intolerant variant of fundamentalist Islam.
They came to power out of the in-fighting among the various Mujahedeen
(religious warriors) groups following the Soviet withdrawal. Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia were the principal international backers of the
Taliban

Pakistani intelligence maintained extremely close ties to the Taliban
and Pakistani troops assisted their rise to power. Most Taliban
leaders and many of its foot-soldiers were trained in the madrassas --
religious schools -- in Pakistan set up with funding from wealthy
Pakistanis, Saudis, and others in the Gulf, which taught a version of
the fundamentalist Wahhabism that is the state religion of Saudi
Arabia. Despite the anti-American and generally reactionary teachings
of these madrassas, Pakistan has been a U.S. ally and Saudi Arabia has
been one of Washington's closest allies

See also:

Ali: Q/A About Taliban and Islam...

Said: Clash of Ignorance

2. What is the attitude in the Arab and Islamic worlds to (a) the
Sept. 11 attacks, and (b) the current US war in Afghanistan?

Every government in the region other than Iraq condemned the September
11 attacks, and even Iraq sent its condolences to the victims. The
enormity of the slaughter horrified many people in the region, and
there were many deeply felt expressions of sympathy for those who lost
their lives. But a large reservoir of anti-Americanism led many people
to feel that the United States was finally getting back some of what
it deserved, or to believe one of the idiotic conspiracy theories so
common in the Middle East (the Israeli Mossad did it, the CIA did it).
Among Palestinians, a poll in early October found that two-thirds
considered the attacks to violate Islamic law, while a quarter thought
them consistent with it. The poll showed Palestinians angry about U.S.
foreign policy, but not at Americans.

But even among those who were horrified by the September 11 attacks,
most people in the region seem to oppose the war on Afghanistan. (The
same Palestinian poll found 89 percent criticizing a U.S. attack on
Afghanistan, with 92 percent believing that it would lead to more
attacks on the United States.) Many pro-U.S. governments were
tactfully silent when the air strikes began, sensing the popular
opposition. The unilateralism of the U.S. response was especially
criticized; Iran -- which had indicated its willingness to support a
UN action -- sharply condemned the U.S. attacks

See also:

Fisk: Awesome Cruelty

Roy: Algebra of Infinite Justice

3. What grievances fuel hatred for the U.S. in the Middle East?

Anti-American sentiment is widespread in the Middle East, not just
among Islamic fundamentalists. This anti-Americanism has a variety of
sources. Some comes from specific U.S. policies in the region --
backing Israeli oppression of Palestinians, enforcing devastating
sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq, supporting authoritarian
governments, often by deploying U.S. troops on land considered holy by
Muslims. Some comes from resentment of Washington's economic and
political arrogance more generally. And some comes from religious
opposition to the secular world, of which the United States is the
leading power, an intolerance fed by sexism, anti-Semitism, and other
reactionary doctrines. One indication of the weight of all these
factors is provided by the videotape Osama bin Laden released on
October 7 -- not because it tells us anything about the motives of bin
Laden (who is probably totally unconcerned with oppressed or suffering
people, hoping only to precipitate a holy war engulfing the entire
region) -- but because bin Laden is an astute judge of what issues
inflame people. In that video, bin Laden referred to 80 years of
Muslim humiliation, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Iraqi
starvation, and the atom bombs dropped on Japan. America, he warned,
"will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before
all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad...." He felt
these were the issues that people hearing him would be moved by, not
an attack on Hollywood, much less democracy.

See also:

Chomsky, Albert, et. al. Reply to Hitchens

5. What is Terrorism?

Dictionary definitions indicate it is creating terror, employing fear
for political purposes. More aptly, terrorism is attacking and
terrifying civilian populations in order to force the civilians'
governments to comply with demands. So Hitler's bombing of London was
terror bombing, unlike his attacks on British military bases. The
issue isn't what weapon is used, but who is the target and what is the
motive. For terrorism the target is innocent civilians. The motive is
political, impacting their government's behavior. Attacks on the
public for private gain are not terrorism, but crime. Attacks on a
military for political purposes are not terrorism, but acts of war.

See also:

Herman: Anti-Terrorist Terrorism

Shiva: Against Terrorism

6. Are Bin Laden and his network terrorists?

Bin Laden has issued public statements calling for the killing of U.
S. civilians, among others. Evidence presented at trials compellingly
ties the bin Laden network to terrorist attacks (the World Trade
Center bombing in 1993 and the U. S. embassies in Africa in 1998). So
even apart from Sept. 11, there is no doubt that bin Laden and Al
Qaeda are terrorists.

See also:

Fisk: bin Laden...

7. Is the Taliban terrorist?

In its treatment of the Afghan people -- especially women and
religious minorities -- the Taliban has behaved in a terrorist manner.
It has allowed bin Laden to establish training camps on its territory
and prior to September 11, 2001, rejected UN demands that it turn bin
Laden over to the United States. There have been no specific charges
by the United States regarding any direct Afghan support for
international terrorism. Prior to Sept. 11, Afghanistan was not on the
U. S. State Department's (rather selective) list of nation's engaging
in state terrorism.

See also:

Richter: Z Article Nov 2000

8. Is Hamas a terrorist group?

Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine engage in bombings of Israeli
civilians. Despite the fact that Palestinians are oppressed, these
attacks constitute terrorism. There can be no justification for
blowing up civilians in a Sbarro's pizzeria or a Tel Aviv nightclub.
These organizations are not the only terrorists, however. The Israeli
government has killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians. These
acts too are terrorism. One terrorism does not justify or excuse the
other. The United States has been backing -- with military, economic,
and diplomatic support -- Israeli terrorism.

9. Is the U.S. government terrorist?

When the U.S. government targets civilians with the intention of
pressuring their governments, yes, it is engaging in terrorism.
Regrettably, this is not uncommon in our history. Most recently,
imposing a food and drug embargo on a country - Iraq - with the
intention of making conditions so difficult for the population that
they will rebel against their government, is terrorism (with food and
medicine as the weapons, not bombs). Bombing civilian centers and the
society's public infrastructure in Kosovo and Serbia, again with the
intent of coercing political outcomes, was terrorism. And now,
attacking Afghanistan (one of the world's poorest countries) and
hugely aggravating starvation dangers for its population with the
possible loss of tens of thousands, or more lives, is terrorism. We
are attacking civilians with the aim of attaining political goals
unrelated to them - in this case hounding bin Laden and toppling the
Taliban.

10. Why did the World Trade Center terrorists do it?

We can't know, of course, but we can surmise. The September 11 attack
was a grotesquely provocative act against a super power. No doubt many
of those involved felt great anger and desperation due to U.S.
policies in the region. But these attacks didn't alleviate such
problems. The U.S. response is predictably violent and as any anyone
would anticipate, reactionary forces have benefited in the U.S. and
around the world.

But perhaps provoking the United States was precisely the intent. By
provoking a massive military assault on one or more Islamic nations,
the perpetrators may have sought to set off a cycle of terror and
counter-terror, precipitating a holy war between the Islamic world and
the West, leading, in their hopes, to the overthrow of all
insufficiently Islamic regimes and the unraveling of the United
States, just as the Afghan war contributed to the demise of the Soviet
Union.

But if provocation rather than grievances motivated the planners of
the terror strikes against the U.S., this wouldn't make grievances
irrelevant. Whatever the planners' motives, they still needed to
attract capable, organized, and skilled people, not only to
participate, but even to give their lives to the planner's suicidal
agenda. Deeply-felt grievances provide a social environment from which
fanatics recruit and garner support.

11. What is the legal way of dealing with terrorism?

In our world, the only alternative to vigilantism is that guilt should
be determined by amassing of evidence that is then assessed in
accordance with international law by the United Nations Security
Council or other appropriate international agencies.

Punishment should be determined by the UN as well, and likewise the
means of implementation. The UN may arrive at determinations that one
or another party likes or not, as with any court, and may also be
subject to political pressures that call into question its results or
not, as with any court. But that the UN is the place for
determinations about international conflict is obvious, at least
according to solemn treaties signed by the nations of the world.

Thus, to pursue a legal approach means assembling evidence of
culpability and presenting it to the UN or the World Court. It means
those agencies undertaking to apprehend and prosecute culprits. It
does not involve victims overseeing retaliation without even
demonstrating guilt, much less having legal sanction, much less in a
manner that increases the sum total of terrorism people are suffering
and the conditions that breed potential future terrorism

See also:

Ratner: A Legal Alternative

12. If all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would
the international response have been to the September 11 attacks?

Presumably, if provided proof of culpability, UN agencies would seek
to arrest guilty parties. They would first seek to negotiate
extradition. If a host government failed to comply, as a last resort
they could presumably send in a force to extract guilty parties. But
these actions would be taken in accord with international law, by
forces led by international agencies and courts, in a manner
respecting civilian safety, and consistent with further legitimating
rather than bypassing respect for law and justice.

13. If all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would
the international response have been to the embargo of Iraq, the
bombing of Kosovo and Serbia, and the bombing of Afghanistan?

These acts, among many others, violate international law in many
respects, not least because they harm civilians. Presumably, then,
were international legal channels strengthened and respected,
aggrieved parties could bring these and other cases to legal
attention, leading to diverse prosecutions, many of which would be
aimed at officials from the U.S.

14. Is what the U. S. is doing consistent with a legal approach?

To not present evidence, to decide guilt rather than respect
institutions of international law, to prosecute not only presumed
culprits but a whole population suffering terror and perhaps
starvation--of course, international law has been violated. Worse, the
mechanism for attaining illegal vigilante prosecution has been a
policy which knowingly and predictably will kill many, perhaps even
huge numbers of innocent civilians. We take access to food away from
millions and then give food back to tens of thousands while bombing
the society into panic and dissolution.

Why?

The answer is not to reduce the prospects of terror attacks. The U.S.
government and all mainstream media warn their likelihood will
increase, both out of short term desire to retaliate, and, over the
longer haul, due to producing new reservoirs of hate and resentment.
The answer is not to get justice. Vigilantism is not justice but the
opposite, undermining international norms of law. The answer is not to
reduce actual terror endured by innocent people. Our actions are
themselves hurting civilians, perhaps in tremendous numbers.

All rhetoric aside, the answer is that the U.S. wishes to send a
message and to establish a process. The message, as usual, is don't
mess with us. We have no compunction about wreaking havoc on the weak
and desperate. The process, also not particularly original since
Ronald Regan and George Bush senior had similar aspirations, is to
legitimate a "war on terrorism" as a lynchpin rationale for both
domestic and international policy-making.

This "war on terrorism" is meant to serve like the Cold War did. We
fight it with few if any military losses. We use it to induce fear in
our own population and via that fear to justify all kinds of elite
policies from reducing civil liberties, to enlarging the profit
margins of military industrial firms, to legitimating all manner of
international polices aimed at enhancing U.S. power and profit,
whether in the Mideast or elsewhere.

For more on U.S. Motives, see also:

Mandel: Illegal War

Albert: What's Going On

Chomsky Answers Albert

15. Which nations have been supporting the US war in Afghanistan and
why?

The press refers to the "U.S.-led" war on Afghanistan, but in fact,
except for the first day when some British Tomahawk missiles were
fired, only U.S. military forces have so far been engaged in combat.
Various nations -- in Europe, Canada, and so on -- have offered troops
if the U.S. so requests. So far there has been no U.S. request,
presumably because Washington wants to maintain total control of the
operation.

No Arab nation has offered troops or even allowed its territory to be
(openly) used for offensive military operations. While many regimes do
not support the Taliban, they fear public reaction if they should
participate in an attack on a Muslim country. Pakistan is providing
bases that may in the future be used for helicopter raids. This was a
reluctant response to U.S. cancellation of its debt, lifting of
sanctions (for its nuclear weapons program), and an apparent U.S.
guarantee that it would have a say in the future government of
Afghanistan. Uzbekistan, which at first offered bases only for
humanitarian operations, seems to have agreed to let the U.S. use the
bases as it wishes, in return for a U.S. security guarantee.

Various other nations -- such as Russia and China -- have offered
support, though non-military, to the United States, hoping thereby to
have U.S. support as they battle their own domestic secessionist
movements which they accuse of terrorism (in Chechnya and China's
western Muslim Xinjiang province).

16. What has been the role of the UN in the current war in
Afghanistan?

The Security Council passed two strong resolutions following September
11, but neither one authorized the use of military force, and
especially not unilateral military force. The New York Times reported
(7 Oct. 2001): "A sign of Washington's insistence that its hands not
be tied was its rejection of United Nations Secretary General Kofi
Annan's entreaties that any American military action be subject to
Security Council approval, administration officials said." Still less
has the United States been willing to have the United Nations have
control over the response to terrorism, including over any military
operations.

17. What are the reasons to oppose U.S. bombing of Afghanistan?

Guilt hasn't yet been proven.

Bombing violates International Law.

Bombing will be unlikely to eliminate those responsible for the
September 11 attacks.

Huge numbers of innocent people will die.

Bombing will reduce the security of U.S. citizens.

For in-depth discussion of the 5 points, please see also:

Albert/Shalom 5 Arguments Against War

18. But isn't it obvious bin Laden did it?

There are many reasons to suspect bin Laden's responsibility for
September 11 and his recent video gloating does not lessen these
suspicions. But although Secretary of State Colin Powell initially
promised that evidence of responsibility would be presented, the Bush
administration "decided it was not necessary to make public its
evidence against Mr. bin Laden" (NYT, 7 Oct. 2001). The British
government did prepare a document, "Responsibility for the Terrorist
Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001,"
(http://www.pm.gov.uk) which summarized real evidence regarding Osama
bin Laden's involvement in earlier terrorist acts and noted the
similarity of the Sept. 11 acts to the earlier acts (no warning given,
intent to kill maximum number of people -- true of many terrorist
acts), but provided very little information specifically regarding the
events of September 11. The two crucial claims are contained in these
statements, presented with no supporting evidence at all:

Since 11 September we have learned that one of Bin Laden's closest and
most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of
the attacks.

There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of
Bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release.

Our guess, having no access to intelligence sources, is that bin Laden
does indeed bear responsibility for the horrible deeds of September
11. But wars should not be started on the basis of our, or anybody
else's, guess. Certainly public opinion in the Arab and Islamic world
is going to want more convincing evidence. "A decent respect to the
opinions of mankind," said the Declaration of Independence, required a
public statement of the causes which impelled the American colonists
to a war of independence. Likewise, a decent respect for the opinion
of the international community would require that before any action
evidence of responsibility be presented. Washington might be satisfied
with the evidence, but many others may not be.

We know of historical cases where U. S. officials have falsified
evidence. (For example, in 1981 Washington issued a White Paper
claiming to prove "Communist Interference in El Salvador"; Raymond
Bonner promptly showed this to be "a textbook case of distortion,
embellishments, and exaggeration.") But the issue goes beyond any
deliberate manipulation of evidence. It's simply a basic principle of
justice that people should not be judges in their own case. We know of
other cases where U. S. officials were quick to act on totally
inadequate evidence (as when they bombed a pharmaceutical plant in
Sudan, alleging its involvement in producing chemical weapons, a claim
that dissolved when subjected to examination).

19. Is it possible that there is decisive evidence, but that its
disclosure would compromise important intelligence gathering
capabilities?

Certainly it would be reasonable for a government to refuse to reveal
intelligence sources which could help prevent future terrorist plots.
No one is asking for names of informants and so on, but conceivably
some evidence might point clearly to a specific informant. Consider,
however, the following:

the U. S. was able to present evidence in court regarding the 1998
attacks on the U. S. embassies in Africa;

even if evidence could not be made fully public, could it not be
shared with the Security Council for their assessment? Sharing the
evidence with Britain and the rest of NATO is better than nothing, but
not the same as sharing it with the body having legal authority for
international peace and security;

some evidence (its nature and extent unknown) was apparently shared
with Pakistan -- before its intelligence chief was sacked for being
too sympathetic to the Taliban.

If there is evidence suitable for Pakistan, it's hard to see why that
couldn't be made public. Washington, however, does not want to
establish the precedent that it has an obligation to present evidence.

20. But didn't Afghanistan reject out-of-hand US demand to turn over
bin Laden?

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan stated on October 5, "We are
prepared to try him if America provides solid evidence of Osama bin
Laden's involvement in the attacks on New York and Washington." Asked
if bin Laden could be tried in another country, the ambassador said,
"We are willing to talk about that, but ... we must be given the
evidence" (Toronto Star, 6 Oct. 2001, p. A4). One report (AP, 7 Oct.
2001) quoted the ambassador as saying that legal proceedings could
begin even before the United States offered any evidence: "Under
Islamic law, we can put him on trial according to allegations raised
against him and then the evidence would be provided to the court."
Washington responded that its demands were non-negotiable and
initiated its bombardment of Afghanistan. Was the Taliban offer
serious? Could it have been the basis for further concessions? Who
knows? Washington never pursued it. But do we really want a world
where countries unilaterally issue ultimatums and then unilaterall y
decide whether the terms of the ultimatum have been met, cut off
further negotiations, and open fire?

We might note that some other countries have refused to extradite
accused terrorists, even when substantial evidence is presented. For
example, Haiti has convicted Emmanuel Constant in absentia for being
one of the leaders of paramilitary forces that killed thousands of
civilians during the junta years in the early 1990s (with no small
measure of U.S. complicity). Washington has refused to turn him over.

21. But can you negotiate with terrorists?

For the most part, you can't, but that is irrelevant to the issues at
hand. You can't negotiate with serial killers, either, or with people
who go berserk and shoot up their workmates in a post office. We don't
deduce from the intransigence of perpetrators that the victims or the
victims families should therefore become vigilantes and seek to arrest
the culprits. We don't deduce that they should form lynch mobs,
seeking the culprits dead or alive. And most important, we don't
deduce that they should go after the families of the culprits, or
their neighbors families, of the restaurant where they had breakfast.

That one can't sensibly negotiate with bin Laden and Al Qaeda - which
may or may not be true - would only tell us that one shouldn't
negotiate with them, not that we shouldn't pursue sensible channels of
legal redress and prosecution, not that we should become vigilantes,
not that we should adopt a lynch mob mentality, and that we should
even go beyond that to attacking innocent bystanders in huge numbers,
starving and otherwise terrorizing them.

22. But doesn't the U.S. have the right of self-defense?

If under attack, any country has the right to repel the attack,
according to international law. But the right of self-defense is not
unlimited. The standard precedent is the Caroline case, which held
that action in self-defense should be confined to cases in which the
"necessity of that self-defense is instant, overwhelming, and leaving
no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." Thus, self
defense would permit the United States to shoot down attacking enemy
planes, but not to wage a war half way around the globe a month after
a terrorist attack, a war that U.S. officials say might go on for
years. Instead, this is the sort of situation that should be turned
over to the United Nations for action.

But let's suppose someone doesn't like the above formulation. What
norm would we want instead? If a country's civilian population is
attacked, then that country has the right to determine the perpetrator
to its own satisfaction, issue an ultimatum, determine on its own the
adequacy of the response to the ultimatum, and attack the
perpetrator's host country, causing great civilian harm. Would we
really want this to be a universal norm? This would mean that Cubans
could attack Washington on grounds that Miami harbors support for
terrorists who have attacked Cuban civilians. Likewise, Iraqis, Serbs,
and now Afghans, not to mention Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians,
Colombians, Guatemalans, and so on, could all target Washington on
grounds that the U.S. government has attacked or abetted attacks on
their civilian populations - and, for that matter, ironically,
Washington can attack itself, on the grounds that it abetted the
creation and arming of bin Laden's terror network which in turn
attacked the U.S.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Britain was acting in self-defense
because many British citizens died in the World Trade Center. But many
Indian citizens also died; do we want India to issue an ultimatum to
Pakistan (for its connections to bin Laden and other terror networks)?
Do we want India to then decide whether Pakistan has met the terms of
its ultimatum and if New Delhi decides no, then war ensues?

On October 14, the Taliban agreed to turn bin Laden over to a neutral
country if the U.S. stopped the bombing. (We might note that a
proposal to turn bin Laden over to a neutral country is not
unreasonable, given the unlikelihood of a fair trial in a country
whose president has declared that bin Laden was wanted "dead or
alive.") The United States rejected the offer. Is this a decision that
should be made unilaterally by Washington.

Is this the morality, legality, and practicality anyone could wishes
to advocate for international relations?

23. But isn't the U.S. getting a vast coalition of support?

There was a vast outpouring of sympathy for the victims of the
September 11 attacks. Many nations have indicated their willingness to
participate in a campaign against terrorism. But, as indicated above
(question 15), only one other nation thus far -- Britain -- has
participated in the military actions against Afghanistan. More
importantly, a coalition means a group of Washington's friends, which
is not the same as obtaining legal international sanction for war.

24. What do we think about the Sept. 14th Congressional resolution
(passed 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House) authorizing
President Bush to use force?

No vote in a nation's legislature can permit that nation to behave
contrary to international law. The Congressional resolution no more
makes U.S. military action "right" than would a vote by India's
legislature legitimate an attack on Pakistan or by Russia's
legislature legitimate slaughter in Chechnya. Military actions that
cause massive civilian harm as is now occurring in Afghanistan are
wrong -- they meet our definition of terrorism -- no matter what the
vote of a legislature may be.

One might also note how the members of the U.S. Congress -- with one
courageous exception -- abdicated their responsibility. They are
constitutionally assigned responsibility to provide a check on the
arbitrary power of the executive branch. To pass a resolution
authorizing the president to "use all necessary and appropriate force
against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines
planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that
occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or
persons" is essentially saying that Congress wants no voice in
assessing evidence, determining the appropriate way to respond to that
evidence, or even whether we will go to war against one or several
dozen countries.

