Headline fromm the Calgary Herald: ‘Only the guilty need fear the awakened giant’. From Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after the successful attack on Pearl Harbour: ‘I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant & fill him with a terrible resolve.’
I think it’s a bit naive to suggest that killing a bunch of terrorists will end terrorism. These people are gladly willing to die for their cause. What you would do by killing them is to make them become martyrs and heroes, thereby strengthening the resolve and hatred of those who remained.
Think about it from their perspective. Suppose that after we massacred 200,000 Japanese civilians in 1945 (an event I assure you that many Americans celebrated), the Japanese had retaliated and wiped out all political and military leaders in the US. Would we have ceased our ‘terrorism’? I don’t think so. Rather, our resolve and hatred for Japan would have grown stronger than ever. We would have been emboldened and far more willing to die for the cause, if it would allow us to exact some measure of revenge.
I have to agree with Demo. I recently worked in the same lab as a devout Arab muslim and he was one of the most kind, gentle persons I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t hurt a butterfly let alone another human being.
I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, “It tastes sweet, does it not?”“you’ve caught me,” grief answered,“and you have ruined my business, how can I sell sorrow when you know it’s a blessing?”
Persian mystical poet and Sufi saint Jalaluddin Rumi writes about the pure love we can achieve, beond ego, in the soul’s divine longing and ecstasy of union with God. Let us not grieve the lost. Let us honor them all and resolve to set this world right.
I’m talking about blanket statements like “All Arabs deserve to die” here. If the guilty parties turn out to be Arab, domestic, whatever, yeah, lets put their feet to the fire. However, my Lebanese-American friends shouldn’t have to fear walking alone at night because Billy-Bob thinks “all them camel-jockeys should be wiped out”. That’s the kind of thinking that leads to internment camps. Are YOU prepared to prove your “Americanness”?
brock, my cousin was born to an american mother and a Palastinian father, she works in time square, she is the kindest person you could ever meet, she is afraid to leave her house because people think like you do.
Mike the lib, the strongest human emotion (in my opinion) is self preservation.and the “leader” of these orgs. do NOT want to die. yeah the “followers” are willing to die but the leaders are NOT willing to die, they are power hungry and enjoy their power, kill them and kill the next and then the next and the “leader” that follows will NOT act against the USA. heyyey225
This was not a crime - this was an act of war -There are no “innocent” people. When we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, did we decide to track down only those that planned and participated in the attack? Was our only goal the capture and trial of Yamamoto?
Too many Americans have become weak. We love the liberty and freedom that our forefathers died for, but we are not willing to pay the same price to protect those freedoms. I guess it comes from the “Make love, no war” crowd of the sixties. War is hell, people. If we do not have the stomach for an all out onslaught which will most likely involve women and children being killed then we as a nation should just start paying the terrorist groups “protection money”.
We are at war (or should be) with all terrorists and the nations that harbor, protect and promote them. We only guarantee more terrorist attacks we act cowardly like we did in after the bombings of the Cole and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Peace through appeasement doesn’t work my friends. Only peace through strength works. Ask Britian about Hitler if you doubt my words on this.
it is nice to atleast see people criticize the anarchy advocated by mike the anarchist (“I do not believe in the legitimacy of any form of government”). Terrorism - “the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies” (dictionary.com) leaves the common person defenseless. In a system of anarchy, we would be virtually powerless to respond to large terrorist organizations like Bin Laden’s, but atleast w/ our current government, we can react. Also, mobs of people analogous to terrorist groups rule, when there is no standing government, and “there is but little virue in the action of masses of men” (ironically Henry David Thoreau).
I think you misinterpreted what I said, as I also did with your first post. When I reread it I don’t think you ment what I first thought. First I’ll clear up my post. I think all the terrorists should be hunted and killed and the training grounds destroyed and all there allies vaporized. However I don’t believe that people who live in those areas that didn’t have any involvement in any terrorist organization should be punished. That means babys, children and anyone that had no part in any terrorist activities. Do you agree with me? I thought in your original post you wanted all life in that area exterminated. Since I have reread it I don’t think that’s what you ment. And as alway your response seems to be quite logical. As for my position on the USS Cole attack I need more information to give a proper response. In other words I am somewhat ignorant as to what happened and what the retaliation was. If you fill me in I’ll present my position. Thanks Bill. 
On the contrary, dman, without government, terrorism would not exist at all. It is government meddling that drives terrorists, as demonstrated by the clear inverse correlation between isolationism and terrorism.
