The Logic Off Topic list

Sorry if this even is a bit late reply, but after reading this article (that
Kool Musick posted):
> http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1,,2001354259,00.html
(and other related ones) there's just one thing which comes to my mind:
Either Mr. Guliani comes up with some deepest apologies or he needs to be
fired immediately.
His reaction is so dumb that I had a hard time to believe it.
To me it seems to be quite obvious that the prince didn't have any
justification for the WTC in mind but was rather shocked about what happened
there (apparently something everybody visiting "ground zero" is
experiencing).
It's again obvious that he's one of the last persons wanting to destroy the
US or hurting worldwide economics - just look at his profile, how he raised,
was educated and in what kinda projects he invested his money to.
So for me it was really a noble gesture.

And then, what in the world is wrong with a statement like the prince's one:
"At times like this one we must address some of the issues that led to such
a criminal attack. I believe the Government of the United States of America
should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced
stance toward the Palestinian cause."

What has such a statement to do with any justification of terrorist attacks
or with looking for a "moral equivalent for this attack" (which supposedly
is what Guliani answered)?

I don't want to talk about any concrete reasons for the WTC attacks (they
may most likely be the result of some f***ed up mind) but about the climate
that leads to all that terrorism.
While reducing it to the palestinian/isreal cause IMO wouldn't cut it, this
might be a good example though.
There's simply not much of an understanding between cultures and religions
on both sides. The palestinian/irael cause perfectly demonstrate where this
leads to. One terroristic attack results in the next one of the opposite
side (and yes, I actually DO think that what the israelis do is nothing else
but terrorism, just that they have an option to mask it as some sort of
state defense, something the palestinians can't do).
Now we're experiencing exactly the same in a much more global way.

For whatever reasons (I may have an idea why, but I won't share my thoughts
here because I'm really tired of these discussions) the US has become a
prominent target for terrorist attacks.
Now they are striking back, but what's the result of that? Innocent people
will be (and allready have been) killed while there's NO CHANCE AT ALL to
stop terrorism with it. We can allready see that. All over the islamic world
people start to demonstrate against the Afghanistan attacks. Pakistan might
be a good example - while a few weeks ago there were only a couple of
hundreds of hardliners sympathizing with the Taliban it's now thousands of
people, their amount is raising every day.
Look at Palestina vs. Israel, a perfect example to learn from (not that the
US government seems to have learned from that so far...), escalation will be
the result.

Also, the terrorists allready started to strike back (I doubt it that all
the Anthrax attacks were only random, IMO they are just some early sign of
something bigger happening the next days/weeks/months). Even if the US will
get bin Laden relatively fast, will that stop any terrorism at all?
Certainly not, again, just look at israel - again escalation will be the
result.

Thinking that one could stop terrorism with such methods is simply dumb and
nothing else. While I would have agreed that it would be ok to get bin Laden
out of Afghanistan, using some special forces or whatever (even if I doubt
that would've been possible at all - but it's not possible in any other way
either...), I don't think it would have any major impact to terrorism in
general, more like the opposite (did I mention escalation?). There's just
too many people following him or any other terroristic organisation - and
(which makes the current war even worse), as we can allready see, bin Laden
now has even more people sympathizing with him than before the attacks
against Afghanistan. All over the islamic world.

IMO the ONLY way to get away from all that in some long-term solution would
be to open up a dialogue between the western and islamic worlds.
The western world (especially the US) HAS to learn why there's so much hate
in islamic countries (one of the reasons might be the behaviour towards the
palestinians, another might be the military presence in Saudi Arabia, and so
on, there's numerous reasons for sure) while the islamic world HAS to learn
why we (the western countries) often find them - hmmm - let's say "weird".
After all, communication is the key to this. Communication AND respecting
others.

This brings me back to the top: The prince's gesture IMO was a CHANCE to
start some communication but that idiot Guliani simply didn't seem to know
whom he was talking with (look up the prince's profile and you'll know what
I'm talking about).
Leaving out such a chance is not acceptable for the major of one of the most
important western world cities. Surely, if the prince had any prejudices
against the US, Guliani did the best to burn them in by acting like a
5-yearold pissed of kid rather than like a politician being responsible for
what he's doing (uhm, are there ANY politicians like that?). The very best
example how some possible start into some communication could be killed
right in the first place.
As said, this guy needs to be fired.

Btw, I just had another good laugh (well, more something of an evil laugh)
when seeing what the care packets the US forces are throwing over
Afghanistan look like - peanut butter and marmelade surely is what starving
people need in the first place... as you can imagine, the international help
organisations perfectly agreed on that. So much about "human help".

Sascha