25. But aren't the targets being bombed in Afghanistan legitimate
targets?

First, if the agent of attack is illegitimate, no target it attacks is
a legitimate one, even if the target might be proper were the agent
someone else. Suppose Saddam Hussein decided to bomb Afghanistan on
grounds he didn't like the role of the Taliban in abetting terror in
the world and against the U.S. Even if he confined himself to targets
entirely bearing upon the actions of terrorists and not significantly
endangering civilians, still, we would say Hussein was acting
illegally since he had no UN authorization to act, and we wouldn't
temper that claim on the grounds he could be doing worse. The norm is
general.

Even if the current U.S. bombings were internationally and legally
sanctioned, thus not being carried out in vigilante style, not all
targets are legitimate by any means. There is no justification in
attacking in a manner that puts people at risk of starvation, that
attacks civilian infrastructure, or that carries risk of substantial
civilian deaths.

If the attacks had been initiated because bin Laden and his network
were demonstrated guilty, and UN legal agencies called for their
extradition, and the Taliban refused, and it became necessary to
pursue the culprits in order to prosecute them, then yes, there could
be a list of legitimate targets for such endeavors, but only if the
seven million people at risk of starvation were not endangered, and if
means of assault could be found which -- unlike those currently being
utilized -- could be well controlled without causing terrible
accidents.

On October 12, Mary Robinson, the UN's Commissioner for Human Rights,
called on the United States to halt the bombing so that food could
reach up to two million desperate Afghan civilians (Independent, 13
Oct. 2001)

See also:

Heikal: No Targets

26. But aren't civilian casualties being avoided in Afghanistan?

If the question is, could the U.S. bomb in a fashion to induce greater
civilian casualties, of course the answer is yes, so that in that
sense it is avoiding many possible casualties. And if the question is,
is it good that the U.S. isn't causing more deaths by our actions,
again the answer is yes. But the question arises, why cause as many as
we are? Why aggravate the desperate food situation to the point of
possible calamity? Why attack in a manner that disrupts all social
life and, inevitably, hits many civilians with bomb impact? This is
not going to diminish hatred of the U.S. nor the violence in the
region, but increase both. There is no justification for all this
other than the desires to propel a state of war as a policy that
benefits U.S. elites. If the food disaster materializes at the levels
feared by aid and UN agencies, the catastrophe will be without
historical parallel for such a short engagement

See also:

Chien: Civilian Toll

27. But aren't U.S. food drops a sincere effort to help the people of
Afghanistan?

The first week's airdrops, we're told, averaged about 37,500 rations
per day. One ration is 3 meals, or one person-day of food. There are
between 3-7 million people at risk of starvation. Thus, in order to
alleviate the danger, the rate of airdrops has to increase over the
largest drops so far by a factor of between one and two hundred.

Bush pledged $324 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Each
ration costs $4.25. Let us assume that there are only 3 million at
risk of starvation, that every ration will reach one of those people,
and that every dollar of that $324 million is going to rations (and
not to the planes, fuel, staff, medicine, or any other item associated
with delivery). Under these fantastically generous assumptions, there
will be enough food to feed these people for 25 days. The reality is
much worse: millions are now fleeing the bombing, and will not sow
their crops of winter wheat. Much of the dropped food will land in
minefields and remote areas. Most of Bush's money will not be spent on
food. And there are probably 7.5 million in danger of starving, not 3
million. But even in this scenario the money is insufficient to last
for the winter. Also for comparison, $40 billion was appropriated for
the war effort, and a single B-2 bomber costs $2.1 billion.

To first aggravate the starvation danger faced by roughly 7 million at
risk people by creating internal bedlam and cutting off food transport
and aid through closing borders and bombing, and to then drop food for
about one out of every hundred of the at-risk people, assuming all
these meals were even accessible as compared to being scattered across
terrain littered with military mines, is not a serious approach to
saving lives. Rather, as the U.S. policymakers and commentators have
repeated ad nauseam, it is a public relations effort aimed to reduce
opposition, and nothing more.

As Doctors Without Borders, one of the agencies that had been working
in Afghanistan, put it, "What is needed is large scale convoys of
basic foodstuffs.... Until yesterday the UN and aid agencies such as
ourselves were still able to get some food convoys into Afghanistan.
Due to the air strikes the UN have stopped all convoys, and we will
find delivering aid also much more difficult." As for the U.S.
airdrops, "Such action does not answer the needs of the Afghan people
and is likely to undermine attempts to deliver substantial aid to the
most vulnerable."

See also:

Doctors Without Borders

Buckley: Afghan Disaster

Monbiot: Genocide or Peace?

28. What about the anti-terrorism bill passed by Congress, isn't that
a step in the right direction?

We need to distinguish between privileges and basic rights. Being able
to get to an airport just 25 minutes before your flight is a
privilege, not a basic right. We should be more than willing to give
up this privilege if it is necessary for security. But we should
insist on an extremely high burden of proof before we're willing to
scuttle fundamental rights. There are good reasons to think that the
provisions of the anti-terrorism bill go far beyond what is necessary
for security. For example, the definition of terrorism in the bill
would cover domestic political organizations engaging in civil
disobedience.

See also:

ACLU materials

ACLU: Surveillance Report

29. How about the Bush administration's campaign to dry up terrorism's
financial networks?

Terrorist organizations have been able to finance their operations by
laundering their money through banks. But cracking down on money
laundering requires challenging the power of the banking industry and
of the wealthy who use off shore banks to hide their assets something
the politicians in thrall to the rich have been loathe to do. So U.S.
officials have failed to use the legal tools they had to investigate
terrorism's financial trail and have failed to request the new tools
they needed. In May 2001, the U.S. blocked an effort by the OECD (the
main industrial nations) to crack down on bank secrecy. (See Lucy
Komisar, "U.S. Bank Laws Fund Terrorists," [AlterNet], 21 Sept. 2001,
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11556; Tim Weiner and David
Cay Johnston, "Roadblocks Cited in Efforts to Trace bin Laden Money,"
NYT, 20 Sept. 2001.) U.S. officials consider Saudi officials
especially uncooperative in freezing bin Laden's assets (NYT, 10 Oct.
2001). Ultimatums anyone?

See also:

Weisbrot: Financial War

30. How about supporting the Northern Alliance, doesn't that hold out
positive promise for Afghanistan?

The Northern Alliance have in the past demonstrated a facility for
barbarism only minimally less horrible than that of the Taliban. The
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), who have
been struggling for years for democracy and against fundamentalism,
have warned against allowing the Northern Alliance to come to power.

This strategy of the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been used
before with disastrous results. This was the logic that led to U.S.
and Western support for the Mujahideen, leading to the Taliban, and
aid and support for Saddam Hussein, and so on. It is not hard to
predict that support for the Northern Alliance will, in years ahead,
lead to still more travail and horror for Afghanistan, for the region,
and perhaps for the world beyond.

See also:

Prashad: Into the Past?

The Northern Alliance?

Human Rights Watch report

31. How about invading Iraq, won't that be good for Iraqis?

An influential group of Pentagon officials and national security
elites have been urging that the United States use this opportunity to
take military action to depose Saddam Hussein. Hussein is a monster
and many Iraqis would be thrilled to see him go. But going to war
against him without the most compelling evidence of his responsibility
for the September 11 attacks would lead to massive instability in the
Muslim world -- with horrific human consequences. A recent meeting of
Islamic nations did not condemn the U.S. bombing Afghanistan (thanks
to the efforts of U.S. allies), but all agreed that any further
military action would be utterly unacceptable. Whatever benefit the
Iraqi people might obtain from the deposing of Hussein would likely be
outweighed by the horrors of a war in Iraq and of holy wars from North
Africa to Southeast Asia. The simplest way to help the people of Iraq
would be to lift the economic sanctions that have caused such
devastating hardship.

Despite their eagerness to link Saddam Hussein to September 11,
Israeli, Jordanian, and U.S. intelligence have found no connection
(NYT, 11 Oct. 2001). Though both Al Qaeda and Hussein hate the United
States, Hussein is not an Islamicist, and Al Qaeda considers him an
infidel.

At the moment it seems as if the State Department, with its strategy
of just going after Afghanistan, at least for now, will prevail over
Defense Department officials who want to go after Iraq. But the United
States delivered a note to the Security Council saying that its
self-defense measures might require it to attack other countries.
(Apparently this sentence was added by the White House to the U.S.
note without informing Secretary of State Colin Powell [NYT, 12 Oct.
2001].) Thus, we must await the result of the bureaucratic struggle
within the Bush administration to see whether we'll go to war against
Iraq. Is this a decision that Congress should have declined to get
involved in? More crucially, is this a decision that should be up to
the United States government rather than the United Nations?

32. How about increasing U.S. defense and military spending?

Does it make sense for some effort to be made to develop means of
better predicting and interdicting terrorist attacks? Yes. Can one
make a cogent argument that a large country needs some military
expenditure to be in position to repel attacks, and to even engage in
war should that horrible eventuality come to pass? Yes, though many
will reasonably disagree. But does the U.S. need to spend not only
$343 billion as in the year 2000, which was 69 percent greater than
that of the next five highest nations combined (with Russia spending
less than one-sixth what the United States does, and Iraq, Libya,
North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Syria spending in total $14.4
billion combined and Iran accounting for 52 percent of this total),
but still more to accomplish such security? No, the rush to spend more
on militarism has nothing whatever to do with security against
terrorism and has everything to do with military profiteering.

See also:

From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan

33. How about building a national missile defense system?

Such a system has nothing to do with protecting against terrorism.
Such a system in fact destabilizes world prospects for peace by
propelling a new arms race as well as a launch on warning mentality in
other countries. The system is pursued by the U.S. government largely
as a sop to high tech industry and profit making and should be opposed
on those grounds, and due to the danger it places all humanity in.

See also:

Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival -- Part 1 / 2

34. How about repealing the executive order prohibiting the
assassination of foreign leaders?

The U.S. government has been targeting foreign leaders for a long
time, perhaps under an explicit waiver from the executive order,
perhaps not. For example, the U.S. air force targeted not just Libyan
leader Muammar Qaddafi in 1986 -- on the grounds that his barracks
were command and control centers -- but (according to Seymour Hersh)
even his family. Today, the U.S. is hitting the homes of Taliban
leaders. So it is hard to imagine that Washington needs a freer hand.
In situations short of war, a basic principle of our jurisprudence is
that people should be brought to trial, not subjected to
extra-judicial execution.

35. How about using racial profiling to counter terrorism in the
United States?

We need to distinguish between two different kinds of situations.
Consider first the sort of situation that even strong opponents of
racial profiling agree would be appropriate police work: "Police
receive a credible tip that a white man armed with a bomb is somewhere
in an office building. They surround the building and then enter it.
The police examine white men more closely than those who are
non-white." (See Randall Kennedy, Race, Justice, and the Law, Vintage,
1997, pp. 141, 161.) In these kinds of emergency situations, it would
be reasonable to scrutinize whites more closely (or blacks or Middle
Easterners, depending on the situation). But this is very different
from making the targeting of a particular ethnic group a routine part
of police work. Doing so involves two real dangers: (1) It's not
likely to be very effective. The suspected 20th hijacker, a native
Moroccan, looks black, not Middle Eastern. And next time, Islamic
terrorists might use an Asian-looking Indonesian or a white-looking
Bosnian. Recall too the pregnant Irish woman in 1988 whose luggage
contained a bomb, put there unbeknownst to her by her Palestinian
boyfriend. (2) It's likely to undermine an important protection
against terrorism, namely, the cooperation of the Arab and Muslim
communities in the United States. If these people are treated
abusively, they are not likely to come forward with information needed
by the police.

So what happens when a Middle Eastern man gets on a plane and the
flight crew doesn't feel safe? In one notorious case, a Pakistani was
removed from a Delta flight after the pilot said he wouldn't fly with
the man on board. We can sympathize with the pilot's concern --
reporters have shown how easy it was even after September 11 to board
a plane with knives and other weapons -- but his solution was totally
unacceptable and discriminatory. The proper solution was for the pilot
to say to Delta that security remains inadequate and demand that an
armed air marshal be put on board. People's fears are real and
legitimate. But we must try to address those fears in ways that do not
scapegoat and abuse Arabs or Muslims or anybody else.

36. What is a "war on terrorism," and why is it being elevated as the
capstone of U. S. foreign policy?

A war on terrorism is a project of attacking whomsoever the U.S.
proclaims to be terrorist. In that sense it has many aspects. It can
be used to assault opponents who are in fact terrorist, or other
opponents who are not terrorist but are labeled to be. It can be used
to induce fear in the U.S. population, so as to justify huge military
expenditures, violations of civil liberties, and other
elite-benefiting policies - much as the Cold War served the same
purpose in decades past. It doesn't risk serious conflict as the scale
of the engagements and their targets, are entirely up to us. It
doesn't legitimate international law, and so it does nothing to risk
the U.S. being held accountable for our actions.

In other words, the War on Terrorism, like the Cold War in earlier
decades, for reasons having little to nothing to do with its
rhetorical aims is quite serviceable to elites, supposing that they
are able to convince the population of its efficacy.

37. But what about the role of oil in the current crisis?

Oil of course plays a greater or lesser role in everything political
and economic that happens in the Mideast, sometimes forefront,
sometimes background. U.S. geopolitical and economic policies have as
one of their prime motives maintaining access to and virtual control
over oil sources around the globe. Pursuit of profit per se, and oil
profit, are at the foundation of U.S. institutional arrangements in
general, and thus impact our large-scale motives, of course. But the
idea that oil is the proximate reason for the attack on Afghanistan,
is very far fetched, just as the notion that the U.S. engaged in the
war in Vietnam to gain access to minerals within Vietnam was far
fetched. What is primarily at stake, geopolitically and economically,
is not access to specific resources (or pipeline routes) but the rules
of global interaction, the further delegitimating of international
law, the development of a replacement for the Cold War - in this case,
a war on terrorism - as well as actual concerns about terrorism
itself.

38. So how long will the war in Afghanistan go on?

There is no way to say with confidence, but since Afghanistan is too
poor to fight back and has so few targets of any substance or scale,
serious assaults are unlikely to persist too long, one hopes.
Nevertheless, Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of the British defense
staff, said military operations "must expect to go through the winter
and into next summer at the very least" and President Bush said that
the military operation would continue for days, months or even years
(NYT, 12 Oct. 2001).

To literally rip the fabric of the society to shreds and continue to
obstruct possibilities for serious food aid could yield a holocaust,
and even the most callous U.S. policy makers can't possibly be so
ignorant as to conclude that the hate that would arise for the U.S.
around the world would be in their interests. On the other hand, the
war on terrorism has utility only insofar as the U.S. population can
be kept focused on it, made fearful due to it, and thus willing to
abrogate democratic influence and even a limited say over
policymaking, as a result. So if the U.S. government can get away with
doing so, a continuing attention to terrorism is to be anticipated.

39. What dangers will we face in South Asia and the Middle East as a
result of the current war?

Perhaps the greatest danger is that a Taliban-like regime might come
to power in Pakistan as a result of war-induced destabilization.
Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan is no minor player: it has nuclear
weapons. Even with sober leaders, Pakistan has pursued highly reckless
policies with regard to Kashmir, bringing it close to conflict with
its nuclear armed neighbor, India.

More generally, there is the danger that the calls for holy war,
largely ignored in the Muslim world in recent years, will now gain a
wider following.

40. But won't the "war on terrorism" reduce terrorism, and isn't that
worth it?

First, the attacks on civilians in Afghanistan, and the aggravation of
the starvation conditions, is itself terrorist, greatly increasing the
terrorism at play in the world.

Second, killing innocent civilians, as has already occurred and will
increasingly occur, will likely create more terrorists in Afghanistan
and more widely throughout the region. The New York Times reported
(10/13/01) of an Afghan village struck by U.S. bombs, with many
civilian casualties. "Maulvi Abdullah Haijazi, an elder from a nearby
village, had come to assist. 'These people don't support the Taliban,'
he said. 'They always say the Taliban are doing this or that and they
don't like it. But now they will all fight the Americans. We pray to
Allah that we have American soldiers to kill. These bombs from the sky
we cannot fight.'" And when they can't kill U.S. soldiers, they can at
least join a terror network. This is the bad fruit our rain from the
sky nurtures-among survivors.

41. Wouldn't changing U.S. foreign policy under the threat of
terrorism mean that we are giving in to terrorism?

Suppose a postal worker attacks his mates and some folks in the post
office one morning. The government - not the surviving workers in the
post office - moves to capture and prosecute the culprit (not to
attack his neighbors, etc. ). But hopefully the government also looks
into the conditions that contributed to the postal workers heinous
acts, as well. Suppose it discovers that stress levels in post offices
are abysmal and contribute to anger and personal dissolution leading
to "going postal. " Would the government be giving in to criminal
pressures if it advocated a reduction in stress in postal work? No, on
the contrary the government would be acting sensibly to reduce just
grievances that needed reduction in any event, and which would have
the very good by-product of helping reduce the likelihood of other
postal workers attacking their workmates.

The same logic holds in this case. For the U.S. to alter its foreign
policy to not support despots abroad, to not punish civilian
populations abroad, to not support unjust policies by allies abroad,
to indeed try to redress huge injustices of economic impoverishment
abroad, are all choices that should occur in any event, in their own
right, and whose implementation would also, as a desirable side
benefit, reduce the conditions that breed the hate and desperation
terrorism feeds on.

42. Does the U.S. support a Palestinian state? Should it?

The Bush administration has now declared that its vision for the
solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict includes a Palestinian
state. The Bush administration is now in line with the former Clinton
administration. This is better than Bush's previous backtracking, but
it is still very far from what is needed. Washington says the
boundaries of the Palestinian state are to be worked out by the
parties -- the Palestinians and Israel -- but that means that Israel
has an effective veto over any settlement, and until there is a
settlement, Palestinians remain under Israeli occupation. Everyone now
says they support a Palestinian state, including Israel, but the
crucial question is whether the specific terms address the legitimate
rights of the Palestinian people. The issue is not a few square
kilometers of desert on one side of the border or the other, but
whether there will be Israeli security zones carved out of the
Palestinian state, whether Israeli security roads will traverse the
Palestinian state, and whether Israeli settlements will remain. In
addition, there are the questions of whether Israel will continue to
control East Jerusalem which it conquered in 1967 and whether the
Palestinians have to foreswear their right to return to lands from
which they have been driven out. Until the United States is willing to
use its influence to pressure Israel to accept real self-determination
for Palestinians, the problem will remain.

43. What should the U.S. have done in response to September 11?

The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to have been to assure
the security, safety, and well-being of U.S. citizens without
detracting from the security, safety, and well-being of others.

Any response should have avoided targeting civilians or so-called
dual-use targets and should have been carried out according to the UN
Charter. We should have sought freely-offered Security Council
authorization with the UN retaining control of any response.

For more specific recommendations, made before the bombing began, see
also:

Albert & Shalom: Z's Sept 11 Talking Points

44. What other policies should our government be following to reduce
the likelihood of people will undertake terrorist agendas?

It isn't crazy, in the U.S. to have locks on some doors, etc. But it
is wise to try to enact policies that reduce poverty and desperation
as well, not only because it is moral to do so to benefit those
suffering, but because it will dramatically reduce inclinations to
steal. Similarly, internationally, it isn't crazy to expend some
energies and resources guarding against terrorist attack. But it is
wise to try to enact policies that reduce conditions of poverty and
disenfranchisement, not only because it is moral to do so to benefit
those suffering, but because it will dramatically reduce inclinations
to terrorize and prospects for finding allies willing to abet that
terrorism.

What else could we do? David Corn offers some suggestions: a large
increase of funding for the public health infrastructure (which is
today inadequate to deal with a serious biological or chemical
terror), funding programs to secure or neutralize Russian nuclear
material and to prevent Russian weapons scientists from being
exported, stop exporting hand-held guns that can bring down airplanes.
Having the federal government take over airport security is a
suggestion we made previously; right now the Bush administration
opposes Congressional legislation to this effect because it will
increase big government. Richard Garwin has additional suggestions.
All these make sense. And they are likely to enhance our security,
while war is likely to do the opposite.

45. The peace movement says "Justice, Not War. " But with terrorists,
how can justice be achieved without war?

First, it can't be achieved via war because, in this case, war kills
huge numbers of innocents, reduces the attentiveness to law and
justice, and creates huge reservoirs of hate fueling future terrorists
possibilities.

Second, it can be achieved without war, however, by following the
norms of international law, which, if need be, may even involve
military aspects along with diplomacy and other features - but not war
as in one country, or a pair, attacking another.

46. In what ways if any should the peace movement adjust its positions
in the light of Sept. 11?

Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should
have attuned themselves to unjust and horrific violence that
victimized the weak and was engaged to benefit the powerful. The same
holds now.

Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should
have opposed unjust wars, particularly perpetrated by their own
countries, and any policies making such wars more likely or more
brutal. The same holds now.

Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should
have examined institutional causes for wars, seeking to reduce those
causes as much as possible. The same holds now.

So did anything profound change calling for re-thinking by peace
movements?

Yes, one thing did change, quite dramatically. For the first time some
of the abhorrent violence has been turned toward the civilian
populations of the developed nations. This means that defensive
motives will enter developed nation's calculations vis-.-vis
international relations with poor countries not solely rhetorically,
but in fact. Peace movements will have to pay attention to that new
reality even as they also pay attention to on-going structural causes
of war and injustice.

