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chas:
so you mean that if someone saves your life, you no longer have any right to criticise that person, even if they then go on to do things so stupid, that they endanger their own lives and those of their families and friends?
there are two really amazing facts about america:
1. that you have any friends left at all;
2. that you don't have a clue who they are, because all you're interested in is hanging out with yes-men.
last month, a majority of muslims were rightly horrified at the loss of life in new york and washington. there was a huge opportunity right there. al qaeda wanted confrontation; bush and blair could have denied them that, and alienated them from their potential supporters, by playing on the injustice and brutality of that act. instead, they start bombing the poorest, most war-scarred nation in the world, because 3 weeks is too long for them to wait for legal extradition, despite the extraordinary fragility of the geo-political situation.
as a result, due to loss of infrastructure and delays in humanitarian aid caused by the bombing campaigns, we will now spend the winter watching millions of people dying of starvation and cold in the mountains, live on TV.
that's just what bin laden and his ilk want. and the people who want to bomb afghanistan are just playing right into his hands.
forget for a moment about 'who is responsible'. just ask yourselves: 'could we have saved those people from dying by holding back? and if we had held back, and saved those lives, wouldn't that have put us in a morally stronger situation?'
i happen to think the war is unjust. but what worries me most is not the injustice of it all, but the stupidity.
the war against terrorism isn't a military war, but a moral one. for a while we had the moral advantage; and now we've just thrown it away.
peter
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redrice -
you said:
--------------------------------------------
last month, a majority of muslims were rightly horrified at the loss of life in new york and washington.
--------------------------------------------
Did you know that a recent al Jazeera poll showed that the majority of Palestinians feel that the Sept. 11th attacks were justified under Islamc law? Did you know that on Sept. 11/12, Yasser Arafat threatened that any reporter who filmed Palestinians celebrating in the streets would be arrested? He did this to save himself from embarrassment--you see, as he was announcing to the world that he regretted the loss of life in New York and Washington, his people were dancing in the street and handing out candy in front of his office. The Muslims who objected to the Sept. 11th attacks have not made much of an attempt to express their sorrow, which you say they feel. I think that every expression of sorrow I did hear from them was phrased as criticism: "I'm really sorry for what happened on Sept. 11th, but..."
you wrote:
--------------------------------------------
there was a huge opportunity right there. al qaeda wanted confrontation; bush and blair could have denied them that, and alienated them from their potential supporters, by playing on the injustice and brutality of that act.
--------------------------------------------
Yes Peter, there was a huge opportunity to make the world feel sorry for us. But we don't want anyone to feel sorry for us. We want to be alive. We waited three weeks to make sure we were attacking the right people. During that time, I certainly didn't hear any offer from a Muslim nation to help apprehend the guilty parties.
you said:
--------------------------------------------
instead, they start bombing the poorest, most war-scarred nation in the world, because 3 weeks is too long for them to wait for legal extradition, despite the extraordinary fragility of the geo-political situation.
--------------------------------------------
Perhaps you haven't listened to the news lately: The Taliban were not going to give up bin Laden. bin Laden is their chief financial supporter, and probably the reason the Taliban is still in power. For them, giving up bin Laden means giving up power. The United Nations has twice asked the Taliban to extradite bin Laden for crimes of terrorism, and twice they have refused. Afghanistan was already suffering under UN-imposed sanctions of various types for these two refusals. What on earth makes you think that the Taliban would legally extradite bin Laden if he was guilty. They would not extradite him for the USS Cole bombing, which he had already admitted to!
you said:
--------------------------------------------
as a result, due to loss of infrastructure and delays in humanitarian aid caused by the bombing campaigns, we will now spend the winter watching millions of people dying of starvation and cold in the mountains, live on TV.
--------------------------------------------
Again Peter, do you not listen to the news? UN Humanitarian aid has continued uninterrupted throughout our assault on Afghanistan with the exception of three days. The biggest obstacle to humanitarian aid in Afghanistan is the Taliban. Case in point: after the three day delay in aid, food UN food shipments resumed from Pakistan. The Taliban would not allow the trucks through. They said that the trucks should pay them a road tax of $32 USD for every ton of food they brought in. The UN refused to pay. What kind of government charges someone to help their people?
you said:
--------------------------------------------
that's just what bin laden and his ilk want. and the people who want to bomb afghanistan are just playing right into his hands.
--------------------------------------------
We don't want to bomb Afghanistan. If we wanted to, we could have gone to war with them when they blew up two of our embassies or killed 17 Americans in Yemen. We do it because we have to destroy al-Queda.
you said:
--------------------------------------------
forget for a moment about 'who is responsible'. just ask yourselves: 'could we have saved those people from dying by holding back?
