Heloplt.. I have discussed it with her, and to an extent she agrees with me. She was more surprised at the amount of sympathy she received last week, and how quickly following that anti-American sentiment has started to show. She has stopped wearing her US/UK flag pin on her jacket because she feels uneasy about wearing it now.
Rattus hit it square, there is a diffeence between justice and revenge, and the vitriol seems more revenge than anything else. St Thomas Aquinas first posed the principle of justice in war and justice of war (Jus a bello, Jus a bellum). I cannot see any justice in attacking Afghanistan whatsoever. The Taleban have asked Osama Bi-Laden to leave, and he is culturally obliged to do so. The Arabic culture is very strictly defined and adhered to. Without any hard evidence that he was responsible for the atrocity there can be no justification for laying an impoverished nation to waste. I doubt that there is any retalitory action that the US can take which would be just. If we extended the principle the Smiling One espouses, we would be laying NI to waste every time the IRA bomb London. We haven't. What makes this any different just because the scales is different? So no, Heloplt, if it had been St Pauls, Buck House, or any other London landmark that had been hit, I wouldn't be baying for blood. I didn't advocate bombing the Bogside out of existence when the IRA bombed London (take your pick of the incidents), and i don't advocate the US bombing Afghanistan just because it can. And what justification is there in dragging Pakistan into this? What beef do you have with them? or is the US just up to its F%^k you approach to diplomacy again? The same F%$£ you approach it has had to the ordinary Iraqi people (sanctions really work don't they?), the Kiyoto Accord, Palestine, Vietnam, Colmbia, Grenada, Yalta, the Balkans, or any other event where it has beaten up a country that can't fight back in recent decades. The best thing the US can do is to take stock of recent events, and work out why this has happened and rather than attack a 3rd world country that can't fight back, take a more humble approach and learn that at times discretion can be the better part of valour, and if the US must pick a fight, how about picking on someone who can fight back?
Edited to remove comments written while livid.
[ 20 September 2001: Message edited by: kbf1 ]