The Logic Off Topic list

At 4:06 PM +0200 9/23/01, Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
>Thoughts from the mind of Dennis Gunn, 9/23/01:
>
>>   >Whatever happened to "unguilty until proven guilty"?  Isn't that the
>>>basis for our judicial system?  As far as I know, no guilty persons
>>   >have yet been found, and evidence still is inconclusive.
>>
>>[...] Bin Laden has been video taping himself making
>>threats that came true and calling on his followers to kill Americans
>>where ever and when ever possible for about ten years now.  It is
>>idiocy of the first order to call this man innocent.
>
>I can't remember calling him innocent.  He may well be guilty of
>various crimes or acts of terrorism, but we're talking about _this_
>particular act right now.  Has he been proven guilty "beyond a
>reasonable doubt"?  No.
>Bin Laden has been no.1 on the FBI's most-wanted list for quite some
>time now, but did they ever really open such a man-hunt on him
>before?  No.  Why do it now?  Because he's the _most likely_
>candidate for the WTC-bombing.  As I said before: fair enough that
>they want him, and fair enough that they already wanted him earlier,
>before the attack.
>However, the way the US government goes about with it's
>chesthair-cowboy language mainly gives the impression that they
>simply need someone to be guilty.

Someone is guilty.  These things don't happen by themselves.

>Very human: whenever something
>horrible happens, we all want a face to blame.  Some anonymous group
>of fanatics just won't do -- it has to have a name and a face.  It
>has to be something you can wipe of the face of the earth, if only
>for the satisfaction and "sense of justice" of the people.  The
>history of mankind is full of this (understandable) mechanism.  And
>when we can't find someone to blame, we blame some god -- "the wrath
>of god" has always had great explanatory power.
>The fact that "the masses" cry for revenge and want a face attached
>to the horror that came over them is, once again, very understandable
>and very human.  But, call me naive, from world-leaders I would
>expect a somewhat more rational attitude than these gut-level
>instinctive reactions.

And, hey what do you know, practically from the very first the US 
administration said that they could not be %100 certain who the 
culprit was and that they did not expect getting Bin Laden to end the 
problem.  They didn't need you to help them figure that out.


>  >Dead or alive is just common sense.
>
>'Dead' is never common sense.  There may be cases when killing
>someone may be the only possible way out (are there really?) but it's
>never "common sense".

Disagree.

>  >  >Still the US president (of all people) calls for murder...
>>
>>Complete sophist bullshit.  Get a grip.
>
>Enlighten me...

Impossible.

>Saying you want someone "dead or alive" doesn't
>provide justification for killing a person?

Entirely beside the point as you well know it is the actions of that 
person (over a number of years in this case) and continuing threat he 
poses that provide the justification.


>I surely must be missing
>something.

No you are just willfully ignoring something

>Mind you, I don't argue the fact that the world would be a better
>place without BL and the likes of him.  Of course it would.  And
>maybe we will all be happy when he's dead.  Fine.  But that's not the
>issue.

It is exactly the issue which is why you are dancing around it so 
frantically trying to show how it isn't.

>  >  >  and thereby already
>>>makes completely innocent victims...
>>
>>Where is the tense in this sentence are we talking future or present
>>because AFAIK the US has yet to have fired a shot.  Lots of people in
>>the US have been fired upon though.
>
>Present tense.  Tens of thousands unguilty citizens fleeing their
>homes.  See a previous post.
>
>>Alright lets put things in perspective.  6 thousand people have just
>>been killed
>>[...]
>>that the Afghan's psyches have been twisted by so many years of
>>poverty, war and brutality from their leaders that instead of seeing
>  >Bin Laden as the sick fuck the folks where he comes from know him to
>>be Bin Laden probably just seems like another pretty normal guy to
>>them.
>
>And you call that "perspective"?  Judging an entire people whom you
>know _nothing_ about?

More bullshit.   I am not judging anyone I am simply pointing out the 
brutal reality of recent Afghan history and speculating why Bin Laden 
might feel at home there and be more accepted there than elsewhere. 
Do you have a better answer?  If so lets here it.

>Surely that must justify upcoming bombings of
>Afghanistan, right?

Is bullshit your first or second tongue?  The "upcoming bombings" 
might not even come up if the "leadership" can be convinced that they 
really do not need that kind of trouble.

>I don't care how the Afghan people think about Bin Laden.  They're
>poor, suppressed, terrorised by their own government, and massively
>under-informed.  Their perspective on bin Laden or whoever is
>completely inconsequential.

Huh?  It means everything in the world.  If they don't feel he is 
worth defending it is going to be much more difficult for their 
"leadership" to get them to fight for him effectively and quite easy 
for their "leadership" to give him the bum's rush when they realize 
they do not really want him bad enough to be worth the trouble.   On 
the other hand if the poor suckers think he is the greatest thing 
since tits and sneakers then it is a huge problem for the US.  It is 
of quite a great deal of consequence what they think.  However the 
fact that the Afghanis are fleeing does not bode well for the Taliban.