--------------------------------------------
Maybe there is nothing we could do to save these people during the winter. If you check your facts, you will see that more food shipments are actually going to Afghanistan now than before the war. Even if we can't save these people, we can save many more in the future by getting rid of the Taliban. Have you seen the CNN report that shows the Taliban marching veiled women into a soccer stadium and shooting them in the back of the head? The women committed such hideous crimes as talking back to their husbands, wearing makeup, refusing to wear their veil, appearing in public without a male escort, etc. The soccer field was built by the international community so that the Afghanis could have some entertainment. The Taliban are using it as an arena to execute dozens of people per day. Just lovely.
As far as the moral advantage goes, I think we still have it. Cast in point: who was the biggest provider of aid to Afghanistan prior to Sept. 11th? Was it a Muslim nation. Nope. It was the United States. What did the Muslim nations ever do to help the people being persecuted by the Taliban? Even while Afghanistan's "guest" was attacking us, we were helping the people of Afghanistan. Also, I don't see any Muslim nations moving to help the Taliban now. Probably because most of them deplore the Taliban as well. I think we still have the moral high ground.
Also, would you please clarify your previous comments about your support of terrorism. You said that your definition of terrorism was when civilians were targeted to cause panic and achieve a political goal, and that you weren't totally opposed to that. You later said that you were not willing to see innocent people killed. I then asked you to name for me some terrorist attacks that did not involve innocent people being killed. I would love to see that list.
- digvid
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Peter, (redrice)
Let me present a scenario for you.
Let us say that all your family were murdered by a group of religious thugs who lived up the street from you. You know where they live, but supporters of those thugs live near by in surrounding poverty stricken houses which also house "innocent" supporters of that religion.
In order to arrest those who murdered your family the police have to gain access by force. However, they are prevented from doing so by followers of the thugs who are armed and have barracaded all of the properties.
There are also groups of Peace lovers opposing your right to use retaliatory force against other "cultures" in case the innocent are hurt and have little sympathy because you and your family are wealthy.
What do you do?
Avoid the confrontation and allow the murderers and thugs to get away with the crime?
Or send in the police with force and risk injuring or killing those who get in the way during the attempt to bring the murderers to justice?
*(To make the issue worse - these religious thugs are also financed by a national government who sponsors there actions in the name of religion).
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For a bunch of super8 filmmakers you sure have a lot of political anxiety.
Something Ive been concerned about for a while popped up in my inbox this morning.
I thought it would be interesting to post it here.
COURTIN' TROUBLE
"This legislation is, in effect, a protection of war
criminals" -
William
Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International
Criminal Court.
While America tells the world to get behind its 'global war against terrorism' and support the bombing of Afghanistan, a
law is being rushed through that will scupper attempts to set up an international criminal court - a court which would be the very body to bring to justice those
responsible for the attacks on September 11th.
The proposed law has the backing of Bush and has already been passed in the House of
Representatives.
The Coalition for the International Criminal Court was formed in 1995 and is a network of over a thousand non-governmental organizations and international law experts from every corner of the world. It's pushing
for the creation of a permanent and independent International Criminal Court
(ICC) that "will investigate and bring to justice individuals who commit
war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide." 42 countries, including
the UK, have signed the treaty which ICC Convenor William Pace, reckons
"will be a powerful international legal tool in the fight against global terrorism."
The US however doesn't want anything to do
with it, complaining that "its power could be easily misused to make capricious arrests of American officials or military personnel abroad."
Because as everybody knows, the rest of the world commits war crimes but not the good ol'
USA.
So using the current climate of patriotic hysteria Republican lunatic
Senator Jesse Helms is pushing a bill of extreme anti-ICC legislation -
The American Servicemembers' Protection Act. The Act aims to stop the convention getting the magic number of 60 countries signing up to it -
which is how many signatures are needed to make the ICC international law.
Amongst the highlights the Act threatens to cut off military aid to countries that ratify the ICC treaty - apart from NATO, Israel and
Egypt -
hoping this economic blackmail will stop weaker countries signing up.
These are often the countries which are backed by the US, have bad human
rights records, and in some cases are the places where war crimes are being
committed. The Act would mean that the US military would not take on
any UN peacekeeping roles unless they were made exempt from ICC prosecution.
It would prohibit US co-operation with ICC inspectors even in a case of
international terrorism and give the American
President "all means
necessary and appropriate to bring about the release
from captivity of
US
or allied personnel detained or imprisoned against
their will by or on
behalf of the Court, including military force." This
in theory could
lead
to the invasion and bombing of Holland, since the ICC
will be based in
The
Hague! As Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch points
out " the State
Department has just endorsed a bill that authorizes an
invasion of the
Netherlands." No wonder critics are calling it the
Invade the Hague
Act.
