Quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
The United States and Great Britain with the backing of an international community that includes China, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Egypt and Italy, bombed military airbases, terrorist training camps and power centres.
They did so after 28 days of warnings, diplomatic pressure and military buildups to show that the coalition meant business.
They did not send suicide pilots careering into large civilian structures without warning, killing thousands and disabling downtown Kabul for the next year.
They did however send food and medicinal supplies immediately after the attacks on the Taliban, to the Afgahn people.
This is not WW3. America, Britain and a repressive Wahabi extremist group do not constitute the whole world.
Bear in mind also, that WW2 was in part caused by a failure of the policy of appeasement regarding Hitlers aquisitions of Czechoslovakia and Austria. The attitude of "avoid war at all costs" in part caused the worst war the world has seen.
I find it increasingly annoying that there are loud shouts against preventative force, and arguments equating this preventative force with "vengance" and "retaliation". No alternative to preventative force is put forward however. Diplomacy? Diplomacy on this matter has been attempted since 1993 and has FAILED.
Have these detractors tried the three hour drive into Manhattan from Long Island? Have they been stuck at a border for two hours? Have they been stopped on highways or rerouted from the Hoover dam for example?
America is a fortress at the moment. Protected by people. These people must be paid. The fear resultant from the terrorist attacks is creating a recession. Who will then pay for the manned fortress?
Protection from the snake cannot go on forever. The snake must be beheaded if it is to die. Osama must go. If the Taliban shelter him, they too must go.
A persons inaction when one can prevent murder, creates guilt equal to that of the murderer themself. The government of the United States has an obligation to act and protect it's citizens. That is part of it's job.
If one is going to decry violence then decry Wahabism and it's bloodstained past against even Islamics in Saudi Arabia! Decry the coward who hides in a rathole and orders followers to suicidal death. Decry the mothers who give glory to their adolescant sons strapping bombs to their chest and blowing themselves up.
Decry hate and ignorance that turns a religion of peace into one of hate and war.
But do not decry governments from excercising their right to protect their people from the most cowardly form of war, murder and vandalism.
Terrorism. Let us eradicate the concept from human experience.
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Yes, an eloquent post, as others have said.
Too bad, however, that it has little relevance to what people have actually been saying here.
It is a straw man argument which presents a false choice, the illusion that we must either do nothing at all or exactly as George Bush has done.