Another month, another American worker slain in a heinous manner.

I think its time to invoke the eye for an eye rule.
Take those Al Quaida prisoners whos releases were demanded...and release them..to Allah.

The U.S. should pressure the Saudi govenment to mandate the immediate and very public execution of the Al Quaida prisoners. All of them.

Ted Kennedy,and all those F**kin hollywood liberals that would seek to destoy this wonderful country that we live in.

Do you really want to be at the same moral level as those who commit such barbarous acts?  You say it was "heinous" and then you're advocating that the US should encourage it, I don't understand that sort of thinking at all.

I would venture to say Carrie that if you were to "tour" that regeon of the world you would stand a very good chance of being publicly stoned to death.
We can't just build a fence around these uncivilized mid-east countries and exclude them from all forms of commercial trade. Perhaps if we fight fire with fire their limited thought processes would convince them to shed their barbaric ways and get in step with the rest of the world.  

-- Modified on 6/19/2004 8:11:46 AM

I agree with Carrie, and those others with the courage to stand on the high ground.  There is more than one way to win.

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I'll reply despite the factious comment about ' touring'.

I've not been to Iraq but I have holidayed in Iran found the people there to be by far the most hospitable I've ever encountered.  I learned a lesson by that trip: never to judge the ordinary people of any country by their leadership or the acts of extremists.

Believe it or not most Arabs are just like us.  They want to live in peace and do the best for their families.  Of course there are extremists but then not so long ago we had extremists in Northern Ireland killing women, children and old people.  Not just in Ireland but in London.  I heard bombs go off twice, I lived with the paranoia and disruption it caused to people around me.  Would you consider all Irish people to have "limited thought processes"?

(btw, in case anyone is wondering, I know Iranians are not Arab

Is get rid of those incompetent, Saudi lovin' slackers and get some real military people in there (like Kerry and General Clark) who care about Americans instead of Haliburton Contracts.

to react under pressures of war.

It is easy to sit here in the states and wax philisophic about war time conduct, it's quite another, to be there, seeing your friends blown to smithereens...

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Morally bankrupt killers like Bin Laden and those who think as he does.
    I do not know how the scurge of terrorism will be solved, but I do know that copying the tactics of killers will only play into their hands.
    Terrorists work to spread fear and intimidate to get their way.  They are not capable of human feeling or of discourse to peacefully resolve differences.  Killers like Bin Laden will have to be found and killed, but the work has to be done in a way that will not make them larger than life figures who will be viewed in an admiring fashion by future generations.  Herein is the paradox, people like Bin Laden wrap themselves in causes that average muslims can identify with, at least to some extent.  A way has to be found to deny Bin Laden and the wannabe bin ladens association with causes while they are sought out and destroyed.

I have had occasions to interact with middle easterners on their own turf.  Over time, before the interactions, I viewed all people from the regions that I interacted in to be essentially simple barbarians who would cut my throat at a moments notice simply because of who I was.  The reality is far more complex than I imagined.  As Carrie pointed out, most people from countries that have difficult relations with us often dislike the policies of their leadership, similar to how some people in Britain and the US disagree with the policies of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.
    The difficulty that civilized, moral people have is how to deal with killers in such a way that decent people, regardless of where they live, will view the result as the right outcome.

them less so.

-- Modified on 6/19/2004 8:34:33 PM

Raoul Duke wrote at the begining of the thread:

"I think its time to invoke the eye for an eye rule"

This was a response to him, that indeed we have gone above and beyond the call of duty in honoring the old testament's eye for an eye rule.

By "we", I mean the U.S. we have invaded Iraq, we have invaded Afghanistan, today, we bombed a town in Iraq, at least 20 died, some of them, according to the hospital officials, women and children.  When we bomb a house, in a  residential neighbourhood, is there a surprise that women and children get killed?

When was the last time we had casulaties, and didn't respond?

I don't know what caused the confusion.

-- Modified on 6/20/2004 12:05:25 AM

complex?  If dangerous people were being given safe harbor there then the only other alternative would have been to send in special forces without air cover, this, in my view, is taking unacceptable risk.  If terrorists are being harbored by men and women, then those men and women have made themselves combatants and should be treated as such.  When men and women make the decision that I just mentioned then kids often get caught in the crossfire that results, unfortunately, such things happen when people invite the dogs of war into their neighborhoods.  But no one should mistake a case where people willingly harbor killers with one where innocent people are attacked by those killers, the US has a right to attack whenever our innocent citizens are killed or when there is a risk that our soldiers will be killed if we do not use iron fist force.

