.. right up till the FBI shows up for me...

;-)



You wrote:

"It has been said in these forums that these people deserved to die because of something the American government did. Cold comfort to the families of the slaughtered."

Could you explain this rather cryptic remark? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Wiz

Anon said:
"It has been said in these forums that these people deserved to die because of something the American government did."

You made this statement following mention of 9/11...please provide a link to a post on this forum where anyone ever suggested that those who died on 9/11 deserved to do so. I do not recall that sentiment expressed by a single person that has contributed to these discussions...nor do I believe that those who have voiced their criticism of the current administration believe this to be the case!!!

Anon said:
"Seems to me that whenever the ruling class of a nation mixes religion with politics, war and hate abound."

I couldn't agree with you more...this is true in the Middle East and it is just as true in the United States.


Anon said:
"9/11 happened to innocent civilians. The picture that sticks with me most is the footage of middle eastern children wearing Levi's, drinking Pepsi and cheering the death of innocent Americans."

This Iraq war has also happened to innocent civilians!

And sadly you will have many more Kodak moments to think back on the next time that America experiences a major atrocity...our handling of current affairs has sealed our fate that around the globe there will be dancing in the streets!

"Isn't it ironic that if the people on this forum who constantly trash our president lived instead in Iraq and made the same comments about Saddam, the result would most likely be torture and/or death."

So we're supposed to have freedom, but we certainly shouldn't use it?

"Irony, brought to you by the very freedom most of you would withhold from the people you appear to be so concerned about, the Iraqis."

The founders of this country, about whom you know little or nothing, were the originators of that freedom, and they personally fought to keep it. The current ruling class of this country seeks to destroy that freedom.

"Seems to me that whenever the ruling class of a nation mixes religion with politics, war and hate abound."

Yep. George Bush thinks he's acting on God's behalf right now. Hitler thought the same thing. Crusaders thought the same thing. "The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself..."

"It has been said in these forums that these people deserved to die because of something the American government did. Cold comfort to the families of the slaughtered."

No. Americans did not deserve to die. That's a rather warped restatement of what I said. What I have been trying to impress upon visitors to this forum is that the Unites States has been instigating hatred worldwide against America for decades. We will not be safe and secure as a country as long as our government and its various agencies continue to generate antagonism and hatred in other parts of the world, unless we totally obliterate all the people we've been antagonizing, because now some of them are so furious with us (by which I should say furious with our government, and our willingness to ignore what our government is up to internationally in the name of "national security") that they're willing to kill themselves just to get a shot at us.

What would it take to get you to be that upset? What would someone have to do to make you willing to kill yourself in order to kill others and inspire terror in the populace of another country?

Pretend for a moment -- just humor me -- that the nation of Islam isn't just a bunch of psychotic nutballs that thinks everyone not Islamic should be killed for Allah. Let's pretend for just a minute that this is not the case. I know it's hard -- there's plenty of bad blood between the religions over centuries of wars, but let's pretend for a minute that "they" are not like that.

They want to be happy. They want to raise families. They want to celebrate with friends. They want to worship their creator. Etc. In other words, when it gets down to the basics, "they" do have a lot in common with "us". The details tend to get in the way -- they disagree on the "how" in a number of these details, but the basics are all pretty much the same.

So let's ignore those details for a moment and focus on basics, that urge to live and be happy.

If they are kinda like you, then consider for a moment what it would take for you to be willing to give up that business of "living" and "pursuing happiness" in order to kill innocent (or mostly innocent) people and yourself in the process.

Can you imagine what kind of hatred you would have to develop in order to decide that going that route would be the right thing to do? At all?

Until "we" learn to understand "them", we will never have peace. As long as we assume that we had nothing to do with why they feel the way they do -- in other words, we assume no responisility for our part in our relationship with them -- then we will never have peace.

We want peace. Don't we?

Well, the route to peace begins with understanding.

And the route to understanding begins with sincerely listening to what they have to say.

Sincerely listening means considering that what they're telling us might have some truth to it.

Once you have done that, come back and tell me what you think.

Until then, you're just taking the "easy" way out -- by agreeing with and continuing the cycle of killing.

It's a lot easier to just shoot someone than it is to care enough to listen to what his concerns are, especially when we've convinced ourselves that he's less important than we are, or altogether unimportant, which is the purpose of all those derogatory terms we bandy about -- to make someone and his opinion ignorable.

Well... it used to be easier, anyway. The new price -- Terrorism on our soil -- is raising the stakes considerably.

This is not a justification for terrorism. But there are only two routes we can take to eliminate terrorism. One is to destroy everyone who is "not like us", which means that we are the terrorists. The other is to get rid of "us vs. them" through communication, understanding, courtesy, and decency.

NEITHER PATH IS EASY RIGHT NOW, but the only reason that the war path is "easier" is because that's what we've grown so used to after so long. We have millenia of hatred to work on. But every second spent on the warlike path makes it harder and harder to choose the other path.

But we always have a choice...

=-John-=