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So how is this relevant? People die everyday, as yet we haven't found the key to immortality - perhaps we should focus on this, that way no-one has to die.
WTC was an act of war, pure and simple. It was an event designed to cause death. This wasn't an accident of nature, like starvation is [usually] nor was it caused by a virus or bacteria like many treatable diseases. It was deliberate, a big difference.
I'm not even going to start getting into the corruption or diversion of aid arguments but suffice to say that we <STRONG>don't</STRONG> just sit back and watch it happen, just like the US won't sit back and let terrorists kill its citizens.
Let us make this real simple, for those challenged of "common sense"...
You are in the park, getting your morning exercise, and a mugger comes up and thrust a knife at you, making the attempt to disembowel you. His friends are standing around cheering. What do you do?
Do you attempt to think back to what possible offense you could have made upon your attacker?
Do you attempt to reason with him, after he has already drawn blood from you?
Do you just step back, and think he will lose interest? Become bored with his follie?
If you answer to the affirmative on any of the above, you are about to be Darwined into oblivion.
You attack, mercilessly. You eviscerate the miscreant son of a bitch, gut him in front of his cheering friends, and then you invite his friends to come and get some of the same.
Anything less, and you are a simpering effette sham, a coward of the lowest order.
I am truly tired of the bullshit. US gives more aid to the world than every damned other country combined, throughout the history of this planet. THAT should earn some respect.
HELL YES! The US uses more of the resources than any other country, AND WE DAMNED FUCKING PAY FOR IT!!! What a REAL shithole the mideast would be without US dollars to flaunt.
Let them eat fucking sand and oil sandwiches if they object to the US presence.
Devoid of respect, we SHALL teach you fear!
Attack the US, target non-combatants, and we will rid the earth of your befouling presence.
That is NOT a "threat".
That is a fucking damned clear PROMISE!
The coin has only two sides: respect and fear.
You call it...
I don't think you have understood my question. I am not questioning the US response to those responsible for the attack. Nor am I justifying the act. The US has every right to track down the attackers and dismantle their infrastructure.
What I was asking is: after you deal with people who attacked you, after they have all been killed or imprisoned, is anyone going to ask themselves in the US why were they attacked in the first place? You were not targeted out of blind hatred you know. The cause for the hatred is, of course, the US policy in the Middle East. The WTC outrage was an atrocity and totally unjustified, but as long as the US keeps backing Israel's murderous tactics while proclaiming to be a peaceful nation and against ALL forms of terrorism, the US will continue to be targeted. There seem to be an incredibly one-sided account of events in America about what happens in occupied Palestine. The US must stop siding with the butcher of Tel Aviv and arming his forces with state-of-the-art weaponry and become a truly neutral side. Then the attacks will stop.
I think it bears repeating here.
How Could This Happen?(I'll tell you)
How can this happen? What kind of monsters, what devils, could do such a thing? How could anyone do this? Those are the haunting questions in so many minds after an event such as the tragedy that unfolded in America.
Allow me to share two short 'tales' with you that are important - please bear with me.
Sue wept as she described the sound of the jet engines that fateful day. I could not get much of her tale in words, it was still too raw, but her face showed a horror that spoke louder than any words could have. There were also the scars.
Sue had been going about her business as usual on a day like any other when the sudden scream of jet engines roared as she'd never forget. She knew the jet was headed straight for her, but had no time to see it. She just heard the jets, felt the blast at some distance, and then was hit by flames.
Sue was lucky enough to have been outside the area of the immediate blast, but still bears horrific scars from the fiery blast that followed. She knows what it is to smell her own flesh burning. How she got to safety she doesn't know. Some nameless fellow worker apparently carried her to safety.
"How could they do that?" She still asks. "We were not soldiers or politicians. We didn't even work for the government. We were just ordinary men and women and children going about our normal lives. Who made us a target for this terrible attrocity?"
The second tale concerns Maria, who sadly lost her husband, George, who was simply unlucky enough to work in the place targeted for destruction by nameless people they would never know, and whom had never known them.
