[SLUG-POL] Re: your mail

From: Paul M Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Date: Thu Sep 13 2001 - 00:55:35 EDT


On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 07:40:58AM -0500, Andrew Wyatt wrote:

> I may be blind, I may be ignorant, but there are no innocent people
> surrounding those who would do this. Their children are tomorrow's killers,
> we need to look past the very thought of innocence, and eliminate the
> problem in whole. Failure to do so will only promote their continued violent
> acts against civilized society. I feel that we should eliminate anyone
> and everyone who has committed a terrorist action against any civilized
> nation worldwide. Uniting our entire world governments in the process.
>

You'll never be rid of people who hate America. Some people simply can't
stand the success of others. You're right, though, that some parts of
the world train their children from a young age to hate America.

But a lot of this is just the quest for power. You find a tangible enemy
X. You convince people that X is evil. You convince them that you're the
guy to lead them against the evil X. Voila, you have power. Jesse
Jackson, Kwiese Mfume and others of their ilk do this all the time. It
doesn't really much matter what the evil X is. People want leaders to
give them direction.

What you're suggesting, though, is essentially genocide. I don't think
that's called for, nor would it ultimately work. It would turn most of
the world against us, and steel the resolve of any remaining terrorists
(you'll never get them all).

However, I think we do need to go kill some people and break some
things. It doesn't much matter who, we just need to show we can and will
do it. I'm not advocating random killing, mind you. But if Mohammed L.
Mohammed doesn't happen to be _the_ guy who started this, but _is_ a
feared terrorist, whack him. And if we have to kill a few
hundred/thousand terrorists before we get to the actual one, so be it.
It's called "justice". Justice is what you do to maintain order in a
group or society. I don't think it's reasonable to be picky about which
law book we look at before we go make some order. Sometimes, to assert
or maintain order, justice must be brutal and swift. Innocents do
suffer, but they suffer no matter what brand of justice you advocate.

Likewise, we need to allow our intelligence services some more latitude,
as has been mentioned before.

> Though I am not a religious person in any way, I feel that prayer is
> necessary for both the victims and their families. Those persons who would
> be offended by your right to pray are no better than those who committed
> these heinous crimes against our great nation.
>

I don't agree that they're no better, but I don't believe that people
should be offended by prayer.

Paul



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