My post was a response to the specific "proposal" made by Raoul Duke in starting this thread.

I am not a pacifist.  

You make a very good point, Nicole, about empathizing with the enemy.  If we want to reduce terrorist attacks, we need to gain a better understanding of the views of terrorists.

The McNamara film "The Fog of War" illustrates the mistakes that can be made when you do not fully understand your adversary.

...than you demand.  However, they can't just put a fellow Moslems in prison to death.  Already their police force is untrustworthy (supplying al-quaida with uniforms).  If they execute fellow Moslems on the demand from the US, they'd face open popular rebellion.  

Make no mistake, I'm extremely disgusted by this act.  So who do we kill and who does the killing? (because apparently many people are moved to want revenge about this).  The people with a hand in committing it, of course would be the first ones to kill. Do we extend the guilt from there to all al-quaida?  That would be logical, I would agree.  Then do we extend it to all the friends and relatives of al-quaida members?  They will feel sympathy for those murderers, so obviously.  Do we extend that to the entire Saudi police force?  They apparently have sympathy for the cause.  To all Saudis perhaps?  Why not all Moslems finally, since they are fans of that awful book that puts these acts into people's minds?  

How about the people who get to perform all this killing?  Can we expect to bring them home after the experience and feel safer with the effect it has had on them?

There's no justice to be found in this course, and no revenge really, just a plague of misery that we have to contain and find the cure for, fast.  The drive for revenge has been distorted in this world for all of us, and especially for these people.  As much as I hate these guys, we need to stay cool and apply force strategically where it will diffuse this, and not plunge all of us into a mass insanity of seeking revenge we could never satisfy.  Seek the cure, not the disease.

Unfortunately, I do think the way to stop it would be to threaten to waste Mecca, and other sites.  Despite the fact that the Moslems have always been militaristic, they've never faced a world deprived of the physical heart of their religion.  

/Zin  

 

I agree, stilltryin25, and the same holds for Israel.  When Israel goes after the leaders of Hamas and other terrorist groups that target innocent people, there are times when women and children get killed in the attack.  Arab terrorists purposely hide among their women and children trying to take advantage of the Western sanctity of human life, but like you said, these people make themselves combatants when they invite the dogs of war into their neighborhoods.  Unfortunately, anti-semites in Europe have become deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to this point.  I believe it was the Prime Minister of Sweden who called the Israeli killing of the leader of Hamas a "disgusting" action.  In reality, however, it was the Prime Minister of Sweden who was disgusting, as his prejudices came out for all to see.  An Arab terrorist goes into an Israeli home and shoots an infant in its crib, and the world (outside the U.S.) says nothing.  But when Israel targets the terrorist leaders, the world, particularly many European countries who should really know better, condemns the action.  I have basicaly given up hope that countries such as France, Sweden, Germany, and a few others will ever have the fortitude to come out and say that their views toward Israel have been (to be more polite than they deserve) misguided.  But I do sort of relish the thought that in a few years time, their economies will go into a deep funk because of their current social welfare programs, and I take pleasure in the thought of how painful their adjustment process will be.  What goes around comes around!

What a handle you have chosen!  You MUST teach us the art of smart fucking!  We really want to know!

Europeans have become intenssely anti-American and anti-Israeli in their senitment. But please, don't equate that with antisemitism.  You and a few others on the board, I hope for heaven's sake, would read ugly anti-semitism writings and comments of 1930s Europe.  

Or, if you don't have access to the literature of that era, read some of the postings on this board, and repalce Arab/Muslim with Jewish, you get a taste of the inhumanity of 20s and 30s of prewar Europe.

jealous of American economic success and the worldwide "export" of our culture.  The war in Iraq simply brought these feelings to the surface, but they've been there for quite some time.  Yeah, Europeans hate America, but their kids still wear Laker T-shirts (maybe Pistons now) and their college age kids still want to visit and go to American universities.  And while antisemitism in Europe is not nearly as bad as it was in the 30's, the fact remains that it has clearly been on the increase and has produced a pronounced anti-Israel bias.  Indeed, after many attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions in France, only recently has the French government spoken out against it.  For a long time they claimed that nothing was going on.  Of course, France's large Arab population has a lot to do with this, and at 15% and growing, France's internal problems have only just begun.