Maria tells me that George was a simple, honest, family man. He worked hard to support her and their two children. In the case of George he was just a very minor person in the offices.
There was no warning, no clue that the building where he worked was about to be destroyed. It had no millitary or government connections after all. George was simply at work, when the blast shattered the building around him. Neither his body, nor the bodies of any who worked near him, were recovered.
Horrible tales, and no doubt we shall hear many others in light of the destruction of the World Trade Center. But my tales didn't come from there.
You see, Sue is Vietnamese, and was describing the day that an American plane swooped low over the small village she came from and dropped it's payload of Napalm. How could that pilot, a supposedly intelligent and civilised man, drop such a weapon on a village? It was not even a case of fundamentalist beliefs was it? So far as Sue can see, the pilot did that for no greater reason than a modest paycheck and the fact he was told to.
Maria is not Vietnamese, she is from the Former Yugoslavia, and she is describing the night when the RAF bombed the power stations and telephone relay stations. These targets were filled with normal citizens just as our own telephone companies and power stations are.
The stories above are illustrations alone, but you also know they are reasonable and accurate. We, the British, allowed thousands upon thousands of ordinary civillians to be bombed and killed in Kosavo and other Slavic nations for political reasons.
The scariest thing about terrorism is that the same tactics have become acceptable to the millitary themselves over recent decades. No longer do soldiers fight soldiers. These days it is all about 'soft targets' and 'destroying infrastructure'. Were not the Terrorists behind these latest attrocities targeting America's infrastructure just as surely as America targeted Iran, and later Iraq, not so very long ago.
Remember all those Cruise missiles and 'smart' bombs? Remember that they were ever so proud that they hit the right target (in cities) almost 80 percent of the time? That means the other 20 percent landed in residential and commercial areas. Scores of thousands of civillians, men, women and children were killed. One bomb even hit a hospital. How could people do that?
The fact is that there is never a lack of reasons for hatred. There is never anyone who is solely a victim, or solely a victimiser either.
President Bush and our own Prime Minister, Tony Blair, are already talking of retaliation. I bet their speeches match almost exactly the same made by people in the Middle East who also lost scores of thousands of Civillians to an unexpected attack on the populace rather than the millitary.
My father spent some time in Palestine after the Second World War, before it was handed over. In fact, he was one of the people responsible for running it. He suffered three separate assassination attempts, two by bomb and one by knife, and was injured in each attempt. Yet he always had a very high regard and respect for both the Arabic peoples, and the Jews.
He killed, or personally gave orders to kill the would-be assassins. Such is the way of things at times like those. Yet never did he hate the people of either side. The man who tried to kill him was a person, not a people. Just as the the next racial murder in Britain will not show that we are all sharing of the same beliefs, the same cruelty, the same ability to simply dismiss the value of a human life.
Imagine you live every day in dire poverty. So dire that not only you, but everyone you know, has had at least one member of their family die because they could not afford to feed them, or to treat their illnesses. Try hard. Imagine...
You are not well educated. Your family could not afford for you to be educated, and indeed probably needed you to work to help support yourself, along with any infant or elderly family members at a very young age by Western standards. Poverty has mude this the norm in your own country.
Your government does not have a welfare state. Your entire nation is quite poor and poorly educated. Around them they see nations supported by richer nations, and they see that the richer nations give them that money so that they will oppose and oppress your own peoples.
It seems that these richer nations oppose your religion and freedom to live under a system they dislike. They have fancy words for it, and say that your way of life is evil or oppresses democracy, but your religion, and the religion of all your honoured forebears dictates your system.
These richer nations are liars and hypocrites. They speak of democracy, a system where ALL religions and peoples are supposed to be respected or at least given a fair hearing, yet these liars send funds to the country that sends forces against your people that are every bit as ruthless and vile as the 'Death Squads' who kill children in the streets of Latin America.
Would you listen to these opponents, these devils, fathers of lies, who pay neighbouring states to oppress your people, and tacitly support them invading, slaying and raping your very society? Would you turn your back on your God and faith to listen to the devils who speak of you and call you evil but have never even spoken to you?