See also:

Albert: Movement Prospects

47. What should be the relation of other movements to the peace
movement, and vice versa?

Winning gains against intransigent elites depends on convincing them
that to ignore demands will lead to more losses for them than to meet
demands. What accomplishes this is always the specter of growing
numbers of people taking the side of dissidents, becoming sufficiently
aroused and impassioned to work to recruit still more allies, and to
manifest their dissent in demonstrations and civil disobedience, and
especially of growing numbers whose concerns begin to transcend
immediate issues and call into question broader and even more
important institutional allegiances of elites.

Thus, peace movements, anti-racist movements, labor movements,
anti-capitalist movements, ecology movements, feminist movements,
movements against capitalist globalization, movements for great
democracy or against incursions on freedom, and any other social
movements will benefit to the extent they mutually support one another
and convince elites that to ignore their focus is to risk enlarged
opposition not only on that issue, but on all others as well. They
will suffer losses in their efficacy to the extent that they are
isolated from one another, or even pitted against one another

Peace movements and other movements should support and even take up
one another's struggles, to the extent circumstances and resources
permit

See also:

Garson: Multi-Focus or Bust

Albert: Movement Prospects

---------------------------------------------------------------o

Carole

unread,

Oct 17, 2001, 8:11:48 PM10/17/01

Klay <kla...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9qko14$9n7$5...@lust.ihug.co.nz...> http://www.zmag.org/55qaframe.htm

>
>
> The War In Afghanistan
> 47 Questions and Answers
> and additional links for further Information

Thanks for this information.
It gives a lot of insight into the Afghanistan/ Taliban situation.

Carole

Causo

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 10:20:53 AM10/18/01

Looks like yet another brain-dead fruitcake has fallen for the communistic,
teasonist, dribble that sick, sexually abused retards like Hutchins,
Chomksky and the like clear out from their bowels!

Carole <hub...@austarmetro.com.au> wrote in message
news:9ql6ck$48o$1...@news.eisa.net.au...

John

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 1:12:41 PM10/18/01

Congratulations.
A well presented, unbiased, yet thorough summary of a difficult
situation.

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 4:11:15 PM10/18/01

snip...

> 5. What is Terrorism?
>
> Dictionary definitions indicate it is creating terror, employing fear
> for political purposes. More aptly, terrorism is attacking and
> terrifying civilian populations in order to force the civilians'
> governments to comply with demands. So Hitler's bombing of London was
> terror bombing, unlike his attacks on British military bases. The
> issue isn't what weapon is used, but who is the target and what is the
> motive. For terrorism the target is innocent civilians. The motive is
> political, impacting their government's behavior. Attacks on the
> public for private gain are not terrorism, but crime. Attacks on a
> military for political purposes are not terrorism, but acts of war.

Clearly this source is pro-Western, as it has conveniently ignored
Western terrorism. For instance, mentioning the bombing of London,
they actually made a glaring historical error. The bombing of London
only occured after the bombing of Berlin by the allies, making it an
act of revenge, not terrorism. The original bombing of Berlin however
was an act of terrorism as it was carried out in a successful attempt
to divert the luftwaffe from bombing British airbases, which was
threatening to destroy the air defences of the UK. The idea was
that the German people would be so outraged that they would demand
a similar response from their leaders, which is what eventually occured.

The result was that the British airfields were left pretty much alone,
and the British were therefore able to win the Battle Of Britain.

Later in the war, the firebombing of Dresden which killed over
100,000 civillians was also an act of terrorism, the idea being that
the civillian population of Germany would turn against the German
leaders for having brought this destruction upon them. In this case
it failed, and is said to have actually stiffened the resolve of the
defenders.

Of course the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs barely need to be
mentioned as these were clearly terrorist attacks.

But even in more modern times, the US has supported and
encouraged terrorism. Their illegal support of the Contras resulted
in tens of thousands of innocent civillians being killed by US trained
(at the School Of The Americas) death squads. In fact manuals used
at the SOA were released under the Freedom of Information Act
(and are available in part on the web) that had such topics as how to
choose victims of a death squad, and effective means of torture.

In fact the current wave of bombings in Afghanistan includes terrorism.
They have killed civillians in an attempt to make a sovereign nation
hand over a suspect, without providing any proof of his guilt. If you
think that they bombed a food storage depot by accident, you are
incredibly naive.

> See also:
>
> Herman: Anti-Terrorist Terrorism
>
> Shiva: Against Terrorism
>
>
>
> 6. Are Bin Laden and his network terrorists?
>
> Bin Laden has issued public statements calling for the killing of U.
> S. civilians, among others. Evidence presented at trials compellingly
> ties the bin Laden network to terrorist attacks (the World Trade
> Center bombing in 1993 and the U. S. embassies in Africa in 1998). So
> even apart from Sept. 11, there is no doubt that bin Laden and Al
> Qaeda are terrorists.

Ignore for a moment the proven fact that the FBI crime lab fabricated
much of the evidence in the 1993 WTC bombing trials (the FBI was
under congressional investigation as recently as last year for this), that
does not make Osama Bin Laden a terrorist. Nobody has ever proven
that he directly planned or carried out any terrorist attacks. The only
thing he can be said to have be proven guilty of is inciting terrorism.

It has also been suggested that there is no such organisation as 'Al Qaeda',
but that it is a generic name used to describe the non-Afghan mujahedeen
that fought against the Soviets. Kind of like saying "Foreigners". I will
not
say that this is totally true, but it is clear that there is some doubt as
to whether
an 'organisation' exists. After all, all of its members are said to be
members
of other Islamic groups, and even the US admits that the best way to
describe
it is as a 'holding company' that is a conduit for communication between
these
disparate groups. In other words, it might not exist except in the way that
the word "tree" exists as a means of describing a certain type of plant.
What this means is that while some 'members' of Al Qaeda may be terrorists,
others might have nothing to do with terrorism, but come under this blanket
description.

Have you noticed the number of Islamic groups that have suddenly started
to be called "linked to Al Qaeda"? Why were they not linked before? What
changed? It seems that the only thing that has changed is the US' definition
of 'Al Qaeda'.

> 7. Is the Taliban terrorist?
>
> In its treatment of the Afghan people -- especially women and
> religious minorities -- the Taliban has behaved in a terrorist manner.
> It has allowed bin Laden to establish training camps on its territory
> and prior to September 11, 2001, rejected UN demands that it turn bin
> Laden over to the United States. There have been no specific charges
> by the United States regarding any direct Afghan support for
> international terrorism. Prior to Sept. 11, Afghanistan was not on the
> U. S. State Department's (rather selective) list of nation's engaging
> in state terrorism.

Actually, using this definition the US government must also be terrorist,
as it has regularly executed and mistreated its civillians for breaking its
laws.

The US has also allowed the setting up of terrorist training camps on
it territories oincluding the SOA, not to mention a host of Cuban 'freedom
fighters' installations etc. As for Bin Laden setting up the terrorist
training
camps, the truth is that most of those camps were actually set up by the
US during and immediately after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Back then of course they were 'freedom fighter' training camps.

> 8. Is Hamas a terrorist group?
>
> Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine engage in bombings of Israeli
> civilians. Despite the fact that Palestinians are oppressed, these
> attacks constitute terrorism. There can be no justification for
> blowing up civilians in a Sbarro's pizzeria or a Tel Aviv nightclub.
> These organizations are not the only terrorists, however. The Israeli
> government has killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians. These
> acts too are terrorism. One terrorism does not justify or excuse the
> other. The United States has been backing -- with military, economic,
> and diplomatic support -- Israeli terrorism.

Well at least this source is honest enough to admit that! So when do the
airstrikes begin on Washington? Or Tel Aviv?

> 9. Is the U.S. government terrorist?
>
> When the U.S. government targets civilians with the intention of
> pressuring their governments, yes, it is engaging in terrorism.
> Regrettably, this is not uncommon in our history. Most recently,
> imposing a food and drug embargo on a country - Iraq - with the
> intention of making conditions so difficult for the population that
> they will rebel against their government, is terrorism (with food and
> medicine as the weapons, not bombs). Bombing civilian centers and the
> society's public infrastructure in Kosovo and Serbia, again with the
> intent of coercing political outcomes, was terrorism. And now,
> attacking Afghanistan (one of the world's poorest countries) and
> hugely aggravating starvation dangers for its population with the
> possible loss of tens of thousands, or more lives, is terrorism. We
> are attacking civilians with the aim of attaining political goals
> unrelated to them - in this case hounding bin Laden and toppling the
> Taliban.

Damn, a bit slow to get to the truth, but it seems to be coming out!

> 10. Why did the World Trade Center terrorists do it?
>
> We can't know, of course, but we can surmise. The September 11 attack
> was a grotesquely provocative act against a super power. No doubt many
> of those involved felt great anger and desperation due to U.S.
> policies in the region. But these attacks didn't alleviate such
> problems. The U.S. response is predictably violent and as any anyone
> would anticipate, reactionary forces have benefited in the U.S. and
> around the world.

Unless of course Bin Laden DIDN'T do it, and it WAS actually done
by Isreal, who have a history of attacking US assets (the USS Liberty)
and by deception provoking the US to attack other countries (the Isreali
Mossad set up a transmitter in Libya and broadcast 'instuctions to
terrorists'
to provoke the US into attacking Libya with the resultant death of a little
girl related to Qaddafi. This was said to be the reason the Libyans bombed
the Pan-Am plane over Lockerbie)

So is there any evidence that Isreal was involved? Well some circumstantial
evidence was splashed across our screens for everyone to see. Almost
immediately after the attacks, Sharon was on television saying that the
Palistinians or the Syrians or the Iraqis had done it! When the US
decided that Bin Laden and Afghanistan were responsible, and when the
US then started pressurising the Isrealis to back off and resume the peace
process, and especially when Bush said he supported a Palistinian state,
Sharon flipped out and vehemently criticised the US! I mean, talk about
biting the hand that feeds you! Why would the Isrealis be so determined
that the response be against one of THEIR enemies, rather than the
people who actually did it? Could it be because it was MEANT to be
THEIR enemies that got blamed?

> But perhaps provoking the United States was precisely the intent. By
> provoking a massive military assault on one or more Islamic nations,
> the perpetrators may have sought to set off a cycle of terror and
> counter-terror, precipitating a holy war between the Islamic world and
> the West, leading, in their hopes, to the overthrow of all
> insufficiently Islamic regimes and the unraveling of the United
> States, just as the Afghan war contributed to the demise of the Soviet
> Union.

Or the provocation could have been meant to CRUSH the Islamic
opposition to Isreal! Remember Sharon himself is a proven war
criminal (as decided by an ISRAELI tribunal) and will not set foot
in Belgium for fear of being arrested and tried under their law which
grants Belgium courts jurisdiciton over war crimes regardless of where
they occured or the nationalities of the perpetrators and victims.

After the Gulf War, who would want to provoke the US into a massive
retaliation against Arab states? Surely not Arabs! They may be terrorists,
but they're not stupid. The only nations with anything to gain out of this
attack are Isreal, and The US itself (after all a few trillion dollars worth
of oil would do wonders for their economy - lookup The Central Asian Gas
Pipeline)

> But if provocation rather than grievances motivated the planners of
> the terror strikes against the U.S., this wouldn't make grievances
> irrelevant. Whatever the planners' motives, they still needed to
> attract capable, organized, and skilled people, not only to
> participate, but even to give their lives to the planner's suicidal
> agenda. Deeply-felt grievances provide a social environment from which
> fanatics recruit and garner support.

Too true. Just goes to show that no matter which way you come at this,
the US has screwed the pooch on this one.

>
>
>
> 11. What is the legal way of dealing with terrorism?
>
> In our world, the only alternative to vigilantism is that guilt should
> be determined by amassing of evidence that is then assessed in
> accordance with international law by the United Nations Security
> Council or other appropriate international agencies.
>
> Punishment should be determined by the UN as well, and likewise the
> means of implementation. The UN may arrive at determinations that one
> or another party likes or not, as with any court, and may also be
> subject to political pressures that call into question its results or
> not, as with any court. But that the UN is the place for
> determinations about international conflict is obvious, at least
> according to solemn treaties signed by the nations of the world.
>
> Thus, to pursue a legal approach means assembling evidence of
> culpability and presenting it to the UN or the World Court. It means
> those agencies undertaking to apprehend and prosecute culprits. It
> does not involve victims overseeing retaliation without even
> demonstrating guilt, much less having legal sanction, much less in a
> manner that increases the sum total of terrorism people are suffering
> and the conditions that breed potential future terrorism

Of course! So why do it? As I said before, the trillions of dollars
worth of oil and gas that has been prevented from coming to the west
may have something to do with it. After all who needs justice when
theirs so much money to be made?

> See also:
>
> Ratner: A Legal Alternative
>
>
>
> 12. If all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would
> the international response have been to the September 11 attacks?
>
> Presumably, if provided proof of culpability, UN agencies would seek
> to arrest guilty parties. They would first seek to negotiate
> extradition. If a host government failed to comply, as a last resort
> they could presumably send in a force to extract guilty parties. But
> these actions would be taken in accord with international law, by
> forces led by international agencies and courts, in a manner
> respecting civilian safety, and consistent with further legitimating
> rather than bypassing respect for law and justice.

The US claims to not be cowards. The fact is, to prevent the loss
of a few pilots, they are dropping bombs from high altitude, which
increases the likelyhood of civillian casualties. It does so because
from high altitude a truck is a truck and there is no way of determining
whether it is carrying civillians or soldiers. It also increases the chances
of a near miss that hits houses around airports etc. Basically, becuase the
US is afraid of the loss of a few pilots it will risk killing dozens or
hundreds
of civillians. They called the terrorists who KILLED themselves to kill
civillians
cowards while calling their pilots who SAVE themselves while killing
civillians
heroes. Talk about hypocrisy!

>
>
> 13. If all terrorists were pursued through legal channels, what would
> the international response have been to the embargo of Iraq, the
> bombing of Kosovo and Serbia, and the bombing of Afghanistan?
>
> These acts, among many others, violate international law in many
> respects, not least because they harm civilians. Presumably, then,
> were international legal channels strengthened and respected,
> aggrieved parties could bring these and other cases to legal
> attention, leading to diverse prosecutions, many of which would be
> aimed at officials from the U.S.

Firstly of course the embargo would stop! But the fact that the
US has veto power pretty much prevents that. Why should the US
be allowed to do anything it wants and veto the opinions of all the
other nations on earth when they try to stop it? Is it because they
can nuke us if we don't let them? Talk about terrorism!

But it also shows that in fact the US is a nation of cowards. The
Soviet Union could get away with basically anything, because
to fight them would risk too much, but bombing the crap out of
a backwoods nation that is basically one step away from the stone
age is the ultimate in cowardice. Hell I can garauntee you that they
will not send in a sizable force, and they sure as hell won't send in
anyone for any protracted time, but will merely carry out long distance
hit and run raids that garauntee the minimum number of casualties to
their forces, while simultaneously garaunteeing their ultimate failure.

In fact they are already starting to make calls for the actual fighting to
be carried out by the Northern Alliance so as to reduce their exposure
even more!

Which just goes to show that when it comes to oil, the US will ally
with anyone. After all, mere months ago they were criticising Russia
and China, and as for letting Pakistan have a say in the future Afghani
government (assuming the US succeeds, which is by no means
garaunteed) The Pakistanis were the ones who put the Taliban in power
in the first place!

As for their war being about freedom, Pakistan has a military dictatorship,
Uzbekistan and China have a totalitarian dictatorship, and Russia is also
heading back down the path of totalitarianism, except this time criminal.
So much for freedom eh?

>
>
> 16. What has been the role of the UN in the current war in
> Afghanistan?
>
> The Security Council passed two strong resolutions following September
> 11, but neither one authorized the use of military force, and
> especially not unilateral military force. The New York Times reported
> (7 Oct. 2001): "A sign of Washington's insistence that its hands not
> be tied was its rejection of United Nations Secretary General Kofi
> Annan's entreaties that any American military action be subject to
> Security Council approval, administration officials said." Still less
> has the United States been willing to have the United Nations have
> control over the response to terrorism, including over any military
> operations.

In other words the war is ILLEGAL, and any US action that results
in the deaths of civillians or possibly even soldiers is a WAR CRIME!

> 17. What are the reasons to oppose U.S. bombing of Afghanistan?
>
> Guilt hasn't yet been proven.
>
> Bombing violates International Law.
>
> Bombing will be unlikely to eliminate those responsible for the
> September 11 attacks.
>
> Huge numbers of innocent people will die.
>
> Bombing will reduce the security of U.S. citizens.

So if even US citzens should oppose it, and yet the US government
will not prosecute itself or offer up Bush et al to a war crimes tribunal,
why shouldn't the Afghanis attack the US? If you're really honest, you
will admit that the destruction of the WTC was an attack on a US
"Infrastructure Target" (it housed both government agencies and
economic agencies as well as commercial organisations) and the
partial destruction of the Pentagon was an attack on a "Leadership
Target" (after all it is the home of the Department of Defense).

Except for the fact that Biological warfare is also illegal, the anthrax
letters sent to the Senate and News Agnecies were attacks on a
"Leadership Target" and "Communications Targets" respectively.

Any civillians killed therefore would be called by the US
military "collateral damage". All of these targets are considered
totally valid under US military doctrine.

Don't forget the "Gulf Of Tonkin Incident", The "Kuwaiti Babies in
Incubators" incident, or the recently released plan for "Operation
Northwoods"
Which involved faking a Cuban terrorist attack (including shooting down
an airliner or sinking a boatload of Cuban refugees) to justify an invasion
of Cuba. Or are these fake provocations just a little too close to current
events?

> 19. Is it possible that there is decisive evidence, but that its
> disclosure would compromise important intelligence gathering
> capabilities?
>
> Certainly it would be reasonable for a government to refuse to reveal
> intelligence sources which could help prevent future terrorist plots.
> No one is asking for names of informants and so on, but conceivably
> some evidence might point clearly to a specific informant. Consider,
> however, the following:

Actually, unless the US is afraid its war will fail, what does it matter
if Osama finds out how the US knows? Who are the US afraid will find
out? Could it be that the US doesn't want its own people to discover that
the US routinely eavesdrops on their communications? Is the real problem
that revealing the source will prove that Americans are not REALLY free,
but are only led to believe that by governmental lies?

> the U. S. was able to present evidence in court regarding the 1998
> attacks on the U. S. embassies in Africa;

Present, or create... Who can tell?

> even if evidence could not be made fully public, could it not be
> shared with the Security Council for their assessment? Sharing the
> evidence with Britain and the rest of NATO is better than nothing, but
> not the same as sharing it with the body having legal authority for
> international peace and security;
>
> some evidence (its nature and extent unknown) was apparently shared
> with Pakistan -- before its intelligence chief was sacked for being
> too sympathetic to the Taliban.
>
> If there is evidence suitable for Pakistan, it's hard to see why that
> couldn't be made public. Washington, however, does not want to
> establish the precedent that it has an obligation to present evidence.

Not at all. Especially if the evidence proves that the American people
actually live under a totalitarian regime that fakes democracy by holding
phony elections every four years (even then casting aside the votes if it
comes out the wrong way eg 2000) and shows that for all its bleating
about freedom and democracy, the US government is no better than
China or any of a number of other totalitarian regimes.

> 20. But didn't Afghanistan reject out-of-hand US demand to turn over
> bin Laden?
>
> The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan stated on October 5, "We are
> prepared to try him if America provides solid evidence of Osama bin
> Laden's involvement in the attacks on New York and Washington." Asked
> if bin Laden could be tried in another country, the ambassador said,
> "We are willing to talk about that, but ... we must be given the
> evidence" (Toronto Star, 6 Oct. 2001, p. A4). One report (AP, 7 Oct.
> 2001) quoted the ambassador as saying that legal proceedings could
> begin even before the United States offered any evidence: "Under
> Islamic law, we can put him on trial according to allegations raised
> against him and then the evidence would be provided to the court."
> Washington responded that its demands were non-negotiable and
> initiated its bombardment of Afghanistan. Was the Taliban offer
> serious? Could it have been the basis for further concessions? Who
> knows? Washington never pursued it. But do we really want a world
> where countries unilaterally issue ultimatums and then unilaterall y
> decide whether the terms of the ultimatum have been met, cut off
> further negotiations, and open fire?

Have you noticed though that many so-called 'Al Qaeda members'
are being held in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and are undergoing
extradition hearings, and yet the US has not begun bombing them
for not turning over the suspects with "no negotiation". Seems that
only Afghanistan deserves that response. Would be because the US
has been planning to attack Afghanistan in October since at least June
this year? Remember how some spokesman said they were going to
"drain the swamp"? On July 12, 2000 a U.S. Congressional Committee
held hearings over Washington's role in Afghanistan.

Heres a telling quote:
"REP. ROHRABACHER: Now, with a history like that, it's very hard,
Mr. Ambassador, for me to sit here and listen to someone say, 'Our
main goal is to drain the swamp" -- and the swamp is Afghanistan --
because the United States created that swamp in Afghanistan. And the
United States' policies have undercut those efforts to create a freer and
more open society in Afghanistan, which is consistent with the beliefs
of the Afghan people."

Isn't it funny that in July 2000 someone was testifying at a US
congressional
hearing and said the US intended to "drain the swamp" in Afghanistan,
and a little over a year later, Osama Bin Laden just happens to give them
an excuse to do just that? Something smells fishy to me...

Even wonder why the largest overseas deployment of British troops since
the Falklands war, just happens to be in the right place at the right time
to participate if necessary?

Ever wonder how the US managed to plan, deploy, and commit
war on a country on the other side of the world within FOUR WEEKS
of the initial attack that caused it? Hell, a stock standard murder enquiry
usually takes longer than that to happen and yet from knowing nothing
about the impending attacks they basically unravelled the entire plot,
then decided on a course of action, planned how to do it, sent troops
to the region, and began a war?