As for other threats to security and safety that would exist under anarchy (NONE of which would be terrorist-related), they would be dealt with swiftly and efficiently by free market forces. In fact, where I live, the supermarkets, shopping centers, and even apartment complexes employ private (‘FREE MARKET’) security guards to keep the peace. Hopefully this is an omen of things to come.
Libertarian Party expresses “profound sorrow, grief
for tragic loss of life” in terror attack
Statement by Chairman James W. Lark in response
to September 11 terrorist attacks:
WASHINGTON, DC -- On behalf of the Libertarian Party, I wish to express our profound sorrow and grief for the tragic loss of life and suffering caused by yesterday's terrorist attacks. Our hearts go out to the victims and their grieving families and friends. Nothing we say can ease the devastation and sense of loss they feel -- and that every other American certainly shares -- but we stand with them in mourning the loss of friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, loved ones, and fellow citizens.
The Libertarian Party condemns the vicious and barbaric attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There is no excuse for such savage acts. No legitimate political or religious ideology can justify the murder of thousands of innocent people. These actions, and the revulsion they cause to all decent people around the world, demonstrate in the starkest way possible that the initiation of force is never an appropriate way to settle political or social differences. The result of such violence is more hatred, more grieving relatives and friends, more tombstones -- and, ultimately, more violence. Libertarians unequivocally reject the initiation of force as a solution to the disagreements between people and between governments.
The Libertarian Party calls for justice to be meted out to the terrorists responsible for the attacks. However, we encourage the United States government to be sure that any response is appropriate and measured. Action should not be taken that will cause innocent people in other countries to be killed because of the actions of terrorists. Such a response would only continue the cycle of violence and revenge.
The Libertarian Party calls on all Libertarians to aid our fellow Americans who have suffered from this horrible tragedy: Donate blood for the victims fighting for their lives in hospitals in New York and Washington, DC. Contribute to the charities that will assist the families and relatives. If you live near where the attacks took place, volunteer to assist in rescue or recovery efforts, as appropriate. And if you know any of the victims' families, offer solace and support in any way you can. Now is a time for all Libertarians to stand together to help those who are suffering.
The Libertarian Party calls on all Americans to act with tolerance and kindness in the days to follow. A natural reaction after such a tragedy is to find a scapegoat -- to blame Arab-Americans, or individuals who practice the Islamic faith, or other people who are in some way different. We must rise above that impulse. If Americans turn down a path of hatred and intolerance, then the terrorists will have won.
That's not the only way terrorists can win. In the past, some have responded to terrorism with proposals to restrict the civil liberties of Americans. We must resist that tendency. The fundamental rights that define the very essence of America should not be destroyed in an effort to deal with terrorism or any other problem. Citizens must remain ever vigilant that terrorists don't win by turning America into the kind of nation where our cherished freedoms are only a fading memory.
Finally, the Libertarian Party hopes these attacks will elicit a thoughtful national discussion about how we can prevent similar tragedies in the future. Of course, there is no way to guarantee that evil will not strike again. However, a foreign policy that limits our intervention in the affairs and quarrels of other nations is a foreign policy that will reduce the chance that terrorists will want to strike at America. Peace and free trade with all nations, and entangling alliances with none, is a time-honored prescription for an America that is at peace with the world, and for a nation that has little to fear from the savage and bloodthirsty actions of terrorists.
Again, our hearts go out to the thousands of Americans who suffered a loss during the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is a tragic day that will live in our memories -- but is also a day that will allow the best of America to shine through by virtue of our response.
Jesse - regarding the crews/passengers not fighting back…I agree with what you’re saying - God knows that I (and just about any other person) would try to stop them if I knew what they were going to try, but that’s the problem - you’re presuming they knew what was going to happen. On at least some of the planes, the hijackers said they had a bomb - the flight crews would cooperate (at least initially) to preserve the lives of the passengers and crew. Given their small numbers, (and the terrorists appear to have chosen their flights not only to get planes full of fuel, but very lightly booked), the hijackers probably lied to them about their purpose, and the crew believed it was a hijacking for either money, publicity, or both. Even if the hijackers said things like “you will all die”, the natural tendancy would be to write it off as hyperbole - our culture has a very strong anti-suicide belief. Remember the line from Patton - it’s not your job to die for your country, it’s to make the other poor son of a bitch die for HIS country. (I might not have the exact words right, but that’s the gist of it.) I’d never have thought that terrorists would hijack a plane to use it as a bomb. Even in the Tom Clancy novel where a pilot uses a 747 to destroy Congress (I think it’s “Executive Orders”, but I’m not sure…), he deliberately uses an empty plane and is remorseful when he has to kill the co-pilot. It’s just a cultural bias of ours.
