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I've been racking my brains trying to think of a way the West can possibly win a war against terrorists, and I think I've come up with a plan so crazy it just might work.
Step 1: Contact Bin Laden through whatever channels necessary, and ask him which American buildings he would like to destroy
(eg White house).
Step 2: Remove valuables from specified buildings, then demolish them on TV, because who really needs them, they're only symbols of the past and pride.
(if someone demands your cloak, offer him your tunic as well)
Step 3: Pull all US troops out of Saudi Arabia.
Step 4: Send 500,000 Nato troops to the Afghanistan region, along with 5 aircraft carriers, etc etc.
Step 5: Offer to provide security and $40billion in aid to Afghanistan if they allow occupation by troops while terrorists are found.
Step 6: Rebuild the buildings that have been destroyed through civil war, clear the massive mine-fields.
(This would have to be offered as an option, the other choice being invasion by force).
Also, lift sanctions on Iraq.
In other words, be nice. Fight terrorism by taking away the "cause". Schoolyard tit-for-tat violence only escalates until a teacher steps in. So what else can they do? keep fighting till the second-coming?
I promise this will be the last time I post something about this. Now my brain is downloaded, I can start thinking about fancy hoojamajiggits, and thingamadongles.
Read this if you want to nuke Afghanistan
http://davenet.user...AnsaryOnAfghanistan
[rmutt, Sep 14 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Slate: What does Osama Bin Laden Want?
http://slate.msn.co...9-13/Assessment.asp
Americans out of Saudi Arabia, mostly. [jutta, Sep 14 2001]
No Safe Place
http://www.redmeansstop.org/stats.asp
Per [jabbers] recognition that there is no safe place. If you think you are not safe in your skyscraper, consider what it is that you drive through. These common places you pass through each day, deal more death, per annum, than the terrorists ever will. [pathetic, Sep 14 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]
just one of many reports on the situation in iraq
http://www.wsws.org...2000/iraq-m11.shtml
"saddam may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch" [mihali, Sep 14 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]
'The Case for Rage and Retribution', by Lance Morrow.
http://www.time.com...8599,174641,00.html
I've posted this elsewhere, but it seems appropriate here too. [angel, Sep 14 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]
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I'm not sure that Afghanistan wants US occupation, even if it does mean that they get their country rebuilt. In the days leading up to the attack on NY and Washington, I was reading a lot about Afghanistan and it doesn't sound like they have a particularly sane government. |
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As for redevelopment in exchange for protection from terrorism, that sounds like extortion. Needless to say, that wouldn't get the US off the hook. |
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You're right about schoolyard tit-for-tat, though. It's going to take more than just brutal retaliation to create a sense of stability in the West again. |
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US presence is what drove Osama Bin Laden to this point to begin with. This would only make it worse.
Osama Bin Laden wants nothing from US. So that's what US is going to give him - Craters full of Nothing. There will be even less of what is scarcely in Afghanistan after the Ground and Air assaults have done their job. |
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It won't please Bin Laden and others of his ilk who seem to prefer infamy and power over peace and prosperity. The Taliban would probably see aid as secular interference, and potentially corrupting. |
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But I like the sentiment. We must show restraint and not punish any innocents. Otherwise we're just completing the circle of destruction. |
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"New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. " |
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What can be done? There's nothing that the US/Nato etc can do, nothing is something they can't do. What a paradox. |
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Hasn't anybody ever read 'The Art Of War'? |
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Not to at all condone the attack, but isn't it striking, the difference between x number of Americans dying and the same number of, say, Africans or Arabs? People cry "these terrorists have no respect for human life"; and give money ($20 bil?) and effort to help clean up after the attack on America; this is fantastic, but wouldn't it be great if the loss of ostensibly equally valuable life in poor countries met with even a fraction of this outpouring? |
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I like this plan, zero5. It would demonstrate an incredible benevolent superiority. Unfortunately this could be perceived by irrational terrorist-type people as arrogant or "potentially corrupting" as Mud has commented; also such policies would obviously require leaving these nations with a fairly free hand. |
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<Re jabber's first paragraph> |
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I think all of that is pretty dumb anyway...The problem is not that they can't feed themselves, it's that they don't bother not having kids they can't feed. Don't send food, send condoms and birth control pills. |
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Isn't if funny how different it is recognising that there are places that just aren't safe, compared to seeing that there is no safe place? |
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StarChaser, that is a fairly common problem, but not universal; nor would decreasing their fertility increase their prosperity. The problem is that they can't feed themselves. |
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Another problem is extremist regimes overreacting to this kind of injustice; this is exactly the kind of problem this idea has the potential to turn around. If sane Afghani muslims lose their cause for aggression, terrorism decreases. |
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[StarChaser]: //Don't send food, send condoms and birth control pills.// to litter the side of the roads there... You're not considering those whose religion forbids birth control. Furthermore, people in underdeveloped parts of the world *need* those children to take care of them when they are older because their governments can't provide adequate welfare, because their governments are under the thumb of wealthy Western industries. |
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I still think the backwards war is too simplistic a solution, though. |
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It's less simplistic than "let's go in there and kill them". |
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[sdm] "...it doesn't sound like they have a particularly sane government."
