From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Wed Jan 02 2002 - 00:46:43 MST
On Wednesday 02 January 2002 01:15, John Clark wrote:
> Geraint Rees <g.rees@fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk> Wrote:
> >I'm not sure that this is either false or irrelevant. [...] the CIA &
> > ISI throughout the 80s explicitly encouraged, financed and trained
> > militant Islamic groups in Afghanistan as a way of fighting a proxy
> > war against the Soviet Union.
>
> Yes, because in the early 80s it was felt, quite correctly I think, that
> the Soviet Union was a greater danger than Islam, but at this late date
> it's of academic interest only. When a man has taken a sacred vow to kill
> you it's silly to ponder why he has done this, you should put all your
> mental resources at work figuring out how to kill him before he kills you.
> leave the "why" to the next generation, they will have more perspective and
> the luxury to think about it at their leisure.
If you continue to find it silly to ponder why bad things happen to you, you
not only will be taken by surprise every time, but won't understand how to
change your behavior to make such things less likely. It seems to me to be
foolish to ignore the reason a person would take "a sacred vow to kill you",
in favor of killing him. If there is only one, that tactic may work, but we
already know that there is a whole movement. In the long term, there are
only two ways not to lose: modify one's behavior so as not to provide even
remotely valid reasons for joining said movement, or kill everyone who may
have sympathy for those who are martyred for said movement.
Which one seems better to you?
-- Randall Randall <wolfkin@freedomspace.net> Crypto key: www.freedomspace.net/~wolfkin/crypto.text On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man; The shape of his own future, now in his own hands.-- Johnny Clegg.
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