Samantha Atkins replied to Christian Szegedy:
> > Don't thank me. It was not me who decided to assist in kicking
> > the ass of one of the poorest and misarable country on earth.
> >
>
> Who said we are going to do that? And how exactly do you think
> they got so poor and miserable? Could it have something to do
> with the extremist fanatic government that is running them into
> the Stone Age all by itself?
It could have. So?
> They should have thought of this before sheltering bin Laden
> and before setting up a government that would lead them to ruin.
It is naive to think that the people in Afghanistan has "set up"
this government. In fact, it was the USA that originally supported
muslim extremists and bin Laden against the Sovietunion. Whithout
the help of US, they would have probably never came to power.
> No one begs for war. But it is good to admit when war has
> effectively been declared on you and you are under attack and to
> act accordingly. Anything less would be illogical and
> suicidal. Such would definitely not be at all extropic.
It was NOT a war. It was a terror attack. The frustration of the
American nation lets it become a war. Americans can't accept that
such significant loss could have been caused by 19 criminals. They
want revenge not instead of justice and punishment for those
responsibles.
> Perhaps you don't want the responsibility of acting strongly.
I don't want to take the responsibility to act irrantionally,
harmfully, out of sheer revenge. Anyway, my responsibility is
quite negligible: it is only to express my opinion as well as
possible.
> > Do you really believe that this is the proper way you to eliminate
> > terrorism
>
> I don't think there are any better choices. If you do then
> please offer them.
Perhaps, I was not clear. I am not against the violance against the
terrorists, but only against pointless violence. The first reaction
of Bush was very reasonable and appropriate: hunt down and punish those
responsible. I believe that commandos and attacks against the terrorist
training centers and the shelters of terrorists are desirable.
I am afraid of pointless destruction which will harm mainly civilians,
but not the responsible ones, triggering a positive feedback chain
of destruction and violence which may cost even more American lives
than the tuesday tragedies.
Punishing those responsibles may prove difficult and unspectacular,
but using conventional warfare methods against a whole country is
straightforward and much more satisfactory to those who want to
take revenge.
I think, there is a main problem in todays politic and warfare: it is
based on an old tradition which protects mainly politicians:
commandos and assassinates against the rulers is considered to
be bad and terroristic, whereas genocide against whole nations and
a lot of civilians is a "fair war". This is rooted in an old belief
that some life is more valuable than the others: kings must not
be killed. (You can see the manifestation of this in the chess also:
cehckmate is allowed, but taking the king is not...)
I would measure the morality (desirability?) of solutions on their
effectivenes in saving lives. If killing a dictator or a the head of
terrorists costs less lives, then it is more moral (desirable) than
any traditional war or "fair" war.
Of course retaliation also saves lives if it punishes the right people.
Therefore, it can be a moral solution.
Slaughtering innocent people in sake of revenge not just unmoral, it is
counterproductive. It would turn against us the whole muslim world,
which would end up in a pointless religion war resulting in several
million deads, just according to Osamas plans.
I would say, I agree with Eliezer thoughts:
> If Afghanistan is breeding terrorists, then I think it's acceptable
> to go in with a ground war and remove the Taliban from
> power, even if civilians and involuntary draftees are killed. Not so much
> because of the World Trade Center, but to delay the day when terrorists
> acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. I don't think I could agree
> with a retaliatory air strike unless it's followed by a ground war to
> permanently remove the offending government from power. Rogue states are
> destabilizing forces in the years leading up to the Singularity. Removing
> them from existence and discouraging other states from going rogue is a
> worthwhile endeavor. It's pointless to hurt the civilians of the country
> whose government supported the terrorists that hurt our civilians.
I am only afraid of the technical part: Afghanistan is a huge country
being in war for 23 years. It consists mainly of mountains: partizans
have a lot of adventages. They resisted Soviets 10 years long and
there are awfully lot of people who have experience in fighting,
are fanatic and have not much to loose. To fight those people would
be extremely hard.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:50 MDT