It also looks like the hijackers took control of the flight deck well before the final suicide run..on the fourth plane, the Solicitor General's wife asked her husband "What should I tell the pilot?", clearly indicating that the pilot was sitting near her, not on the flight deck. And even if the fact that the hijackers took the controls led the crew/pax to think about the possibility of a suicide run, the flight deck door is very small, and the terrorists would now have the fire axe that's stored in most cockpits as well as their original weapons.
The evidence so far indicates that the crew and/or passengers on the fourth plane DID find out their eventual fate and did take action, either causing the plane to go out of control or deliberately crashing it themselves, presumably out of fear that the terrorists might regain control.
Well, Mike the Libertarian, I have to hand it to you - until reading your posts and the Libertarian Party statement above, I’d never quite understood just why Jonah Goldberg (National Review Online) always compared libertarians to a bunch of Trekkies at a sci-fi convention. You really want to live in some sort of alternate universe, where everyone can just hire their own private police force and we just pay the rest of the world no mind, as long as they trade with us and pay their bills on time. This, of course, is why the Libertarian Party and the more “out-there” fringes of libertarianism (as opposed to the real-world small-L libertarians such as the Cato Institute and Reason magazine, both of which I’m a big fan of) will never amount to anything other than a (largely ignored) debating society.
On your statement that without government, free market forces would deal with our own security needs - yes, I’ve read “The Probablity Broach”, and the alternate world that Smith describes sounds good, but we’ll never live there. (BTW, it’s actually a pretty good book.) Two problems - one, what about those who can’t afford private security? Even in Smith’s alternate world, the fact that there are for-hire security forces at all admits there’s crime. In a world where the poor can’t afford security services, they’d be the most likely targets of criminals (although Smith addresses this to some extent by the fact that everyone is armed!) Result - the poor get robbed all the time, never accumulate any assets, and thus STAY poor - creation of a permanent underclass and the beginning of revolution.
The other problem - which is much more relevant to the current situation - is the transition problem - how would we get from our current state to the perfect anarcho-capitalistic world? In order for a perfect anarcho-libertarian world to exist, the entire world would have to make the transition simultaneously to a state where everyone believes in the anarcho-libertarian creed. This is the classic problem that affects any utopian proposal. Marxism has the same problem - a world where each contributes according to his ablities and takes according to his needs sounds pretty nice, eh? Even if we presume that you could change human nature (Ayn Rand observed - I think it was in “Atlas Shrugged” - that you’d suddenly have a lot of people with lots of needs and little ability), how do you get from here to there? In Marxism, you had the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, then eventually the state would “wither away” and you’d have the perfect communist society. Well, as long as the whole world wasn’t communist, the state would be needed for external defence, and the dictatorship wouldn’t wither…you don’t see Fidel withering, do you?
(Passing out occasionally, but not withering. Dammit.)
As long as any significant number of people believed in any political system or religion (be it Muslim, Christian, whatever) that subscribed to a belief that it was morally superior and thus had to forcefully expand, you have to have some sort of external defence. In a world of private security forces, how would you accomplish this? Perhaps the various forces could have a mutual aid agreement against external forces, then closer cooperation...starting to sound like a government, isn't it? But one without a constitution, or democracy, or any of those other constraints...just obeying whoever pays the bills.
As for the Libertarian party’s press release, how far do you “limit our intervention in the affairs and quarrels of other nations”? I guess the key word is “limit” - limit to what? Just ignore what any other country does until or unless it threatens us? There’s both a practial and moral problem, and they’re intertwined…remember the quote from Pastor Niemoller about the Nazis?:
“They came first for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me–and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
This is why although small-L libertarianism has gained ground in our country (the increasing opposition to the war on drugs, both on the Right and on the Left, is the best example), anarcho-libertarianism (or anarcho-capitalism, or whatever you want to call it) will never catch on…sticking your head in the sand isn’t just morally repugnant, but sooner or later that which you ignore will come after you.
And this is just one aspect of anarcho-capitalism that’s impractical - there’s a whole host of others, such as the problem of negative externalities (if you haven’t studied economics, go look it up - sorry, my fingers are getting tired.)
“Imagine there’s no countries…” makes for a popular but annoying John Lennon song, but is it practical? Not in any world we’re likely to ever see.
Anyway, I don’t know what the answer is to how to defend ourselves or strike back against whoever attacked us, but the answer isn’t isolationism, whether libertarian, from the right (Buchanan-esque), the left or otherwise. In a global economy, Fortress America just isn’t practical, and there are those who for various reasons just hate us. We may have to just live with that. Are we prepared to just throw others (e.g Israel) to the wolves to prevent terrorism? Isolationism sounds too close to appeasement.