BTW, "smart fucking" is watching them leave!  As Charlie Sheen said, that's what you pay them for.

Californian, you are either very uninformed or don't consider the bombing and burning of Synagogues in France and Germany which have increased to the pre-WWII level as anti-Semitic!

It is only a slight majority in European Union nations who have become anti-American, those would be the ones that are soon to lose their social welfare checks as the socialism of France, Germany, et al begins to fail!

Your last sentence is very telling of your own anti-Semitism, you relate anonymous posting as similar to the extermination of millions of Jews.

Your postings remind me of the Wizard of Oz, you know, the Scarecrows song!

Read what I said.  I referred to the nature of the writings then and now.  Those words, led to murder of millions of innocent souls, because "decent people", here and there, did not take stand agasint Hitler, Mussolini, and other thugs of the era.

And if it weren's for a massive war on the Eastern Front, the Soviet's bloodied stand against Germans, it is unlikely we would have stopped the Nazis.

We have seen many references to nuking muslims or Arabs, and if I remember you were either one of those, or came damn close.

You don't know me. The absolute worst insult you can hurl towards me, is calling me an anti-semite. Because it is so untrue, and against EVERYTHING my grand father, my father, and my whole family and I stand for.

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I tire of people equating just about everything said to the genocide of Jews in WWII!  It simply does not equate with words.  It is just as dangerous as liberals calling conservatives Nazi's!

I would contend that the appeasement mentality of the left now is exactly the same as the appeasement mentality of the left during Hitler's military buildup.  Our current foe is just as dangerous and in fact even more dangerous.  Hitler only hated the Jews, Fundamental Islam hates and want to kill all infidels", "non-believers in Islam"!

My comment wasn't meant as an insult, rather a slap out of it, glass of cold water in the face, it seemed to work.  I don't know you and I apologize for insinuating that you are an anti-Semite, but I will never stand silent when inane comments comparing the Holocaust with thought or speech are broadcast, here or anywhere else!

BTW, I have not suggested nuking Muslims or Arabs, I do feel that a much harder line should be being taken.  Its a fucking war, in war you kick the shit out of the enemy until they agree to behave!  That's how you win, and I don't think that with a generation of Muslim males who think the way to heaven is to kill me and you, we can negotiate.

I was only referring to some of the "rhetoric." NOTHING in the history of mankind would ever come anywhere near to what Hitler did. I wasn't born then, but from what my father and grandfather have told me, it was the shameless tolerence of a LOT of people, long before Chamberlain, that permitted Hitler, and Nazism in it variety of ugly forms, to spawn.  

Fundamental Isalm is far more of an anathem to us, so called Liberals, then you Conservatives, who lust after that big anti-semite Billy Graham (shall I give you the proof? Here it is=NIXON TAPES!), and his cohorts.

I am utterly puzzled above all that someone as intelligent, sensitive, and worldly as you is a conservative.

"Fundamental Isalm is far more of an anathem to us, so called Liberals," ?  What is anathem?  Did you mean anathema?  If you did, how can you have ever supported Bill Clinton who did nothing to curb it or for that matter John "Hanoi John" Kerry who would do exactly what the french have done, which is nothing?

"then you Conservatives, who lust after that big anti-semite Billy Graham (shall I give you the proof? Here it is=NIXON TAPES!), and his cohorts."

As far as Billy Graham is concerned, I would tend to look at the product of his life work rather than what was said in a private conversation.  Graham is not anti-Semite, ask a Jew!  Have you not used any racist remarks in passion?    Would you want everything you have uttered privately broadcast by Dan Rather?  And if you claim to never have used such language you are either a saint or a liar.

Now on the other hand, I find it the epitome of hypocrisy that neo-socialists (liberals) defended Bill Clinton's lying under oath while serving as President of the United States to deny Paula Jones her day in court!  It was perjury under oath, a federal crime!  It had nothing to do with a blowjob, (besides Hillary always knew he was a dawg), it was about federal law and of course you will defend him!

Don't be puzzled, liberalism (socialism) does not work at any level.  It has failed time and again and the march towards socialism in Europe is failing as I write this.  Why would you want to encourage its growth here?

One of the main differences is that neo-socialists (liberals) focus on failed ideas and conservatives focus on reality and results.  A much more "intelligent, sensitive, and worldly" view of the world than focusing on altruistic ideals!




-- Modified on 6/23/2004 3:36:06 PM