some thoughts on day 1

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Thanks a lot Arne,

I am with you, jbframe and Doug here. Everybody over here in Europe, I
guess, can understand David's and Marilyn's rage, and it is certainly true
that "No one, nothing, ever done by anyone anywhere justifies this" as
Marilyn says. Yet...

Blind retaliation will lead to the death of more innocent people. If you
don't mind that because you think you have got to have your revenge no
matter what you are only perpetuating the nightmare of history.

I wouldn't go so far to say that US foreign policy is "to blame" for this -
as Marilyn said: the ones to blame are the ones who did this - but it can
hardly be denied that there most certainly is a connection. I hope it does
not come across as presumptuous if I say that the foreign policy of the
Western World in general and the United States in particular is in desperate
need of some serious reconsideration. In Arne's words: "Perhaps we should
stop arming murderers." And training them. Yes, we should.

Thomas

P.S. This said, I wouldn't really mind if the persons responsible for
yesterday's attack were incidentally slowly tortured to death.