Afghanistan has no central government to speak of. The country is ruled by various factions. |
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[zero5] "...only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide."
Fine. If they're moving around then they'll be too busy to aid and abet terrorists. Eventually we'll have destroyed every standing building. Then the Taliban will be just as uncomfortable as the rest of the citizenry. |
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"Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast..."
The point wouldn't be to kill civilians. The point would be to get someone in Afghanistan to turn over bin Laden. So you drop leaflets informing the citizenry that bombing on Kabul will commence in 24 hours unless bin Laden is turned over. This gives the innocents time to get out of the way (or better yet, comply) - which some are doing already. When a city is razed, start the process all over again in another one. To prove our sincerity perhaps the U.S. could sponsor refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan to feed and clothe refugees. |
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[jabbers] "...isn't it striking, the difference between x number of Americans dying and the same number of, say, Africans or Arabs?"
People do die every day. But an unprovoked terrorist attack is not the same as civil war or territory dispute. It's also worth pointing out that - in almost every case you could name - the U.S. has offered assistance and/or stepped right in to try to straighten things out between the opposing sides. (n.b. The U.S. supplied arms to Afghanistan when the U.S.S.R. invaded some years ago) I think it's our ability/willingness to play policeman-to-the-world that leads many in the rest of the world to view us a arrogant. |
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Yes, I've read the Art Of War. <thumbs through copy looking for oft-misquoted "know your enemy" bit at the end of chapter 3> ... "Know your enemy and know yourself: you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself: your chances are equal. If ignorant of your enemy and yourself: you are sure to be defeated in every battle". I don't know if that's helpful to anyone. |
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"You're not considering those whose religion forbids birth control. Furthermore, people in underdeveloped parts of the world *need* those children to take care of them when they are older because their governments can't provide adequate welfare, because their governments are under the thumb of wealthy Western industries." -- sdm |
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So people in my country have to die because they can't be bothered to not screw when they can't support kids that they need to take care of them when they're older with nothing to take care of them with. |
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I'm sure we have -lots- of industries in Afghanistan. How about instead of blowing up thousands of people who had nothing at all to do with what was going on, they try blowing up the PEOPLE CAUSING THE FSCKING PROBLEM? Fly their planes into the Taliban. They piss and moan constantly about how evil we are and how we cause all their problems...and want us to bail them out. 'You all suck! Now give me my welfare...' |
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Bin Laden is doing what his hero did some 905 years ago. Of course, what his hero did was the same thing Pope Urban did upon making the call for the First Crusade. All 3 called for destruction of the enemy - and if you died while doing so, you received what I call "A First Class Ticket To Heaven". It would be complete ignorance to treat it as a humanitarian effort without making battle with Osama Bin Laden and his particular sect of Sunni Muslims and/or Taliban. The U.S. can and will provide humanitarian aid, but first it will need to make sure those eating and drinking are those whom the U.S. will make every reasonable effort to leave standing - Those who are not waging war. |
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phoenix, I commend America for its willingness to be cop-of-the-world, but a cop's help isn't always wanted (OK, obvious now), nor always entirely helpful. |
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//an unprovoked terrorist attack is not the same as civil war or territory dispute//, but can you imply from that that the innocent lives lost from either event are more or less important? Just because you weren't expecting to die, was your death less fair? And does your family therefore deserve more help? |
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And, StarChaser, the core problem is, they don't have the resources to feed themselves. |
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U.S. Citizens sent relief up the ying-yang to Somalia - it was intercepted and controlled by the same Assmunches that were the cause of loss of supply to begin with. |
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<manipulated>Don't go there, Mofo</manipulated> |
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TW, I've read your opinions in this place, and despite that for some strange reason (j/k) I respect them. Sorry if I try to slice through both sides of my baloney while eating cake with my stiff upper lip. But all seriousness aside, I really didn't intend any statement to call for <mofo> </mofo>. |
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In the past ten years, the US and allies have killed 5% of the Iraqi population, and that not confined to military personnel by any means. Transfer 5% to USA and you get a total of 14million. I'm just stating some numbers. |
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Be careful when slinging mud. The U.S. and its Allies have not killed 5% of Iraqi Population. Saddam Hussein has allowed them to die.
News Flash From The Past: The hospital at Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq; Kurdistan, treated over (Only figures I bothered looking up) 1,650 injuries from land mines between March and September 1991, including 398 requiring amputation. That's just 6 months - Iraq put those land mines in that killed or maimed their own people. U.S. and its allies removed many more mines which prevented further deaths and dismemberments.
U.S. also rescued Kurds from massacre by Saddam Husseins military forces. U.S. and its allies prevented massacre of Kuwaitis. Iraq then and now continues (despite U.S. recommended and UN sanctioned cutoff of relief to Iraq) to manufacture 'weapons of mass destruction'. Saddam Hussein is 'President' (Dictator, really) until he says he is not. In the meantime, while his coffers grow from Oil profits - which he does not treat as the populations (dead people to whom you refer as well as the living) money, by spreading the wealth so that starvation and disease are treated.
