Quote:
Originally posted by Belecthor:
Indeed the direct perpetrators of the recent events are dead.
Those that aid and support terrorism must be stopped. I really could care less whether they're keen to die for their cause or not. Whether they go to their deaths with a smile or a grimace on their face is immaterial to me, as long as I don't have to see another terrorist attack such as the ones that we've witnessed.
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I tend to agree, Bel. The surviving conspiritors behind these actions should be brought to justice, which in my view might justifiably be Death, depending on the degree of their involvement.
From the standpoint of American Criminal Law, those acts constituted Murder (as well as a long list of lesser crimes). Anyone who aided in the planning, supplying, or any other aspect of that conspiricy to committ murder (it doesn't matter if their primary objective was the deaths of the civilians or not, because they acted in the knowledge that people would be killed) may be punished as if they were the principle actors. All co-conspirators in the plot are liable for the Murder itself, and can be punished accordingly.
I agree wholeheartedly that the people who plotted and aided these actions should be brought to justice.
At the same time I am concerned that our national perception will be limited to just that, and ignore the larger picture. We cannot dismiss such blind devotion to a cause (which no doubt from their point of view was the ultimate form of heroism, giving ones life for the greater good). Such dedicated warriors are not made every day. There are real world reasons for such hatred towards the US and the West.
My God the West raped the world! That period of centuries long Western expansion, colonization, and Empire only came to an end (if it really has) this past century. It really didn't end until after the shocks of World Wars I and II, when Britain and France had to let go of their empires.
In the Middle East, the West has treated the Arabs with contempt and cruelty.
The West thought nothing of displacing one tribe, the Palestinians, from their ancient homelands to create out of thin air the new nation of Israel. Don't come back with that stuff about it having been the ancient homeland of the Jews 2000 years before -- unless you are volunteering to do the same thing for the American Indians. Let's give the Indians (or rather their descendants, some few generations removed, as opposed to the 2,000 year removal of the Israelis) a similar sovereign nation state within the borders of the US, and supply it with advanced weaponry and economic aid. Why not? It is the principle the West acted on in creating Israel.
Of course, to make the parallel more accurate, some other country would have to do that to the US, against its will. Do you think the people of the US would hold a grudge if a coalition of the rest of the world set up such a nation state in a place of its choosing in the US, and kept it well supplied with weaponry?
Well, what the West did to the Palestianians and the Arabs in general was worse -- at least the US would have a fighting chance to resist in the above scenario, while the Arabs had none against the combined might of the West.
The West stole their land in the name of Empire. Britain once controlled much of the region. Other nations have played a hand, France, Russia, Germany, and the US (which was late in arriving on the scene but ultimately achieved the dominant position).
The primary interest in the region for the West if of course for its oil. Any fool familiar with the region at all knows that is why George Bush Sr went into Kuwait. The Arabs aren't blind to that.
What does our conduct in the Gulf War show except that we will cheerfully (and by this I mean the waves of patriotic americans back home cheering our boys onto victory) slaughter Arabs by the hundreds of thousands, and wreck an entire country, to protect the oil for ourselves?
So, all this is a longwinded way of saying:
Yes, bring the perpetrators (the surviving conspirators) to justice, but also learn from this as well. Such hatred does not arise out of a vaccuum. We are not blameless in creating it. To the extent that we can, we should address legitimate Arab grievances. One such might be to seriously rethink our approach to the Israel problem.