The only information you have is from the state news services. That's not necessarily oppression, because most of the other news services you might receive are funded by the devils, and oppose your religion and speak ill of all your forebears ways. If you had a choice you'd still choose the state.
In imagining this, if you truly can, then you put yourself in the place at least for a moment of many people in what we term 'fundamentalist' societies, you put yourself in the place of many honest, ordinary Palestinians.
If you truly can see that position, even for just a moment, you can see how a person having experienced life from that perspective can truly see opposing the West as a Holy War, a good cause for all they know and all they believe in.
If you are more cynical, then imagine a person from such poverty being offered a chance to earn his family the status of heroes, never to be hungry again. Such is the offer a suicide bomber in Palestine gets. To place the wellbeing of their family or nation far above their own life is not the act of an evil person. Misguided perhaps, but not evil.
That is how it happens.
The real question perhaps is why does democracy channel funds to oppress the freedom of individuals in the first place? Is not the duty of democracy itself to allow all voices to be heard, no matter how loathsome what they say may be to the masses?
Wouldn't those funds supplied to countries that oppress or at least oppose states we dislike be far better spent in aiding those countries to providing an education and welfare state instead. If we are so sure that democracy is the wiser choice, then wouldn't helping to ensure decent education worldwide be more effective in ending these attrocities forever?
I can answer the question of how this can happen, why people will do these things, and show that the fundamentalists see themselves 'retaliating' against Western agression against their people just in the way that our own leaders nor speak of doing. Yet still I have only brought many more questions to light.
People are imperfect. As individuals, we all have different perspectives, and one person's "just cause" is always another person's terrorist attack.
Let us all remember that weapons are getting more powerful each day, and the capabilities for destruction get larger and larger with each passing year. We do not have much longer before terrorist groups may have access to nuclear weapons. It is time we learned to show by example that force is not the answer.
Let's ask our leaders to stop giving tacit support to one nation against another, through arms sales and other means.
Let's stop formenting hatred in the world, and start remembering that in this new age, where people from around the world can communicate so easily and freely online, it is working together, and understanding each other that is the key to growth for all, and away from a future terrorist act somewhere that will dwarf even recent horrors.
When Britain declares complete independence of Ireland (and Scotland), withdraws TOTALLY, and allows them to rule themselves as autonimous individual states, THEN I will listening to your prattle. Until that day, you are simply promulgating hypocracy.
How about if US takes the side of the IRA, and fully and openly supports their terrorist acts upon Britain. Would THAT equality make you feel better? How about if we arm them to make the playing field level?
How about if the IRA parks a jetliner into your Parliament (as likely our Capitol Building would have been the target for the one grounded in Pennsylvania, or the one that hit the Pentagon when it circled over Washington)?
Ready to investigate why the Irish hate you so??? <IMG SRC="eek.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Or is the hypocracy YOU live more comfortable? <IMG SRC="wink.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
btw ~ you really enjoy those bullshit sandwiches you eat with such glee? What makes you think that ANYTHING the US does at this juncture will end the jealousy and hatred directed our way?
Terminally naive, aren't you?
Perhaps, when you mature sufficiently to pull YOUR head out of your ass, you will finally discover that the "attrocities" committed by US armed forces in Vietnam were TOTALLY insignificant to the INTENDED ATROCITIES carried out by the NVA and VC against their own countrymen.
However, it is simpler for you to regurgitate the bullshit which you swollow with such enthusiasm, isn't it? The truth would disprove your emotional and irrational perspective...
I witnessed every damned fucking day of the two years I spent in Vietnam what the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong did to their own people.
Fuck you.
Your ignorance and stupidity are getting close...
[ 27-05-2002: Message edited by: Thanatos...AGAIN ]
But saying that the US should expect to get attacked and get thosands of innocents killed cause of their stand is just insane!
As said before, people would maybe respect them if they made a boycot of oil. But who has the energy trying to figure out the message that those bastards tried to spread, when they have enough stress dealing with the effects of the attacks?