> We might note that some other countries have refused to extradite
> accused terrorists, even when substantial evidence is presented. For
> example, Haiti has convicted Emmanuel Constant in absentia for being
> one of the leaders of paramilitary forces that killed thousands of
> civilians during the junta years in the early 1990s (with no small
> measure of U.S. complicity). Washington has refused to turn him over.

In fact the UK refused to turn over people to the Egyptians and the
Saudis, who were accused of terrorist acts against those countries,
but now are going to turn over those same people to the US! Thats
right, The UK was harbouring members of Al Qaeda! The Saudis
and Egyptians wanted to prosecute them, yet the Brits let them carry
on operating from British soil! Is it any wonder that many of the accused
hijackers first went to Britain before heading over to the US? What's
wrong with this picture?

> 21. But can you negotiate with terrorists?
>
> For the most part, you can't, but that is irrelevant to the issues at
> hand. You can't negotiate with serial killers, either, or with people
> who go berserk and shoot up their workmates in a post office. We don't
> deduce from the intransigence of perpetrators that the victims or the
> victims families should therefore become vigilantes and seek to arrest
> the culprits. We don't deduce that they should form lynch mobs,
> seeking the culprits dead or alive. And most important, we don't
> deduce that they should go after the families of the culprits, or
> their neighbors families, of the restaurant where they had breakfast.
>
> That one can't sensibly negotiate with bin Laden and Al Qaeda - which
> may or may not be true - would only tell us that one shouldn't
> negotiate with them, not that we shouldn't pursue sensible channels of
> legal redress and prosecution, not that we should become vigilantes,
> not that we should adopt a lynch mob mentality, and that we should
> even go beyond that to attacking innocent bystanders in huge numbers,
> starving and otherwise terrorizing them.

Actually the real problem is that you can't negotiate with the US
government. If they want something they take it. The Arabs have been
arguing for years to have the US back off from its support of totalitarian
and undemocratic regimes in the Middle East, and mere weeks before
the attack, when thousands of NGOs made a resolution that Isreal
was a racist nation carrying out apartheid acts, which was soon followed
by discussion of a similar UN resolution both the Isrealis and The US
got up and walked out. THERE WAS NO NEGOTIATION. The
US orders were "drop it, or we walk". The US has blocked resolution
after resolution seeking to correct the problems in the Middle East, and
they have consistently shown that only they will decide what is fair and
what is not. The terrorists are willing to negotiate. It is the US that
refuses.

> 22. But doesn't the U.S. have the right of self-defense?
>

snipped because it all made perfect sense...

However, speaking of self-defense, what happened to the
vaunted US Military? Whay did it take nearly an hour to get
aircraft anywhere near Washington? The first hit on the WTC
happened at 8:45, the hit on the Pentagon happened
at 9:40. They claim that they never expected an attacking aircraft
to come from within the US borders, but that is a meaningless
distraction. Consider this: The Soviets (and the US) have long-range
supersonic bombers. A supersonic bomber can cover over 600
miles in an hour. So if an incoming bomber was detected the second
it entered the 200 mile ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) a
supersonic bomber sould have reached New York or Washington,
dropped a nuclear free fall bomb, and been a hundred or so miles
back out to sea and receding fast before a US fighter had even
reached Washington or New York!

So even if the US military saw it coming from 200 miles away, and they
would have no way of knowing until then, they would have been able to do
nothing to stop it! I highly doubt this. In fact I am sure that they would
have
had fighters over Washington a lot quicker than that. So what went wrong?
Or was it that the the events unfolded according to plan? After all, if
they shot down the planes, the most American deaths would have been
caused by the US military, and most people would have been demanding
answers rather than being shocked into acquiesence.

>
>
> 23. But isn't the U.S. getting a vast coalition of support?
>
> There was a vast outpouring of sympathy for the victims of the
> September 11 attacks. Many nations have indicated their willingness to
> participate in a campaign against terrorism. But, as indicated above
> (question 15), only one other nation thus far -- Britain -- has
> participated in the military actions against Afghanistan. More
> importantly, a coalition means a group of Washington's friends, which
> is not the same as obtaining legal international sanction for war.
>
>
>
> 24. What do we think about the Sept. 14th Congressional resolution
> (passed 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House) authorizing
> President Bush to use force?
>
> No vote in a nation's legislature can permit that nation to behave
> contrary to international law. The Congressional resolution no more
> makes U.S. military action "right" than would a vote by India's
> legislature legitimate an attack on Pakistan or by Russia's
> legislature legitimate slaughter in Chechnya. Military actions that
> cause massive civilian harm as is now occurring in Afghanistan are
> wrong -- they meet our definition of terrorism -- no matter what the
> vote of a legislature may be.

Or Taliban legislature justify the attack on America? Hmm.. Wouldn't
that be funny if it turned out legally the Taliban had every right to
attack the US? After all, the US was openly plotting to attack Afghanistan
(they even told the Pakistanis, which was either very stupid or a veiled
threat).

A pre-emptive strike? Doesn't the US reserve the right to pre-emptive
nuclear strikes if there are indications that the US may be attacked? Of
course they do, but don't hold your breath expecting the US to talk
about this policy now...

> One might also note how the members of the U.S. Congress -- with one
> courageous exception -- abdicated their responsibility. They are
> constitutionally assigned responsibility to provide a check on the
> arbitrary power of the executive branch. To pass a resolution
> authorizing the president to "use all necessary and appropriate force
> against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines
> planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that
> occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or
> persons" is essentially saying that Congress wants no voice in
> assessing evidence, determining the appropriate way to respond to that
> evidence, or even whether we will go to war against one or several
> dozen countries.

In fact Bush has been authorised to use nukes, chemical weapons,
or any other form of illegal warfare he deems "necessary". Not only
that, but the so-called democracy the US operates under has been
shown to be a farce.

> 25. But aren't the targets being bombed in Afghanistan legitimate
> targets?
>
> First, if the agent of attack is illegitimate, no target it attacks is
> a legitimate one, even if the target might be proper were the agent
> someone else. Suppose Saddam Hussein decided to bomb Afghanistan on
> grounds he didn't like the role of the Taliban in abetting terror in
> the world and against the U.S. Even if he confined himself to targets
> entirely bearing upon the actions of terrorists and not significantly
> endangering civilians, still, we would say Hussein was acting
> illegally since he had no UN authorization to act, and we wouldn't
> temper that claim on the grounds he could be doing worse. The norm is
> general.

Not only that, considering the US is carrying out war against Iraq
(what else do you call boming, and starvation), he would be totally
justified
in attacking the US. And before you talk about the UN resolutions, remember
that the UN has tried repeatedly to raise the blockade of Iraq, and cease
the
bombings, but have been vetoed by the US every time. Basically, once the
UN passed the resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq, the US
was the sole deciding party of when that war would be over. It has gone
on for ten years already, and there is no sign of it stopping any time soon.

> Even if the current U.S. bombings were internationally and legally
> sanctioned, thus not being carried out in vigilante style, not all
> targets are legitimate by any means. There is no justification in
> attacking in a manner that puts people at risk of starvation, that
> attacks civilian infrastructure, or that carries risk of substantial
> civilian deaths.
>
> If the attacks had been initiated because bin Laden and his network
> were demonstrated guilty, and UN legal agencies called for their
> extradition, and the Taliban refused, and it became necessary to
> pursue the culprits in order to prosecute them, then yes, there could
> be a list of legitimate targets for such endeavors, but only if the
> seven million people at risk of starvation were not endangered, and if
> means of assault could be found which -- unlike those currently being
> utilized -- could be well controlled without causing terrible
> accidents.
>
> On October 12, Mary Robinson, the UN's Commissioner for Human Rights,
> called on the United States to halt the bombing so that food could
> reach up to two million desperate Afghan civilians (Independent, 13
> Oct. 2001)

Did he though? Hell no! The idea of this war is to kill as many
Afghanis as possible, civillian and soldier alike. Why? because they
need to ensure that once their war is over that they can control the
population so that they can build their pipeline. Why else would you
bomb a building that even the US admits they knew was a Red Cross
aid storage site. They claim they believed it was being used by the Taliban
and one spokseperson even said that the food in it was probably going to
be seized by the Taliban for their troops. Did they ask the Red Cross
whether
it had been taken over? No. It also makes you wonder whether the attack
on the UN mine clearing operation was an accident.

It is clear that the US plan involves a massive attack on the civillian
population, not with bombs, but with starvation just like in Iraq. Why
would they do such a thing? Well apart from to get them to turn on the
Taliban, it is also a useful threat for the future ie "Co-operate or the
starvation you felt in winter 2001 will be but a taste of what is in store
for you if you don't" Who will threaten their pipeline with that Sword
of Damocles hanging over their head?

> See also:
>
> Heikal: No Targets
>
>
>
> 26. But aren't civilian casualties being avoided in Afghanistan?
>
> If the question is, could the U.S. bomb in a fashion to induce greater
> civilian casualties, of course the answer is yes, so that in that
> sense it is avoiding many possible casualties. And if the question is,
> is it good that the U.S. isn't causing more deaths by our actions,
> again the answer is yes. But the question arises, why cause as many as
> we are? Why aggravate the desperate food situation to the point of
> possible calamity? Why attack in a manner that disrupts all social
> life and, inevitably, hits many civilians with bomb impact? This is
> not going to diminish hatred of the U.S. nor the violence in the
> region, but increase both. There is no justification for all this
> other than the desires to propel a state of war as a policy that
> benefits U.S. elites. If the food disaster materializes at the levels
> feared by aid and UN agencies, the catastrophe will be without
> historical parallel for such a short engagement

And the number of civillian deaths caused by the US will rise from a
couple million to nearly ten million. The Nazis dreamed of this kind of
ability.

> See also:
>
> Chien: Civilian Toll
>
>
>
> 27. But aren't U.S. food drops a sincere effort to help the people of
> Afghanistan?
>
> The first week's airdrops, we're told, averaged about 37,500 rations
> per day. One ration is 3 meals, or one person-day of food. There are
> between 3-7 million people at risk of starvation. Thus, in order to
> alleviate the danger, the rate of airdrops has to increase over the
> largest drops so far by a factor of between one and two hundred.
>
> Bush pledged $324 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Each
> ration costs $4.25. Let us assume that there are only 3 million at
> risk of starvation, that every ration will reach one of those people,
> and that every dollar of that $324 million is going to rations (and
> not to the planes, fuel, staff, medicine, or any other item associated
> with delivery). Under these fantastically generous assumptions, there
> will be enough food to feed these people for 25 days. The reality is
> much worse: millions are now fleeing the bombing, and will not sow
> their crops of winter wheat. Much of the dropped food will land in
> minefields and remote areas. Most of Bush's money will not be spent on
> food. And there are probably 7.5 million in danger of starving, not 3
> million. But even in this scenario the money is insufficient to last
> for the winter. Also for comparison, $40 billion was appropriated for
> the war effort, and a single B-2 bomber costs $2.1 billion.

Don't forget that it appears that much of the food drops are actually
occuring in Northern Alliance held areas, areas that are not blockaded!
I saw one item on CNN talking with Afghanis as they rushed around gathering
up dozens of food packs each. The reporters even directly said that this
was in Northern Alliance held territory! Why the hell are they airdropping
food
to the "allies" who can just ask for a couple of dozen truckloads and get
it?

The Russians are having no problem getting weapons to the Northern Alliance,
so why the need for air drops? In other words, they are letting the Afghanis
in the Taliban controlled area know that unless they give up and head
into NA territory, they will starve! The Geneva Conventions (and other
applicable International Laws) make it clear that denying food to civillians
is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and genocide. The US has bombed
people for less!

> To first aggravate the starvation danger faced by roughly 7 million at
> risk people by creating internal bedlam and cutting off food transport
> and aid through closing borders and bombing, and to then drop food for
> about one out of every hundred of the at-risk people, assuming all
> these meals were even accessible as compared to being scattered across
> terrain littered with military mines, is not a serious approach to
> saving lives. Rather, as the U.S. policymakers and commentators have
> repeated ad nauseam, it is a public relations effort aimed to reduce
> opposition, and nothing more.

Actually I'd be willing to bet that they intentionally dropped food into
minefields in Taliban controlled areas. After all, as a psy-op it is
perfect!
What is more crushing than being starving and seeing all this food just
lying
there, and knowing that trying to get it would probably kill you. Totally
soul destroying. Then to know that just over the hill in NA territory, all
the
food you can carry is just waiting for you! No wonder some Taliban are
begining to cross over.

> As Doctors Without Borders, one of the agencies that had been working
> in Afghanistan, put it, "What is needed is large scale convoys of
> basic foodstuffs.... Until yesterday the UN and aid agencies such as
> ourselves were still able to get some food convoys into Afghanistan.
> Due to the air strikes the UN have stopped all convoys, and we will
> find delivering aid also much more difficult." As for the U.S.
> airdrops, "Such action does not answer the needs of the Afghan people
> and is likely to undermine attempts to deliver substantial aid to the
> most vulnerable."

So why are they doing it? Why not send truckloads painted white and
marked with UN insignia? Can't the pilots tell the difference? Are they
afraid they migh acidentally hit their own planned food convoys? Are they
that incompetent? Hell, No! Its intentional. Its also a crime.

> 28. What about the anti-terrorism bill passed by Congress, isn't that
> a step in the right direction?
>
> We need to distinguish between privileges and basic rights. Being able
> to get to an airport just 25 minutes before your flight is a
> privilege, not a basic right. We should be more than willing to give
> up this privilege if it is necessary for security. But we should
> insist on an extremely high burden of proof before we're willing to
> scuttle fundamental rights. There are good reasons to think that the
> provisions of the anti-terrorism bill go far beyond what is necessary
> for security. For example, the definition of terrorism in the bill
> would cover domestic political organizations engaging in civil
> disobedience.

It would also cover any person the government doesn't like regardless
of what they have done to irk them. How? Well it gives the government
the right to detain indefinately without trial anyone it suspects of
terrorism.
It doesn't have to produce evidence, and there is no right of appeal.
Basically
piss the government off and it could be life without parole, without a
trial.
So far this law only applies to non-US born citizens. It does apply to legal
and illegal immigrants. However, I am sure that will soon change when they
remind themselves that Timothy McVeigh was a born and bred American
war hero!

> 29. How about the Bush administration's campaign to dry up terrorism's
> financial networks?
>
> Terrorist organizations have been able to finance their operations by
> laundering their money through banks. But cracking down on money
> laundering requires challenging the power of the banking industry and
> of the wealthy who use off shore banks to hide their assets something
> the politicians in thrall to the rich have been loathe to do. So U.S.
> officials have failed to use the legal tools they had to investigate
> terrorism's financial trail and have failed to request the new tools
> they needed. In May 2001, the U.S. blocked an effort by the OECD (the
> main industrial nations) to crack down on bank secrecy. (See Lucy
> Komisar, "U.S. Bank Laws Fund Terrorists," [AlterNet], 21 Sept. 2001,
> http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11556; Tim Weiner and David
> Cay Johnston, "Roadblocks Cited in Efforts to Trace bin Laden Money,"
> NYT, 20 Sept. 2001.) U.S. officials consider Saudi officials
> especially uncooperative in freezing bin Laden's assets (NYT, 10 Oct.
> 2001). Ultimatums anyone?

Don't forget that all of Bush's dirty money is hiding in the same banks!
Hell Daddy Bush does business with the Bin Ladens (the ok ones
apparently) the US government would collapse if all the crooked money
was brought out into the light of day! For example, the US Defense
Department has admitted that over a TRILLION dollars can not be accounted
for!
How do you lose a trillion dollars? You don't, someone thieves it.

> 30. How about supporting the Northern Alliance, doesn't that hold out
> positive promise for Afghanistan?
>
> The Northern Alliance have in the past demonstrated a facility for
> barbarism only minimally less horrible than that of the Taliban. The
> Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), who have
> been struggling for years for democracy and against fundamentalism,
> have warned against allowing the Northern Alliance to come to power.
>
> This strategy of the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been used
> before with disastrous results. This was the logic that led to U.S.
> and Western support for the Mujahideen, leading to the Taliban, and
> aid and support for Saddam Hussein, and so on. It is not hard to
> predict that support for the Northern Alliance will, in years ahead,
> lead to still more travail and horror for Afghanistan, for the region,
> and perhaps for the world beyond.

Ever noticed how most of the US' enemies were previously their
friends? Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega and Osama Bin Laden
to name a few. Why is that do you think? Is it because the US mistreats
its friends? Or is it becuse the US needs enemies, and who better to have
as an enemy than someone who is really your friend? What did the US
accomplish in Panama? Stuff all. Is Noriega really in prison? the US says
so,
but who can be really sure? Yet they distracted the masses right in
the middle of the Iran-Contra scandal. How about Iraq? Well they
got the Kuwaitis to owe them billions and therefore have an almost
garaunteed source of oil (not to mention control of oil prices; if the other
oil nations start cutting supply to drive up the prices, Kuwait just pumps
more), and a foothold in Saudi Arabia. Did they get Saddam? No way!
In fact they killed off most of the people who could actually do something
about him, the army! Think about it, if they couldn't get Hussein in Iraq,
how in hells name do they think they're going to get Osama in Afghanistan?

Basically what I'm saying is, when you spend more on the military than
you do on all your social programmes combined (including health, education
justice etc) you better have a damn good reason. The problem is that your
real enemies don't want to fight wars, so they just sit there and thumb
their
noses at you. How to justify a multi-billion dollar defence budget if no one
wants to fight? Simple, pick a fight. Better yet, fake a fight that you know
you
can't lose (that way there will never be another Vietnam, and nobody will
question
whether the billions were actually wasted).

Now think back to all the US wars that have happened over the years and
you'll
see what I mean. China? Nope too hard. Russia? Are you crazy? Granada?
Hell yeah, we can pulp them, lets do it!

> 31. How about invading Iraq, won't that be good for Iraqis?
>
> An influential group of Pentagon officials and national security
> elites have been urging that the United States use this opportunity to
> take military action to depose Saddam Hussein. Hussein is a monster
> and many Iraqis would be thrilled to see him go. But going to war
> against him without the most compelling evidence of his responsibility
> for the September 11 attacks would lead to massive instability in the
> Muslim world -- with horrific human consequences. A recent meeting of
> Islamic nations did not condemn the U.S. bombing Afghanistan (thanks
> to the efforts of U.S. allies), but all agreed that any further
> military action would be utterly unacceptable. Whatever benefit the
> Iraqi people might obtain from the deposing of Hussein would likely be
> outweighed by the horrors of a war in Iraq and of holy wars from North
> Africa to Southeast Asia. The simplest way to help the people of Iraq
> would be to lift the economic sanctions that have caused such
> devastating hardship.

Not to mention that deposing Saddam Hussein AND the Taliban will
once again leave the US without an enemy, and we know why that will
never happen! Just suppose that the US knew the Soviets were about
to collapse back in '89. Do you think they might have done something to
prevent it? I do. In fact the way they turned Russia into a third world
nation overnight leads me to believe that they tried their hardest to get
the people to reverse the trend. After all at least under Soviet rule
their was no Russian Mafia. In my opinion everything that happened
in Russia post '89 was an attempt to drive the people to another revolution,
thereby reinstating the "Great Enemy".

Anybody remember the criticism the CIA got for not predicting the collapse?
Why is that do you think? What does it matter if the US did not know it was
going to happen, unless the US would have done something to prevent it?

> Despite their eagerness to link Saddam Hussein to September 11,
> Israeli, Jordanian, and U.S. intelligence have found no connection
> (NYT, 11 Oct. 2001). Though both Al Qaeda and Hussein hate the United
> States, Hussein is not an Islamicist, and Al Qaeda considers him an
> infidel.
>
> At the moment it seems as if the State Department, with its strategy
> of just going after Afghanistan, at least for now, will prevail over
> Defense Department officials who want to go after Iraq. But the United
> States delivered a note to the Security Council saying that its
> self-defense measures might require it to attack other countries.
> (Apparently this sentence was added by the White House to the U.S.
> note without informing Secretary of State Colin Powell [NYT, 12 Oct.
> 2001].) Thus, we must await the result of the bureaucratic struggle
> within the Bush administration to see whether we'll go to war against
> Iraq. Is this a decision that Congress should have declined to get
> involved in? More crucially, is this a decision that should be up to
> the United States government rather than the United Nations?

Thinks of it this way: The soldiers have been brainwashed into actually
wanting to destroy the enemy. The Politicians however know better. They
know that destroying Hussein will leave them without a credible enemy
and therefore why spend 350 billion dollars a year preparing to fight
no-one?
In fact even the soldiers probably realise this, but they also know that
this is
one of the few chance they will get to, in that quaint US phrase, "blow shit
up"

> 32. How about increasing U.S. defense and military spending?
>
> Does it make sense for some effort to be made to develop means of
> better predicting and interdicting terrorist attacks? Yes. Can one
> make a cogent argument that a large country needs some military
> expenditure to be in position to repel attacks, and to even engage in
> war should that horrible eventuality come to pass? Yes, though many
> will reasonably disagree. But does the U.S. need to spend not only
> $343 billion as in the year 2000, which was 69 percent greater than
> that of the next five highest nations combined (with Russia spending
> less than one-sixth what the United States does, and Iraq, Libya,
> North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and Syria spending in total $14.4
> billion combined and Iran accounting for 52 percent of this total),
> but still more to accomplish such security? No, the rush to spend more
> on militarism has nothing whatever to do with security against
> terrorism and has everything to do with military profiteering.

