From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Mon Aug 12 2002 - 13:53:49 MDT
Read it, but read it with suspicion. It contains gems like the following http://www.msnbc.com/news/639242.asp?0sp=w17b10which would be hilarious if they weren't tragic:
"And none but a fool would say, as the novelist Alice Walker did in The Village Voice, that “the only punishment that works is love.” We’ve tried turning the other cheek. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing we held our fire and treated the attack as a law-enforcement matter. The terrorists struck again anyway. This time the Munich analogy is right: appeasement is doomed."
Ask how the author knows that e.g.(my suggested answers in parenthesis):
Police work did not reduce the number of attacks? (It is the only strategy that has)
Attacks would not occur again anyway no matter what action is taken or not taken? (They will)
That some significant number of attacks will be orevented by war? (They won't be)
That a war which will undoubtedly kill the uninvolved, will not create more anger and frustration leading to more, or more desperate, or both, attacks? (It probably will).
and
"Al Qaeda was planning its attack at exactly the time the United States was offering a Mideast peace deal favorable to the Palestinians."
While reading it, bear in mind that the "favorable peace deal" means, essentially- "You have lost your land, you have lost your dignity, you have lost your rights, you have lost your security, you have lost the protections placed by the world against war crimes and genocide, you have lost all hope of redress. Accept what we offer from the "generosity of our hearts", or we will continue to oppress and kill you until you are dead, exiled or accept what crumbs drop from our table."
If you read the article, line by line, checking the assumptions, it makes for interesting and educational reading - though I'm not sure how "well worth reading" it is unless you are prepared to challenge it.
Kind Regards
Hermit
PS Joe, did you notice that it contains "The Quran is a vast, vague book, filled with poetry and contradictions (much like the Bible). You can find in it condemnations of war and incitements to struggle, beautiful expressions of tolerance and stern strictures against unbelievers. Quotations from it usually tell us more about the person who selected the passages than about Islam. Every religion is compatible with the best and the worst of humankind."
I recall you once disagreeing with this position. Of course, it continues, "Through its long history, Christianity has supported inquisitions and anti-Semitism, but also human rights and social welfare." and I think that that statement could easily be challenged. They would have done better to leave it at "all religions can be shown to be approximately equally harmful."
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26066>
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