Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/12
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On Wednesday, September 12, 2001, at 12:00 , B.D. wrote:
> "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen2001@yahoo.ca>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] we're ok
> Message-ID: <20010912150527.67580.qmail@web20407.mail.yahoo.com>
> References:
>
> IF this can be discussed in such a way that we all
> remain Email friends...
It must be; it has to be. Otherwise we are lost.
But I do not agree with those who say that the response to this must be
that we attack ALL terrorists. Some acts of terrorism are unambiguously
identifiable as such. Others are not so clear. Some are war crimes. Was
the secret bombing of Cambodia by the United States an act of terrorism?
How about a war crime? Shall we show no mercy to Kissinger and the other
architects of that policy?
We must be exceptionally diligent in considering our actions now. Do we
dilute our democracy? Do we give up personal freedoms so that our
government in the U.S. is less a government of, by, and for the People?
Do we make nations that harbor the perpetrators free-fire zones as we
did in SE Asia? It is easy to say yea with tears in your eyes and rage
in your throat, but the easy response is not necessarily the right
response - or in fact the courageous one.
Here is another option. Let us assume that bin Laden is behind these
acts. We know that his motives are ideological and religious. The
Taleban and bin Laden EXPECT the villages to be attacked. This will only
ensure a steady supply of martyrs.
You want to strike these bastards in the heart? Give 'their' people air
drops of food, comic books, American toys, TV's and satellite receivers.
Disney. Condoms. The extremists promise the martyrs bevies of black-eyed
virgins. So give every teenage boy in Afghanistan a subscription to
Playboy or Maxim. Blanket the entire countryside with tens of millions
of indestructible, plastic, fluorescent pink statues of the Bhudda.
This is the war that the religious extremists *cannot* win; this is the
war that they are losing already, and they know it.
- -Alexey
..........................................................................
Alexey Merz • alexey@webcom.com • alexey@dartmouth.edu • 603/464-6840
http://www.webcom.com/alexey • PGP public key: http://pgp5.ai.mit.edu/
A democracy becomes hopelessly weak, and the general good
suffers accordingly, if its higher officials, bred up to
despise it, and necessarily drawn from those very classes
the dominance of which it is pledged to destroy, serve it
only half-heartedly. - Marc Bloch, _Strange Defeat_, 1940