a "just war"?

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

> > As for refuting Carroll's arguments, Michael Kelly does a fine job.

Michael Kelly is a barbed butt plug.........


> It seems to me that the most valid point Carroll makes - and which
> Kelly does not address - is: What would happen if other countries did
> the same kind of things the Americans so blithely do?

Excuse me.............."blithely"? How would Denmark react if, within 
a span of 10 years she had suffered

i) a terrorist action against buildings housing 10s of thousands of 
non-combatants

ii) bombings of its embassies in several countries

iii) an unprovoked attack on a battle ship in a third party port

iv) the hijacking of 4 civilian airliners for the purpose of turning them 
into fuel bombs, at least half of which are AGAIN directed at the 
target chosen in example i,  with a resulting death toll 
MIRACULOUSLY held down to FIVE THOUSAND CIVILIANS......

?

bear in mind that it is only the last event, which, after some 
negotiation (granted, executed by the pithed imbeciles of the Bush 
administration), generated the current response......

" US-based Cuban
> terrorists in Florida have for more than 40 years carried out
> sabotage, murder and other terrorist acts against Cuba."

I know that "scale" is an ugly concept to you, but try to keep your 
analogies "in the ball park".......I could be mistaken, but the worst 
act of terrorism against Cuba, committed by anyone with a US 
connection, is likely to be the downing of the airliner in the 
carribean. Consider:

a) Orlando Bosch, had done time in the US for trying to rocket a 
polish freighter, after which he was deported. 

b) Assuming that he was indeed responsible for the downing of the 
cuban airliner, he planned and committed said act while resident in 
Venezuela. He was tried for that offense there and acquitted. 

That said, the US SHOULD desist from coddling these cuban yahoos....

> "just war" if the Cubans - or their old Soviet allies during the cold
> war - had bombed Washington in retaliation,"

But that is not an accurate analogy EITHER.........we didn't just run 
off and bomb civilian populations in Afghanistan. THough there is 
undeniably "collateral damage" I see nothing wrong with a 
justifiable tactic which announces its intentions and sticks to them 
in a "principled" manner....

> Or if the Panamanians or the
> Grenadians or the Nicaraguans or the Guatemalans or the Colombians did
> to the US what you did to them?

Each of the locations you mention suffer far more at the hands of 
their native despots than they do at the hands of the US. That 
some administrations have propped them up is shameful and I 
hope that many of these issues may at some time be adjudicated 
by an appropriate body and liability assessed, not unlike the 
original offer issued the Taliban....But as Ed Said put it, those who 
would point their fingers at the US from these nations, do little 
more than insure the political security of their local tyrants - in 
another context, folks like this were called "useful idiots"...

" If China decided to punish pro-Tibetan
> or pro-Turkestan groups advocating armed resistance to Chinese rule?"

If such parties had deliberately killed 5000 innocents to make a 
political statement, the thieves who run the PRC show would not 
only respond "aggressively", they would do so with a considerable 
amount of sympathy from the rest of the world....

> If the British bombed Boston to get at all those financing the IRA? If
> the Communist Polish government had in 1979 bombed the supporters of
> Solidarity? If the Afghan government of 1980 had had the means to go
> against everyone supporting mujaheddin terrorists? If Milosevic could
> punish everyone supporting UCK terrorists in Kosovo?
> 
> The list goes on and on, but you get the point. Just try to picture
> someone else doing everything you are doing and consider if it would
> be "just".

nononono.....try putting YOURSELF into the position of a nation 
which has just suffered such an incident ON THIS SCALE, without 
warning, or provocation.......that might be a more useful exercise 
than this hackneyed "analysis".......btw, I fully support the 
prosecution of stateside supporters of the IRA or any other such 
group....US politicians who pander to that crowd are as loathsome 
as those who cuddle up to the pinheads in FLorida..... 

> Then perhaps you will begin to understand why people in the world
> regard you the way they do. As a Laotian journalist told me just the
> other week: We are all against terrorism. But the Americans have
> absolutely no idea of the depth of the feelings they are provoking in
> Asians.

Here is a concept............F them all..........have them get back to 
us when THEIR houses are clean.........and to really get them 
where it hurts, quit shipping Baywatch and N'Sync cds over 
there.......can you say "revolution"?

Now you could get started by breaking the polser barrier, and get 
some authentic ones shipped over to the Khyber.....

love,
cfa