[Nettime-bold] RE: <nettime> AUSTIN AGAINST WAR

["Andrew Hughes" <ahughes@mtco.com>]

Your stand [Austin Against War] on preventing racism and the protection of our
civil liberties is indeed admirable.  But you seem to lack any stand on exactly
how we should respond to mass murder on our doorstep.  Let's take it as a given
that the US has been involved in and/or backed ridiculous groups and ideologies
in the past.  That will no doubt continue (and should continue to be protested),
being as you can't please all the people all the time.  However, is there any
reason we shouldn't remove Bin Laden, with all due effort to avoid civilian
Afghani casualties?  The Taliban, as it stands today, is mulling over turning
him over to us.  I doubt they'll do this, or even that they have the ability to.
But according to most sources, the Taliban is no great bastion of Human Rights
or peace-bearers either.

My point is this: even if the US begged for this treatment through its past
actions (which I strongly disagree with), do we as a country roll over and give
in to these actions taken by a group recognized by the overwhelming majority (of
the world and practitioners of Islam) as fanatics and extremists?  Does that not
remove our ability to ever improve?  We can't become a loving charitable nation
if all our money is spent constantly RE-acting to the attacks of others who have
no redeeming agenda for the world at large.  We have a responsibility, as one of
the few countries with the money, power, or simply clout, to try and reduce the
threat from people who simply don't choose to air their grievances in a less
destructive manner.  We also have a responsibility to clean up the messes we
create and try to be as precise in our methods as possible (collateral damage is
a lousy phrase).  We rebuilt Japan, Germany, and various other countries, and
should be ready to help Afghanistan in the same manner.  Build some mosques,
some schools, and maybe some general goodwill in the process, and take away a
frightful presence in their society.  I tend to feel the Taliban is no better
than bin Laden, but we should deal with one monster at a time.

As to the US creating bin Laden, it was in response to the Soviets invasion of
Afghanistan.  We taught and equipped him to fight back (if I'm wrong, correct
me).  He was thrilled to get our support when it suited his purposes.  Now his
purposes have changed, he's decided that blood-filled fanaticism is a good way
to advance his cause, and we've got the bulls eye painted on us.

I hope we get to him in a bloodless hand-off from the Taliban. After what
happened Tuesday, anything's possible.

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
     andrew hughes
      code monkey
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