And yet you think Saddam is their enemy? Hell they get rich off the man!
The longer he's around the better. Hell if he was to die tomorrow the US
military would be in real trouble. Just imagine this: Saddam Hussein, Osama
Bin Laden, and all their associates jump on a plane, fly to Washington and
turn themselves in, saying "Its a fair cop, Guvner, I'll go queitly!" That
would
be the most destructive thing they could do to the US military and
Government
and all they would have to risk is a prison cell. Remember when the Soviets
packed it in? The US military shit itself, the "Peace Dividend" arose and
military
spending declined precipitously. Bases were shut down, nuke take off ships,
and all the power and prestige of the US military couldn't do a thing to
stop it.
Now the US military is half the size it used to be, and before Sept. 11 had
to
fight tooth and nail for every dollar it got. Any chances that will stay the
same?
Hell no.

> 33. How about building a national missile defense system?
>
> Such a system has nothing to do with protecting against terrorism.
> Such a system in fact destabilizes world prospects for peace by
> propelling a new arms race as well as a launch on warning mentality in
> other countries. The system is pursued by the U.S. government largely
> as a sop to high tech industry and profit making and should be opposed
> on those grounds, and due to the danger it places all humanity in.

Not to mention the fact that making an intercontinental ballistic missile
(which is what missile defence is meant to protect against) is very
expensive, and very difficult. It would be easier to buy a private business
jet, load a nuke on board, file a flight plan for Dulles international, And
off
you go. By the time they US figured out that it was actually an attack,
Washington Would be a smoking hole in the ground. Yes a suicide
nuke bomber is a lot easier, and a lot more accurate too. Hell at the
current
rate, it wont be long before anybody is able to create a remote controlled
business jet that flies itself to washington and goes boom! The US recently
sent a pilotless drone to Australia. It took off, flew across the pacific,
landed
and taxied to its spot on the ramp all by itself. Even a 757 has this
capability.

From the Boeing Website:
"A fully integrated flight management computer system (FMCS) provides for
automatic guidance and control of the 757-200 from immediately after takeoff
to final approach and landing. Linking together digital processors
controlling
navigation, guidance and engine thrust, the flight management system ensures
that the aircraft flies the most efficient route and flight profile for
reduced fuel
consumption, flight time and crew workload"

In other words: If a pilot takes off in a 757, puts it on autopilot, then
jumps
with a parachute, the plane can fly itself across the world, and arrive
lined up
with a runway. Hey you know what? The same sytem could be used to get it
to fly into a building! Oops have I given something away?

Basically, with a little ingenuity, a 757 could be turned into the worlds
largest,
longest ranged cruise missile. Add a big old nuke, that wouldn't even fit on
a ballistic missile and anywhere within 7000 miles is toast. By the way, did
you
know that 757 and the 767 have identical FMCS ability. I wonder why all four
planes involved in Sept 11 were 757 or 767? hmmm..

You could even add a satellite relay that allowed you to actually
communicate
with air traffic control, so nothing would seem amiss. Assuming that a
country
like Saudi Arabia did it, You wouldn't even be able to tell, becuase all the
flight
plans and everything could be properly filed.

After all, there will be no flight data recorder to find will there?

> See also:
>
> Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival -- Part 1 / 2
>
>
>
> 34. How about repealing the executive order prohibiting the
> assassination of foreign leaders?
>
> The U.S. government has been targeting foreign leaders for a long
> time, perhaps under an explicit waiver from the executive order,
> perhaps not. For example, the U.S. air force targeted not just Libyan
> leader Muammar Qaddafi in 1986 -- on the grounds that his barracks
> were command and control centers -- but (according to Seymour Hersh)
> even his family. Today, the U.S. is hitting the homes of Taliban
> leaders. So it is hard to imagine that Washington needs a freer hand.
> In situations short of war, a basic principle of our jurisprudence is
> that people should be brought to trial, not subjected to
> extra-judicial execution.

The problem is, the only time the US want to use assasination is
in situations short of war, ie when they have no right to kill the person.
In fact often they have no right to even arrest the person!

> 35. How about using racial profiling to counter terrorism in the
> United States?

Snip...

What do you mean they have been for years! After Oklahoma,
everyone in the US was looking for Arab Terrorists!, Too bad it turned
out that the real terrorist was an ex US Soldier...

>
>
> 36. What is a "war on terrorism," and why is it being elevated as the
> capstone of U. S. foreign policy?
>
> A war on terrorism is a project of attacking whomsoever the U.S.
> proclaims to be terrorist. In that sense it has many aspects. It can
> be used to assault opponents who are in fact terrorist, or other
> opponents who are not terrorist but are labeled to be. It can be used
> to induce fear in the U.S. population, so as to justify huge military
> expenditures, violations of civil liberties, and other
> elite-benefiting policies - much as the Cold War served the same
> purpose in decades past. It doesn't risk serious conflict as the scale
> of the engagements and their targets, are entirely up to us. It
> doesn't legitimate international law, and so it does nothing to risk
> the U.S. being held accountable for our actions.
>
> In other words, the War on Terrorism, like the Cold War in earlier
> decades, for reasons having little to nothing to do with its
> rhetorical aims is quite serviceable to elites, supposing that they
> are able to convince the population of its efficacy.

They don't need to. If anyone complains too hard they will be labelled
"terrorists" and be detained without trial indefinately.

> 37. But what about the role of oil in the current crisis?
>
> Oil of course plays a greater or lesser role in everything political
> and economic that happens in the Mideast, sometimes forefront,
> sometimes background. U.S. geopolitical and economic policies have as
> one of their prime motives maintaining access to and virtual control
> over oil sources around the globe. Pursuit of profit per se, and oil
> profit, are at the foundation of U.S. institutional arrangements in
> general, and thus impact our large-scale motives, of course. But the
> idea that oil is the proximate reason for the attack on Afghanistan,
> is very far fetched, just as the notion that the U.S. engaged in the
> war in Vietnam to gain access to minerals within Vietnam was far
> fetched. What is primarily at stake, geopolitically and economically,
> is not access to specific resources (or pipeline routes) but the rules
> of global interaction, the further delegitimating of international
> law, the development of a replacement for the Cold War - in this case,
> a war on terrorism - as well as actual concerns about terrorism
> itself.

And thus we see what this source is really tryng to do. People
are starting question, so a new front has to be put up. "No it's
not oil, even though Bush, Cheney, and many other senior
administration people have direct links to oil companies and in
many cases owe their wealth to oil, it is a replacement for the cold war!"
Bullshit! Saddam was doing just fine in that regard! Why start another?

The fact is that there is enough oil in the Central Asian republics to
supply 80% of the US oil needs. Funnily enough, in his latest speech
Bush talked of the need for the US to become energy independant.
Now unless vast new sources of oil can be found in US territory, the
only way to do that is to take over another country. Between Kuwait,
Iraq, and Afghanistan, they will have all the oil they need for quite some
time! Coincidence? Hell No!

> 38. So how long will the war in Afghanistan go on?
>
> There is no way to say with confidence, but since Afghanistan is too
> poor to fight back and has so few targets of any substance or scale,
> serious assaults are unlikely to persist too long, one hopes.
> Nevertheless, Adm. Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of the British defense
> staff, said military operations "must expect to go through the winter
> and into next summer at the very least" and President Bush said that
> the military operation would continue for days, months or even years
> (NYT, 12 Oct. 2001).

The war will go for as long as it take for the US to ensure that Afghanistan
becomes a US controlled territory.

> To literally rip the fabric of the society to shreds and continue to
> obstruct possibilities for serious food aid could yield a holocaust,
> and even the most callous U.S. policy makers can't possibly be so
> ignorant as to conclude that the hate that would arise for the U.S.
> around the world would be in their interests. On the other hand, the
> war on terrorism has utility only insofar as the U.S. population can
> be kept focused on it, made fearful due to it, and thus willing to
> abrogate democratic influence and even a limited say over
> policymaking, as a result. So if the U.S. government can get away with
> doing so, a continuing attention to terrorism is to be anticipated.

Sorry, but the US had no problem standing by while millions died
in Indonesia died in the name of free trade, what makes you think
Afghanistan will be any different?

> 39. What dangers will we face in South Asia and the Middle East as a
> result of the current war?
>
> Perhaps the greatest danger is that a Taliban-like regime might come
> to power in Pakistan as a result of war-induced destabilization.
> Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan is no minor player: it has nuclear
> weapons. Even with sober leaders, Pakistan has pursued highly reckless
> policies with regard to Kashmir, bringing it close to conflict with
> its nuclear armed neighbor, India.

Forget that! If China fears that it is sorrounded by the US, and that
it might be next on the hit list, they will make sure that the US soon
changes its mind. It may already be planning to do so. In fact can we
be sure that the anthrax was not sent by China?

> More generally, there is the danger that the calls for holy war,
> largely ignored in the Muslim world in recent years, will now gain a
> wider following.

Not a problem. Muslim nations can't do a hell of a lot to the US.
China on the other hand....

> 40. But won't the "war on terrorism" reduce terrorism, and isn't that
> worth it?
>
> First, the attacks on civilians in Afghanistan, and the aggravation of
> the starvation conditions, is itself terrorist, greatly increasing the
> terrorism at play in the world.
>
> Second, killing innocent civilians, as has already occurred and will
> increasingly occur, will likely create more terrorists in Afghanistan
> and more widely throughout the region. The New York Times reported
> (10/13/01) of an Afghan village struck by U.S. bombs, with many
> civilian casualties. "Maulvi Abdullah Haijazi, an elder from a nearby
> village, had come to assist. 'These people don't support the Taliban,'
> he said. 'They always say the Taliban are doing this or that and they
> don't like it. But now they will all fight the Americans. We pray to
> Allah that we have American soldiers to kill. These bombs from the sky
> we cannot fight.'" And when they can't kill U.S. soldiers, they can at
> least join a terror network. This is the bad fruit our rain from the
> sky nurtures-among survivors.

Not to mention the fact that their are many other peoples around the
world that hate the US, not only Muslims. This attack will do nothing but
encourage anybody with a grudge to realise that hurting the US is possible,
and many people who otherwise would not have done anything may now
seek to try terrorism. How many pro-US Serbs are there? How many
Serbian children are without parents and are groing up in a region that
has suffered the worst the US has got?

> 41. Wouldn't changing U.S. foreign policy under the threat of
> terrorism mean that we are giving in to terrorism?
>
> Suppose a postal worker attacks his mates and some folks in the post
> office one morning. The government - not the surviving workers in the
> post office - moves to capture and prosecute the culprit (not to
> attack his neighbors, etc. ). But hopefully the government also looks
> into the conditions that contributed to the postal workers heinous
> acts, as well. Suppose it discovers that stress levels in post offices
> are abysmal and contribute to anger and personal dissolution leading
> to "going postal. " Would the government be giving in to criminal
> pressures if it advocated a reduction in stress in postal work? No, on
> the contrary the government would be acting sensibly to reduce just
> grievances that needed reduction in any event, and which would have
> the very good by-product of helping reduce the likelihood of other
> postal workers attacking their workmates.
>
> The same logic holds in this case. For the U.S. to alter its foreign
> policy to not support despots abroad, to not punish civilian
> populations abroad, to not support unjust policies by allies abroad,
> to indeed try to redress huge injustices of economic impoverishment
> abroad, are all choices that should occur in any event, in their own
> right, and whose implementation would also, as a desirable side
> benefit, reduce the conditions that breed the hate and desperation
> terrorism feeds on.

Yes but they would also reduce the conditions that the US Military
and Economy feed on. After all how else is Nike going to get
workers who will slave for a year to earn enough money to buy
a pair of the shoes they make?

> 42. Does the U.S. support a Palestinian state? Should it?
>
> The Bush administration has now declared that its vision for the
> solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict includes a Palestinian
> state. The Bush administration is now in line with the former Clinton
> administration. This is better than Bush's previous backtracking, but
> it is still very far from what is needed. Washington says the
> boundaries of the Palestinian state are to be worked out by the
> parties -- the Palestinians and Israel -- but that means that Israel
> has an effective veto over any settlement, and until there is a
> settlement, Palestinians remain under Israeli occupation. Everyone now
> says they support a Palestinian state, including Israel, but the
> crucial question is whether the specific terms address the legitimate
> rights of the Palestinian people. The issue is not a few square
> kilometers of desert on one side of the border or the other, but
> whether there will be Israeli security zones carved out of the
> Palestinian state, whether Israeli security roads will traverse the
> Palestinian state, and whether Israeli settlements will remain. In
> addition, there are the questions of whether Israel will continue to
> control East Jerusalem which it conquered in 1967 and whether the
> Palestinians have to foreswear their right to return to lands from
> which they have been driven out. Until the United States is willing to
> use its influence to pressure Israel to accept real self-determination
> for Palestinians, the problem will remain.

Don't hold your breath. Until the US stops giving billions in aid that
turns around and gets paid back to US politicians as "campaign
contributions", you can bet that won't happen.

> 43. What should the U.S. have done in response to September 11?
>
> The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to have been to assure
> the security, safety, and well-being of U.S. citizens without
> detracting from the security, safety, and well-being of others.
>
> Any response should have avoided targeting civilians or so-called
> dual-use targets and should have been carried out according to the UN
> Charter. We should have sought freely-offered Security Council
> authorization with the UN retaining control of any response.

Actually they should have acted like it didn't bother them. Waited until the
time was right and they had all the pieces in place to make a surgical
strike,
and grabbed Bin Laden. It could have been done. The Isrealis do it that way.
They swear that no matter how long it takes, they will get the person
responsible,
and then just publicly ignore it. A few years later, said person is sitting
having
a cup of coffee and an Isreali agent dressed as a pregnant woman walks up
and
puts a bullet in his head. Ok its nasty. But at least thousands of innocents
don't
get killed. In fact this particular tactic has only killed two innocents
since the '70s
to my knowledge. (Its the rest of the Isrealis tactics, such as bulldozing
houses etc
that I despise)

I was watching the news tonight, and they were talking about a
Singaporean terror group that is said to have links to 'Al Qaeda'.
They showed a video of these terrorist (or freedom fighters depending
on whose side you're on) and they all held US made M-16 assault rifles
and M-203 grenade launchers. Funny isn't it? Seems that the US armed
(directly or indirectly) an organisation linked to 'Al Qaeda'! Ironic huh?

> 45. The peace movement says "Justice, Not War. " But with terrorists,
> how can justice be achieved without war?
>
> First, it can't be achieved via war because, in this case, war kills
> huge numbers of innocents, reduces the attentiveness to law and
> justice, and creates huge reservoirs of hate fueling future terrorists
> possibilities.
>
> Second, it can be achieved without war, however, by following the
> norms of international law, which, if need be, may even involve
> military aspects along with diplomacy and other features - but not war
> as in one country, or a pair, attacking another.

Of course it helps if there is actually an perpetrator who is not dead.
Remember that no other person (of the hundreds arrested) has been charged
in relation to the attacks. In fact the evidence that Osama Bin Laden was
involved will be pretty slim no matter what. Why? Probably because Osama
Bin Laden is unlikely to have directly told anyone to do anything. At best
he told a very trusted aide to tell other very trusted aides, and the
cutouts
would have begun. Its not hard to conceal involvement like this. Just ask
the CIA.

> 46. In what ways if any should the peace movement adjust its positions
> in the light of Sept. 11?
>
> Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should
> have attuned themselves to unjust and horrific violence that
> victimized the weak and was engaged to benefit the powerful. The same
> holds now.
>
> Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should
> have opposed unjust wars, particularly perpetrated by their own
> countries, and any policies making such wars more likely or more
> brutal. The same holds now.
>
> Peace movements in industrialized nations before September 11 should
> have examined institutional causes for wars, seeking to reduce those
> causes as much as possible. The same holds now.
>
> So did anything profound change calling for re-thinking by peace
> movements?

Not at all.

> Yes, one thing did change, quite dramatically. For the first time some
> of the abhorrent violence has been turned toward the civilian
> populations of the developed nations. This means that defensive
> motives will enter developed nation's calculations vis-.-vis
> international relations with poor countries not solely rhetorically,
> but in fact. Peace movements will have to pay attention to that new
> reality even as they also pay attention to on-going structural causes
> of war and injustice.

What? Are you nuts? Ooops thats right you're American. Thats the
only way you could have ignored the huge amounts of violence
caused by the IRA in London etc, or the Algerian Seperatist bombings
in France etc. Or does only the US fit the description "developed nations"?

> 47. What should be the relation of other movements to the peace
> movement, and vice versa?
>
> Winning gains against intransigent elites depends on convincing them
> that to ignore demands will lead to more losses for them than to meet
> demands. What accomplishes this is always the specter of growing
> numbers of people taking the side of dissidents, becoming sufficiently
> aroused and impassioned to work to recruit still more allies, and to
> manifest their dissent in demonstrations and civil disobedience, and
> especially of growing numbers whose concerns begin to transcend
> immediate issues and call into question broader and even more
> important institutional allegiances of elites.

Better not, the US might call you a "terrorist" and bomb the shit out
of your homes.

> Thus, peace movements, anti-racist movements, labor movements,
> anti-capitalist movements, ecology movements, feminist movements,
> movements against capitalist globalization, movements for great
> democracy or against incursions on freedom, and any other social
> movements will benefit to the extent they mutually support one another
> and convince elites that to ignore their focus is to risk enlarged
> opposition not only on that issue, but on all others as well. They
> will suffer losses in their efficacy to the extent that they are
> isolated from one another, or even pitted against one another

Or they will just come out in the open and be totalitarian in public as well
as behind closed doors. COINTELPRO anyone?

RT

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 6:41:58 PM10/18/01

"Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
news:3bcf...@clear.net.nz...
> snip...

Ok - you've got the record. 80KB of crap

PAM.

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 7:21:41 PM10/18/01

Causo wrote:
>
> Looks like yet another brain-dead fruitcake has fallen for the communistic,
> teasonist, dribble that sick, sexually abused retards like Hutchins,
> Chomksky and the like clear out from their bowels!

There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like most
things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
themselves so communism doesn't work.

Which is why I'm not one and don't agree with it.

PAM.

Spidah

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 7:57:39 PM10/18/01

"PAM." <Junk...@FishnChips.com> wrote in message
news:3BCF6405...@FishnChips.com...

> Causo wrote:
> >
> > Looks like yet another brain-dead fruitcake has fallen for the
communistic,
> > teasonist, dribble that sick, sexually abused retards like Hutchins,
> > Chomksky and the like clear out from their bowels!
>
> There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like most
> things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
> themselves so communism doesn't work.
>

Has there every been a true communist country? All I have ever seen are
dictatorships falsely claiming to be communists.

Spidah

Causo

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 9:58:00 PM10/18/01

PAM. <Junk...@FishnChips.com> wrote in message
news:3BCF6405...@FishnChips.com...

Communism can only work for an "ideal" world, something that can never
possibly happen!

>
> PAM.

Causo

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 9:58:23 PM10/18/01

Unbiased? You're a funny guy!
John <jo...@liquisol.com> wrote in message
news:3bcefca1....@news1.eircom.net...

Sue Bilstein

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 10:40:24 PM10/18/01

In article <9qko14$9n7$5...@lust.ihug.co.nz>, Klay says...

>
>http://www.zmag.org/55qaframe.htm
>
>
>The War In Afghanistan
>47 Questions and Answers
>and additional links for further Information
>
>

>1. What is Islamic fundamentalism?
>

<snip>

1. Q. Who made the world?
A. God made the world.

2. Q. Who is God?
A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things.

3. Q. What is man?
A. Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and
likeness of God.

etc etc.

Geoff McCaughan

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 11:19:22 PM10/18/01

Spidah (hami...@ihug.co.nz) wrote:
>
> Has there every been a true communist country? All I have ever seen are
> dictatorships falsely claiming to be communists.

The state of Kerala in India has been communist governed since 1957.

While poor by western standards, Kerala has the lowest birth rate,
the highest literacy rate, and the best life expectancy in India.

ralph

unread,

Oct 18, 2001, 11:51:05 PM10/18/01

On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:57:39 +1300, "Spidah" <hami...@ihug.co.nz>
wrote:

Funny about that. You install a one party constitution, remove the
right to vote for anyone but a member of that party, and the guy at
the top of that party (probably the most ruthless one) becomes a
dictator, because you can never "vote" him out (and if you try, you
get shot).

In fact, this is "true communism" - because it will always end up this
way - well, as long as humans are involved anyway ;-)

Owen McShane

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 4:33:21 AM10/19/01

Well, this may be so. But how many more experiments are we prepared to
tolerate trying to get things right – given that the experiments to date
have cost 100,000,000 human lives.
I suspect you are probably anti GE and are willing to halt this new
technology in its tracks because of risk to something or other.
And yet you sound willing to risk yet another experiment in a field
which has proven disastrous whereas to date GE is the safest
technological revolution in history - it has yet to claim one life.
--
Owen McShane, Rangiora Road, Northland, NZ
See "Straight Thinking On Line" (http://mcshane.orcon.net.nz)

John

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 7:10:30 AM10/19/01

<s35...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:

>Looks like yet another brain-dead fruitcake has fallen for the communistic,
>teasonist, dribble that sick, sexually abused retards like Hutchins,
>Chomksky and the like clear out from their bowels!
>
>

I expected a well though-out, better presented argument! Or are you
not prepared to discuss your opinions?

aliveunwed

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 7:18:37 AM10/19/01

--->8---

Some interesting points. Specially about the British striking
civilians first in WWII.

Many of the points you make, though, are covered by the original
article.

My thanks to Klay - for the massive cut-and-paste.

Bob.

"War is bad, M'kay?"

Edwin

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 9:41:25 AM10/19/01

"Causo" <s35...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message
news:9qo0cg$pe5$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...

