People are dying and I can't live with it anymore.

mewso

Yes correct - a cardinal sin.

Greenbean

Cardinal sin, posting after drinking. I dunno about you but I get very emotional when drunk. Now when sober the same things still apply but not to the extent that I would endanger my chances of good survival. Drunk and emotional I would stand with you in front of that bomber, sober and I just can't see the point.

Why does a farmer producing wheat sell it to a large mill 200 miles away for it only to come back 2 weeks later as bread. Surely he could have just sold it to the local bakery and looked after the local community. Sorry but even though it seems to make sense the world works in a very different way and its the greed of man that makes it this way. Rather than have thousands of small communities with everyone doing ok, we have a global community with some doing very well and everyone else suffering. Do you challenge this by selling it directly to your local bakery.. ... no it only means the end of your business.

Whatever you do you've got to turn public opinion on a wide scale with you. A small scale guesture may morally help you into heaven, but you've got to be a scrupulous as the system you are against to really save lives. So should you stand against the bomber you better have some very well researched reasons for doing so, some hard facts to expellel, and have them well backed up for you 15 minutes of fame. You also want to take things by surprise, give people a chance to see you coming and they will counteract you, pre-empt you to their best interests and YET on the other hand you will want to warn the media of what you are doing so that you can get best coverage. Remember, whoring yourself to the system you battle against is the best way of saving more lives, so forget your own soul if you really want to help - otherwise you are just a lemming.

Sorry if thats a bit forward.. I'm drunk.

mewso

What I'm really saying is I don't want to argue the logistics of it. I want to go abroad and help. I know from looking, and I've done it, that organisations that do work abroad are not looking for IT nerds like me but I hope someday I might be able to go and help.
Drunk or Sober I don't want to argue the right or wrong of anything I just want to concentrate on the reality of people dying and what we can do. In a world that calls Robert Fisk an anti-semetic I just want to go away and do something and forget how humanity can o often do without it's humanity.

My God John are you only a Freak. Thats not right.

Magwitch

It is at times like this that the sheer ignorance of the Media and other organisations comes to the fore.

1. The Media are constantly talking about American strikes on Afghanistan causing panic. Panic is being caused by the Taliban consripting every able bodied man into their ranks and mopping up any possible colaborators and famine (the UNHCR are constantly being suspended by the Taliban). With a famine already in place the destrustion of the Afghan people is inevitable under the rule of the Taliban. If the WTC bombing had not taken place the same media would be harping on about why the west did not not act to halt atrocity after atrocity (yes, the same media that is now questioning western involvement in Afghanistan).

The West cannot be expected to sit back in the face of this type of terrorism and do nothing. Yet disenting voices say exactly that (socialist worker posters are already up). They are to be ignored.

These opinions are backed up by aid agencies who seem to have learned nothing from the Bosnian holocost - YOU CANNOT IMPOSE POLITICAL SOLUTION WHERE ONE IS NOT POSSIBLE as the UN tried to do allowing Serbia to consolidate land gained through genocide.

Recently the Media (a la BBC corrospondent) talked at lenght about how America broke the Balkan arms embargo to arm the Bosnian muslims - in doing so they insured the survival of a religious and tolorant minority in Europe when Europe and the UN were prepared to see them slaughtered through a policy of apeasment. Yet the media slate America for it??

2. The West did not arm Asama Bin Laden. COMPLETE BS and another half-assed claim by the uninformed and wooly minded. The US armed the Afgan Mujahadin via Pakistan. Pakistan invented and supported the Taliban and channeled the bulk of weapons to them for their own political ends. Placing the blame now at Americas door convieniently ignores the northern alliance consisting of three other major ethic Afgan groups. Really shoddy and pathetic journalism. It also convienently pastes over the terrible acts carrie out by the Russians against Afgan civilians.

So what is happening?

1. America has gotten Russia to offer cease fire adn peace talks to the Chechyn seperatists (Muslims).
2. An Afgan government is already being formed to take over after the Taliban are ousted.
3. Afgan refugees, though displaced will be free of random executions and persecution and have food which is non-existant in afganistan. Thereafter they can return to their country free from fear and the threat of genocide.

