NP - Fighting the Forces of Invisibility

[Otto]

> Otto,
>
> I think you know better, but are twisting both logic and my statements
> toward your own ideological end, which I won't try to characterize.  Let's
> just start out by clarifying that not all killing is intentional, and not
> all killing is murder.
>

Dave, you've posted as a "hardliner" and get the answers as such. Rushdie's
statement is as clear as your answer on the question of the children has
been. But that's your opinion and I respect that.

> Instead of poking at the obviously horrible "death of those 500.000 Iraqui
> kids" (BTW, I don't know this to be true, but will accept it for
argument),
> why don't you offer what would have been the proper path w/ respect to
Iraq
> and Saddam?  And included in the finger-pointing should be the culpability
> of Saddam in those deaths, no?  Why is Saddam and his army not starving?
>

I'm not going to post all those urls again on the sanctions and their
effects. If you are really interested in the fate of non-Americans you will
easily find out yourself that the water supplies have been damaged *in
order* to make children suffer *in order* to de-stabilize Hussein. This is
no collateral damage like the Chinese embassy. On Saddam see my other post.

> Debating the merits of the Gulf War and its outcome is worthy pursuit in
> order to consider better alternatives for better outcomes, but is it
really
> directly related to the WTC attack, other than through OBL's fury over US
> forces in his cradle of Islam?  Do you really wish to call the US a
> terrorist nation?
>

1. I think what Mr. Blair has said is full of awareness of the complexity of
reasons behind the attacks:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bl
airtext_100201.html (watch the url wrap)

"Around the world, the 11th of September is bringing government and people
to reflect, consider and change. And in this process, amidst all the talk of
war and action, there is another dimension appearing, there is a coming
together; the power of community is asserting itself. We are realizing how
fragile are our frontiers in the face of the world's new challenges.
Today, conflicts rarely stay within national boundaries. Today, a tremor in
one financial market is repeated in the markets of the world. Today,
confidence is global, it's presence or its absence. Today, the threat is
chaos, because for people with work to do and family life to balance and
mortgages to pay and careers to further pensions to provide, the yearning is
for order and stability. And if it doesn't exist elsewhere, it's unlikely to
exist here.
I have long believed that this interdependence defines the new world we live
in."

2. Not at all, Dave, not more than Germany. As a German I would even propose
twenty years of US-Army for Afghanistan to implement democracy, if this was
Europe and not Central-Asia. But since this is not the case we are in a much
bigger danger of getting into a major conflict with many islamic countries
if this war on terrorism is so poorly executed like the Gulf War (see David
Simpson's post).

3. I have no doubts that these events are linked to each other. OBL's fury
alone would be nothing without the support of many common people in several
countries. Remember Mao, the revolutionary must "swim" within the people to
be effective in guerilla warfare. What's been done actually is drying the
pond, and if action is taken it hopefully will be precise and on target this
time.

Have you watched CNN lately? I got the big smile seeing those sacks of food
given to the Taliban with the "USA" printed on the sacks. The propaganda war
is already on it's way.

Otto

> David Morris
>
> PS.  How was THAT for a calm response, folks?
>
> >From: "Otto"
> >
> >Rushdie:
> >
> >"Terrorism is the murder of the innocent"
> >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55876-2001Oct1.html
> >
> >This is no statement exclusively on the WTC-attack, this is a general
> >statement by Rushdie. So he logically says the accepted death of those
> >500.000 Iraqui kids (worth the price, just an inevitable collateral
damage
> >according to Dave Morris) was terrorism too.
> > >
> > > Are you equating an unprovoked direct massive attack on civilians at
the
> >WTC with the loss of human life inevitable in the course of a war?
>