Another news story.

Hobbes

I'm going to have to declare Jihad on Gandalf if he keeps locking threads.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2001/0920/opt1.htm

Answers some other questions on another thread.

bonkey

(apologies to anyone who read the incomplete posting of this. Hit wrong button)

Interesting article Hobbes. Nice one.

What I find disappointing is the complete lack of objective commentary. Every article is either written by a pro-western-hegemony bigot who rants and raves at the injustices done to America, or its written by the counterpart - the anti-western-hegemony bigot, who feels that the most influential western nations have bathed in the blood of other nations, and are now outraged that someone should be delivering payback.

Maybe its just me, but is there no room left for the temperates amongst us? Those who believe that the major western powers are capable of great good and great evil.

Justice must be delivered in this case, but the US and its allies also need to examine the reasons for this attack and ultimately accept some of the blame.

Justice does not involve invaiding / going to war with a foreign nation to capture a "prime suspect" who has not been proven to be guilty of anything. Nor does it involve licking wounds, and hiding in a corner. It requires a calm, careful approach - I believe "due process" is the term. The rules cannot be swept aside in anger or outrage. The dangers of doing so are all to clear - in the abandonment of justice in favour of revenge, the US risks catastophe, both domestic and abroad in the Middle-Eastern region. In both cases, this plays directly into the hands of the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks.

America is a great nation with many things to be proud of. It also has a "dark side" which it should be ashamed of. They are not unique in this regard - every nation on the planet can probably stand alongside them in the hall of shame. This does not mitigate the facts however. The larger the nation, the more far-reaching these crimes spread.

The control of the media ultimately results in the occlusion of this darker side, so that no-one knows the full truth.

Objectivity is lacking. What we need to do is look at the basic issues :

1) Why did this happen. If we do not understand this, then we are doomed to have it repeated
2) How do we react to this.

Question 1 cannot be explained with a glib "bin Laden is a madman who hates the US". This is such a non-answer that it beggars belief.

This event came about because of poor foreign policy, coupled with a lack of understanding and/or tolerance for foreign mindsets, coupled with woefully inadequate security in the airline industry brought about both by the search for profit and complacency. Add to the mix some fanatics, and you have September 11th

So...Question 2 - where do we go from here :

a) Gather evidence. identify down those responsible, however long it takes. Be able to provide enough credible evidence when requesting for the release of suspects from foreign nations.

b) Examine foreign policy (not just the US - all nations). Become less invasive and manipulative, and more considerate of other nations. Become more isolationist if necessary. It is not acceptable for any nation to prop up their economy through manipulation of another nation, albeit through arms sales, economic exploitation, or any other means.

c) Examine the security of the western world (or the world in its entirety). We need proper security on planes. Being told "we cant afford that" by the airlines is not an acceptable reason to decide not to implement it. Rail and sea travel also need to be examined.

d) Privacy - we, as individuals need to get off our high horses about personal privacy and realise that there is a cost to personal privacy. Is it a cost we are willing to pay. You want the freedom to use PGP, then you must accept that it can also be used by terrorists and their ilk. A compromise muct be reached.

We demand security and safety from our governments. We must impress upon them that both they and we must change our ways in order for this to be possible.

On a seperate note - Bush has declared "war on terrorism around the world". However, I was interested to note that he has, since then, several times said that terrorism is international by its very nature. This leads me to believe that the US wants only to declare war on international terrorism, or allow them to pick and choose their fights.

I would welcome an international anti-terrorism unit. One which had legal rights to act as a police force in any "member nation". They would be held fully accountable for their actions - no secret wars, but would not be under the control of any one government to tell them where they could and/or could not operate. Idealistic...sure it is. What stops it from happening? Could it be nations trying to hide their own dirty little secrets - afraid that the support of terrorist organisations will inevitably point back to them.

jc

gandalf

Yeah Hobbes that was an interesting Article. Sorry about closing those threads but I figured they were not going anywhere useful.

I also deleted a number of responses yesterday and today, why because the idiots who posted them did not engage their brains before submitting them.

Gandalf.

Aspro

Thanks for getting that article through, Hobbes, hidden away as it was in the opinion section of the Irish Times (no surprises there). I was wondering when we might get access to an article by a real journalist - and not the usual propaganda drivel we receive through the mainstream media. I said it before, and if anyone gets the opportunity they should read some of Pilger's books, esp. the last one "Hidden Agendas".

.

What I find disappointing is the complete lack of objective commentary. Every article is either written by a pro-western-hegemony bigot who rants and raves at the injustices done to America, or its written by the counterpart - the anti-western-hegemony bigot, who feels that the most influential western nations have bathed in the blood of other nations, and are now outraged that someone should be delivering payback.

I was just wondering, Bonkey, if you were referring to that article too as being unobjective because I don't think he was saying anything different to what yourself, Hobbes, Gandalf, myself have commented in these discussions.

Just as regards your conclusions, I thought they were good and well thought out but a little naive.

b) Examine foreign policy (not just the US - all nations). Become less invasive and manipulative, and more considerate of other nations. Become more isolationist if necessary. It is not acceptable for any nation to prop up their economy through manipulation of another nation, albeit through arms sales, economic exploitation, or any other means.

It's a nice idea but a bit utopian. It's like trying to ask the school bully to take his foot off your head when you're suffocating in the dirt. While nations comply with one another in the movement of global capital - "free trade" - there will always be conflicts between this and the interests of the individual nation states. Karl Marx realised this over 150 years ago. Exploitation and conflict are endemic within the system.

c) Examine the security of the western world (or the world in its entirety). We need proper security on planes. Being told "we cant afford that" by the airlines is not an acceptable reason to decide not to implement it. Rail and sea travel also need to be examined.

