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From: Jasper
Date: 10/7/01
Time: 12:05:32 AM
Charlie,
You say you disagree with me, yet you talk about the IRA in precisely the same context I did. Think about it. What other intelligence channels have been blocked because of fear that OUR links to terrorist organizations at the highest levels of government will compromise vital strategic or tactical information?
For decades I have been trying to find somebody to root for in the Israeli/Polynesian conflict only to find that the bad guys usually seem to be in charge on both sides. I don't know about you, but I have never forgotten the deliberate Israeli attack on the Liberty just prior to the '67 War, which killed over 100 American sailors. If a "friend" can commit such a violent act of war against us with impunity, why not an enemy?
Charlie, don't you see how all of this connects to the 911 attack?
The Israeli's did what they did to the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 because of military expediency. They feared that the United States would give them away and their Arab neighbors would make good on their threats to wipe them off the faced of the earth. On the other hand, they had no fear that the United States would retaliate because they understood how important the survival of Israel was to our domestic politics and the East/West balance of power in the Middle East. They knew that political expediency was the overriding concern of policy makers in the United States and an apology along with reparations would end the matter.
They were right. Most Americans under the age of 35 have never even heard of the Liberty.
The Palestinians have a legitimate beef with Israel's "settlement" policies and the outright contempt that successive Israeli governments have had for their legitimate concerns. I will go so far as to say that they have a legitimate beef with the establishment of Israel by the United States and Great Britton as a religious state in the first place. But the intolerance of Palestinian authorities toward legitimate Jewish concerns before and after the establishment of Israel paints a pretty clear picture to me of what would happen to Israeli Jews if they got what they wanted. It's the same thing Hitler wanted, and I don't think I have to explain the problem I have with that.
Right now the Arab countries we want on our side are fearful that an expanded view in the United States of Arabs and Moslems as the enemy will contribute to greater Arab loss of life than necessary in the coming military campaign. The practical effect is less cooperation or less timely cooperation than we need to do the job right with the least loss of innocent civilian life.
I'm also concerned about the loss of innocent civilian liberties in the United States. And for that reason I think that we have to be damn careful about what we do in the name of national security.
Maybe you haven't noticed but the first American bombs on Afghanistan have already been dropped by the Bush Administration. These are the propaganda bombs I was talking about in an earlier post. Bush is making a big deal out of separating the Afghan people from their present government and the network of terrorist organization all over the world that we are targeting for "justice" (whatever that means). The implicit message, of course, is "We will help our friends and punish our foes-which do you want to be, friend or foe?" But the only way that's going to work is if we start identifying and taking out the terrorist across the board. --Jasper