While NOTHING can diminish the horror and 'wrongness' of the events in the US I would ask every-one to think about what we will be fighting for!
We will be fighting for the 'rightness' of the last 80 years of western foriegn policy, which is essentially US foriegn policy!
During WW1 the British promised the world to the Arabs if they helped defeat the Germans. At the end of that conflict they, through the League of Nations, reneged and that set the tone for relations between the west and that region. It was called the Balfour Doctrine and set out under the leadership of Loydd George the then Prime Minister of Great Britain. It among other things handed the formerly Turkish Colony of Palestine to the British!
At the end of WW2,which incidentally followed the Great Depression which was the western worlds first taste of the down side of 'Globalisation', the UN(the US's first taste of world power after being Isolationist prior to WW2) decided to hand Palestine to the great displaced Jewry of Europe who had just suffered such terror at the hands of Hitler's Nazis(note I didn't say Germans). Why, against much advice, they thought it would be a good idea to turn a Religion into a Nationality and create Israel will have to be left to people cleverer than I.
It should be remembered that even the Palestinian Jews, who had been living 'more or less' peacefully with the Arabs for centuries, didn't think Israel was such a great idea either.
The Nazi's also killed 3 million Gypsies but no-one thought to give them their own Country!
We now have the US, due to hugely powerful Jewish lobby groups powered by the large Jewish segment of the US population, defending 'its interests' in the region by helping Israel defend itself against the Arab world from the late 40's up until the present day!
Add to the mix the tensions caused by the wests dependance on Oil rich Arab nations as well as the fear of Islams primary doctrine of converting the world to Islam and you have the cocktail that has fueled US, and therefor Western Foriegn Policy over the last 80 years or so.
The US is now whipping itself into a ferver of nationalistic pride in preparation for a war!
Us Politicians and Business leaders such as Steve Forbes are now telling the western world over and over that they were attacked because Islamic Fundamentalists like Bin Laden are JEALOUS of the FREEDOM and WEALTH and OPPORTUNITY that the US represents! WHAT UTTER BOLLOCKS!!!!
If(when) we go to war we will be defending the US, and therefor Western foriegn policy. We will be defending the WEST'S INNABILITY to 'LOSE FACE'. And we thought that was a particularly Eastern Trait!
YES the 'free world' must unite to battle terrorism!
YES what happened in the US is beyond what any reasonable human can accept.
Will killing lots of Arab Muslims or even just Bin Laden fix our problems?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!
WE will just be priming a fuse for our children to cope with!!
I initially reacted the way we all have been reacting and then when I started hearing the 'spin' being put on the reasons for this attack I started thinking about the historical aspects to it!
We hear, over and over, that to ignore the lessons of history is to risk repeating them!
The west is doing just that!!! The baby and the bath water are out the window BIG TIME!!
I was wrong in many things I said and thought in the last week, simply too emotional to react in a logical manner.They were only 'right' from a very narrow western perspective.
I am more fearful now than I was a week ago! The WEST is making a HUGE ERROR!
NOT in fighting terrorism with ALL it's collective resources but in not recognising and articulating the underlying reasons for the attacks that have been going on for 60 years in an ever increasing spiral of violence that reached new depths of inhumanity just over a week ago!
As an aside does anyone remember why the Muslim Arabs have been pi$$ed of with The Jews for so long?
From memory Abraham's wife Sarah(?) couldn't have children so he was bonking his maid Hagar! She gave him Ishmael! then Sarah fell pregnant and gave him a son as well... can't remember his name! So Abraham banished Ishmael and his mum 'to the desert' where he grew up to unite the Arab world against the Jews, Islam was born. So Abraham can be looked upon as not only the father of Judaism but also Islam. And they have been fighting ever since!
Chuck.
Edited when I saw the gramatical and speeling
errors through my newly acquired/required reading glasses.
[ 21 September 2001: Message edited by: Chimbu chuckles ]
[ 21 September 2001: Message edited by: Chimbu chuckles ]