09-10-2004, 03:55 PM
Occhidiangela,Sep 10 2004, 08:13 AM Wrote:The amount of terror is up to whoever keeps trying to use it as a tool. Nice work, oh brainwashed one, buying into the lie that terrorism is the fault of the one attacked. You appear to have no idea that you have been, for about the last 15 years, a target of a propaganda campaign. It seems to have worked, on you.While I agree that the primary responsability for terrorism lies in the hands of the terrorists, I cannot agree that the whole responsability is theirs. Can anyone possibly dispute that the US foreign policy has not played some part in the anti-american sentiments at the root of (some) terrorist activity?
Pete already said it best -- war is not only about fighting with your military. For the 'War on Terrorism' to be succesful, it must have a more complete goal than simply exterminating all terrorists. While I do believe that those in control of terrorists are using anti-american sentiments to further their own agendas, anti-american sentiments would exist whether Bin Laden was actively harvesting those sentiments to create his army or not. So long as there exists a population in the middle east who blame american for their problems, so there will be a steady supply of reinforcements for the terrorists. Unfortunately, military attacks by the US serve to fuel those anti-american sentiments. The US casualty list recently passed 1000 soldiers. How many Iraqui (sp?) civillians have died as a result of american bombs?
The propaganda you refer to, 'brainwashing' people to believe that american is responsable for the terrorists attacks, is not the only propaganda circulating. You seem to fall far on the other side of the fence here. However, I think we can all agree that america is not perfect; america's foreign policy is not and has not always been perfect; and that american does its fair share to piss off a good deal of the world's population. Accepting some responsability for the past will go a long way towards convincing the rest of the world that americans should not be the target of terrorism.
gekko
"Life is sacred and you are not its steward. You have stewardship over it but you don't own it. You're making a choice to go through this, it's not just happening to you. You're inviting it, and in some ways delighting in it. It's not accidental or coincidental. You're choosing it. You have to realize you've made choices."
-Michael Ventura, "Letters@3AM"
-Michael Ventura, "Letters@3AM"