All this hasn't gone too well with America's allies. A
European
delegate at
the United Nations said that legislation "imposing
military and legal
reprisals is unprecedented and unacceptable." While
Richard
Dicker,added
"This makes no sense. It hardly seems like a good
moment for the U.S.
to be
threatening sanctions against dozens of countries
simply because they
want
to bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes against
humanity."
Forget the talk about a war on terrorism, America
wants to be the
worlds
judge, jury and executioner. As comedian and activist
Mark Thomas
points
out "In a sickening display of hypocrisy America is
acting in its own
narrow interests with typical double standards.
Supporting terrorism is
bad
except when we do it, the rule of law is good except
when it might be
used
against us, war crimes must be punished except if we
commit them.
Standing
shoulder to shoulder? No chance! America's natural
position is standing
behind another country pointing a gun at its head." *
More info on the
court: www.iccnow.org
------------------
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digvid:
i dont know where you get your figures from concerning food aid. CNN?
i quote from this morning's guardian newspaper: the World Food Programme has estimated that 250,000 tonnes of food are needed to reach afghanistan within the next 5 weeks, before the country is cut off by snow. that is 715 trucks a day. even before war broke out, the maximum aid agencies ever managed to ship was 30,000 tonnes a month. the main obstacle is not taliban toll charges: it is the condition of the roads, which cannot take that kind of battering.
on some days last week, the flow of trucks had dried up to only four in a whole day.
aid agencies and the UNHCR are calling on the US and UK to halt the bombing at least for long enough that they can try and accomplish at least some part of this enormous task. they are not asking for the US and UK to take action against the taliban and kill all their border guards who are trying to levy fees on the aid transports.
why is that? because they are ignorant of what is happening on the ground? because $35 a truck is not a big deal? or because they know that they have no influence over the taliban, but that they - and we - have some influence over the air strikes, and that without the air strikes 1. the problem would not be as large as it is now, 2. the taliban would be more inclined to comply, and 3, the risks involved in the operation for aid workers would be substantially less?
peter
ps. i'm not ignoring your question about terrorist attacks without victims. i shall address it later, when i have a little more time.
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by redrice:
roger wrote:
-- "Responsible?" You know what this reminds me of? When a good samaritan pulls someone from a burning car and accidently hurts that person's leg in the process. Then the injured party sues the good samaritan for all he's got. We have business interests in different areas of the world and have the right to defend ourselves and our interests. But don't confuse our being on the scene with a responsibility to do something. We could just as easily stand by and let the car burn, you know.--
Peter responded:
or you could just sell the guy with the lighter another can of petrol....
peter
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You bet, Peter! Hell, I'll sell him a thousand cans of petrol if that's what he wants and it's good for business. It's what he DOES with the petrol that makes the difference; not who sold it to him. And let's not forget that there are any number of suppliers that will give the guy with the lighter what he wants, even if America doesn't.
Like the warped CIA training analogy you previously cited where you blamed the CIA for training Osama (thereby automatically making him a criminal) you seem incapable of seeing the difference between capability and action. People everywhere should have the right to bear arms and where they get them is merely a distinction without a difference since they'll get them no matter what. It's what they DO with the weapons that makes the difference, here.
You'll have to try harder than that, Peter.
Roger
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by redrice:
i quote from this morning's guardian newspaper: the World Food Programme has estimated that 250,000 tonnes of food are needed to reach afghanistan within the next 5 weeks, before the country is cut off by snow. that is 715 trucks a day. even before war broke out, the maximum aid agencies ever managed to ship was 30,000 tonnes a month. the main obstacle is not taliban toll charges: it is the condition of the roads, which cannot take that kind of battering.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Totally obtuse, Peter. The point is what was/is Osama and company or ANY Muslim nation doing to help the situation? Anything? Just where is all this food and aid that can't get through coming from? Again, if one truck from western aid gets through, that's one truck more than they had and one truck more than the west was obligated to send. If defending ourselves gets in the way of that help, then that's just too bad since we had no responsiblity to help in the first place.
Again, you're going to have to try harder than that, Peter.
