Hey, thanks Fljotsdale! I've been thinking - this resolution currently being put through to allow the US to use all necessary force against nations, organisations or individuals who planned, authorised, committed, or helped out with the attacks.
Maybe we should have one of them there resolution things ourselves here in the UK!
Why for? Well, until the peace talks began, we had how many years of IRA terrorist activity in the UK? Until recently, it's been quiet for a few years, so I guess we'd forgotten... but I spent years and years in London under the shadow of terrorist attacks.
(In the space of 10 years, I've been within sound of two exploding bombs, known people who lost loved ones, and been taken off countless buses, tubes, and trains because of bomb scares. There was a bomb scare every five minutes, the commute home was always a nightmare. Do you remember, in Birmingham, the pub bombing? Arms and legs flying out of the windows....... People died there too, made a big impression on me at the time. I was very young.)
However, the point I want to make here is a lot of this terrorist activity was funded by a lot of very misguided IRA sympathisers in the USA. Does that mean we should go and bomb the hell out of Washington or New York? Well, I guess it does, if we go by the rationale that Dubya is currently using.
(Could that be the same Dubya who's so yellow that he flies around the US waiting for the dust to settle, and only finally gets to NY, what was it, yesterday? Or today? A touch less than enthusiasm there, methinks. A poor showing compared with NYs mayor, who seems to be much more of a human being that the absent Mr. Say it With Auto-Text.)
There are terrorists everywhere. We can't find most of them now, and I really don't see what measures they're going to put in place to root them all out in the near or distant future. The internet, mobile phones, people don't even need to be in the same place to plan an attack. You can't monitor every phone call, every piece of data that goes down a modem line. What is American intelligence's yearly budget - US$30 billion, isn't it? What are they planning to increase it to, to wipe out threats against America?
It can't be done, and it's ridiculous to assume it can. Instead, America could make a start on a safer world by withdrawing its support from Israel's 34 year long illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Ordinary people in Muslim states generally only support these arsehole bastard terrorists (those that do. Of course, many do not!) because they have grievences against America and the West, and see the terrorists as heroes. A few changes in policy could go a long way, no?
And for all out there who think I'm stupid and naive, right then, so you think a better option is to escalate the conflict until it gets completely out of control and we go smack into world war III, with the massive amount of casulties that that will entail.
The world is not controllable, and Fortress America is a figment of polical imagination. The more you threaten and attack, the more resentment and hatred will be bred, the more terrorists will appear, eager to take their places as heroes in the sight of much of the population (especially the young).
And although the Arab nations are paying lip service to a united world against terrorism, they won't carry on doing so when they realise they really are likely to be bombed to hell and gone unless they give up terrorists located in their lands. (It's not that easy. We have loads in Britian, do we know where they are? Do we hell! So do you. Do you know where they are? Obviously you don't, otherwise Tuesday's events would never have happened, and your intel service would have earned their 30 billion.)
Some governments may be in cahoots with the terrorists, others won't be. How can you be seen, in the eyes of the world, to be making the correct distinctions as to which country to bomb and which not? Once you've bombed a few Muslim nations, I doubt the others will carry on making the same supportive noises they've made so far.
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[This message has been edited by Silver Cheetah (edited 09-15-2001).]