Re: [OM] [OT] Terrorism thoughts

[Paul Wallich]

At 7:52 PM -0300 9/12/01, Andrew Dacey wrote:


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tris Schuler" <tristanjohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 6:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [OM] [OT] Terrorism thoughts
>
>
> > The problem I see is the bad logic which suggests these "rogues" are not
> > supported by their nation-state populations. Were all Germans 100% behind
> > the Nazi regime? No. Was the German populace mainly behind the Nazi
> regime?
> > Yes. Could that Nazi regime have come to power to begin with, much less
> > sustained itself, without this support? No. Were the Allies, therefore,
> > effectively at war with the German people, the German culture itself? Yes,
> > we were. Was this "right"? It was inevitable. there was no other way
> around
> > the situation. What were we supposed to do, wait around until the German
> > people came to its collective sense and killed Hitler? Does that strike
> you
> > as wisdom?
> The situation isn't the same. The Nazis were elected and then started their
> campaign, which was supported by the majority. IIRC, the Taliban regime took
> power. Even if the government is supporting terrorists (which they probably
> are), I don't believe that this is supported by the majority. It is one
> small heavily armed group (Osama bin Ladan's group) being supported by
> another small heavily armed group (the Taliban government). Just because the
> Taliban government is in control of Afghanistan right now does not mean that
> the Afghan population supports their actions or should be punished for those
> actions. I agree that if Osama bin Ladan is responsible then the Taliban
> government should also be punished, but that does not mean that the innocent
> Afghan population should be punished. That will only create more people that
> have a bone to pick with the US.
Just for the classic irony, the Taliban took power because the US funded
them and every other muslim extremist group in Afghanistan as "freedom
fighters" to bring down the soviet-backed government there. We trained
them and bought them many of their weapons. And now we're talking about
bombing Afghan civilians to punish a monstrous dictatorship we helped
create.

paul

--
Paul Wallich                                            pw@xxxxxxxxx

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