Do we hold those countries responsible

[A_Jacks]

I agree! Damn!

 

[Starfish]

Most of you who know me, will be slightly shocked, and I hate to say this.... but I am ready for us to go to war over this, and I'll gladly lend my service as a nurse if there is a need for it.

But you must all keep in mind what this is...

This is WWIII. Nations from all over will be involved in this war, and they can name it what they want, but WWIII is what it will be.

I just pray that this is the "War to end all wars".

Hell, Three is a charm.

 

[Silverlily]

I believe war is where this is going. I support that fully. I am a trained explosives technician, it would not take long to get back up to speed. If the need arose, I would respond.

Thumper, these "men" may not be afraid to die, but what about suffer? If we go to war, not only will they suffer, so will their families. Besides, dead men do not hijack planes.

Sometimes we have to do things we don't like, such is life. War will be ugly, the affects horrifying. But the alternative is living cowed by fear. I will take war.

 

[Anubis1947]

Re: Lavy

That would hinge on them actually being cowed by our military might.

They have no fear of death so they would not be afraid to fuck with us again.

They know what we can do....the highway of death in Kuwait is ample proof...and yet they are still unafraid.

They have absolutely NO IDEA what we can do. And neither do you. The So-called Gulf War was nothing more than a very limited live fire exercise for our military. We had limited objectives, we met them, we left. If it had actually been a war, every soldier in the Iraqi military would have been dead or captured; every factory, power plant, communications facility, oil field, government office, military base in Iraq would have been rubble.

 

[Cheyenne]

I believe war is where this is going. I support that fully. I am a trained explosives technician, it would not take long to get back up to speed. If the need arose, I would respond.

Thumper, these "men" may not be afraid to die, but what about suffer? If we go to war, not only will they suffer, so will their families. Besides, dead men do not hijack planes.

Sometimes we have to do things we don't like, such is life. War will be ugly, the affects horrifying. But the alternative is living cowed by fear. I will take war.

Kitten Eyes: It is one thing for those of us who will never see a battle field to say "Yes, we should go to war." It is something entirely different for the people who will or could actually go to war to say the same thing. The stakes are much higher, the words not as hollow.

I hope you never have to go. If you do, thank you in advance for your love of this country and your willingness to serve.

 

[Silverlily]

I would be extremely far down the list, behind active, reserve, even brand new inductees. But the military spent good money training me in a war-time function. Should we reach that point, I do not think I turn my back.

I don't advocate war blindly. My grandfather was first wave at Normandy. My father served during Vietnam and Grenada. My brother went to Bosnia and I served during the Gulf. I personally know many of the families connected to the names engraved on the Wall. I've seen the strike films CNN do not show.

My reaction is not based in anger. It is not hampered by fear. The initial rage has subsided, leaving only a hollowness and a resolve. I am not joyfull over the loss of life yet to come nor do I crave blood on my hands. But I know what has to be done to ensure that the quality of life I want for my girls will be there when they are grown. The freedoms and ideals of this country were paid for with blood and that will not go to waste.

 

[willywanker]

I fall into the age bracket of people who were to young to serve in Vietnam and to old to serve during Desert Storm. I've never faced an enemy across a battle field and most likely never will. So, while I agree with Cheyenne that the stakes are not as high for me, I think this country is about to go to war.

I would like to see ben lauden caught up and dragged from his hideout to face a War Crimes Tribunal. I agree with Thumper on that one point, he won't be nearly as much of a martyr as a prisoner. We did it in Panama, we just need some good intel for a change. Special forces from all the services would dearly love to be called in on that one.

But another point someone made is that in Desert Storm and in all the "Limited Responses" we have made since for acts of terrorism, we have drawn a line and said "This far and no farthur!" If we undertake to "clean up" the terrorist cells, we need to finish the job this time. Our threats ring hollow because of our ineffective handling of these past acts. When Bush says that they will be found, we had better truly mean it.

 

[MunchinMark]

I was not afraid before. After reading this I am.

Just because people do not like Americans, or because they come from a country whose leaders dislike Americans, does not make them terrorists.

Killing their innocent friends and families will make them terrorists.

Before you pick a fight, try to find out who you should be fighting. Freedom is an idea that Americans, rightly, hold strongly. Do not take it away from innocent people.

 

[Starfish]

Mark, I can understand what you mean, but not everyone is going to support of killing ANYONE not guilty of a crime, and harboring terroists is a CRIME. Sorry, but that is the truth.


Killing isn't right..... defending yourself and your freedoms is, and if that entails extinguishing a source of evil, so be it. Our freedom has been threatend, and we must defend that by threatening those who would want otherwise.

This is the good fight. It isn't racist or wrong to single out the SUPPORTERS of this HATE placed in our direction.
America is even willing to allow these people to exist in the ways and means they see fit, even if it isn't capitalistic or whatever, as long as they leave us alone.... They have not. We must prove that they shouldn't do this to us.


Also, don't assume that everyone who favors war here and in the Government favors attacking EVERYONE in the middle east.

 

[alexander tzara]

I would like to see ben lauden caught up and dragged from his hideout to face a War Crimes Tribunal. I agree with Thumper on that one point, he won't be nearly as much of a martyr as a prisoner.

Maybe, but then you've got the problem of fanatics kidnapping and hijacking civilians to barter for the release of their idol.

Anyway, my thoughts on this strand:

This was a devastating attrocity. It completely saddened me, scared me and filled me with rage. I think the reality is that we need to somehow take-out Bin Laden and utterly destroy his training camps. We may even have to go to war directly with a specific country, probably his hosts, the Taliban of Afghanistan. But, at the same time, we have to make sure we don't do it in a stupid, heavy handed and counter-productive way. The response has to be considered, intelligent and effective. I realise that I'm pointing out the obvious here but I just want to balance the 'KILL EVERY FUCKER IN SITE' sentiments I've seen at times on the board.

What was Bin Laden's ultimate aim? He didn't just think, 'Let's attack America and cause the greatest terrorist attrocity ever then just see what happens, take it from there.' He's a psychopathic fanatasist but he's not stupid. He wants America and the West to be so horror-struck and furious (which we absolutely are) that we storm visibly into Afghanistan on the back of John Wayne's old horse and massacre everyone in sight. That's playing right into his hands. Once you do that suddenly he, or his successor, is there to unleash a bombast of anti-American, anti-Western propaganda to all the disenfranchised Moslems living in pretty much every country in the world: 'These Americans are attacking our Arab countries, killing our innocent men, women and children. America and the West don't care about us. They are the enemy. For the glory of Allah you must stand up to them, take this matter into your own hands....' etcetera etcetera.... you get the picture. Suddenly then you've got fundamentalist fanatics working alone, Timothy McVeigh-style, attacking us from within. It's horrible to think about this, but what's to stop suicide bombers with nuclear devices in suitcases from causing square miles of devastation and carnage in our cities?

At the moment the majority of the Arab world is pretty much anti-Bin Laden, but scenes of celebration in Pakistan and Palestine show the level of antagonism towards America that is already there, bubbling under the surface. If we play this right, Bin Laden (dead or alive) remains pretty much vilified and ostracised by the majority of the Moslem world. If we play it wrong, we could seriously fuck everything up. Just now he probably has an immediate army of a few thousand. We don't want that to increase to tens or hundreds of thousands of people willing to die in his name. Basically, we can't just drop bombs randomly on Afghanistan, massacring innocent people. We have to strategically attack military targets, maybe do something like send in the Secret Services, SAS etcetera to track down Bin Laden and his armies. Maybe we need to bring down the Taliban. That's who our war is with: the terrorists and their accomplices, not the innocent people who just happen to live in that country. Bear in mind that about 80-90% of the the population of Afghanistan live in rural comminities with no television, no radio, no proper roads, no mail, basically no contact with the outside world. They know nothing of the terrible attrocities commited on Tuesday. A quarter of them are starving and there are currently Christian Aid workers there helping because they're in the middle of a drought. Do you want to hold them directly responsible for Bin Laden's actions or the fact that the Taliban has given him a safe haven?

********

At the moment American diplomats are talking to the Pakistani government. I really hope that Pakistan allows us to base troops there and fly over their airspace. That will give a strong message to other Arab countries to stay on our side.

 

[alexander tzara]

...

 

[A_Jacks]

The Arabs will be on our side, they are making quite clear, as long as Israel is prepared to pay the price with considerable consessions (which they will not, having offered this once before only to have Arafat turn up his nose. He should be one of the first to quietly go bye-bye...).

 

[bluntforcemama]

Doesn't anyone remember this?

http://www.parowanprophet.com/maps/mohawk_350_KT_nuke.jpg


and a repeat of this scares the shit out of me. War means more death. It's like dealing with a bully, and you can't rationalize violence with more of it, can you? If you can, then you only know war, and not life. This is a horrible affair, and it will not go unpunished, but war is not the answer.

 

[bluntforcemama]

I never want to see this in my lifetime, or my children's.

http://www.parowanprophet.com/maps/Hot_Romeo.jpg

 

[Mischka]

Myst

...