Why not? Why does communism only work in an ideal world? Have any of the
regimes that have claimed to be "communist" really been controlled by the
vast majority of people in that country? AFAIK, no, they haven't. When one
is, perhaps then it will act in the best interest of the people (I mean if
it's totally run by the people... and don't scoff, with today's technology
we could be voting on everything practically everyday. Maybe not quite yet,
but in a few decades...). Of course you could argue that a vast majority of
people will never want a "communist" regime enough to get up and do
something about it...

> >
> > PAM.
>
>

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 11:23:28 AM10/19/01

"Sue Bilstein" <bils...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:soMz7.34933$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...

> In article <9qko14$9n7$5...@lust.ihug.co.nz>, Klay says...
> >
> >http://www.zmag.org/55qaframe.htm
> >
> >
> >The War In Afghanistan
> >47 Questions and Answers
> >and additional links for further Information
> >
> >
> >1. What is Islamic fundamentalism?
> >
> <snip>
>
> 1. Q. Who made the world?
> A. God made the world.

Alternative A: Nobody made the world, it just is.

> 2. Q. Who is God?
> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things.

Alternative A: "God" is a figment of the imaginations of weak minded people
who
are too afraid to admit that their life really is a
once off event. The
idea of "God" is pushed by the rich, the elite, and
the powerful as
a means of preventing the just revolution against
their corrupt practises
by promising that anyone who obeys them will be
rewarded by "God"

> 3. Q. What is man?
> A. Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and
> likeness of God.

Alternative A: Man is a biological accident that resulted in the most
damaging
species this planet has ever known. He might also be
the first species
to intentionally drive itself to extinction. The
belief in "God" makes this
even more likely.

Counter questions:

1) If man was made in the image and likeness of God, Exaclty what race is
God?
Is he an African-European-Asian-Oriental?

2) If God is Man-like or Man God-like, How is it that God can be everywhere
at once and know everything at once?

3) Why is it that all the worst natural disasters are called Acts of God?

4) If God is the Creator of all things, who created God?

5) If God is the Creator of all things, does that not mean that God is the
Creator of Evil?

6) If God is infallible, why are his creations so flawed?

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 12:49:58 PM10/19/01

"RT" <r.th...@cqu.edu.au> wrote in message
news:9qnluu$8n6$1...@spider.cqu.edu.au...

An yet every word is true.. Too bad you are so far up your own
arsehole you wouldn't recognise it if you ate it...

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 1:27:29 PM10/19/01

"aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message
news:69f95fa8.01101...@posting.google.com...

> --->8---
>
> Some interesting points. Specially about the British striking
> civilians first in WWII.
>
> Many of the points you make, though, are covered by the original
> article.

True. I must say when I was reading through and responding it was
hard to figure out exaclty whether the original author was trying to
be unbiased or biased. The result was that when I answered a point
near the top, it was nearly identical to some original comments near
the bottom. But damned if I was going to write all that then scrap it
because a few points were covered twice! :-)

I must say however, that it is clear to me that the entire point of the
original article was to distract those who are questioning this war
from asking the really hard questions. It attempts to win the sceptics
over by touching on points the mainstream press wouldn't touch with
a barge pole, yet uses a single paragraph to distract from the real cause
of this war, oil, by saying the equivalent of "yes well everything the US
does is about oil to a greater or lesser extent, but..." It totally ignores
the links to oil that many in the Bush administration have, and it totally
ignores the fact that oil companies were openly begging the US
government to do something about Afghanistan because they were unable
to build their pipelines.

> My thanks to Klay - for the massive cut-and-paste.
>
> Bob.
>
> "War is bad, M'kay?"

The real problem Bush et al will have is when people start asking why
the only company in the US licensed to manufacture the anthrax vaccine
is owned by companies that are involved with George Bush Snr, and the
Bin Laden family! So guess who is going to get even richer off the
anthrax scare?

Thats right the Bushs and the Bin Ladens!

Oh and another owner of BioPort is Admiral William J. Crowe Jr, who just
happened to be involved in the transfer of NBC materials to the Iraqis.

So Bush Snr, an ex-CIA man who was involved in setting up Bin Laden
in Afghanistan, Crowe Jr a man who was involved in sending anthrax to
Iraq, and the Bin Laden family all happen to have a stake in BioPort, the
only company allowed to make the anthrax vaccine in the US, and which
has singularly failed to make even a single drop of usable vaccine!

So now we come to the interesting questions. Why has the anthrax been
targetted at the press and the Democratic leader of the senate? What
does Osama have to gain by targetting them? Why did the House, dominated
by Republicans and not targeted by anthrax (yet) shut up shop for the first
time in its history, but the Democratic controlled Senate which HAD been
targetted stay open?

Imagine if you will that Bush had decided to declare himself lifetime
president,
and that all civil liberties were suspended, and that to do this he needed
both the
press and the congress on his side. What better way to do it than to scare
the shit
out of both by sending them anthrax then claiming these drastic measures
were
needed to prevent anthrax being sent to the press and congress and other
"innocent"
people? Pure speculation of course. But when you look at the long standing
links
between the Bin Ladens and the Bushs, and the huge amounts of oil money
and power to be gained, maybe not such a far fetched one.

After all who would have thought in Germany that Hitler would burn down the
Reichstag?

By the way, how is it that a man who does not even know that there is no
such
word as "misunderestimate" (as proven by the fact he said it twice, which
rules out
a slip of the tongue) seems to be so good at running the country? It
wouldn't be
becuase the second in command Cheney and Powell and many other senior
officials
were all Bush Snr people in 1991, and even Bush Jnr admits that he "talks"
to his father
often? Is Jnr just a puppet of the behind the scenes Bush Snr? Is a coup
underway
in the US? Or has it already happened?

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 1:42:51 PM10/19/01

"ralph" <rste...@geocities.nospm.com> wrote in message
news:pf8vst4nba008jbnl...@4ax.com...

> On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:57:39 +1300, "Spidah" <hami...@ihug.co.nz>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >"PAM." <Junk...@FishnChips.com> wrote in message
> >news:3BCF6405...@FishnChips.com...
> >> Causo wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Looks like yet another brain-dead fruitcake has fallen for the
> >communistic,
> >> > teasonist, dribble that sick, sexually abused retards like Hutchins,
> >> > Chomksky and the like clear out from their bowels!
> >>
> >> There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like
most
> >> things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
> >> themselves so communism doesn't work.
> >>
> >
> >Has there every been a true communist country? All I have ever seen are
> >dictatorships falsely claiming to be communists.
> >
>
> Funny about that. You install a one party constitution, remove the
> right to vote for anyone but a member of that party, and the guy at
> the top of that party (probably the most ruthless one) becomes a
> dictator, because you can never "vote" him out (and if you try, you
> get shot).

None of which are communism. In fact in early communist Russia
the people had a direct say in how the country was run. I remember
reading an article written by a Russian woman not long after the
revolution. In it she was discussing the fact that a town hall meeting to
discuss whether men should be held finacially accountable for children
they sire had turned into a fist fight between a couple of especially heated
protagonists. She then went on to describe her views (which were,
suprisingly,
that men SHOULDN'T be held financially liable because then women might
get intentionally pregnant to get extra money). It was made very clear in
this
article that these meetings were taking place all over the country and that
the decision would be democratic in that each meeting would have a vote
and the totals would decide.

All of this for a single family planning issue! Now thats democracy! Thats
communism! Where the people as a whole decide how their country is run,
rather than some elected (or unelected in the case of Bush Jnr) official
deciding for everyone else.

It is sad to think that such a good early start was corrupted once certain
people got a modicum of power.

>
> In fact, this is "true communism" - because it will always end up this
> way - well, as long as humans are involved anyway ;-)

Maybe so, but at least it doesn't START OUT that way as in the case
of a capitalist democracy! In the 2000 Presidential election, only five
votes
counted in America. The votes of the supreme court judges who owed
their wealth, prestige and power to the Republicans. Is that democracy?
Remember in a straight count of the votes cast each way, Gore got over
600,000 more votes. It was only because of their twisted electoral college
system and the supreme courts illegal verdict that Bush Jnr became
President.
Now look what's happened!

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 1:48:39 PM10/19/01

"Owen McShane " <omcs...@wk.planet.gen.nz> wrote in message
news:3BCFE5...@wk.planet.gen.nz...

> Spidah wrote:
> >
> > "PAM." <Junk...@FishnChips.com> wrote in message
> > news:3BCF6405...@FishnChips.com...
> > > Causo wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Looks like yet another brain-dead fruitcake has fallen for the
> > communistic,
> > > > teasonist, dribble that sick, sexually abused retards like Hutchins,
> > > > Chomksky and the like clear out from their bowels!
> > >
> > > There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like
most
> > > things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
> > > themselves so communism doesn't work.
> > >
> >
> > Has there every been a true communist country? All I have ever seen are
> > dictatorships falsely claiming to be communists.
> >
> > Spidah
> Well, this may be so. But how many more experiments are we prepared to

> tolerate trying to get things right - given that the experiments to date

> have cost 100,000,000 human lives.

Isn't that what the Americans called their system? An experiment?

> I suspect you are probably anti GE and are willing to halt this new
> technology in its tracks because of risk to something or other.
> And yet you sound willing to risk yet another experiment in a field
> which has proven disastrous whereas to date GE is the safest
> technological revolution in history - it has yet to claim one life.

Is that right? Lets hope the anthrax that killed the man in Florida wasn't
GE then eh! I'll ask you this, as a pro-GE supporter, are you willing to
be held accountable if GE does kill somebody? Are you willing to
be held personally liable for any damages done? Because you can
garauntee that if something does go wrong the GE companies won't.
That's why they refuse to garantee its safety. Not because they can't,
but because they can't and they are afraid that if they do, they will be
made to pay for the damage caused.

Its seems these companies are willing to risk OUR LIVES, but not
THEIR MONEY!

Devils Advocate

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 1:51:39 PM10/19/01

"Causo" <s35...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message
news:9qo0cg$pe5$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
>

So a capitalist democracy DOES work? Then why are so many people
starving? How come that in the US, "The Greatest Country On the Face
Of The Earth" as recently proclaimed by Bush Jnr, millions of people live
in poverty?

tonycook

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 2:41:57 PM10/19/01

"Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message

news:3bd067c1$1...@clear.net.nz...

>
> "Causo" <s35...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:9qo0cg$pe5$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
> >
> > PAM. <Junk...@FishnChips.com> wrote in message
> > news:3BCF6405...@FishnChips.com...
> > > Causo wrote:

(snipped)

> > Communism can only work for an "ideal" world, something that can never
> > possibly happen!

Of course it can't.
There's no such thing as an "ideal" world.
One man's "ideal" world can be another man's "nightmare" world.

> So a capitalist democracy DOES work? Then why are so many people
> starving? How come that in the US, "The Greatest Country On the Face
> Of The Earth" as recently proclaimed by Bush Jnr, millions of people live
> in poverty?

Because democracy has not yet evolved sufficiently.
All that happens currently is that voters elect *only people* -
and are *not allowed* to vote meaningfully for separate issues.

So, elected dictatorships are what result - who *still* do as they
please and remain largely unaccountable to the electorate for *most*
of any political term.
*That's* what's wrong !!!!!!!
*That's* why the real "will" of the people does *not* get carried out !!!!!

But it can easily be put right.
It only takes enough people to realise democracy must evolve -
one more final - but vital step.

{{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people's voice }}}}}}}}}}

>>>> More democracy - less dictatorship <<<<

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The NZ Super Democratic Party's Website is:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tonycook/nzsdp/

( Read: "Televoting - The Booklet" )

*********************************************
"WE, THE PEOPLE of New Zealand, in order to form a
more perfect Democracy, establish Justice, ensure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the
general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the Democratic Realm of New Zealand."

Redbaiter

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 3:34:03 PM10/19/01

In article <3bd067c1$1...@clear.net.nz>, DA...@orcon.net.nz
says...

Because one of the downsides to democracy is that
in the US, uninformed and unintelligent cretins like you
have the vote

--
Redbaiter
In the leftist lexicon, the lowest of the low

Owen McShane

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 4:16:00 PM10/19/01

Sorry, but the recount showed that Bush had won.
also there is nothing perverted about an electorol colleges system. The
Founding fathers borrowed the principle Parliament their nearest model.
IN all parliamentary systems the Prime Minister is selected by the
majority caucus which is in effect an electoral college.
Are you prepared to say that all Parliaments are perverted too?

Owen McShane

unread,

Oct 19, 2001, 4:18:58 PM10/19/01

There will be more people killed on the roads of US the next weekend
that civilians will be killed in Afghanistan.
Fires have killed millions - ban fires?
Wheels have killed millions – ban wheels.
And of course if someone's use of GE organisms causes someone harm then
they must be subject to damages like anyone else.
No one can guarantee absolute safety about anything. Shoulr Orville and
Wright have been asked to guarantee absolute safety?

David Pears

unread,

Oct 20, 2001, 12:04:52 AM10/20/01

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 06:51:39 +1300, "Devils Advocate"
<DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote:

>> Communism can only work for an "ideal" world, something that can never
>> possibly happen!
>
>So a capitalist democracy DOES work? Then why are so many people
>starving? How come that in the US, "The Greatest Country On the Face
>Of The Earth" as recently proclaimed by Bush Jnr, millions of people live
>in poverty?

Because poverty is defined as having an income below some certain
percentage of the average wage. Many people in the States do so well,
that the average wage is very high (something like double what it is
in NZ), so people who are reasonably well off are classed as being
below the poverty line. You'll find that most people classed as living
in poverty in the States have quite reasonable standards of living.

Badly supported anti-Americanism is more evidence that you are Simon
Rika.

David

enterfornone

unread,

Oct 20, 2001, 12:30:50 AM10/20/01

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 06:51:39 +1300, "Devils Advocate"
<DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote:

>> > There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like most
>> > things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
>> > themselves so communism doesn't work.
>> >
>> > Which is why I'm not one and don't agree with it.
>>
>> Communism can only work for an "ideal" world, something that can never
>> possibly happen!
>
>So a capitalist democracy DOES work? Then why are so many people
>starving? How come that in the US, "The Greatest Country On the Face
>Of The Earth" as recently proclaimed by Bush Jnr, millions of people live
>in poverty?

Real capitalism "An economic system in which the means of production
and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is
proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained
in a free market." according to dictionary.com, is not practiced
anywhere in the world. Most of the things that are wrong with
capitalism are caused by government interferance.

Still even the poorest people in countries such as Australia and the
US are better off than the average in communist countries.

--
enterfornone - http://www.enterfornone.net/
buy my comics and help me get to Europe - http://members.ebay.com.au/aboutme/enterfornone/

B DeL

unread,

Oct 20, 2001, 3:37:10 AM10/20/01

"Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message

news:3bd0...@clear.net.nz...

So? You'd be criticizing Gore instead of Bush

B DeL

Brian Dooley

unread,

Oct 20, 2001, 2:51:18 PM10/20/01

Note the address. What else can you expect?

Brian Dooley

Wellington New Zealand

R6RACER

unread,

Oct 20, 2001, 10:20:28 PM10/20/01

> And the old favourite: if God is all-powerful, can He
> create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it?

It's called Uluru.

BrainBomber

unread,

Oct 20, 2001, 11:05:55 PM10/20/01

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 14:30:50 +1000, enterfornone <sp...@enterfornone.net> wrote:

>On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 06:51:39 +1300, "Devils Advocate"
><DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote:
>
>>> > There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like most
>>> > things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
>>> > themselves so communism doesn't work.
>>> >
>>> > Which is why I'm not one and don't agree with it.
>>>
>>> Communism can only work for an "ideal" world, something that can never
>>> possibly happen!
>>
>>So a capitalist democracy DOES work? Then why are so many people
>>starving? How come that in the US, "The Greatest Country On the Face
>>Of The Earth" as recently proclaimed by Bush Jnr, millions of people live
>>in poverty?
>
>Real capitalism "An economic system in which the means of production
>and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is
>proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained
>in a free market." according to dictionary.com, is not practiced
>anywhere in the world. Most of the things that are wrong with
>capitalism are caused by government interferance.
>
>Still even the poorest people in countries such as Australia and the
>US are better off than the average in communist countries.

The reason for that is that all the countries which have taken on a semblence of
communism were already poverty stricken as a result of war or previous
over-exploitation by the big capitalist empires.

If a nation like OZ suddenly decided to convert to a properly planned and
reasonably equitable society, I'm sure it would thrive in all respects (like
Sweden did) Socialism doesn't mean the end of private enterprise and innovation,
you know.

The biggest problem would be combatting greed and corruption.

Brian Dooley

unread,

Oct 21, 2001, 2:27:28 AM10/21/01

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 14:30:50 +1000, enterfornone
<sp...@enterfornone.net> wrote:

snip---

>Still even the poorest people in countries such as Australia and the
>US are better off than the average in communist countries.

Even the Abos?

Nick Wade

unread,

Oct 21, 2001, 3:09:34 AM10/21/01

BrainBomber wrote in message <3bd1f53c...@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net>...

>On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 14:30:50 +1000, enterfornone <sp...@enterfornone.net>
wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 06:51:39 +1300, "Devils Advocate"
>><DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote:
>>>> > There's nothing wrong with communism if applied correctly. But like
most
>>>> > things, it gets screwed up. People are out for what they can get
>>>> > themselves so communism doesn't work.

>If a nation like OZ suddenly decided to convert to a properly planned and
>reasonably equitable society, I'm sure it would thrive in all respects
(like
>Sweden did) Socialism doesn't mean the end of private enterprise and
innovation,
>you know.

There is a difference b/w communism and socialism - the latter is basically
the former when it works properly.

Owen McShane

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Oct 21, 2001, 4:20:57 AM10/21/01

YEs, those who chose to join the mainstream. If you decide to stick with
your tribal culture (which is your right) you cannot then bemoan the
fact that you are not as rich as those who join the mainstream.
The Amish understand this and are not disturbed by the fact that there
standard of living is lower than that of the average American.
They know they have made a decision to be "poor" – as is their right.
When the Maori caucus says that biotechnology is offensive to all Maori
they will not (or should not) then complain in fifty years time that
Maori youth have missed out on the wealth generated by the biological
revolution which will be to the 21st century what the electronic
revolution was to the 20th.
But of course they will - or maybe not – but certainly a whole bunch of
cultural anthropologists and sociologists will.
Such is life.
Decisions have consequences.
Italy was at the leading edge of physics (Bruno and Galileo et al) until
the "Royal" Commission into physics led by the Church of Rome. The
centure of physics then moved to the North and Italy has remained a
scientific backwater ever since.
Think on it.

Devils Advocate

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Oct 21, 2001, 9:56:21 AM10/21/01

snip...

> > > In fact, this is "true communism" - because it will always end up this
> > > way - well, as long as humans are involved anyway ;-)
> >
> > Maybe so, but at least it doesn't START OUT that way as in the case
> > of a capitalist democracy! In the 2000 Presidential election, only five
> > votes
> > counted in America. The votes of the supreme court judges who owed
> > their wealth, prestige and power to the Republicans. Is that democracy?
> > Remember in a straight count of the votes cast each way, Gore got over
> > 600,000 more votes. It was only because of their twisted electoral
college
> > system and the supreme courts illegal verdict that Bush Jnr became
> > President.
> > Now look what's happened!
>
>
> So? You'd be criticizing Gore instead of Bush

Very possibly. Its the system, not the person. Does anyone really
think that someone who thinks that "misunderestimate" is a real
word is smart enough to do all this damage by himself? Hell no.
He is just the mouthpiece for the multibillionaires who really pull the
strings.

Now if you look at the history of Clinton and Gore, it would be
very hard to believe that Gore would be totally honest. I believe
he would be just as dishonest, but in a completely different way.
Bush represents oil and war. Clinton (and therefore probably Gore)
represented fraud and criminality. The latter was deadly for Americans,
the former is deadly for everyone!

There is one common thread, and that is that MONEY and POWER
is what made these people tick. They do not represent the people,
they represent the money. Bush gets his from Big Business, Clinton
got his from Big Crime. Often the two are indistinguishable

Devils Advocate

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Oct 21, 2001, 9:18:54 AM10/21/01

snip...

> > Its seems these companies are willing to risk OUR LIVES, but not
> > THEIR MONEY!
> There will be more people killed on the roads of US the next weekend
> that civilians will be killed in Afghanistan.
> Fires have killed millions - ban fires?

> Wheels have killed millions - ban wheels.

> And of course if someone's use of GE organisms causes someone harm then
> they must be subject to damages like anyone else.
> No one can guarantee absolute safety about anything. Shoulr Orville and
> Wright have been asked to guarantee absolute safety?

What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and it
becomes the deadliest strain we know? Will any company be able to
pay compensation to 20 million dead peoples families? What if it can't
be contained and kills everyone? Remember, in 1918 the deadly flu
epidemic killed millions globally, and that was in the days before
you could fly anywhere in the world in hours. What happens if
some GE researcher makes a mistake and unleashes human
extinction? Who pays then? Everyone?

Devils Advocate

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Oct 21, 2001, 9:47:10 AM10/21/01

snip...

> Sorry, but the recount showed that Bush had won.

Bzzt! Wrong, the correct answer is the recount was stopped BEFORE
it could show GORE had won. But that was just for the Florida Electoral
College. The fact remains that nationwide, GORE GOT HALF A MILLION
MORE VOTES!

And before you ask why Gore didn't sue, the fact is the highest court
in the land was dominated by Republicans, who all voted to stop the
recounts ILLEGALLY, While the minority Democrats voted to keep
the recounts going as allowed by LAW and the CONSTITUTION!

