adric | Stupidity makes me very sad

Stupidity makes me very sad

Today was a day of great stupidity, and so I have been on the verge of tears most of the day so far. A great many people died this morning for no good reason. This is itself horrifying. Many more people will die before this chapter of history is closed. Some poeple somewhere have such a grievance against the people of the US, or the whole world, that they have started a war. War is a demonstrably stupid problem-solving technique, as well proven before. They are so cowardly, or so insane, that they have embraced terrorism, attacking "soft targets" instead of engaging their enemy militarily. They cannot defeat us in a fight, fair or otherwise. They can only try to provoke us to destroy ourselves by diminishing our freedom. They can only try to trick us into hurting ourselves, to try and undermine our beliefs in our system, our society and government by scaring us. The uncertainty and sickness that many of us feel today is only the beginning of their goal. If we give up our open and free society through fear of such acts, then the terrorists have succeeded. If we close our borders and tighten our laws further, if we withdraw from the world community, if we refuse to lead the world, then they get exactly what they wanted, and we lose doubly, as will the world.

This is a time not to restrain our freedom but to celebrate it. It is because of all that we do to try and help others that we are the target for these cowardly acts.

This is not the day that will change the world. The world will (must) go on, after this gross interruption, and will not change in the face of such barbarism and stupidity. The guilty will be punished in due time, but we must not let them win.

Help the hurt.
Mourn the dead.
Find our strengths.
and then,
Find and Kill the bastards.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You speak the truth. We will all do well to listen to you, my friend.

This looks like WWIII so far as everyone says... "kill the bastards" is the prevailing sentiment so far.... all I can think of is "why? so more bastards can point surrepticiously at us and say 'see? they are the barbarians they despise'" I can't fathom killing those bullies who tried to frighten us by killing. THey look at our bonds and think "weak and stupid" but we look at them and think "barbaric and evil" they call us bullies, we call them bullies. They want us to be like them.. should we do that? Isn't there always another way?

There is *always* another way.

But the issue at this point, I think, is, "Is there another *effective* way."

I don't like gratuitous war. Conquering and whatnot, for the sake of it and no other reason is (more than) distasteful to me.

As far as I'm concerned, what needs to be done is to make sure that this doesn't happen again, *ever*. And in this case, that means destroying the perpetrators, every single one. Not punishment, not retribution. Prevention.

I'm not sure obliteration is the *only* method of prevention. The alliance factor is what gives me pause. With allies behind them, we only provoke more of the same... do we want, are we prepared, is it smart to obliterate all of the factions behind Afghanistan? TO take on Turkey, Iran, Yemen, and the many other countries who consider themselves indebted to Bin-Laden... this is most definitely starting WWIII. Yes, we have allies, and strong allies they are, but are we willing to be forever responsible for such an incredible endeavor? It doesn't much matter what I muse, this thing is happenning regardless, but as the old saying goes; be careful what you wish for...

-C

I definitely agree with that.

I wouldn't discount musing. Musing is the very beginning of getting things done. If someone can think of a way to keep this from happening again, without invoking massive loss of lives, or US isolationism, I'm all for it.

But what else do we have to work with?

We can and will turn our heads from blatent human rights violations (with the excuse "but it's a different culture") when turning our heads brings us economic gain.... but we certainly get huffy if we see no advantage in keeping silent. We allowed Afghanistan to harbor the Taliban. We allowed Iran to harbor Hussein. We have done things and more like them for a long time and I suppose we will keep doing so forever. But we are surprised and ready to flex our muscle when a brainwashed culture that we allowed to grow comes after us? You want to prevent this? Eradication of all cultures that encompass religious intolerance. Eradication of any group that espouse eradication.... oops... where are we going with this?

Just thoughts.

"We allowed..."

How do we *disallow*?

I agree with you that declaring enmity towards a large swath of the earth's population seems less a solution than a problem itself.

I do not agree with the next statement (as I'm sure might guess), but the average American doesn't really hold any regard at all for the people of the Middle East and would probably cheer if we reduced that whole region to glowing green glass (what do you get when you nuke desert? ..).

I don't think we should (or will) attack countries except those that directly sponsor terrorism.

It should also be noted that most every country in the world is behind us on this, including some nations we're not so close to, like Russia and China, and that NATO has invoked it's defense pact for the first time.

At the socio-economic scale no nation-state can long tolerate state sponsorship of terrorism. It is dangerous to all nation-states and so it is not so surprising that some of the strongest nations are going to support any action that will put a stop to this. As long as the world is structured as sovereign states, this wll hold true. In the next world paradigm ...
(not tonight)

Propaganda and public opinion

Various methods of eliminating state sponsorship of terrorism

Making it very expensive...

There are things that can be done. Right ow discourse is the best thing for us. Stay, er , tuned to my and

vidicons LJ for further explorations of how to attack terrorism.

Too sleepy now, but read up on V's LJ to get some odea of where we're going..

Will do.

This sounds interesting.

Stupidity makes me very sad

Right on, Adric

how can we be sure?

Well...

Re: Well...

Being careful what we wish for

it's like Tiannamen Square

Re: it's like Tiannamen Square

Re: Well...

Re: Well...

Re: Well...