 

[pabloback]

To anyone who thinks this is not a reason to go to war, send me your address and I'll UPS you the 5 lb. tub of Imperial margarine- because if we don't take these fuckers out and send a serious message to all their buddies around the world, they will just keep reaming us from here to eternity.

you cannot reason with a different culture by imposing your values on a race and ignoring theirs
so you honestly believe that children dancing in the streets really want americans dead?
when you have been indoctrinated [brainwashed ] from child hood into believing that israel and the west are satan you know nothing else and believe nothing else
americas foreign policy has contributed to this situation by failing to understand the other sides viewpoint , arabs see the palestinians as victims because they were thrown off of their own land and placed into camps
israel has been overly aggressive using helicopter gunships to attack villages killing innocent women and children the arab nations see the west as collaborators

IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LIVE FOR IT IS VERY EASY TO DIE FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN!

 

[Silverlily]

If you have nothing you would die for, you have nothing to live for.

 

[Chuckus]

like Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria who finance, harbor, and support terrorists?

Are you ready for a war, or just another smoking aspirin factory?

Well HELL YES we should hold them responsible. The harbor these bastards who do this crap. Yes, wipe their country OUT of EXISTENCE. Period.

There will be innocent people lost, sure. Life is a bitch. Then you die. So many innocent people lost their lives 9/11/01.

Whoever is harboring ANY terrorist, should be held responsible. I know this also may include Terrorist within the US also, but we must eradicate as much of this as possible.

 

[alexander tzara]

Chuckus - would you recommend indiscriminately bombing Ireland to get rid of the various terrorist organisations based there?

 

[shadowsource]

back & forth -

pabloback & alexander tzara are correct. As we all rush into a war, we can only hope that our leaders will follow an effective strategy for eliminating bin Laden and his allies. But few here seem to realize that the average Afghani has never even heard of New York. They live in a feudal world of hunger, fear, female oppression, rubble - all overseen by armed men who force them to grow beards. They keep their heads down. They don't know squat about bin Laden. Killing them in some effort to attain revenge would be the stupidest thing my country could do. If we go in, I hope Massoud is alive and can replace the Taliban and bring peace to the place, with a lot of money and support from the world.
It wasn't so long ago that Afghanistan was a charming little place that hippies visited to vist the (now destroyed) Buddhas and to cop hash. 33 years later, it's the Stone Age, revisited. Those people need a break, not a bloodbath. They have no power. Kill the Taliban, but spare the public. That will take brains, and the Arab World might not mind all that much. Few support the Taliban's reading of the Quran. Think of Taliban as Falwell with AK47s and think of all of us being killed because of what he says and does.

 

[Chuckus]

Chuckus - would you recommend indiscriminately bombing Ireland to get rid of the various terrorist organisations based there?

Sorry but Walks like a duck, talks like a duck......must be a duck.

Terrorist. Period. They have no discretion for whom they bomb. Whether it is US, China, Russia, England, etc. all they want is there point to be heard, when really they should try the Political arena as opposed to the violence they dish out.

 

[shadowsource]

The Cubans???????

Well HELL YES we should hold them responsible. The harbor these bastards who do this crap. Yes, wipe their country OUT of EXISTENCE. Period.

There will be innocent people lost, sure. Life is a bitch. Then you die. So many innocent people lost their lives 9/11/01.

Whoever is harboring ANY terrorist, should be held responsible. I know this also may include Terrorist within the US also, but we must eradicate as much of this as possible.

I gues we'll be bombing Miami and Union City, NJ soon. The Cuban exiles fired a bazooka at the UN in the 60s. They assassinated a guy in Queens in the 70s. They've launched numerous terrorist assaults on Cuba for many years, and on pro-Castro Cubans in America, some of them quite FATAL. Look up all the old news stories on Omega 7.
Oh, yeah, and those Contras Reagan liked so much.
And the Irgun and Stern Gang that helped drive the British out of Palestine by blowing up the King David Hotel, among other things. Their leaders became Prime Ministers of Israel, so we'll have to carpet bomb Haifa, too.
I'm just getting started.

 

[A_Jacks]

pabloback

Whenever anyone in the UK starts lecturing us on how to conduct foreign policy, the picture of Neville Chaimberlain holding up the signed agreement with Adolf Hitler comes to mind.

 

[alexander tzara]

Sorry but Walks like a duck, talks like a duck......must be a duck.

Terrorist. Period. They have no discretion for whom they bomb. Whether it is US, China, Russia, England, etc. all they want is there point to be heard, when really they should try the Political arena as opposed to the violence they dish out.

??????????????????????????????? You'd really seriously massacre millions of people in Ireland because there are a few thousand terrorists holed up there? Forget it, don't bother answering. I'll just assume you're very angry right now.

 

[Chuckus]

Well lets see here.............since we are talking about the bombing of 9/11/01 I don't see how Cubans fit the bill. I am talking directly about those who have harbored and helped the terrorists who committed this volatile act three days ago.

Now maybe we should examine people who commit other forms of terrorism...........

Don't take my words to the extreme other than THOSE who attacked the US on 9/11/01. That is specifically what I am talking about. Got it?