The attack on WTC was terrible, cowardly, and a whole bunch of other negative adjectives, but I reckon I probably have a different perspective on it that most people. I was in the States when it happened, Ohio, which isn't that far from NY. When I found out about it (on the 11th) it was when I was trying to change my flights back home, and the flight assistant told me it would be a while because had been a terrorist attack on the pentagon and WTC. I thought she was having a laugh, but she wasn't. When I went to get my friends they were all gathered round a TV where the event was unfolding. Very calmly and without much emotion everything was closed down and people went home. So far so ordinary. Over the next few days this feeling seemed to be pervasive, nothing much had changed. Even when we went down to Philadelphia the place was crawling with police, but not much else was out of place. But then the media got involved. This was a time where they could show they were human, and not out to get another story. But for the media that's all it was; it was just a news story, and the papers made it as big as they could because they knew it would sell. And so did everyone else. In NY a few days later all the streetvendors were selling merchandise on the whole thing. That might be a very cynical outlook, and I'll probably upset people by saying it, but at the end of the day I think the whole event was overdramatized via the media and as everyone began to jump on the bandwagon of sentimentality the whole thing got out of hand. I feel sorry for those who died needlessly in the attack, for the families who lost loved ones and for those who were affected by the tradgedy, but what needs to happen is that life needs to move on. The powers that be need to find those responsible and bring them to justice, what the media need to stop doing is fake sentimentality just because they know that it's a customer winner. My feelings are pretty confused on the whole thing. On one hand we should just let it go, it's done, and those guilty will be found and brought to trial. On the other hand it's refreshing to hear so many people talking of brotherhood and this will change the world etc, but the cynic in me asks, will it? or has it?, because I don't think it will or has.
Just as an aside. I was in Port Authority Bus Terminal about 2 weeks after the attack and at 9 o'clock in the morning while I was waiting for the tube to JFK there was a bomb scare in the terminus I was in. There is no way to describe the feeling of sheer terror as I thought I might die. Thankfully it was a hoax, but it might not've been. I can't imagine what it must of felt like being at ground zero that morning.
Don't get me wrong Jacqueline. I'm not suggesting that they deserve what's coming to them. Terrorism is utterly despicable regardless of the goals it seeks. But those terrorists get their motivation from the injustices they see every day. The US should act at two levels: fight and destroy terrorists AND the causes of terrorism.
Excuse me? The US HAS BEEN fucking supporting the IRA for the last 30 years. Since every other American believes he's Irish they've donated massive amount of money to Sinn Feinn and other pro-IRA organisations, money which has been used to buy weapons and kill innocent civilians for decades here.
Get a fucking grip and learn a few facts:
1) Don't lecture Britain about suffering terrorist attacks- they have experienced them for many years.
2) As for nations that sponsor terrorism, the US was there before anybody else on earth. Maybe you should include yourselves in the Axis of Evil.
3) Perhaps some starving third-world country might envy the US. But I haven't encountered a single European who does, ever. I would not trade our quality of life, socially permissive and plural society for the US' in a million years. Perhaps you can name a single thing we en Europe should be jealous of?
4) Having come back from the US only 5 days ago, I can assure you your food is pretty shitty too. No surprise so many people there are as fat as a whale.
[ 27-05-2002: Message edited by: Aladdin ]
There is a slight and oh so subtle difference between what individuals do of their own free will, and what a country does as a matter of national agenda.
Most Americans do not give a good God damn as to what happens in Ireland, much less squander their money upon the issue. Pull your head out of your own fat ass.
Care for the CIA to arm them? How far would you suggest we escalate the battle? How about we send the 1st Marines to "advise"? The 101st Airborn to support? Want a visual as to your Royal Marines against our Marines?
I support neither the "Sinn Feinn" nor the Palestinians, nor Britain or Isreal (blindly)but am objective enough to witness the striking similarity... I do not presume to instruct you as how to deal with your problem, but in your arrogant pomposity you are determined to instruct US how to deal with ours...
Different when it's on your turf, isn't it?