At the end of the day safety and security are secondary in a corporation's pursuit of profits. Look at England. The railway network was privatised and safety has gone to the dogs. I don't remember when I saw so many rail crashes and needless deaths within a short space of time. The same goes for other forms of private transport. If they can get away with it, they will.

I would welcome an international anti-terrorism unit. One which had legal rights to act as a police force in any "member nation". They would be held fully accountable for their actions - no secret wars, but would not be under the control of any one government to tell them where they could and/or could not operate.

That's a very dangerous idea. Since terrorism is a subjective term, what's to stop governments using a force like that against individuals, trade unions or political organisations that they don't like. Like various laws enacted during and after the IRA's campaigns repression did not stop with the terrorists - but rather with community activists, trade unionists and left wing organisations. "Give them a stick and they'll beat you with it", as they say.

As has been mentioned many times in these posts, wars are about economics - oil, land, resources etc. The governments of this world will always serve these masters before they serve Joe Public. So what we need is not to bestow more power on our governments but to realise our own strength as ordinary people throughout the world to end conflict once and for all.

azezil

powerful artical! ... i notice the source site is no longer available!

bonkey

Originally posted by Aspro
I was just wondering, Bonkey, if you were referring to that article too as being unobjective because I don't think he was saying anything different to what yourself, Hobbes, Gandalf, myself have commented in these discussions.

Just as regards your conclusions, I thought they were good and well thought out but a little naive.

I think that article, whie well-informed, is still unobjective, because it only paints the US in a bad light. When confronted with flag-waving "rah rah" pro-US idiots, I generally try and take a stance which says "you are not all-good". I dislike the stance of "you are all-bad", which in the quoted article was getting dangerously close to. Maybe the author was simply (like me) supplying counter-point, rarhter than being truly anti-American (as I felt he came across). God knows I've been accused of it enough for doing the same.

As for the naievite of my conclusions....yup, youre dead right...a little bit Utopian. But here's the thing...

Sooner or later the world will be faced with a atark reality. We can work towards these somewhat Utopian ideals or we can fall into chaos.

I am not looking for a tree-hugging, love-thy-neighbour, feed-the-hungry, destroy-poverty utopian solution.

What I am looking for is for the politicians to start realising (sooner or later) that they are sowing what they reaped, and that they cannot continue. Its not even about love for fellow man - they are getting dangerously close to causing a social collapse in many parts of the world. Sooner or later, the balance will shift, and war will no longer be good for business. I only hope that those in control realise this *before* the fact, and not afterwards.

All it takes is a bit more care, a bit more consideration, and a bit less stupidity in the search for profit.

Looking (with my naieve eyes) at the current situation :

If the US goes into a conflict in the ME, it remains to be seen how things pan out. The following are almost inevitable :

1) An escalation of terrorist attacks by Al Qaed, possibly on US soil as well as abroad

2) An escalation of the victimisation of muslims and other people of visually similar ethnicity as a result of 1)

The following are probable :

1) Attacks on whatever country the US traversed to enter Afghanistan.

2) Significant military casualties if the US send in ground troops and/or significant civilian losses amongst the Afghans.

The following are dangerously possible :

1) Escalation of the conflict throught the entire Middle-Eastern region, and possibly beyond

2) Economic crises caused by oil-shortages as a result of said escalation.

The following is unlikely, but cannot be fully discounted :

1) The use of weapons of mass destruction (atomic, chemical, biological) in *any* part of the world either by warring nations or terrorist groups (more likely the latter).

The following are highly unlikely, possibly imossible :

1) Al Qaeda will be disbanded or smashed

2) bin Laden will be captured or killed

3) The region will become less volatile after the event

I think most of the anti-conflict posters here agree with this. The US have a right to justice, but at what cost, and in what way? My initial (admittedly naieve) thoughts on an alternate approach were just that...my initial thoughts - it is something we have had very little posted about.

jc

Aspro

I am not looking for a tree-hugging, love-thy-neighbour, feed-the-hungry, destroy-poverty utopian solution.

I think you might have taken me up wrong, Bonkey. What I was pointing out is that it is naive to believe that you can reform capitalism in this day and age, but not utopian to believe that society desperately needs to change before it descends into chaos.

Reformism ended with dismantling of the last of the Roosevelt plan in the US, with Thatcherism and its evil child Blairism in Britain, and with the shift to the right of all the former social democratic parties. The neo-liberal agenda of all the world leaders now means that nothing will stand in the way of the rape of the planet in the pursuit of "free trade". The USA calls all the shots, and everyone else follows.

they are getting dangerously close to causing a social collapse in many parts of the world.

They don't care, Bonkey. If the people protest they'll implement more repressive laws, build more prisons, start more wars, send more ordinary people to the slaughter.

With a total social collapse there will be two choices - are we going to live in fascist police states or build a society where human life comes before profit?:mad:

bonkey

Originally posted by Aspro
With a total social collapse there will be two choices - are we going to live in fascist police states or build a society where human life comes before profit?:mad:

Heh - the two typical visions of the future.

David Brin's "Earth" had a great vision of how social collapse ultimately gave mankind a chane, but wasnt a shiny-happy StarTrek earth.

Flipside, there's been countless "dark future" novels.

Offtopic, I know, but there you go.

jc

Aspro

Like 1984

Scared the s.h.i.t. out of me.

Especially that band Wham. Man, the haircuts!