It is the Ego of One Man which is the problem in Iraq. If I were to bring home a paycheck and buy food and drink only for myself, it would starve other members in the household. If I were to ignore others illness, they would be susceptible to death even more so. The U.S. and UN have called upon Saddam Hussein repeatedly to abandon producing 'weapons of mass destruction' so they may lift the embargo. Saddam Hussein has refused. He has dictated their deaths. A President Presides. A Dictator Dictates. |
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thumbwax: be carfeful when quoting figures. yes, saddam has committed many atrocities against his own citizens, including the kurds, but he did it with u.s. support. in the years of the iran-iraq war, iraq was one of the leading recipients of u.s. militray aid, behind israel and egypt, and many of those same weapons were used against saddam's own population including the gassing of 30000 innocents, not to mention the coalition forces in the gulf war. |
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as for the u.s. protecting the kurds, the no-fly zones were set up for just that, but now the u.s. has a new partner in that affair: turkey. for the decade of the 90's, turkey was the leading recipient of u.s. military aid behind israel and egypt, and many of those weapons, such as planes and helicopters are used to destroy any kind of kurdish uprising in southeastern turkey. if the turkish air force happens to stray over iraq and bomb a few villages in the "no-fly" zones, the u.s. says they have no evidence of this, even though they have a large sophisticated air force base right in the region. |
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remember when gen. schwarzkopf (sp?) pronounced the coalition victory in iraq? "we had clear path right to baghdad"? why didn't the u.s. finish saddam off then? they only had 160km to go, with no resistance. read the link provided for the answer. |
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i'm not defending saddam, i'd like to see him gone as much as anyone else, but you've got to remember that there's always more to a story than what you read in the mainstream media. |
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one final thing: interviewed on 60 minutes, madeline albright was asked if she thought that the deaths of more than 500,000 iraqi children was a "price worth paying". her answer: "we think the price is worth it." |
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I've seen that Madeline Albright 'sentiment' many times. What heartless thinking and words.
Regardless, I have no desire to take potable water and carrots to Afghanistan and sing 'kum ba ya'. If someone wishes to do so - I can honestly say I wished them well, and must say those debates with the departed were of no small consequence, however well-intentioned but misguided they were.| — | thumbwax,
Sep 19 2001, last modified Sep 20 2001 |
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Croissant for the wish itself, zero5. A croissant too for what we all were, not so long ago -- when a response like this would have sounded not only humane, but sensible. |
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My old innocence is of no use to me now ... but God, I miss it. |
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Mihali and thumbwax: I did a search for that phrase, and found lots of hits...but not one single real news source. Lots of drumbeating about it, but no news. Zip on CNN, too. I wonder if she sends money to Proctor and Gamble to have them add it to their contributions to the satanic church, too. |
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Jabbers: The reason they don't have the resources to feed themselves is that they keep having kids they can't feed. If they would stop having kids they can't feed, they might be able to feed themselves better. |
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" When the edicts of your religion, which is inextricably bound to the governance of your state, decree it is an offence before god/s to use contraception then you are going to suffer from increased birthrates. " |
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Then one should learn to keep one's pecker in one's own pocket, rather than someone else's. Having a billion kids then complaining that they can't feed them garners zip sympathy from me. |
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the US didn't go into finish Saddam off, because it was not part of the deal made with the coalition and the UN. It would have been in violation... Now look what happens.
The US gives aid to many nations. How many of those nations are involved in perpetual theocratic conflict?
This whole thing is not about religion.
There is no "playing nice" so that the perps suddenly have an epiphany and "see the light." Waiting for that to happen is just silliness, and wishful thinking. |
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Mihal, you are really entertaining. Do you ever make humor from factual material? |
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//The original idea by zero5 gets a croissant from me.//
So that means...
//Step 1: Contact Bin Laden through whatever channels necessary, and ask him which American buildings he would like to destroy (eg White house).
Step 2: Remove valuables from specified buildings, then demolish them on TV, because who really needs them, they're only symbols of the past and pride.
(if someone demands your cloak, offer him your tunic as well)//
... gets a croissant
//dumbass// idea if I've ever seen one.
<kerplunk>one certified fishbone and a pamphlet illustrating exactly what to do with it on behalf of USAmerica</kerplunk> |
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Rose-colored glasses rarely give one a long range of vision... |
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Giving the terorists what they want might solve the problemof one terrorist group but it will create another, others will see that terrorism works and will persue it more and make higher demands.
"give a mouse a cookie, and he's going to want a glass of milk" |
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I think the better idea would be to simply de-escalate the terrorists from crazed suicide bombing into a bickering match somehow. Everyone fights for some warped cause. If you can somehow demonstrate exactly how warped it is to the person, then you've effectively nullified them. 'Course this assumes you're dealing with a thinking person, which usually isn't the case. Divide and conquer by demonstrating the confusion of Muslim religious principle. Turn it into a war of words. Beat them at their own game of warped justification. |
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Maybe it wouldn't work, I dunno. |
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The only governments 'under the thumb of western industries' are those that choose to be. Let 'em develop their own industry. It's not like we had a bunch of factories and companies just sitting here when we came across the Atlantic. |
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