Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 23:28:31 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <giffunip@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: WTC Payoff [11 september] (was Re: oh my god the nasa shuttle blewup) Message-ID: <3E3F6B9F.CFC27B05@mindspring.com> References: <20030204051447.20954.qmail@web13406.mail.yahoo.com>
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Well, a military/political discussion in -chat beats the other topic of the day... "Pedro F. Giffuni" wrote: > As someone that lives in a very violent country, and > that happened to be in the US during Sept.11 ... > > Let me say Sept. 11 was really effective as an attack > to the US. Not because of the dead (which were not > that many compared to so many other tragic events in > the history of the world) or by the evident impact and > confusion in the american people, but rather due to > the extremely dumb behaviour from the US goverment. > > Contrary to what average americans tend to think, the > International community: [ ... list of disbeliefs about behaviour ... ] None of this is "dumb behaviour resulting from the attack on the WTC". So how, specifically, does this make the attack on the WTC "effective"? What is the "effect" it has had? > In general, I think the causes for Sept. 11 are as > alive today as in Sept 11, but now the world, with a > possible exception of the UK, seems to dislike more > the US. Of course I'm not saying the causes would > justify the tragical events. > > I doubt very much the Shuttle incident was related to > terrorism, what I do think, is that the US will have > to learn to live with terrorism just like everyone > else in the world has done, and that a big > sofisticated army will not solve the problem :(. If the intended effect was to make the U.S. act in a way which makes it seem heavy-handed, in an effort to curb it engaging in enforcing foreign policy, as you imply, then I will tell you that that effect is irrelevent to U.S. enforcement of its foreign policy. The U.S. currently *chooses* to live with terrorism. The terrorists exist solely on the sufferage of the U.S. being willing to continue to trade individual lives for international good will, which, for some unfathomable reason, it values highly. But so far, the continued existance of the U.S. has not been credibly threatened. Let me be blunt. Some people in the world don't seem to understand the concept of "Total War". Israel does, and the incompletely occupied nations that fought the Axis in World War II do, and most certainly the former Soviet Republics do. Others do as well, but those are the ones which are certain. Let me point out that Perl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. The U.S. began the Manhattan Project on September 17, 1942, and developed, built, tested, and deployed in combat the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 and the second on August 9, 1945, less than three calendar years later. Let me also point out that we have had nearly 60 years, in the interim, to improve our technology. The problem with not understanding "Total War" is that you somehow believe that there is no such thing as "sufficient provocation" for some reactions, or that some scenarios are "unthinkable", just because you yourself would never think them. Usually, these are younger people, who never had to practice "duck and cover!" exercises in elementary school, and who have never understood the doctorine behind the Cold War never becoming a Hot War, MAD - Mutual Assured Destruction. Rather than lose such a war, both sides were willing and able to destroy all life on Earth. Now most of the issues between Isreal and the people who wish to destroy it, and believe the only thing preventing this is "U.S. interference" arise from the fact that they do not understand that Israel would use atomic weapons on their own borders, exposing their own population to the effects of the weapons, if the alternative were the destruction of Israel. "But that's unthinkable!", they say. So these enemies of Israel rattle their sabres and bang their shields, and threaten the U.S. to try to get it to "Withdraw support from Israel so that we my destroy it!", not realizing the consequences, were they to make the attempt, and not realizing the U.S. is *not* protecting Israel, it is protecting them *from* Israel's inevitable reaction in such a situation. As to the war on terrorism, let's think about "the unthinkable"... If it comes down to "us or them", I have no doubt the U.S. *will* "solve the problem"; perhaps by engineering an enthnicity specific class 5 pneumo-virus, most likely targetting mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited matrilineally, using information obtained from the human genome project, to destroy its enemies utterly, down to the last living cell, before letting them destroy the U.S.. Total War is serious business. Then the U.S. will feel bad about having done this, and erect monuments to its fallen enemies (who will remain fallen), and protest power systems and other products which use technology similar to that used in the war, out of the same sense of guilt that surrounds the use of nuclear power in the U.S. today. All I can say is God help the terrorists, if they ever succeed in becoming a credible threat to the continued existance of the U.S., because the U.S. believes in Total War. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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