9-11, Eleven Years Later - The Next Steps

[jordan179]

Eleven years ago, the forces of Islamofascism committed a monstrous crime against America and against all humanity.  They made prisoner the civilian crews and passengers of four airliners and then murdered all their prisoners, in the course of an attack which brought down a civilian target -- the World Trade Center -- and slighly damaged one

Comments

[baron_waste]

I'm still amused at how you capitalize the word Terrorist™. I picture a GI Joe action figure. $9.97 plus tax.

“while the course of events which will otherwise come to pass will come to kill millions to tens of millions”

The course of events which MAY otherwise come to pass MAY come to kill millions to tens of millions - or not, and not. But your way is definite. And absolutely guaranteed to raise a new generation of Arabic- or Farsi-speaking people who will know, by the bloodied and burned bones of their law-abiding shopkeeper or tenant-farmer parents, that America has - what was that again - “committed a monstrous crime against all humanity”…

And the beat goes on…
And men still keep on marching off to war
Electrically they keep a baseball score…
And the beat goes on and on and on…

Standard English, Non-Standard Insane Powers

[jordan179]

First of all, it is absolutely standard English to capitalize the name of a national or political or diplomatic faction. We are fighting this war against the Terrorists: other reasonable alternatives might be "Islamists" or "Islamofascists." I note that you didn't suggest a preferred alternative, and suspect that in your own mind it's "poor innocent victims who did nothing to provoke us."

while the course of events which will otherwise come to pass will come to kill millions to tens of millions”

The course of events which MAY otherwise come to pass MAY come to kill millions to tens of millions - or not, and not. But your way is definite.

Given that Pakistan is atomic-armed and insanely-aggressive -- which she demonstrated in the Mumbai Massacre, an unprovoked attack against civilians in one of the largest city of a stronger neighboring Power, which is sort of a list of Things Sane Countries Don't Do -- and that Iran is insanely-aggressive and about to become atomic-armed, how exactly do you envision avoiding an atomic war

Unicycle of Violence

[jordan179]

By

And the beat goes on…
And men still keep on marching off to war
Electrically they keep a baseball score…
And the beat goes on and on and on…

you of course mean to imply that we would simply be "perpetuating the cycle of violence," but you offer no means of ending the war which Islam has started against not only Western but also Indian and other civilizations.

If America withdrew entirely from Muslim lands and abandoned all her alliances with any Powers which Muslim Powers or significant factions disliked or wished to conquer (this would mean not only cutting off our alliance with Israel but also NATO and SEATO), this would not stop the Muslims from continuing to attack those targets. Indeed, it would not even stop them from continuing to attack us, which they might do so because American newspapers published an excerpt from a book of which they disapproved

[baron_waste]

how exactly do you envision avoiding an atomic war between Pakistan, Iran and some other country or countries, without overthrowing or at least defanging their regimes?

Wrong verb. What you mean by 'avoiding' is preventing. How do we prevent such a war? Why, by carpet-bombing the entire Northwest Frontier with nerve gas, of course! Remember: crimes are only committed by the living.

Both Iran and Pakistan have committed numerous and intentional acts of war… If their people lack the maturity to understand this, then let them suffer and suffer again…

Okay, I can go along with that. Just tell me what acts of war little 8-year-old Fauzia, daughter of Sindhi shopkeeper Abdul Javaid, performed against the United States. You intend to burn this child to death in screaming agony for these “numerous and intentional acts,” so they must be pretty serious. What did she do

[fpb]

"What did you do to get the bully mad at you"? seems to be your logic. I hope you're not a parent, since if your child ever came home beaten black and blue you would assume that it's his fault.

[gothelittle]

Ah, you make a post and I 100% agree! :) Good omen.

[ford_prefect42]

Ah. Okay, so we're still fighting the Japanese, in that little fracas they initiated by bombing pearl harbor, and the war between the northern United States and the Southern US is still going on, and the Germans still occupy Poland, ...

Because ""punishing” ordinary people for the “crime” of being a certain ethnicity or religion not only never, ever achieves the cringing submissive “penitence” you envision, but plays straight into the hands of people who never lack for new recruits from among the survivors!"

That must, of course, mean that we had to kill *every last* Japanese person before the Shinto god surrendered, and the peace was forged. And we *must* have had to kill every last German before the Nazi head killed himself, and the nation surrendered, and of course, starving out the south, burning their cities, and killing hundreds of southerners only fueled the fires of their wrath, and made recruitment easy.

Oh, wait. None of that happened.

[jordan179]

The really amazing thing is that I encounter arguments like baronwaste's all the time -- a very large number of people seem to believe that nobody can ever lose a war decisively, but that wars just go on forever until the attackers give up. It makes me wonder if anyone ever bothers to read history any more.

[galadrion]

Or, for that matter, fiction. See Starship Troopers.

[marycatelli]

To be just, aliens may think differently.

[galadrion]

Ah, but the opinions and arguments cited in Heinlein's novel are from the human viewpoint. I can recall only one reference to such from nonhumans - and that was a throwaway about the Skinnies, not the Bugs.

(I don't consider the movie an issue - it seems apparant from watching it the nobody involved ever actually read the book.)

[the_mcp]

Pretty much, yeah. Paul Verhoeven has actually stated in various interviews (and in the DVD commentary itself, as I recall) that he had not read the book ahead of time, so as to not "contaminate his vision", or words to that effect

[jordan179]

how exactly do you envision avoiding an atomic war between Pakistan, Iran and some other country or countries, without overthrowing or at least defanging their regimes?

Wrong verb. What you mean by 'avoiding' is preventing. How do we prevent such a war? Why, by carpet-bombing the entire Northwest Frontier with nerve gas, of course! Remember: crimes are only committed by the living.

So you don't actually have any superior policy alternative to prescribe?

Both Iran and Pakistan have committed numerous and intentional acts of war… If their people lack the maturity to understand this, then let them suffer and suffer again…

Okay, I can go along with that. Just tell me what acts of war little 8-year-old Fauzia, daughter of Sindhi shopkeeper Abdul Javaid, performed against the United States. You intend to burn this child to death in screaming agony for these “numerous and intentional acts,” so they must be pretty serious. What did she do?

Nothing. And that's why war is hell.

How would you propose we deal with Iran and Pakistan's

[baron_waste]

Easy with the ad hominems, pal. Resorting to them does you no credit.

It is no crime to act in self-defense or in retaliation against aggression… If their people lack the maturity to understand this, then let them suffer and suffer again until they are at least deterred from further aggressions by simple, animal aversion to pain…I'm merely amused that your proposed reaction to what you consider “acts of war” - i.e. the callous, cold-blooded indiscriminate murder of innocent, peaceable civilians who neither set national policy nor have the ear of those who do… is to “punish” them by committing callous, cold-blooded indiscriminate murder of innocent, peaceable civilians who neither set national policy nor have the ear of those who do. To do so until the national leadership are deterred from further aggression by fear - by terror. That's why it's called “terrorism

[marycatelli]

It does not become you to dismiss a long, through treatment of your ideas as an ad hominem.

As for your vapors about how horrible his proposed response is -- well, you still have yet to propose a response. "Makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep" is not an argument. It's an unwarranted pose of moral superiority.

Propose something. Anything. Even that it is our duty somehow to stand there and take it and watch our dead children with indifference -- though that one does raise the little question of why other people can't take it, too.

[jordan179]

Propose something. Anything. Even that it is our duty somehow to stand there and take it and watch our dead children with indifference -- though that one does raise the little question of why other people can't take it, too.

Yes ... seems odd to me that if America attacks Them, they will fight on forever, unlike every other human group crushed by overwhelming force; but if They attack America, we will ... do something, the nature of which baronwaste is yet to disclose.