Roger
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dominic:
here's a scenario for you.
you share the street you live in with a group of thugs who scowl at you and spit on you every time they walk past.
these thugs have very nice houses with high walls and barbed wire and guard dogs, and they live surrounded by other rich thugs just like them. you live down the poor end of the street, and some of your friends mend shoes or work in the kitchens of the big houses. the rest of you dont even have any work.
the big thugs bought their houses by selling oil which they got from under the land all of your houses are built on to a group of men who speak a strange language and wear weird clothes and fly around the world, grinning at people.
to get at the oil, they had to take the land you used to farm away from you. when you protested, some of you were shot.
whenever the thugs' oil-buying friends come into town, they don't come down your end of the street to ask you what you think about the situation. they hang out in the big houses up the street, and some times the look over the wall at you. from the way they keep on grinning, they seem to assume that you must like them.
some times they send you comic books in the mail, which tell stories about how poor people who lost all their land worked very hard and eventually all became CEOs of software companies or presidents of the united states. you add up the figures, and work out that if all the poor people did that, by now there must be 7 million presidents of the united states, and 493 million software companies, all of which are selling different software from one another and doing very well. then someone tells you that in fact there is only one president, and only two software companies, one of which keeps teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. this begins to seem like less of a good idea than you first thought.
so you form a committee, and decide to lodge a formal protest. it isn't right, you say, that the thugs up the street should keep all the money from the oil, when it belongs to all of us, or to no one. the thugs listen for a while, then they say: 'these people are communists', and they shoot half of your family.
the next day, you wake up: your committee has been closed down, and in its place is a mosque. there's a preacher who comes and tells you about the koran and about heaven and hell and about the path to righteousness. occasionally he goes up to have dinner with the thugs. later on, you learn that the thugs paid for the mosque, and they provide the preacher with his salary.
still you go the mosque, because its the only place to go. and over time, gradually the preacher starts getting more and more fiery, and taking more and more risks. and you encourage him. he starts talking not just about heaven and hell and the koran, but about justice, too. he doesn't criticise the thugs directly, but you can tell from what he says that he doesn't think much of them. but he reserves his worst venom for the thugs' friends who come to buy the oil, and distribute so many stupid, 'immoral' comic books. the thugs know this, and they don't like it, but they can't do anything about it.
you listen to this for a while, and all the time you are thinking about your family who were shot. then television arrives in the street, and you start watching television. on television, you see lots of people who look like you. they live down the end of a street, and they don't have any oil, and the thugs at the top of their street shoot them when they talk about justice. and when the thugs say 'communist', you notice that in the background, you can just make out one of those friends who comes to buy the oil, grinning and shaking the hands of the chief of police.
you also see films made by the thugs' friends. in some of the films, these people who talk that strange language kill lots of other people who look very sinister and restore justice to the poor, who look very nice and clean, and not at all like you. in other films, the strange friend-people kill lots of poor people who look just like you, and when someone points this out to them, after a very long time, they don't apologise, but instead they just say it was inevitable, and the price of freedom. freedom for who? you wonder. freedom for the thugs, it seems: after all, everyone else is dead, while the thugs who were oppressing them are still safe in their palaces, grinning more and more.
after a while, you work out that the first lot of films are fiction, while the second lot are true.
and so, gradually, you begin to think that these friends, who talk about helping the poor, aren't really on the side of the poor at all, they're on the side of the thugs up the street, just as you always thought they were, so long as the thugs toe the line and sell them oil at the price they like.
and so, when you go back to the mosque, and the preacher says to you: 'there can be no justice in our land, as long as the friends' troops are here', you clench your heart. you reach down deep inside yourself, and strangle the last little part of you left that is human, that automatically feels empathy with anything else which lives and breathes, and you say to yourself: yes, only if we can get rid of their friends, can we get rid of the thugs in their turn.
---
that's the story. there's no question to go with it.
just: think about it.
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roger:
you obviously believe that no one has any moral duties to anyone else in the entire world, and that if people are dying and you can do something to save them, you are still perfectly entitled to say: 'no, don't want to; i'm too busy beating up this guy who insulted my sister.'
you also seem to believe that business is entirely amoral, and that if someone says to you, 'hey, sell me a pair of pliers, so i can pull this guy's fingernails out, the store's closed,' you'd be a fool not to do it, cause in any case he'll only wait until the store opens again.
that's fine: but just don't wander the world preaching civilisation and expecting other people to like you, when your response to this terible tragedy is mindlessly vindictive, ignorantly self-centred and appallingly callous.
peter
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roger wrote:
'you're going to have to try harder than that, peter.'
and peter replied:
'no i'm not. because i supply you with facts and references, and suggest you try and inform yourself about what is actually happening in the world, and what the real strategy of the US and Europe is in the middle east, and you just rant on about how nobody is going to force you to be nice to anyone if you don't want to, and how nothing is going to be your fault unless you want it to be (which you dont), and how you are not forcing anyone else to buy their chemical weapons and nuclear bombs from the US, and what they do with them is their own business, so long as they do it in some obscure foreign country where the only people who die are poor, black and invisible on CNN...'
an innocent bystander sighed, and asked: 'meaning?'
and peter replied, wearily: 'meaning, i'm not going to try any harder, because roger just isn't trying at all.'
---
digvid:
the actions of the ANC during the apartheid period.
full details are available free on line in the report of the truth and reconciliation commission: www.truth.org.za
best,
peter
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