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>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 17:00:38 -0700 (PDT)
> jeff davis <jrd1415@yahoo.com> Re: Raisin Bombers over Afghanistan extropians@extropy.orgReply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>--- Hubert Mania <mania@welfen-netz.com> wrote:
><snip>
>> When I see the starving children in Afghanistan, I
>> think it is high time for
>> another raisin bomber fleet, this time heading to
>> the middle east. And I
>> guess this could be a fine humanitarian contribution
>> of the German Air Force
>> to the Bush war.
>>
>> Greetings
>>
>> Hubert
>
>I feel the same way, Hubert. C-5A's loaded with
>individual care packages of food and medicine, to be
>dropped beneath a parachute made of blanket material
>(polar tech?) and accompanied by an appropriate note
>of explanation. How courageous and creative, how
>thrilling and unexpected it would be to see the
>problem attacked from the vantage of Ghandian high
>ground.
>
>Islam may be a powerful influence, but I have to
>believe that, in the final analysis, a mother's
>concern for her childeren and a husband/father's
>concern for his family will trump ANY OTHER
>consideration, particulary when the social "norm"
>places the welfare of one's children/family in ongoing
>and immediate peril.
>
>Reportedly, there are millions of Afghan refugees
>living unsatisfactorily(?)in camps in Iran and
>Pakistan, as well as those subject to the fierce
>austerity(?) forced upon them by conditions in
>Afghanistan proper. Clearly(?), the US is better
>equipped to achieve conditions of security and peace
>for these people(from whence the Afghans can finish
>the project, and achieve prosperity on their own) than
>the Taliban with its plan for a dark age of Theocratic
>purity(tyranny).
>
> ---------------------------------
>
>Call me a cynic, but I just don't see it happening.
>Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Bush--they're all
>intelligent enough to see the possibilities in a
>"meta-Ghandian" approach. And despite my left-wing
>political bias, I don't really believe that they are
>so coldly reptilian that they don't care about the
>welfare of the Afghan innocents. Just reptilian
>enough so that it can't happen.
>
>Best, Jeff Davis
>
This analysis seems to proceed as if THE LUCIFER PRINCIPLE was never written; such largesse, reminding the recipients about who is currently on top in the pecking order, engenders jealousy, resentment and envy, not gratitude. It is likely that such a move could be counterproductive, and cause even more children (even if the same percentage indulged in the practice but more survived) to be programmed, by their parents, mullahs and teachers, to become faith-based missiles of sui/homicidal martyrdom, directed against those who, by means of such largesse, had incindiarily humiliated the programmers.
>
> "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
> Ray Charles
>
>
>
>
>
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