Thanatos, I agree with you on a lot of things but N.Ireland and Israel are nothing alike.
Couple of points. Firstly, Black Knight is in his 30's, and from what he wrote is a lot more educated and objective than you are. Everything he did write put the whole thing into perspective.
And you still fail to answer the question of WHY DID THEY ATTACK YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE. Instead you spout off on one about killing them all. That's not answering the question, that's avoiding it.
You're the sort of person who advocates "collateral damage" to such an extent that a nuke killing millions is your favourite option. As soon as someone mentions Vietnam, and your deliberate attacks on civilians, you go quiet, or you get mad. Funny that.
I have a theory as to why the Middle East hates you so much. Because you cheat them. You cheat them out of money, land and resources. Take oil for example. You give them the wonderful choice of selling it to you cheaply, or you will come and take it. Have you ever stopped to think WHY the USA uses the most resources? Because the USA is the most wasteful country on Earth, that's why. And other countries see this. They see the people of your country, sitting back, shagging their cousins/sisters, enjoying life, while you are ripping off those countries that are unable to defend themselves. Instead of walking to the shops, that are 15 metres from your house, you drive there. You are the nation that brought us drive through banks for christ's sake. You are a nation of lazy, fat asses, motivated by greed and the desire to sit on those fat asses all day, every day. It's no wonder that when given half a chance the people of the Middle East try and kill you everytime you set foot in their countries.
Instead of trying to shape the world to suit you, maybe you should sit back and think to yourselves about how you can change. Because at the end of the day, like all your other "ventures" into world policing, you've failed miserably with Al-Qaeda. They are still active, they are still threatening to kill all of you, and now because of you, us and the rest of Europe.
Maybe, instead of picking up your hammer to strike the fly as it were, you should think of a useful approach to defeating terrorism. Because you sure as hell won't do it with guns and nukes.
Actually, I am glad that we disagree. Would hate to see you labeled "sycophant"... <IMG SRC="wink.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Doubt that you can find ANY place that I have "advocated" collateral damage. As a realist, I accept it as a consequence of war, especially when the enemy attempts to shield itself with non-combatants. You set the ground rules, you chose the consequences.
WTC was NOT collateral damage. It was intended.
I spent two years of my life in Vietnam. Were you there? I did not witness a single event of "deliberate attacks on civilians" by US forces, but it was SOP for the NVA and VC. Get your history correct, or shut the fuck up.
You really want to go there? You want to introduce the emotional red herring of sexual practices, and open yourself to characterization as a nation of foppish effette shirt-lifters?
Ever been to the US? Are you aware of the distances here? 15m? Many of us drive 50 miles to work. Outside of our large cities (where many people function quite well w/o the need of personal transport), public transportation will not work. This nation is not all cramped onto a little island; compare the area of our two nations.
Just because something might work there, does not mean it will work here...
Seems to me, as I recollect, the US has gotten dragged into those World Wars because of the actions of its allie, Great Britain. Seems that we have had the role of "world policeman" thrown at us, and if we desire to stay out of the third world war, we need to address these little pizzant contentious interludes as they arise, rather than allowing your sort to fuel them until they erupt.
Thank you for the "job security"...
Help me here, someone, anyone. I keep getting confused from these conflicting posts. Is the general consensus that the Taliban/Al Qaeda have been vanquished, and US is futzing around Afghanistan for the prime realestate? Or they are still active?
Al Qaeda was active in Europe long before the WTC. Need to get not just your history, but your current events accurate.
What would you suggest? That we nuke ourselves?
Sorry, that is your manner of dealing with problems... avoidance.
I don't care if he is in his 60's... he still is educated in dis-information, a perversion of reality. To claim that the US regularly targeted civilians is bullshit... That was the tactic and agenda of the North Vietamese and Viet Cong. No matter how thick and far you attempt to spread the bullshit, IT IS STILL BULLSHIT!!!
Reading your altered history leftist propoganda is "more educated and objective" than first hand witness?
Only in your wetdreams...
And that includes Thanatos' tit-for-tat comebacks.