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last.” - Winston Churchill
re: T-Rev 2001-09-11 15:04:55
I don’t know what to say yet. As a pastor, people expect me always to have something to say"
its not what you say its what you do.. actions are our highest thoughts, I suggest you contact every islamic leader and hold a massive public and highly visible condemnation of the fringe radical sects of Islam that condone this violence and the ignorant and pathetic palesinians celibrating this carnage
mike, wrong word, or definition for terrorism. Granted the general accepted terminology and conotation for terrorism is of a political nature. I change that word to mobs, mafia or gang wars, very much similar to terrorism although technically different (in the end though, it’s all about power). Somalia for instance has been in a state of anarchy for over a decade, and in the practice of anarchy, gangs emerge. In Somalia there are 2 rival clans/gangs that are still competing for control. Private security firms are not sufficient, because in anarchy, once the security firm is corrupted, then what? Additionally, the poor are often victims in government (yes even in democracy) but as X-man pointed out, even more so are they victims in anarchy. Picture anarchy in the young America, we would have never gotten beyond the cross burnings and town lynchings of blacks, atleast untill they and all other minorities were dead, that is.
A link off rotten.com says that Israeli intelligence found that Osama bin Laden was recruited by Saddam Hussein.
Hey X-Man, excellent post on the inadequacies of anarchic libertarianism.
Mike the Libertarian. You’ve claimed in other posts that Libertarianism is not utopian but the idea that private sector forces can resolve all problems better than government is as much a fantasy as any utopian scheme I’ve yet to hear. How familiar are you with the Middle East, anyway? I lived there for years and have met Arabs who said that Hitler was a great man–which is ironic considering that there might not be an Israel today were it not for the Holocaust. If you think these Islamic extremists would mind their own business in the absence of government meddling, try studying how Islam began. People didn’t die by the sword in the spread of Islam because of government meddling. In fact, the climate in which Islam was born and spread largely resembled the anarchic conditions you apparently consider to be humankind’s only hope. Islam was initially spread through warfare and forcing the vanquished to convert or be beheaded as part of “Jihad.” Anyone with any firsthand familiarity with the Arab/Muslim mentality knows there will NEVER be peace in the Middle East (and hence there will always be terrorism), not because of the existence of government, but because Arabs have a seething resentment of Jews extending all the way to Abraham. Furthermore, because Islam was spread by the sword, so as long as non-Muslims exist, there exists the potential for Jihad. (Giving you your due, I’d say that if that oxymoron known as the “International Community” would butt out, Israel would quickly end most terrorism because the terrorists would pretty quickly be dead either from outright war or assassinatioin.)
For anyone else reading this, this is not an anti-Islamic/anti-Arab post. I believe individuals should be judged as individuals and there are many good, honorable Muslims and Arabs in the world. However, certain generalizations are true about the collective behavior and attitudes of certain Arabs and Muslims, namely that there are millions of Arabs and Muslims who have an undying hatred of anything Jewish or non-Muslim, and this hatred has roots with no connection to US foreign policy or the existence of government. To think goverment is the primary cause of terrorism–particularly Middle Eastern terrorism–betrays an absurd misreading of human nature and Middle East history.
Hey dman, just caught your post–good response to Mike the Libertarian.
Keago, it looks like we agree completely.
Indeed, as to those who should be killed, I was referring only to terrorists
and those participating in the organizations (for example, if our intelligence finds that there are a few hundred men training with guns at some known terrorist training site, then
all those training with the terrorists are
worthy of death too.)
Also I think the infrastructures of countries
supporting the terrorists should be massively
bombed until they turn over the terrorists
they harbor to our satisfaction – and the initial bombing should be more than sufficient
to deter any other country from ever thinking of harboring an anti-US terrorist ever again.
These aren’t the acts of isolated criminals,
and treating these terrorist acts as law enforcement matters, “solved” by arresting
a few people and taking them to court, clearly has not worked and we must have a new doctrine, one of at least commensurate
response. Kill 10,000 or more of our people (and though the news does not say so, the deaths must be more than this it would seem)
and expect 10,000 terrorists related in any way to the act to die, and any country
aiding the act in any way must expect
hundreds of billions of dollars of damage
to their infrastructure.
Just doing another Lockerbie trial won’t
work worth squat.
A few godd points there, folks. If Mike the Lib had any common sense, his fantasy world would begin to crumble and he would see the light. Of course, LOGIC escapes him, so…on to the next Mike the Libertarian diatribe: