The Logic Off Topic list

Thoughts from the mind of Dennis Gunn, 9/25/01:

>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.
>
>[longish post deleted, generally drawing the following conclusion:]
>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?

I don't get what your problem is.  I never anywhere disagreed with 
any of the points you make.  Sure bin Laden is a madman, sure the 
Taliban are equally crazy.  Of course the US have every reason to 
want to catch bin Laden.  Of course I'm glad the US up till now have 
exhibited the wisdom to not drop bombs someplace indiscriminately. 
Et cetera.  The only thing I have a problem with is the "dead or 
alive" part -- not because a dead bin Laden would be a bad thing per 
se, but for reasons having to do with hollow rethorics and demagogic 
use of language, esp. when it comes from the leader of a superpower 
like the US.

Please quote me on any of these points, and prove me wrong...

One of the things I objected to was the fact that very soon (i.e. 
from day one) bin Laden was publicized to sort-of be the devil 
incarnate (maybe true) and the obvious mastermind behind the WTC 
attack (at that point in time still just a conjecture and not much 
more).
Sure I know he's been the no.1 on the most wanted list for some time. 
I fully understand the US wants to grab him -- but they've probably 
wanted that even _before_ the WTC attack (otherwise he wouldn't be 
no.1, right?).  But apparently the embassy and the marine-ship 
attacks weren't sufficient to launch any large scale action aginst 
him...  And then there's the WTC-attack, and all of a sudden there 
_is_ sufficient reason to cry out for war, etc, etc.  Even when it's 
not yet clear that this same bin Laden was behind it.  Sorry, but I 
find that weird and somewhat inconsistent.
Just suppose... what if the WTC-attack was carried out by a small 
group of independent individuals, now all dead with their planes?  It 
wasn't that hard to do, apparently, so the fuzz about "big 
organisation & loads of money" is just crap.  Then what?
Sure, still sufficient reason to want to catch bin Laden, but then it 
has nothing to do with the WTC-attack...

The fact that now it has become clear (?) that indeed there is rather 
compelling evidence connecting bin Laden to the WTC is only a recent 
development.  When Bush cried out for war, dead or alive, etc, (and 
when I wrote my 1st letter) this was all still just speculation.  In 
fact, multiple clues to the WTC attack had been found which were not 
connected to bin Laden at all.

In short: fine if the US wants to catch whichever criminal 
mastermind.  I never objected to that.  I objected to the false 
rethorics and the bullshit cowboy-talk.  I objected to the fact that 
an entire people was threatened before anything was proven.
And, as you say later, of course it's mainly the Taliban attitude 
that got the Afghans running (as I alraedy admitted in an earlier 
post), but, knowing how completely out of their mind the Taliban are, 
their reaction could have been predicted.  And thus the one provoking 
the reaction also carries a part of the guilt.  If I tell a parent 
that his child came to me, crying because he had been abused, and 
then tell him to stop abusing his child, guess what will happen?  The 
(obviously psychotic) parent will probably beat the crap out of the 
child.  Only the parents fault?  No.

>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.

Nothing.  I never said it was.  Again: please quote me saying otherwise.

However, you leave out a bit.  The _really_ first thing Bush did was 
not to request the Taliban anything.  The first thing he did, when 
nothing was sure yet about who destroyed the WTC, was to use very 
simple demagogic language.  I explained this earlier and will not 
repeat the argument.

>Please tell me what he could have done better or different.  Remember you
>must make your proposal realistic.

"Must"?  Says who?  Anyway, the thing I keep re-iterating over and 
over, and which seems to be a very difficult point to grasp is: Bush 
should have refrained from using hollow demagogy.  *In the context of 
the WTC-attack*, asking Afghanistan to hand over bin Laden was 
pointless (and damaging) until Bush could come up with concrete 
evidence -- which he _then_ couldn't.  Prioirity no.1 should be: find 
whoever attacked the WTC.  And not: find bin Laden.  If both now seem 
to coincide: fine.  But that relationship was not altogether clear at 
the time Bush first contacted Afghanistan, displayed his demagogic 
powers, or at the time I wrote my 1st message.

>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.

No, you got the chronology backward.  The Afghans started fleeing 
almost as soon as Bush gave his first public speeches ("smoke them 
out of their holes", "dead or alive", etc.).  The fact that from day 
1 bin Laden was mentioned as the most likely suspect, made it obvious 
for all the world that all Bush's threats were most likely directed 
to Afghanistan.

>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 really do hope you're not a psychiater to whom people trust their souls...

I (once more) explained my view on "shared responsibility" above.  I 
explained this earlier.  Of course Bush is not the _only_ one 
responsible.  I never said he was.  Knowing in advance the Taliban 
are mad, and being able to predict they would respond with "blood & 
holy war", he _does_ share responsibility.

>No matter what Bush does the assumption is made that whatever is 
>going wrong is his fault.

I never made such a ridiculous assumption.

>  >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.

Oh, really...

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

Yeah... as I wrote earlier: fell free to send a few guys over to 
educate the completely uneducated, ill-informed, under-developed, 
blind and prejudiced masses of Western Europe.

Of course in principle you're right.  Numbers don't make truth.  But 
in some cases numbers should get you thinking.  Especially when these 
'numbers' are not just a bunch of John Doe's, but contain e.g. 
well-educated historians, well-informed people who spent years in the 
US, etc.
Theoretically they may all be wrong, but simply disregarding the 
opinion of millions as "stupid" or "ill-informed" says more about 
yourself than about these people.

The fact that quite a lot of people are critical about the way the US 
tends to go about in its foreign policy, doesn't _automatically_ make 
them all fools, just because they disagree with _you_.


cheers,
HJ
-- 
     Hendrik Jan Veenstra
     email: mailto:h@...
     www:   http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html