A couple of points to mention:
1) Retaliation and analysis (should) go hand in hand. The actions taken by the US and Britain following Sept 11th were/are very necessary, not least because of domestic political pressure for revenge (rightly or wrongly). But without analysis of the underlying causes of these terrorist actions, we will end up with a cycle of terrorist and counter-terrorist actions.
2) Thanatos, you are very keen on the military actions, but are you seriously prepared to look at US foreign policy and examine what drives people to use terrorist tactics to get at the US? From your current set of posts, the answer seems to be no. Burying our heads in the sand whilst bombing Afghanistan to annihilation will not stop future attacks.
3) Terrorism, especially state-sponsored terrosism, needs to be fought. Few people deny that. But military action is not the only way: there is a place for diplomacy and politics. They are not cowardly as certain people like to suggest.
4) Comparisons of the global terrorist actions with individual incidents (e.g. the park stabbing story) are not right. Individual responses to acts of violence are different from the actions of a whole country, and the use of anecdotes to encourage violence is misleading. Calling someone a coward for suggesting peace talks is always going to heat things up, and is just pathetic.
5) Black_Knight, thank you for posting that. It puts a new slant on the issue, and was interesting in itself.
6) The Northern Ireland situation is very different from that in the Middle East. And the suggestion that the UK should allow Scotland to become fully independent was a bit bizarre. For a start, the Scots don't want full independence from the rest of the UK, and neither do the majority of Northern Irish people.
7) Britain has tried fighting the IRA with military action, and the conflict has now moved into the peace negotiation stage. It's not over, but it's closer now than ever before. Seems that peace talks do have an effect afterall. Who'd have thought <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">.
Finally, I just wanted to point out that it would be very easy for us all to agree with Bush and say that we should blow up Afganistan and any other country who decides to attack the USA. Anyone can sit back and say that.
If one takes an objective view, it is clear that military action is rarely the only answer. So basically I am sticking up for those who have suggested that war is never going to solve the underlying problems. It is easy to call someone a coward. It is not so easy to come up with an alternative to death. But we should all realise that more death is not going to solve the problem.
When oh when are you going to learn the difference between a single-view personal experience of a historical event and massively established historical fact?
It would be perfectly possible for a German living in Germany (particularly areas of the North) to have survived the entire war without seeing one Jew executed in front of them. Based on the testimony of this one person, it could be said that the holocaust did not occur. There is, however, massive evidence to the contrary. Why should we believe any of it though, when this person was there? <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Even if the NVA and Vietminh did attack civilians, that does not give carte blanche to the US to do the same. Not that you've learnt that lesson; you still think it's acceptable even now, with your attacks on civilians in Kosovo and now Afghanistan. And before you jump in and point out that my country is involved in those too, I know that already. And it disgusts me. I don't support it, whereas you seem incapable of not supporting America's decisions.
The short answer, when it's the sort of first hand witness you describe, is yes.
I notice you leave America off the list of countries you don't give blind support to. <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Also, please give up with your endless barrage of no-doubt extremely creative insults. They only cheapen the discussion, and make you look like you feel you've lost and need to lash out. Which I'm sure isn't the case. <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
[ 28-05-2002: Message edited by: Vox populi, vox Dei ]
I'm not getting personal, I'm just attempting to answer the question that Thanatos keeps avoiding. Why they were attacked in the first place.
Thanatos, America is an unpopular place around the world. Sure, we like you in Europe, Australia and other develope nations, but that's because we're more or less equal to you.
However, the 5 billion people around the world living in poverty have been conditioned to see America as the enemy. There was a time when America was "land of the free". But since the second world war that image has changed. It's a sad fact Thanatos, but a lot of people around the world hate you, and everything you stand for.
OK, so you'll come back with "i don't care if they hate me" but you have to understand that if these people hate you, they're going to want to bring you down. Yes, the reasons will change, with Osama's being your occupation of Saudi Arabia and support of Israel. But I'm sure everyone else is jealous and just wants to see you fall. The images they see of America are of a decadent, rich place, that has gotten rich off the backs of other people, through its relative isolation, and a large amount of natural resources which have been depleted.
