[geeks] Re: [rescue] God bless America

[David Cantrell]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 11:20:53AM -0700, koyote at koyote.cx wrote:

> >I guess that includes me then.  I don't think many Americans realise quite
> >how much they are hated by the huge numbers of people who are victims of
> >your government's foreign policies.
> 
> so.... lemme get this straight. you say that this attack is *excusable* or that the peoiple who died *deserved* it?

No, I never said that.

> >Y'know, I find the vile reaction of a great many American citizens who I
> >had thought were decent, intelligent people to be far more disturbing than
> >the attack itself.
> 
> I fail to see anything vile about wanting all of the terrorists dead.

You should want to see JUSTICE, not retribution.  Killing them would be
retribution.

> I not that I'm not in favor of carpet bombing any particular nation.

I'm glad to hear it.  Perhaps you would like to join me in condemning
those who are.

> I'm also not in favor of machine gunning innocent Indians, but that would be  a different kind of foreign policy, perhaps.

I believe that both our nations have slaughtered defenceless Indians (for
different values of Indian).

> >                     That 'only' killed a few thousand people, but there
> >are literally *hundreds* of thousands of innocent casualties of US foreign
> >policy
> 
> out of those hundreds of thusands, how many were in armed conflict, how
> many were directly killed innocents (I mean US citizen pulls trigger)
> and how many were the victims of another government misusing aid?

The point is not whether they are 'directly' killed or not - to me, it
certainly doesn't matter whether someone dies because of a badly aimed
'smart' bomb or because they happen to work in the wrong place, or any
other reason.  Try putting yourself in the victim's shoes.  Would you
prefer me to deliberately shoot your loved one, to accidentally kill
them with a bomb, or to deny them access to food and medication?

> We don't always make great choices about who we help, but overall, we
> *try*. Blaming the passengers of, say, flight 77, seems a bit far fetched.

Indeed it would seem farfetched.  Good thing I didn't do that then.

> Personally, anyone who thinks that any of this justifies what happened
> tuesday is sick. 

At no point have I said that I think it justifies it.  I have said that
I think it helps explain why it happened.

I'll reiterate, NOTHING justifies the killing of innocent civilians.
Doesn't matter what nationality they are, nor where they are, nor who
their govt is, nor what that govt does.  ANYONE who does that is a
criminal.  ANYONE who advocates it disgusts me.

This makes an interesting read:
  http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/200109/msg00130.html
and it doesn't even touch on the secular motivations of potential
attackers.

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave
   -- Fergus Henderson