The Logic Off Topic list

At 10:08 PM +0200 9/24/01, Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
>If we start nitpicking...  the 'disgust' as you call it (although I
>think it was 'annoyance') was directed to the _fact_ that Bush's
>threats to an as yet not-proven guilty party and in particular his
>supposed 'hosts' have led to massive streams of refugees leaving
>their homes.

And if you want to stick to the point.  The reason there has been 
such a strong reaction to this is due to the fact that this is a 
totally irrational and unfair assessment.

1.  The investigators in this case claim to have evidence of bin 
Ladens involvement but *whether it is known for certain or not that 
he is the culprit in this case* even you admit that bin Laden is 
behind numerous terrorist killing of US citizens.  His own video 
tapes indicate that.  Right?

2.  Bin Laden's own video tapes also indicate that he believes that 
people on the side of God should just go right on killing Americans 
where ever they can be found and whenever there is a chance.  So he 
could not possibly pose clearer and more serious threat to the US. 
Right?

3.  Bin Laden's hosts the Taliban are not unaware of any of this and 
yet they allow him to live and operate within their borders and until 
last couple of days have not even pretended not to know where he is 
or what was doing.   Whether or not the Taliban are making war on the 
US, bin Laden and his group clearly are.  For a country's leadership 
to allow a group of people within their borders to freely make war on 
another country would traditionally  generally be considered an act 
war.  Is this not correct Hendrik?

4.  When you have an armed group of people who have killed your 
people and are promising to kill more the first priority is to 
apprehend them and make them stop.  Right?

5.  If that group of people happen to be suicidal religious zealots 
there is no reason to believe that they will not be trying to kill 
you even harder than you will be trying to apprehend them so however 
much you may want to take them alive it is not altogether unlikely 
taking them alive will be impossible.  In fact it is going to be 
pretty damned unlikely that you can take them alive.  Right?  You do 
remember we are talking about training camps for suicide bombers here 
don't you Hendrik?

When trying to apprehend a religious zealot who is making war on your 
people and has already succeeded in killing large numbers of them 
"dead or alive" under these circumstances is common sense.  How else 
could it be done Hendrik?

The first thing bush did in this instance was to publicly call for 
the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.  The second thing was to ask the 
Pakistani's to negotiate with the Taliban to turn him over.  Can you 
tell me what was unreasonable about either of these requests.  Please 
tell me what he could have done better or different.  Remember you 
must make your proposal realistic.

The Taliban's reaction was to say that they would defend bin Laden 
with the last drop of Afghan blood.  *That* was when the Afghans 
started fleeing.

Given the circumstances it is a pretty twisted point of view that 
blames Bush for the fleeing Afghanis.  And when an otherwise 
apparently rational person sticks to such an irrational point of view 
it looks a lot like hate.  That's why it is perceived that way by 
many Americans who read what you have written.  I have the same 
impression and further have the impression that perhaps you do hate 
us and even you are not aware of it.

I do not share GA Moore's apparent belief that the US is right in all 
things.  But I think the handling of this incident has been pretty 
good and the mindless finger pointing pisses me off in view of the 
magnitude of the tragedy.   No matter what Bush does the assumption 
is made that whatever is going wrong is his fault.   That is 
basically a sign of hatred.  It is the Taliban who have been doing a 
very war like thing to the US by putting up bin Laden for as long as 
they have and the US has been remarkably patient with them and has 
been responding very slowly to some rather incredible provocation 
that has been going on since *long before* this incident. I have no 
idea how much of this information reaches the Afghanis or in what 
form but it is the potential consequences of the actions of bin Laden 
their leaders that is scaring them.   And they should be scared.  It 
is reasonable to be scared when the leadership of your country commit 
what are basically acts of war on a country with a vastly superior 
military force.  I guess if some German Christian fundamentalists 
freely operating within Belgium bombed the Kremlin and the Belgian 
authorities said that they would defend the fundamentalists with the 
last drop of Belgian blood, the Belgian populace might get a little 
nervous too.

Again your blame is irrationally misdirected and highly unfair.  Why 
that is I do not know but that is the reason it is perceived as hate.


>If I watch TV (Dutch, Belgian, German, and English) to follow
>discussions related to the WTC attack, or if I read my daily incoming
>private mail, or if I read the OT list... then I don't see why I
>should feel I'm the _only_ one with principles and morals.  For some
>odd reason, my view seems to be the view of many, many people on the
>planet.

Lots of people think the world is 6000 years old and that evolution 
is a hoax.  They also think that there was a flood a few thousand 
years ago that covered the entire world and the highest mountain tops 
were submerged.

Just because a lot of people share these ideas does that make them 
any more feasible to you?

A lot of people are scared and want to appease.  That may be natural 
but that does not make it wise and the numbers who feel that way 
don't make it wise either.
-- 


                                 Dennis Gunn
                                 Mightyjohn@...

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