When the highest court in the land is biased, and breaks the law, who
do you appeal to? The Public? And what if the only way you can do that
is through the mainstream press which has been biased in favour of Bush
all along? What happens then? The 2000 election in the US was a bloodless
coup d'etat, and the results can now be seen in New York, Washington
and Afghanistan!

In fact, many months ago, posting under my real name rather than
my current nom-de-keyboard, I stated that now that Bush was in
power, the world was screwed, and I gave him a year to start a war.
Well, my prediciton was right wasn't it?

> also there is nothing perverted about an electorol colleges system. The
> Founding fathers borrowed the principle Parliament their nearest model.
> IN all parliamentary systems the Prime Minister is selected by the
> majority caucus which is in effect an electoral college.

But in a parliamentary system, the Prime Minister does not have
the powers of the President. She or He must live with the decisions of
Parliament. Whereas in the US, the President has executive powers,
and can, by declaring a national emergency, suspend the constitution
and override the congress. The US has been in a declared state of
National Emergency for DECADES! In fact there are currently
multiple declarations of emergency in the US, any one of which
can be used to suspend the entire democratic system in the US.

Why do you think it is that an entirely new branch of the National
Security organisation has been set up with no congressional
approval or oversight, and has powers that are unconstitutional?
Such as the indefinite imprisonment of suspects without trial and
without appeal as long as they are legal or illegal aliens? That includes
many millions of American residents.

> Are you prepared to say that all Parliaments are perverted too?

YES! Any system that allows a small group of people to have power
over the population can be (and more often than not is) corrupted.
When all you need to do is pay off a couple hundred people to have
any law you want enacted, repealed, or ignored, you do not have
a democracy, you have a plutocracy, where the people with the most
money to spend win. In the US, this is in fact they way their system
operates out in the open! They call it lobbying. Reasonable people
call it bribery! What else can you call it when someone receives money
to vote a certain way?

aliveunwed

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Oct 21, 2001, 11:59:04 AM10/21/01

"Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message news:<3bd0...@clear.net.nz>...

> "aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:69f95fa8.01101...@posting.google.com...
> > --->8---
> >
> > Some interesting points. Specially about the British striking
> > civilians first in WWII.
> >
> > Many of the points you make, though, are covered by the original
> > article.
>
> True. I must say when I was reading through and responding it was
> hard to figure out exaclty whether the original author was trying to
> be unbiased or biased. The result was that when I answered a point
> near the top, it was nearly identical to some original comments near
> the bottom. But damned if I was going to write all that then scrap it
> because a few points were covered twice! :-)

Don't you hate it when that happens.

>
> I must say however, that it is clear to me that the entire point of the
> original article was to distract those who are questioning this war
> from asking the really hard questions.

No, sorry, that's just too paranoid for me.

This kind of speculation is okay as far as it goes, but it too would
be easy to use as a smoke screen. While everyone is researching links
between Shrub and bin-liner, the US and British are breaking
international laws all over the place.

Sure, the american government and the oil industry (much the same
thing at the moment, as you point out) have never been particularly
shy about laying waste to places in the Middle-East for the sake of
"national security" and profit, respectively. That may well motivate
some weird shit, but following that kind of thinking in the current
situation would have Shrub (or someone behind him, most likely)
organising the terrorists to attack the WTC, just to start the ball
rolling.

That way lies madness. Even if it is true.

--->8---

>
> The real problem Bush et al will have is when people start asking why
> the only company in the US licensed to manufacture the anthrax vaccine
> is owned by companies that are involved with George Bush Snr, and the
> Bin Laden family! So guess who is going to get even richer off the
> anthrax scare?

---> 8--- more conspiracy theory

> Iraq, and the Bin Laden family all happen to have a stake in BioPort, the
> only company allowed to make the anthrax vaccine in the US, and which
> has singularly failed to make even a single drop of usable vaccine!

Bioport have been selling it to the US.mil for years. They probably
just cut corners in their new plant to save money - knowing that, even
if the FDA prevented them from selling the vaccine to the public, they
could still sell it to the military. The amount of vaccine they'd
sell to the general public might not have made the plant upgrades
worth the money.

>
> So now we come to the interesting questions. Why has the anthrax been
> targetted at the press

Who better than the press to spread panic.

--->8---

>
> Imagine if you will that Bush had decided to declare himself lifetime
> president,

Oh shit! Please, noooooo!

> and that all civil liberties were suspended, and that to do this
> he needed both the press and the congress on his side. What better way
> to do it than to scare the shit out of both by sending them anthrax

Naaa.

--->8---

>
> By the way, how is it that a man who does not even know that there is no
> such word as "misunderestimate" (as proven by the fact he said it twice,
> which rules out a slip of the tongue) seems to be so good at running the
> country?

Are we sure Shrub is Bush's son? He reminds me more of Dan Quayle.

> It wouldn't be becuase the second in command Cheney and
> Powell and many other senior officials were all Bush Snr people in 1991,
> and even Bush Jnr admits that he "talks" to his father often? Is Jnr just a

> puppet of the behind the scenes Bush Snr? Is a coup underwayin the US?

> Or has it already happened?

Yeah, there is something really strange about the two Bushes being
President so close together.

Remember though, that Bush was a shoo-in for the '92 election, until
about the middle of '91. Even after Clarence Thomas and "no new
taxes" he was still doing okay - set to ride the Gulf War to victory.
In fact, the Bush adminstration was so confident of victory in Feb '91
that they actually announced that they wouldn't bother firing up their
campaign-proper until a few weeks before the Republican Convention (3
months before the election).

Then, after all that, Bush had his job snatched from him by some
show-pony from Arkansas assisted by Elmer Fudd.

Bush couldn't run again - but by christ his son could!

I doubt there is anything more to the Bush Dynasty than just greed for
power. What they're after is the Presidency (maybe the coup you
describe), and while they'd do almost anything to get it, I think
you're making them out to be more intelligent and devious than they
really are.

For me, what is most glaring in the original article - about the
US.gov handling of this whole sorry mess - is that they're fighting
terrorism WITH terrorism.

No-one can really deny that the US.gov (like the UK.gov and many
before it) has been, shall we say, a little heavy-handed in its
foreign policy. Selling vast quantities of military hardware to
countries simply for political expediency; supporting terrorist
governments (Israel); and generally acting as Jack Kennedy warned
*against* - the Pax Americana: a US.gov idea of "peace" being forced
on the world.

And Operation Infinitesimal Justice is the perfect opportunity.
Anyone not with them is against them and better watch out. Everyone
must endorse US.gov terrorism, or be labelled a heretic.

The interesting questions (as you put it) from my POV are:

1. If the US/UK.govs are breaking international law (committing
terrorism) in the war against terrorism, will they be punished too?

2. Only this year the US.gov gave something like $45M US to the
Taleban for destroying Pakistani opium poppy crops. Does that count
as financing a government that supports terrorism?

3. The US.gov has been propping up Israel for decades - despite its
frequent acts of terrorism. Does THAT count as financing a government
that USES terrorism?

I could go on.

The psychotic hypocracy of this whole thing is just staggering. It's
the global equivalent of a cross between the Civic Creche Case and
Morgan Fahey telling his victims "I'm not doing this" WHILE he was
"doing it" to them.

(For non NZers - a cross between a witch-hunt and the denial of
something that is plainly happening before your eyes.)

Bob.

"My brain hurts."
Mr Gumby.

tonycook

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Oct 21, 2001, 2:51:22 PM10/21/01

"Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message

news:3bd2...@clear.net.nz...
> snip...

> What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and it
> becomes the deadliest strain we know?

What if ...... What if.
For goodness sake - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
A rogue meteorite could wipe the planet out too.

Genetic Engineering is a part of science that the human race
*must* know about.
Provided due caution is exercised - and legislated for - it is a
science that can benefit mankind immensely.
Afterall, nature has been undertaking GE for billions of years,
and numerous species have not been successful as we know.
Whether we like it or not bacteria and viruses are evolving a lot
faster than other species including humans ie. the emergence of
super bugs. Only scientific research will keep pace, and keep pace
with overseas developments to our economic advantage.

Original species can be preserved - your fears are not reasonable
or even realistic. There is not one example of danger to mankind
anywhere - except in people's over-active imaginations.

{{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people’s voice }}}}}}}}}}

>>>> More democracy – less dictatorship <<<<

Owen McShane

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Oct 21, 2001, 5:07:48 PM10/21/01

How do you think we make our flu vaccines?

Owen McShane

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Oct 21, 2001, 5:09:38 PM10/21/01

tonycook wrote:
>
> "Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
> news:3bd2...@clear.net.nz...
> > snip...
> > What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and it
> > becomes the deadliest strain we know?
>
> What if ...... What if.
> For goodness sake - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
> A rogue meteorite could wipe the planet out too.
>
> Genetic Engineering is a part of science that the human race
> *must* know about.
> Provided due caution is exercised - and legislated for - it is a
> science that can benefit mankind immensely.
> Afterall, nature has been undertaking GE for billions of years,
> and numerous species have not been successful as we know.
> Whether we like it or not bacteria and viruses are evolving a lot
> faster than other species including humans ie. the emergence of
> super bugs. Only scientific research will keep pace, and keep pace
> with overseas developments to our economic advantage.
>
> Original species can be preserved - your fears are not reasonable
> or even realistic. There is not one example of danger to mankind
> anywhere - except in people's over-active imaginations.

Indeed. Of all the great technological revolutions GE is the safest. Not
a single death since the first slicing in 1972.
Now how about the wheel, fire, smelting, flight, cars, electricity,
electronics, etc etc etc.
Risk is the other side of safety.

> {{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people’s voice }}}}}}}}}}
>
> >>>> More democracy – less dictatorship <<<<
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The NZ Super Democratic Party's Website is:
>
> http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tonycook/nzsdp/
>
> ( Read: "Televoting - The Booklet" )
>
> *********************************************
> "WE, THE PEOPLE of New Zealand, in order to form a
> more perfect Democracy, establish Justice, ensure domestic
> Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the
> general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
> ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
> Constitution for the Democratic Realm of New Zealand."

aliveunwed

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Oct 21, 2001, 7:19:14 PM10/21/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<9qv5eu$l6i$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...

Huh? Nature has been splicing frog DNA in grass? Jesus, I am out of
touch.

> and numerous species have not been successful as we know.
> Whether we like it or not bacteria and viruses are evolving a lot
> faster than other species including humans ie. the emergence of
> super bugs. Only scientific research will keep pace, and keep pace
> with overseas developments to our economic advantage.
>
> Original species can be preserved - your fears are not reasonable
> or even realistic. There is not one example of danger to mankind
> anywhere - except in people's over-active imaginations.
>

I don't have any real problem with research, it's the application of
GE without having done enough research to know if its safe that
bothers me.

> {{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people’s voice }}}}}}}}}}

Oh my god.

--->8---

>
> ( Read: "Televoting - The Booklet" )

Must I?

>
> *********************************************
> "WE, THE PEOPLE of New Zealand, in order to form a
> more perfect Democracy, establish Justice, ensure domestic
> Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the
> general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
> ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
> Constitution for the Democratic Realm of New Zealand."

Oh good. You've already written the constitution *before* the
republic has been formed. Now that's democracy all right.

You do realise that - for televoting to be feasible and secure - the
government would probably have to buy Telecom back. Not that that's
SUCH a bad idea, mind.

Bob.

Titivating the political structure is fine - but it won't stop power
corrupting politicians.

tonycook

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Oct 21, 2001, 8:28:50 PM10/21/01

"aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message

news:69f95fa8.01102...@posting.google.com...

> "tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message
news:<9qv5eu$l6i$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...
> > "Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
> > news:3bd2...@clear.net.nz...
> > > snip...
> > > What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and it
> > > becomes the deadliest strain we know?
> >
> > What if ...... What if.
> > For goodness sake - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
> > A rogue meteorite could wipe the planet out too.
> >
> > Genetic Engineering is a part of science that the human race
> > *must* know about.
> > Provided due caution is exercised - and legislated for - it is a
> > science that can benefit mankind immensely.
> > Afterall, nature has been undertaking GE for billions of years,
>
> Huh? Nature has been splicing frog DNA in grass? Jesus, I am out of
> touch.

LOL. Well, it appears you are - sort of.
Nature achieves the same ends by using the immensity of time.
Such a diversity of species were all created from bacteria and slime,
a natural genetic engineering feat, and not by magic, as some ancient tribes
would still have us believe.

> > and numerous species have not been successful as we know.
> > Whether we like it or not bacteria and viruses are evolving a lot
> > faster than other species including humans ie. the emergence of
> > super bugs. Only scientific research will keep pace, and keep pace
> > with overseas developments to our economic advantage.
> >
> > Original species can be preserved - your fears are not reasonable
> > or even realistic. There is not one example of danger to mankind
> > anywhere - except in people's over-active imaginations.
> >
> I don't have any real problem with research, it's the application of
> GE without having done enough research to know if its safe that
> bothers me.

Fair comment.
I certainly support reasonable caution.
Safeguards can be implemented by any responsible government.

> > {{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people’s voice }}}}}}}}}}
>
> Oh my god.

No - just the people's voice.

> > ( Read: "Televoting - The Booklet" )
>
> Must I?

Yes.

>> *********************************************
> > "WE, THE PEOPLE of New Zealand, in order to form a
> > more perfect Democracy, establish Justice, ensure domestic
> > Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the
> > general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
> > ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
> > Constitution for the Democratic Realm of New Zealand."
>
> Oh good. You've already written the constitution *before* the
> republic has been formed. Now that's democracy all right.

Republic????????
Pu-lease - no yankee situation for NZ thanks.
A democratic - *not* republic - rhealm if you don't mind.
The people will choose our politicians - not the courts.

BTW, the excerpt above is just a suggested preamble.

> You do realise that - for televoting to be feasible and secure - the
> government would probably have to buy Telecom back. Not that that's
> SUCH a bad idea, mind.

LOL.

> Bob.
>
> Titivating the political structure is fine - but it won't stop power
> corrupting politicians.

Televoting will alter the power structure considerably.
An enormous and very significant change occurs when the political
playing field is altered from dollar values to vote values.
It not only actually *unstifles* democracy enough to make a very
meaningful difference to the voter's value - but it removes *some*
of the almost absolute/dictatorial power of successive so called
representative governments who actually do nothing but represent
themselves and their future careers.

It's interesting that giant corporations may well compete/influence
successfully with a dollar value system - but can't with a vote value
system.

People will get to grips with these facts - eventually.

John Sefton

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Oct 21, 2001, 9:38:53 PM10/21/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message
news:9qv5eu$l6i$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...
>

> "Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
> news:3bd2...@clear.net.nz...
> > snip...
> > What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and it
> > becomes the deadliest strain we know?
>
> What if ...... What if.
> For goodness sake - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
> A rogue meteorite could wipe the planet out too.
>
> Genetic Engineering is a part of science that the human race
> *must* know about.
> Provided due caution is exercised - and legislated for - it is a
> science that can benefit mankind immensely.
> Afterall, nature has been undertaking GE for billions of years,
> and numerous species have not been successful as we know.
> Whether we like it or not bacteria and viruses are evolving a lot
> faster than other species including humans ie. the emergence of
> super bugs. Only scientific research will keep pace, and keep pace
> with overseas developments to our economic advantage.
>
> Original species can be preserved - your fears are not reasonable
> or even realistic. There is not one example of danger to mankind
> anywhere - except in people's over-active imaginations.

One of the best posts I've seen on the subject - well done, Tony!

aliveunwed

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Oct 22, 2001, 7:43:43 AM10/22/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<9qvp7j$1v6$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...

> "aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:69f95fa8.01102...@posting.google.com...
> > "tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:<9qv5eu$l6i$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...
> > > "Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
> > > news:3bd2...@clear.net.nz...
> > > > snip...
> > > > What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and it
> > > > becomes the deadliest strain we know?
> > >
> > > What if ...... What if.
> > > For goodness sake - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
> > > A rogue meteorite could wipe the planet out too.
> > >
> > > Genetic Engineering is a part of science that the human race
> > > *must* know about.
> > > Provided due caution is exercised - and legislated for - it is a
> > > science that can benefit mankind immensely.
> > > Afterall, nature has been undertaking GE for billions of years,
> >
> > Huh? Nature has been splicing frog DNA in grass? Jesus, I am out of
> > touch.
>
> LOL. Well, it appears you are - sort of.
> Nature achieves the same ends by using the immensity of time.
> Such a diversity of species were all created from bacteria and slime,
> a natural genetic engineering feat, and not by magic, as some ancient tribes
> would still have us believe.

Um, that's a bit fudgy. How's this for a breakdown of genetic
engineering:

1. Natural selection/selective breeding, grafting (like an apple tree
that produces two varieties of fruit).
2. Cell manipulation on a micro-level, plant cloning, animal cloning.
3. Cell manipulation at a molecular level, gene splicing.

1 occurs naturally - meaning no human intervention needed. Plant
grafting could occur "naturally" if, say, a strong wind broke a branch
off a tree and forced it into an open wound in another tree.
Far-fetched, but quite possible.

2 is _very unlikely_ to occur naturally - that is, without human
intervention. It often requires the mechanical manipulation of
individual cells, or the contents of cells.

3 is basically impossible without human involvement.

Life evolved (if it did indeed evolve) according to 1. There may be a
smattering of 2 in there, but basically just 1. I say this because
the evolution of life is just that - a progression, or an incredibly
vast series of linear progressions. Sometimes those progressions may
be retrograde, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that
a fragment of frog DNA could be incorporated in grass DNA, simply by a
direct progression of events. Well, not with out Us guiding the
process.

Just look how long it has taken us to achieve 3. Decades of research,
millions of working-hours, sterile environments, massive amounts of
skill and patience.

Evolution might have produced a lot of bizzare stuff, but a frog/grass
hybrid is not one of them.

(Note: I failed 5th Form science, so I could well be talking out of my
arse.)

--->8---
>
> TC

Bob

RT

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Oct 22, 2001, 7:11:58 AM10/22/01

aliveunwed <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message

> (Note: I failed 5th Form science, so I could well be talking out of my
> arse.)

Explains a lot :-)

aliveunwed

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Oct 22, 2001, 8:08:37 AM10/22/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<9qvp7j$1v6$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...

> "aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message

--->8--- (retained in seperate thread)

> > > "WE, THE PEOPLE of New Zealand, in order to form a
> > > more perfect Democracy, establish Justice, ensure domestic
> > > Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the
> > > general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
> > > ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
> > > Constitution for the Democratic Realm of New Zealand."
> >
> > Oh good. You've already written the constitution *before* the
> > republic has been formed. Now that's democracy all right.
>
> Republic????????
> Pu-lease - no yankee situation for NZ thanks.
> A democratic - *not* republic - rhealm if you don't mind.
> The people will choose our politicians - not the courts.

Yeah, I hate the idea of an american-style presidential republic too.

--->8---

> > Titivating the political structure is fine - but it won't stop power
> > corrupting politicians.
>
> Televoting will alter the power structure considerably.
> An enormous and very significant change occurs when the political
> playing field is altered from dollar values to vote values.

Has televoting been trialled (sp?) anywhere?

> It not only actually *unstifles* democracy enough to make a very
> meaningful difference to the voter's value - but it removes *some*
> of the almost absolute/dictatorial power of successive so called
> representative governments who actually do nothing but represent
> themselves and their future careers.

Mmm, all good, honest, idealistic stuff.

>
> It's interesting that giant corporations may well compete/influence
> successfully with a dollar value system - but can't with a vote value
> system.

I think the first step there is to outlaw lobby groups.

>
> People will get to grips with these facts - eventually.

A great idea - doomed to be just that... an idea.

I haven't seen anything that gives me any confidence at all in the
willingness of ordinary people to make informed decisions, to the
degree you describe.

The other problem I have with televoting is the ritual itself.

When you go into a polling booth and identify yourself, mark your
ballot, fold it, and slip it into a box in the plain view of other
people, it has a significance, a gravity. That's one of the reasons
opinion polls aren't foolproof. I'd guess an awful lot of people make
up, or even change, their minds in the polling booth.

A phonecall to an answering machine just doesn't have the same
qualities. It's frivolous by comparision. This may change, as
cellphones become more of a window on the world, but I doubt
televoting will ever feel as momentus as actual voting.
>
> TC

Bob.

tonycook

unread,

Oct 22, 2001, 4:55:38 PM10/22/01

"aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message

news:69f95fa8.01102...@posting.google.com...

> "tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message
news:<9qvp7j$1v6$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...
> > "aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message
>
> --->8--- (retained in seperate thread)
>
> > > > "WE, THE PEOPLE of New Zealand, in order to form a
> > > > more perfect Democracy, establish Justice, ensure domestic
> > > > Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the
> > > > general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
> > > > ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
> > > > Constitution for the Democratic Realm of New Zealand."
> > >
> > > Oh good. You've already written the constitution *before* the
> > > republic has been formed. Now that's democracy all right.
> >
> > Republic????????
> > Pu-lease - no yankee situation for NZ thanks.
> > A democratic - *not* republic - rhealm if you don't mind.
> > The people will choose our politicians - not the courts.
>
> Yeah, I hate the idea of an american-style presidential republic too.
>
> --->8---
>
> > > Titivating the political structure is fine - but it won't stop power
> > > corrupting politicians.
> >
> > Televoting will alter the power structure considerably.
> > An enormous and very significant change occurs when the political
> > playing field is altered from dollar values to vote values.
>
> Has televoting been trialled (sp?) anywhere?

Yes.
In Canada and the USA.
All trials were conducted using pre- registered samples of several
thousand participants.
The results in all cases were outstandingly good for "levels of interest",
"margins of preference", and straight-up ease of use.

