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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Yes it's off topic but who cares right now.
The problem isn't terrorists - people with lunatic worldview will always
exist, and there's no way to prevent that. The problem is governments
which refuse to cooperate in eradicating them because they futher their
goals while leaving their hands "clean". And may I to remind the truism
that any government can govern only because it has support of a
significant part of (maybe, brainwashed) population?
As for civil liberties - reality check time. Does anyone think that
_religious_ governments are big fans of civil liberties? Americans were
(still are?) fed a highly skewed politically-correct view of world events.
Otherwise they'd think twice before supporting Islamic militants in any
form. Need I to remind that Taliban was nourished by American support for
"resistance movement" against Soviet invasion? Or watch those albanian
rebels who were helped by NATO in Kosovo and now are in effect against
NATO in Macedonia. Poor Palestinians who have their authonomy only because
US pulled all levers to keep Israel out of all-out military offensive are
_celebrating_ the NY attack. Watch for how much time media dwells on what
thier leaders say, and on the actual reaction of their streets.
Those are people who _believe_ that Western civilization is evil and has
to be destroyed by any means, including suicide. Those aren't isolated
"crazies". Their mothers and neighbours are proud of what they did, and
this is scary.
The common sense... the American "common sense" was so ridiculously off
the mark on what USSR was about that i'm still amazed by the claims that
the "cold war" was won by the US. What US did is so mishandled the
post-Soviet transition that "democrat" is nearly a cussing word in Russia
nowadays.
My common sense says that it is useless to apply your own principles to
people who have completely different mentality. All cozying up to the
barbarians is only interpreted by them as a weakness, and encouragement to
further their goal of seizing as much power as they can. Their lying
leaders figure out they will outsmart those weaklings when they go out of
the way to lie about their "grief"; in fact it looks like they are right,
if you only watch CNN. I would say listening more closely to what
Israelis have to say in regard to dealing with terrorists is quite
educational; they know what they are talking about.
--vadim
PS Sorry for the off-topic...
PPS I'm not sure that was noticed by US media, but a prominent Chechen
terrorist Movladi Udugov (apparently affiliated with Osama bin Laden)
back in 1996 threatened to hijack an airplane and drop it on Kremlin.
But, of course, an average American thinks Chechen rebels are friends
of democracy and civil liberties.
On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
>
> In message <[email protected]>, "Patrick W. Gilmore"
> writes:
> >
> >At 10:20 AM 9/12/2001 -0400, Randy Bush wrote:
> > >
> > >> Although there are Muslims that believe we should all live in peace and
> > >> harmony the fundamentals of the Muslim faith state that [x and y] should
> > >> be exterminated.
> > >
> > >this is the horrible desease of all fanatics, irrespective of religion.
> > >the disease is not restricted to one view of god.
> > >
> > >do not spread it yourself. resist the cycle of violence and hate.
> >
> >Randy,
> >
> >Honorable post, thank you.
> >
> >But I sincerely doubt Mr. Diffey realizes just how closely his thought
> >processes mirror the thoughts of those who did this.
>
> Precisely. We can't allow hate to breed hate. By all means hunt down
> the folks responsible -- but let's not overreact and forget about
> "innocent until proven guilty", civil liberties, respect for human
> beings, and common sense. If we do, the terrorists will have won.
>
> --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
> http://www.wilyhacker.com
>
>
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