Americas extensive foreign aid policy is also ignored (so much for a balanced argument). It is beyond dispute that America needs to rethink aspects of its foreign policy, but lets face facts - If America does not remove the Taliban no one else will.

mewso

The ignorance of the media and the wooly minded eh? Were you writing that post from the ground in Afghanistan? Why not read an article by someone who knows what they are talking about:-

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=94434

or even read about how the US has declared a 'War on Terrorism' which is in fact a very selective war :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=95825

The reality is that most of the media supports your viewpoint so why you attack them is strange. Fisk who wrote the article in the senond link above is perhaps a little swayed by having been in Afghanistan since the war against the Soviets but hes reporting as he sees it and not as the Gung-ho west wants to see it. He calls the attack on the US a crime against humanity, which it most certainly was, and the world is fully prepared now to committ another one. A Labour MP in England said it best when he said that bombing these people and killing more innocent people will create 1000 more Bin Ladens.
And here I am arguing again when the whole point is people are starving and yes people would starve whether this had happened or not but because of this the UN has had to pull out and the deaths will reach epic proportions.

Typedef

Musician is right, it's really nice being a liberal with a big mouth, DO something about the s=it that is going down, ok ok I know, what are you gonna do give up your cushdie job as an AS400 junior network admin ? I mean why do anything about poverty when you can just lambaste nepotism in the US government, down with georgie and such , ok down with Georgie sure but, dammit lets actually get up off of our pampered asses and do something about this world......., maybe I should just jack in programming and go do something about all the stuff I spout off about.............................

WhiteWashMan

brian, you need valium

Yurmasyurda

I have thought about this more than a few times and this is what upsets me.

6 people died today in a horrible accident in Cork and there was one man injured, the horror that this person has to go through knowing he was the only one not killed in this horrific accident is terrible and then people say lucky it wasn't more than six as if six people is not enough, do people understand that these people have individual lives and their deaths will impact a lot of people?

This is something happening a lot in the media and with a lot of other people, like the world trade centre there is an enormous number of people affected directly or indirectly and this is a deeply saddening thought, more should be done to protect the lives of innocent civilians and people should not start to care less because in essence they're lack of caring will progress into a trend.

Life is a very precious thing, no one has the right to take this from anybody and more should be done to protect our everyday part in life as this is hugely important, I'm not sure if there is a god so I like most normal people don't want to die yet, infact death is such a morbid thing to talk about people just decide to ignore it and get on with their own lives, but it's different when it's about you!

Life is precious, care more and try to help others if you can, don't stop caring because if you do then there is no point in living anymore.

Magwitch

Originally posted by Typedef
The ignorance of the media and the wooly minded eh? Were you writing that post from the ground in Afghanistan? Why not read an article by someone who knows what they are talking about :-

Actually I have been tracking VERY CLOSELY developments in Afghanistan for several years, through army connections I have friends who have and hopefully still are in Northern Afghanistan. You news paper quotes are selected from alot of dros that is bandied about in the media (particulary TV) so are not a reflection of the wider medias reporting (e.g. those pointed to by Rudi Guilianni).

Musician is right, it's really nice being a liberal with a big mouth, DO something about the s=it that is going down, ok ok I know, what are you gonna do give up your cushdie job as an AS400 junior network admin ?

Don't assume your own laziness or apathy is the disease of others.

mewso

I would be willing to accept you have a knowledge of the situation but anyone who rejects certain reports as dros is not someone who's opinion I'd be willing to entertain. These people are not making things up. There are different interpretations but some facts that cannot be denied. I quote:-

"The Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was under way. It was a rash adventure from the start, and the anti-Soviet hawk in President Jimmy Carter's cabinet, his National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, persuaded Mr Carter that it offered the perfect opportunity to give the Soviets far more trouble than they had bargained for. Building on a modest programme of assistance that had started six months before the Soviet invasion, Mr Brzezinski got the President to sign a secret directive to send covert aid to the Mujahedeen, the tribal Islamic warriors who were then in the earliest stages of giving the Soviets hell. "

Is this true or dros? Is it complete fabrication? I doubt it. The interpretation of the fact that the US supported the Mujahedeen may differ but the it remains a fact. Not that as has been said they were the only ones. Pakistan, Saudia Arabia... but who funded Pakistans support:-

"It was the remotest and the safest form of warfare: the US (and Saudi Arabia) provided funds, and America also a very limited amount of training. They also provided the Stinger missiles that ultimately changed the face of the war. "

More lies? Should this Journalist be a novelist instead? But of course Pakistan were the main men:-

"Pakistan's ISI did everything else: training, equipping, motivating, advising. And they did the job with panache: Pakistan's military ruler at the time, General Zia ul Haq, who himself held strong fundamentalist leanings, threw himself into the task with a passion. But during that process of supply and training, as veteran journalist John Cooley puts it, the US indirectly "hatched a monster of Islamist extremism, the Taliban movement". "

Hang on a veteran US journalist saying this. Surely he should have lost his job years ago for this dros, these lies. But wait he said they indirectly hatched this monster so they can't be at fault. After all they were protecting a neighbouring country. No sorry a country on the other side of the world under threat from the Red Menace. And what do I see at the end of that article, details on Geography, Economy, Debt, Population etc. All dros of course. You made some valid points in your first post:-

"So what is happening?

1. America has gotten Russia to offer cease fire and peace talks to the Chechyn seperatists (Muslims).
2. An Afgan government is already being formed to take over after the Taliban are ousted.
3. Afgan refugees, though displaced will be free of random executions and persecution and have food which is non-existant in afganistan. Thereafter they can return to their country free from fear and the threat of genocide."

I'm not painting the US as some kind of evil power and I don't need to be reminded that the western world can do alot of good. It can do alot of bad too and I think the problem is that the US for example seems unwilling to ask why certain peoples hate them. A child in Palestine will hate the US because he is raised to do so. Why? If Bin Laden is guilty of this crime then he should be brought to justice but millions of muslims may hate the US without any violent intent just a desire to have justice in their lives. Their grievances should be addressed and not forgotten or ignored. The 'War on Terrorism' should apply to all terrorism and attrocities committed be it by the obvious enemies of the western world or by governements trained by western funding, or groups trained and backed by US supported Governements, a fact demonstrated in some of the dros I linked you too. How many families in the US can point at Bin Laden and say you have changed us forever? and how many families world wide can say we have been changed, massacred and uprooted by a Government we do not support and all we can see is military aid coming from the west. What are we supposed to think? Nothing is that simple and that is why questions must be asked to avoid further slaughter.

Magwitch

My reference points to the general level of reporting in the media which by in large is grossly inacurate. As for reporting on the ground in Afghanistan, although there are vertern journalists out there doing a good job (with established and reliable connections) I have read journalists reports from Afghanistan which are grossly ignorant of the facts and culture they are confronted with .One journalist Mark Franchetti, started his report by referring to Muslim prayer beads as "worry beads" and proceeded to report first hand word-of-mouth information on the histroy of the war between the Northern alliance and the Taliban, when in fact the truth of these "facts" had yet to be established (Sunday Times Sept 30th). "Facts" are the core of a journalists trade, something that seems to have been forgetten in the rush to fill pages.

It seems that in the race for sensationalism papers are rushing people to Afghanistan to get news from the front. If a reader can find a reliable source of information then well and good, but by and large the media is steeped in a rutt of rethreading Reuters reports to tell us facts that they should have been reporting over the duration of the conflict i.e. most of what we read is archive, not news. For instance I refer to the "fact" that General Masoods death went unreported by the wider media until the WTC bombing, even though he had been the subject of a documentry by channel 4 about five years ago. Gen. Masood was a leader and humanitarian without equel and the fact his death was treated with such recklessness by the media is criminal. This is a sad reflection of the state of general media.

I watch Channel 4 news regularly and they have interesting and informed reports for the most part - but (portaining to my origional point) what I find objectionable is John Snows devils advocate interviews which (like the selective quote merchants on the these very same boards) pull holes in everything to leave the viewer more confused than when they started without actually making a point. Where is the information? So on and so forth. It is I suppose more a reflection on the the previous state of our own western world that much of the established papers and braodcast have shown an almost complete inability to deal with real news in a responsible and factual fashion.