>  >I agree that it is sad that innocent Afghani people are probably
>>going to suffer and I truly hope that there is some way of avoiding
>>that. I have yet to see anything that vaguely resembles a real
>>solution being proposed by anyone.  Sticking your head in the sand is
>>not going help.
>
>Agreed.  However, killing bin Laden, no matter how satisfactory, also
>isn't going to help. The problem is way, way bigger than this one
>person, and goed back decades (or longer) in world history.  The
>arrogant attitude of christians  suppressing muslims dates back to
>the crusades, at least.

Bullshit self flagellation.  In the US and Europe Islam is tolerated 
and protected by law.  Islam is the fastest growing religion in the 
world and it seems I have heard it said that Muslims , correct me if 
I am wrong I don't know the exact stats, probably outnumber 
Christians.  On the other hand in some Islamic countries like for 
example Afghanistan Christianity is a capitol offence.  So who is 
suppressing whom?


>  >It is the Taliban that said they were willing to shed every last drop
>>of Afghan blood to protect Bin Laden.  It is utterly understandable
>>and reasonable that the proposed donors are taking their plasma
>>elsewhere.  I wish them luck.
>
>Ditto.  Of course blaming the US for all the fleeing Afghans (as I
>may have implied earlier) isn't entirely honest.  In the end it's the
>Taliban attitude which frightens the people.  Still, US politicians
>should have realised the consequences of their single-track minded
>attitude, and therefore at least share the blame for what happens now.
>Threathening a psychotic parent who mistreats his child, will only
>lead to more child-abuse in the family -- after all that's what
>"psychotic" does, isn't it?  So even though the parent is directly
>responsible, the one making the threats is, at least, an ignorant
>fool to think that his threats will actually solve anything.

Your characterization of the US politicians so called "single track 
minded attitude" as being the problem in this case is truly bizarre. 
Also in this case the "psychotic parent" is threatening us as much as 
the child so your analogy falls way short.


>  >The Taliban could avoid all kinds of trouble and in fact gain
>>international praise by simply kicking Bin Laden out of their
>>country.
>>[..]
>>They should not
>>put him up or put up with him and if they had a modicum of
>>responsibility they would not.  But then I can't think of anyone
>>anywhere who claim that the Taliban are a responsible leadership.
>>What do you think HJ?
>
>Sure the Taliban are a bunch of crazy bastards.  If your beard isn't
>long enough you can get killed.  Women aren't allowed to visit
>school.  Etc.  Not what I would call "responsible leadership", no,
>obviously.
>As far as you statement goes that they should be grateful to the US
>for helping kick out the Russians...  I think the cold war,
>anti-soviet area of US politics is one of the shadiest and most
>debatable areas of international politics ever, and I'm simply not
>willing to get into a discussion on that subject.
>However, I think it's naive to really expect gratitude from
>fundamental Muslims.  Not even naive, but bizarre...  Bin Laden is a
>fundamentalist, as are the Taliban, and for fundamentalists the US is
>the Big Evil.  Now add 1 and 1, and make sure you get to 2...

Well now that you have admitted the fact that they are totally 
irrational you can stop pretending that rational policies and gentle 
persuasion are going to go anywhere at all with them.

>  >If you want to object to someone's behavior why don't you object to
>>the Taliban or Bin Ladin.
>
>Of course I do.  I NEVER said or implied otherwise, and implying that
>I would somehow condone such terrorist and psychotic groups is...
>well, insulting, to put it mildly.

Did I imply that?  All thought I did was suggest a more appropriate 
group against whom to lodge your complaints than the one you have 
chosen.

>The only thing I said in my initial post was that US politicians (and
>Bush in particular) seem to adopt the same short-sighted attitude
>that they accuse others of having.

How so?  Has Bush asked people to crash passenger planes into office 
buildings?   The only very specific gripe with any real world basis 
you seem to have is that you don't like the way he talks which under 
the circumstances is really pretty mild.  All the rest is just 
speculation about attitudes that is pretty unjustified since:

>  >Our western European critics bitch and whine about Bush's behavior in
>>this crisis but are very low on specifics regarding what he should be
>>doing different.   Go slow?  He has been.  Investigate?  Being done.
>>Do not act unilaterally but work with other countries to build
>>consensus and coordinate effort?  Being done.  Use all diplomatic
>>channels.  Being done.
>
>I confess that I probably wouldn't know what to do in a situation
>like this either.  However, that's probably one of the reasons I'm
>not a world-leader.

So what exactly are the *actions* to which you are objecting?


>Isn't there something... weird... going on when on the one hand the
>US government conducts peace talks in the middle-east, and at the
>same time provides the bombs that have been terrorising the
>Palestines for some 50 years now?

Not really.  In the real world you can't turn this stuff off like a 
light bulb.  Especially conflicts that have been going on for 1000s 
of years.  Like you said it's bigger than us.

>But don't let _that_ stop you...

As a matter of fact the sick violent fucks who kill each other over 
drugs in the US use uzis and Chinese machine guns but we don't blame 
the Israelis or the Israelis for that either, we blame the people 
shooting each other.
-- 


                                 Dennis Gunn
                                 Mightyjohn@...

                  check out  MIGHTY JOHN HENRY's album "hot air head"
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