>
> > It not only actually *unstifles* democracy enough to make a very
> > meaningful difference to the voter's value - but it removes *some*
> > of the almost absolute/dictatorial power of successive so called
> > representative governments who actually do nothing but represent
> > themselves and their future careers.
>
> Mmm, all good, honest, idealistic stuff.

Sure.
The NZSDP feels it's extremely practical as well.

> > It's interesting that giant corporations may well compete/influence
> > successfully with a dollar value system - but can't with a vote value
> > system.
>
> I think the first step there is to outlaw lobby groups.

It would be a bit like trying to outlaw the Mongrel mob though.
Much easier and more effective to defeat the problem with votes.

> > People will get to grips with these facts - eventually.
>
> A great idea - doomed to be just that... an idea.

Perhaps I, and the NZSDP have a lot more faith in people.
We fully accept that new ideas take time to sink in.
Our democracy is important to us all.
I would never expect people to just accept a new idea without
first giving it very careful consideration.

> I haven't seen anything that gives me any confidence at all in the
> willingness of ordinary people to make informed decisions, to the
> degree you describe.

That's because we have never ever had such a system - backed up
by three months of prime time radio/TV promos prior to voting.
Makes a big difference when the issues people *choose* to vote on
are paraded and thrashed out publicly by all interested parties.

> The other problem I have with televoting is the ritual itself.

Ritual?
I confess I've never ever thought of voting as a ritual.

> When you go into a polling booth and identify yourself, mark your
> ballot, fold it, and slip it into a box in the plain view of other
> people, it has a significance, a gravity.

Perhaps.
I regard it as an all too brief flourish of democracy that keeps one
up very late that night because thousands of people are laboriously
counting ballots (sometimes incorrectly) for hours and hours - when
computers could do the same job in just minutes.

> That's one of the reasons opinion polls aren't foolproof.
> I'd guess an awful lot of people make
> up, or even change, their minds in the polling booth.

Perhaps.
It's their right to.

> A phonecall to an answering machine just doesn't have the same
> qualities. It's frivolous by comparision.

You may find the televote system (a state of the art system)
to be a lot more sophisticated than you obviously envisage -
and certainly not frivolous as it very officially - though friendly
in tone - validates your democratic right to vote.

> This may change, as cellphones become more of a window
> on the world, but I doubt televoting will ever feel as momentus
> as actual voting.

Let me assure you it will be even *more* momentous.
Your vote is actually going to *mean* and *count* for something -
which is certtainly *not* the case with our current referenda system.

tonycook

unread,

Oct 22, 2001, 4:55:42 PM10/22/01

LOL.
You have just as much right to your preference as anyone else -
Nobody should have to hold a degree in Arts and Farts or somesuch.

I take your point that man can mix the genes quicker and with
possibly even less scrutiny than mother nature.
But man often "assists" mother nature to do a better job too.
If we break a bone we assist the healing process with a plaster cast.
All our medicines are administered to assist natural healing processes
more efficiently and quickly etc.

Even if nature hasn't mixed frogs with grass - yet - who's to say some
circumstance would *never* occur to this end?
The DNA of an oak tree is not too dissimilar to that of a human being
in appearance.
Understanding the building blocks of life properly is a worthy objective,
IMO - not something to be banned or to be afraid of.

PAM.

unread,

Oct 22, 2001, 7:43:06 PM10/22/01

Devils Advocate wrote:
>
> In fact, many months ago, posting under my real name rather than
> my current nom-de-keyboard, I stated that now that Bush was in
> power, the world was screwed, and I gave him a year to start a war.
> Well, my prediciton was right wasn't it?

Well he certainly is in a war but some people may say he didn't start
it.

PAM.

E. Scrooge

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 1:31:24 AM10/23/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message

news:9r213o$g3n$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...

>
> "aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message
>

> > This may change, as cellphones become more of a window
> > on the world, but I doubt televoting will ever feel as momentus
> > as actual voting.
>
> Let me assure you it will be even *more* momentous.
> Your vote is actually going to *mean* and *count* for something -
> which is certtainly *not* the case with our current referenda system.
>
> TC

Perhaps their should be a Tele-ban on Televoting?

E. Scrooge

Don Mackie

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 4:18:18 AM10/23/01

Voting for membership of the controversial Hutt Mana Energy Trust is,
apparently, available on line right now.

--
"Any PC built after 1985 has the storage capacity to house an evil spirit,"
Reverend Jim Peasboro

aliveunwed

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 8:37:21 AM10/23/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<9r213s$g3s$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...

> "aliveunwed" <oro...@zfree.co.nz> wrote in message

--->8--- headers and other stuff

My point, the 3 categories, was an attempt to divide the probabilities
of different kinds of genetic engineering into 3 seperate magnitudes.

To illustrate, here's a similar one for naturally occuring
(non-biological) electronics -

1. Batteries, simple semiconductors (just the material, without a
predictable function), stored electrical charge (capacitors).

2. Radio emissions, coherent light, sound recording (via magnetic
media).

3. Superconduction, particle acceleration, integrated circuits.

Same as with the genetics - 1 are quite possible. They wouldn't
necessarily come to anything meaningful, though. 2 are unlikely, but
still possible - vibrations in ferrous dust being arrested and
solidified by moisture, for sound recording. The sound probably
wouldn't ever play back, but... well.

3 is a different story though. The temperatures in semiconductors and
focused magnetic fields in accelerators couldn't really be naturally
produced on earth. In some, as yet, undiscovered place in space
perhaps, but not earth. As for ICs, well you can pretty much rule
them out altogether. Especially if you're talking Athlon or Pentium
IV.

The human brain is a marvel. It can do things that the most advanced
computers can't do. It got that way as a result of billions of years
of development - from simple amino acids to what you've got in your
head today. The brain just blows my mind. If you'll forgive the
phrase.

But.

Evolution is directed by chemistry (which I don't know heaps about)
and circumstance (for which I just use my imagination). I simply
can't see any circumstance by which an incredibly precise fragment of
frog DNA would become incorporated in a similarly precise hole in
grass DNA to produce something viable.

It seems to me, to be the same as the possibility of a
fully-functioning 1Gig Athlon just happening to develop over time.

If I'm that wrong in my analysis, please help me to see where I'm
wrong.

Mother Teresa might recorporate and become the next in line to the
Swedish throne. It's not *COMPLETELY* impossible, I just don't see it
ever happening.

Bob.

There are more potential connections in the human brain, than there
are stars in the universe.

aliveunwed

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 9:24:19 AM10/23/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message news:<9r213o$g3n$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz>...

I'm very cautious about "studies" and "experiments". I tend to want
to know more than just the results. I can't see the study on your
site.

Were the subjects approached, or did they register off their on bat?

If they were approached, how many turned down the offer? What age
groups were more receptive than others? Men, Women?

Sometimes details like these can tell you more about the significance
of the study than the results do. Sad, but true.

> The results in all cases were outstandingly good for "levels of interest",
> "margins of preference", and straight-up ease of use.
> >
> > > It not only actually *unstifles* democracy enough to make a very
> > > meaningful difference to the voter's value - but it removes *some*
> > > of the almost absolute/dictatorial power of successive so called
> > > representative governments who actually do nothing but represent
> > > themselves and their future careers.
> >
> > Mmm, all good, honest, idealistic stuff.
>
> Sure.
> The NZSDP feels it's extremely practical as well.
>
> > > It's interesting that giant corporations may well compete/influence
> > > successfully with a dollar value system - but can't with a vote value
> > > system.
> >
> > I think the first step there is to outlaw lobby groups.
>
> It would be a bit like trying to outlaw the Mongrel mob though.

Well, yes and no. The lobbyists would lobby against it, and probably
win.

To get rid of it wouldn't take much though - just a clarification to
the electoral act (or whatever) and a whole shirt-load of political
will.

In a democracy, individuals are supposed to be the only ones able to
vote. (Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here.) No corporation
or organisation - no matter how upstanding and noble - gets a vote.

By outlawing "soliciting political influence" or some-such you could
cut down on lobbying an awful lot. Policing it would be interesting
too - polys would have to be very careful.

> Much easier and more effective to defeat the problem with votes.

In practical terms - infrastructure, education - no. In the
likelyhood of success, yes.

>
> > > People will get to grips with these facts - eventually.
> >
> > A great idea - doomed to be just that... an idea.
>
> Perhaps I, and the NZSDP have a lot more faith in people.
> We fully accept that new ideas take time to sink in.
> Our democracy is important to us all.
> I would never expect people to just accept a new idea without
> first giving it very careful consideration.

Politics is a bit like rain. It ends up soaking everything. Most
people just get tired of being wet. Or they try to dodge the drops.

>
> > I haven't seen anything that gives me any confidence at all in the
> > willingness of ordinary people to make informed decisions, to the
> > degree you describe.
>
> That's because we have never ever had such a system - backed up
> by three months of prime time radio/TV promos prior to voting.
> Makes a big difference when the issues people *choose* to vote on
> are paraded and thrashed out publicly by all interested parties.
>
> > The other problem I have with televoting is the ritual itself.
>
> Ritual?
> I confess I've never ever thought of voting as a ritual.

Rituals are important. I would rather that they weren't, but what can
you do?

>
> > When you go into a polling booth and identify yourself, mark your
> > ballot, fold it, and slip it into a box in the plain view of other
> > people, it has a significance, a gravity.
>
> Perhaps.
> I regard it as an all too brief flourish of democracy that keeps one
> up very late that night because thousands of people are laboriously
> counting ballots (sometimes incorrectly) for hours and hours - when
> computers could do the same job in just minutes.

Oooh - another question about the ca/us studies. How many invalid
votes were there? Did subjects vote for one thing with their phone,
but report thinking they'd voted for another?

>
> > That's one of the reasons opinion polls aren't foolproof.
> > I'd guess an awful lot of people make
> > up, or even change, their minds in the polling booth.
>
> Perhaps.
> It's their right to.
>
> > A phonecall to an answering machine just doesn't have the same
> > qualities. It's frivolous by comparision.
>
> You may find the televote system (a state of the art system)
> to be a lot more sophisticated than you obviously envisage -
> and certainly not frivolous as it very officially - though friendly
> in tone - validates your democratic right to vote.

I'm a techno-freak. I'd feel fine about it.

>
> > This may change, as cellphones become more of a window
> > on the world, but I doubt televoting will ever feel as momentus
> > as actual voting.
>
> Let me assure you it will be even *more* momentous.
> Your vote is actually going to *mean* and *count* for something -
> which is certtainly *not* the case with our current referenda system.

Grrrr. The dreaded referenda. The referenda we've had so far have
sucked. "Do you want violent offenders to be punished more harshly,
YES or NO." That's a bit like "Do you want to lose your hearing or
your sight?"

I'd rather violent offenders were given something in their life that
would reduce their need to be violent. And if that doesn't work, then
throw away the key. ;-)

If televoting produces more sensible results than we've had so far,
then great.
>
> TC

Interesting. Good luck with it.

Bob.

tonycook

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 3:34:47 PM10/23/01

The studies were done some years ago now and there simply isn't the room
to include them on our site.
But if you direct your web ferret to search under "televoting" as a key word
you may still be able to locate some of them still.

Failing that, just email Prof Ted Becker at the World Teledemocracy site:
http://frontpage.auburn.edu/tann/tann2/index.htm

(Prof Becker together with a number of other NZ university lecturers
arranged the first selected sample televote experiment in NZ in 1981
for the "Commission For The Future". Many very well known NZ
celebrities took part.)

> Were the subjects approached, or did they register off their on bat?

Subjects were usually invited to register publicly (by public
advertisement),
in all the studies I have seen.

> If they were approached, how many turned down the offer?

Not known.

> What age groups were more receptive than others? Men, Women?

I don't recall any significant differences being mentioned.
People 12 years and over were allowed to register - and I
believe good representation of all age groups was obtained.

> Sometimes details like these can tell you more about the significance
> of the study than the results do. Sad, but true.

All studies I have seen showed nothing but excellent responses.

> > The results in all cases were outstandingly good for "levels of
interest",
> > "margins of preference", and straight-up ease of use.
> > >
> > > > It not only actually *unstifles* democracy enough to make a very
> > > > meaningful difference to the voter's value - but it removes *some*
> > > > of the almost absolute/dictatorial power of successive so called
> > > > representative governments who actually do nothing but represent
> > > > themselves and their future careers.
> > >
> > > Mmm, all good, honest, idealistic stuff.
> >
> > Sure.
> > The NZSDP feels it's extremely practical as well.
> >
> > > > It's interesting that giant corporations may well compete/influence
> > > > successfully with a dollar value system - but can't with a vote
value
> > > > system.
> > >
> > > I think the first step there is to outlaw lobby groups.
> >
> > It would be a bit like trying to outlaw the Mongrel mob though.
>
> Well, yes and no. The lobbyists would lobby against it, and probably
> win.
>
> To get rid of it wouldn't take much though - just a clarification to
> the electoral act (or whatever) and a whole shirt-load of political
> will.

The NZSDP believes that rather than "get rid" of any group -
televoting will automatically cut any group down to size.
Everyone matters - and everyone has only *one* vote.
Of course, recognised (legal) minorities will enjoy essential
protection from majority "bullying" under the new Constitution.

> In a democracy, individuals are supposed to be the only ones able to
> vote. (Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here.) No corporation
> or organisation - no matter how upstanding and noble - gets a vote.

Exactly.
Currently they use "dollar power" to influence things/governments
to their advantage.
They would not stand a chance against the sheer "voting power"
of an entire electorate.

> By outlawing "soliciting political influence" or some-such you could
> cut down on lobbying an awful lot. Policing it would be interesting
> too - polys would have to be very careful.

There is nothing wrong with people joining together to campaign
for something they believe in.
Everybody has a democratic right to their preferences.
There is nothing illegal about preferring to be in a group.
Political parties do it all the time.

> > Much easier and more effective to defeat the problem with votes.
>
> In practical terms - infrastructure, education - no. In the
> likelyhood of success, yes.
> >
> > > > People will get to grips with these facts - eventually.
> > >
> > > A great idea - doomed to be just that... an idea.
> >
> > Perhaps I, and the NZSDP have a lot more faith in people.
> > We fully accept that new ideas take time to sink in.
> > Our democracy is important to us all.
> > I would never expect people to just accept a new idea without
> > first giving it very careful consideration.
>
> Politics is a bit like rain. It ends up soaking everything. Most
> people just get tired of being wet. Or they try to dodge the drops.
> >
> > > I haven't seen anything that gives me any confidence at all in the
> > > willingness of ordinary people to make informed decisions, to the
> > > degree you describe.

Be patient.
Everything has to start with the first step.
You can always help by putting your hand up and joining the NZSDP -
even if you are not entirely convinced yet - but would like to see a better
democracy - or at least more democracy and less dictatorship.

If you do nothing - then nothing is what you will have to look forward to.
If you do do something - then at least there will be a chance that there
will
be something (hopefully worthwhile) to look forward to.
Nothing ventured - nothing gained.

> > That's because we have never ever had such a system - backed up
> > by three months of prime time radio/TV promos prior to voting.
> > Makes a big difference when the issues people *choose* to vote on
> > are paraded and thrashed out publicly by all interested parties.
> >
> > > The other problem I have with televoting is the ritual itself.
> >
> > Ritual?
> > I confess I've never ever thought of voting as a ritual.
>
> Rituals are important. I would rather that they weren't, but what can
> you do?

I have always thought of voting as a very valuable priviledge.
People have died for my right to vote - and I totally respect that.

> > > When you go into a polling booth and identify yourself, mark your
> > > ballot, fold it, and slip it into a box in the plain view of other
> > > people, it has a significance, a gravity.
> >
> > Perhaps.
> > I regard it as an all too brief flourish of democracy that keeps one
> > up very late that night because thousands of people are laboriously
> > counting ballots (sometimes incorrectly) for hours and hours - when
> > computers could do the same job in just minutes.
>
> Oooh - another question about the ca/us studies. How many invalid
> votes were there?

None.
Electronics (televote systems) only accept valid votes.

> Did subjects vote for one thing with their phone,
> but report thinking they'd voted for another?

No.
If you read "Televoting - The Booklet" you will see how impossible
this is to happen. (See the actual procedure of registering your vote.)

> > > That's one of the reasons opinion polls aren't foolproof.
> > > I'd guess an awful lot of people make
> > > up, or even change, their minds in the polling booth.

Agreed.
But never compare the televote system with current polling methods.
The two systems are galaxies apart.

> > Perhaps.
> > It's their right to.
> >
> > > A phonecall to an answering machine just doesn't have the same
> > > qualities. It's frivolous by comparision.
> >
> > You may find the televote system (a state of the art system)
> > to be a lot more sophisticated than you obviously envisage -
> > and certainly not frivolous as it very officially - though friendly
> > in tone - validates your democratic right to vote.
>
> I'm a techno-freak. I'd feel fine about it.

I confess I'm not so techno-oriented - but when it is so obvious
that the sheer efficiency alone of the televote system outstrips current
methods by galaxies - it's time to stand up and wave it in front of people
a bit - that they might just notice the same thing too - eventually.

> > > This may change, as cellphones become more of a window
> > > on the world, but I doubt televoting will ever feel as momentus
> > > as actual voting.
> >
> > Let me assure you it will be even *more* momentous.
> > Your vote is actually going to *mean* and *count* for something -

> > which is certainly *not* the case with our current referenda system.
>
> Grrrr. The dreaded referenda.

Now *there's* a truly useless ritual.
There's no proper promo info service - so nobody is informed.
The expression of the issues are a disgrace and an insult to intelligent
people.
The results can all be ignored by governments anyway.

> The referenda we've had so far have
> sucked. "Do you want violent offenders to be punished more harshly,
> YES or NO." That's a bit like "Do you want to lose your hearing or
> your sight?"

Agreed.
Televoting issues have to be quite precise.
You certainly can't have generalities.
eg. If you wanted to have violent offenders punished more harshly you
would have to quote exactly what law changes were required.
But then that's what the NZ Televote Council's job is - to interpret and
translate voters' preferences into precise legal terms.

> I'd rather violent offenders were given something in their life that
> would reduce their need to be violent. And if that doesn't work, then
> throw away the key. ;-)
>
> If televoting produces more sensible results than we've had so far,
> then great.

> Interesting. Good luck with it.
>
> Bob.

Thanks for your comments.
Fact is - we will never know - unless we try.

tonycook

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 3:51:48 PM10/23/01

"Don Mackie" <don...@spammmesenseless.iconz.co.nz> wrote in message
news:donald-CD6B68....@news.iconz.co.nz...

> Voting for membership of the controversial Hutt Mana Energy Trust is,
> apparently, available on line right now.

Televote facilities were installed throughout NZ in 1989.

*********************************************************
The World Teledemocracy Movement is at:
http://frontpage.auburn.edu/tann/tann2/index.htm

{{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people's voice }}}}}}}}}}

>>>> More democracy - less dictatorship <<<<

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The NZ Super Democratic Party's Website is:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tonycook/nzsdp/

( Read: "Televoting - The Booklet" )

*********************************************

tonycook

unread,

Oct 23, 2001, 3:57:17 PM10/23/01

"E. Scrooge" <e.sc...@zfree.co.nx (z replaces x)> wrote in message
news:9r2v7t$474$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...

LOL.
Unless we've Bin Laden with emails of support - which we have.

*********************************************************

{{{{{{{{{{ Televoting is the people's voice }}}}}}}}}}

>>>> More democracy - less dictatorship <<<<

-----------------------------------------------------------------
The NZ Super Democratic Party's Website is:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tonycook/nzsdp/

( Read: "Televoting - The Booklet" )

*********************************************

Denver Fletcher

unread,

Oct 29, 2001, 7:17:03 AM10/29/01

"tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message

news:9qv5eu$l6i$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...

By golly - You're right Tony!!

We'd better stop the earth revolving around the sun, quick!

John Sefton

unread,

Oct 31, 2001, 6:35:29 PM10/31/01

"Denver Fletcher" <den...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
news:bMbD7.4440$hJ1.3...@news02.tsnz.net...

Too true, Denver, there was no Royal Commission into the benefits and
dangers of this method of running the Universe. Perhaps Terry Pratchett
should be put in charge of implementing the "Clean Green, Flat Earth"
alternative version...

Owen McShane

unread,

Nov 1, 2001, 4:58:02 AM11/1/01

ACtually there was. The result was the Papal intervention. Bruno was
burned at the stake and Galileo was forced to recant. Italy had lead the
world in physicsbut after the intervention physics moved NOrth and
Italian science has never recovered.

Brian Dooley

unread,

Nov 2, 2001, 9:59:03 PM11/2/01

On Thu, 01 Nov 2001 22:58:02 +1300, Owen McShane
<omcs...@wk.planet.gen.nz> wrote:

>John Sefton wrote:
>>
>> "Denver Fletcher" <den...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
>> news:bMbD7.4440$hJ1.3...@news02.tsnz.net...
>> > "tonycook" <tony...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in message
>> > news:9qv5eu$l6i$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...
>> > > "Devils Advocate" <DA...@orcon.net.nz> wrote in message
>> > > news:3bd2...@clear.net.nz...
>> > > > snip...
>> > > > What if the GE organism involved just happens to be influenza, and
>> > it
>> > > > becomes the deadliest strain we know?
>> > >
>> > > What if ...... What if.
>> > > For goodness sake - there is no fear like the fear of fear itself.
>> > > A rogue meteorite could wipe the planet out too.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > By golly - You're right Tony!!
>> >
>> > We'd better stop the earth revolving around the sun, quick!

"Had I been consulted, I would have recommended something
simpler".

Alfonso the Wise of Castile and Leon (1221-84),
On having the Ptolemaic model of the universe explained
to him.

Brian Dooley

Wellington New Zealand

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