The Logic Off Topic list

At 1:10 AM +1000 10/12/01, Spectro wrote:
>Dennis Gunn <mightyjohn@...> wrote:
>
>>Not buying this for an instant. Territorial and environmental are
>  >two different things.
>
>Only when viewed in a political and economic sense. What is
>territory if nothing more than a 'claim' to an environment?

No it is a claim to a territory.  The environment of that territory 
may or may not be a factor.  Quite often it is not.

>  >Giving the terrorists environmentalist motives  is pure attribution.
>
>The following is taken from an article which is based on a letter
>sent  to Al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arabic newspaper published in
>London entitled "Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad
>against the Jews and the Crusaders" and can be viewed at:
>
>http://www.foreignaffairs.org/Search/document_briefings.asp?i=19981101facomment1
>428.xml
>
>"Since God laid down the Arabian peninsula, created its desert,
>and surrounded it with its seas, no calamity has ever befallen
>it like these Crusader hosts that have spread in it like locusts,
>crowding its soil, eating its fruits, and destroying its verdure;
>  and this at a time when the nations contend against the Muslims
>like diners jostling around a bowl of food."

Are there really crusader hosts crowding in the soil?   Show me one. 
Its just racist rhetoric.  It can't be taken literally because it 
would not make sense. AFAIK the area does not have a significant 
agricultural export economy so the "fruits" they would seem to be 
referring to would be their oil and when they are not bitching about 
how evil we are they are not opposed to selling us as much of that as 
they can.  They get tons of money for it and if they were concerned 
about their ecology they could use the money to make the dessert 
bloom.  As a matter of fact in some places that is exactly what they 
do do with the money they get for their oil so the fact of the matter 
is we are probably helping their ecology more than hurting it.

Like I said if they were truly environmentalists they would have been 
offended by Hussien burning the Kuwaiti oil field and dumping all the 
oil into the gulf.

>These are motives. And they are describing  a territorial
>invasion as an environmental catastrophe. And after selected
>passages of the Q'ran which open the procalamation, they are the
>first composed words of that letter.
>
>>Unwise in the extreme.  I would never attribute
>>one of my values to a terrorist.
>
>Arrogant in the extreme.

Is it arrogant to say that you do not share the values of a terrorist 
and do not want their actions associated with your values?  OK then 
I'm arrogant.  So shoot me.

>In any case, whatever values you
>do or do not attribute to a terrorist won't make any difference
>to their truths.  And obviously vice versa. And if and while these
>statements are both true, concilliation of any sort will never be a
>possiblity and that I suspect is really bad news for all of us...

Is conciliation with terrorists a good idea?  Is it good to have 
people think that is the way to get the conciliations they want?

>  >It would not make me look good.
>
>Is that the real problem? We're past that. Or should be.

Terrorism is a symbolic act.  Perceptions *are* important sometimes.

>  >And further why would one want to assign them virtues they don't even
>>claim for themselves.   Foolish and ghoulish.
>
>See Above.

I did.  It was symbolic rather than literal language otherwise it 
just did not make sense.

>You seem to persist in targeting every perceived flaw in my
>responses to your provocations.

*My* provocations?   Anyway not every flaw is getting targeted, I 
would not have time.


>  Rather selectively, as if in order
>to confirm your obvious suspicions that I am a terrorist apologist
>and/or strongly Anti-American or just 'ghoulish'. Well I am sorry
>to disappoint you but I am none of those,  though I am seriously
>wondering who the one with the agenda is.

I am just saying exactly what I mean.  When you attribute your 
motives to a terrorist you imply that the terrorist was striking a 
blow for your cause and that in your opinion the terrorist was 
justified in some small degree.  I am not willing to give them that. 
I am not willing to recognize any agenda promoted in that way.  And 
just as I do not want terrorists promoting my causes I do not 
appreciate anyone associating a cause I agree with terrorists.
-- 


                                 Dennis Gunn
                                 Mightyjohn@...

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