[thechat] Palestinians

[judah at wiredotter.com]

At 04:33 PM 9/12/2001 +0100, Martin wrote:
<snip>
>(bored of documenting them now - you get the idea)
</snip>

And let us not forget Chile and Salvadore Alende, several interdictions and 
destabilizations in Haiti, taking the Korean War out of Korea unilaterally, 
ill-conceived support for the Shah of Iran, etc.

Terrorism is a horrible, horrible occurrence.  But simply striking back 
with great force will not provide a lasting solution.  Whoever committed 
these most recent acts have already shown they are not afraid to die.  We 
will only reduce the occurrence of incidents if we have a real 
understanding of *why* people are trying to blow us up.  I dispute the 
notion that they are all madmen with no sense of the value of life who are 
jealous of the United States.  Suicide bombing is a last resort for 
everyone.  There are reasons that these people think that they are at this 
point.  I agree that we should have a military response and do what is 
necessary to help secure our people as much as reasonably possible.  But 
those measures will be only partially effective until we bring a more 
comprehensive understanding to the table and act accordingly.

The United States has a remarkably poor understanding of the consequences 
of its actions and it has a horrible grasp on history.  As long as we 
ignore history in favor of an unreasoned belief in Manifest Destiny, we put 
ourselves in peril.

Judah