Around the world, whenever see images of war, what do you think the chances will be that they will see an American troop or jet flying overhead?
Instead of replying with hostility about how you want to kill them because they're just jealous of you, which I'm not denying, instead you have to think about a LOGICAL way to stop them from hating you. Nuking Iraq or Mecca isn't going to win these people over.
As for Al-Qaeda, yes they've been operating i Europe for years, but I don't recall them doing anything worse than setting off a car bomb with the intent of hurting Europeans.
And yes, I have been to the USA. And I find it hard to be impressed by places like "sizzlers" that offer all you can eat breakfasts all day, and where you see fat bastards, waddling up and loading their plates with 50 pancakes/bacon/gravy at a time instead of making 4 trips.
Don't get me wrong though, I was disgusted by the WTC attack, and it truly did scare me as to what would happen.
Your response was appropriate, I'd want the same to happen. All I'm asking is that you thinkl objectively as to WHY they did such a disgusting thing.
It doesn't matter why they were attacked because the terrorists will be obliterated. The US still lives in with the idea that they can defeat any enemy. It is this very arrogance which will their undoing.
And no matter what your personal opinion of the US is, that cannot be a good thing.
Now can be get away from the Vietnam shite, the WTC attack is totally unrelated - although I should remind Thanatos that the members of the US did target civilians - Mai Lai (?sp) - but would remind others that the US don't directly target civilians but if the enemy's war aparatus is in a civilian area "collateral damage" is inevitable.
Also, Thanatos, the UK didn't drag the US into WW2, Hitler did when he declared war on you, and Japan did when it attacked Pearl Harbo<STRONG>u</STRONG>r. Many of us are grateful for the fact that we were able to fight side-by-side then, just as we are now.
Balddog, there <STRONG>are</STRONG> similarities between NI and Israel/Palestine. The Irish people who voted to remain British were our version of their settlers. Basilcally, if Israel moves enough people into Gaza and the West Bank they could also achieve a 51% vote in favour of integration. We have also used force to try and quell rebellion from the indigenous population.
Well Israel hasn't moved enough people in to do that. So you can't compare.
That example was like saying, well if a girl had a dick then she would be boy.
True, but those aren't the circumstances....
I agree with Kentish, Whowhere, Vox, MoK on most of your points......
The difference being that the loyalists are classed as Irish and have been established a lot longer than 50 years.....I dont think the settlers will be calling themselves Palestinian, despite living in Palestine.
The 200,000 odd settlers in the west bank and gaza are irrelevent. They arent Palestinian, they dont claim to be Palestinian and they dont have any influence within Palestine and her govt.
It was just a statement, meaning that I couldn't see the revelance of MoK's try of a comparison.
Israel hasn't moved enough settlers in <STRONG>yet</STRONG>. If the situation was left as it is, eventually they <STRONG>would</STRONG> have the necessary 51%.
The British started to 'populate' Ireland with pro-Brit protestant in the 12th Century. We just did it at a time when there wasn't so much international focus and were therful successful.
Note that the pro-Brit settled mainly in the North, which is partly why we ended up with partition and the six counties.
This just emphasises the similarities. The <STRONG>original</STRONG> Brit settlers didn't consider themselves as Irish at the time, and their decendants <STRONG>still</STRONG> see themselves as British, hence the result of the vote. Just as the Jewish settlers see themselves as Israeli and I would anticipate that their decendants would to. Additionally the Jews don't need influence with the Palestinian Authority, because Israle still has overall control of these areas.
and as we have discussed before, Palestine doesn't exist. Yet <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
I'm not suggesting that both situations are identical, but the Israel/Palestine issue is very similar to the early Ireland issue. Just in a different age with different weaponry.
Yep. Were talking about a situation in the middle east which is only 50 years old. I'm hardly going to compare it directly to a situation which has had 700 years to mature.
All I am sayin is that Ireland started the same way the the Israel conflict has, and the lessons can be learned - basically that if you subjugate then "terrorism" will never leave.