On September 11th 2001 America suffered the worst and bloodiest attack in its historyAccording to wikipedia there were "over 4000" American casualties from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The WTC attack was admittedly bad but not the worst.
... defending America, which is under siege both abroad and at home. The other meaning might be that USAmericans aren't universally well-liked or welcomed abroad and might therefore be fearful of venturing outside their own borders. The sad thing is that isolation will only make things worse.
That site is pretty worrying, basically equating Islam (all the disparate groups and factions) with terrorism and stiring up fear and prejudice and I don't see how any of that can possibly be a good thing. Your point that the site seems to ignore or downplay historical cause (at least on one side) is particularly important because everything has its context and can't be understood outside it.
Wow - whilst I completely deplore the site you pointed out, I have to say that I'm impressed with the caliber of your scathing response to it :-) You're absolutely right that history can teach us all we need to know about the motives behind contemporary "terrorism" and indeed the disproportionate responses to it, which usually involves scaremongering, rolling back civil rights and dismantling information privacy laws at home; perpetuation of unlawful occupations, unprovoked attacks and human rights abuses abroad. Despite being "in the firing line" of these so-called terrorists, I just can't get behind any of these anti-terrorism schemes people and governments dream up - almost always the cost on liberty is too high to be worth it. Maybe I have the luxury of spewing this sort of peacetime sass because my life is always relatively safe, but then again I think it's always better to be critical of things than to blindly support them
( ... )
Incisive view as always Kate re necons
anonymous
August 14 2007, 09:44:03 UTC
Kate, as you know, I agree with you almost all of the time, unfortunately we Americans have brought terrorism on ourselves with our oppressive, undemocratic foreign policy. My only quibble would be that this goes back far longer than Clinton. However I still don't think this justifies 9-11, but it does help to explain it. But you are absolutely right about the US as occupier of Iraq. And you are right that rather than setting the record straight that occupation can lead to no good but the real question is how do we turn it around so that we are all more secure and especially friends like Kate.
Comments 4
Reply
... defending America, which is under siege both abroad and at home.
The other meaning might be that USAmericans aren't universally well-liked or welcomed abroad and might therefore be fearful of venturing outside their own borders. The sad thing is that isolation will only make things worse.
That site is pretty worrying, basically equating Islam (all the disparate groups and factions) with terrorism and stiring up fear and prejudice and I don't see how any of that can possibly be a good thing. Your point that the site seems to ignore or downplay historical cause (at least on one side) is particularly important because everything has its context and can't be understood outside it.
Reply
Reply
Frankie Siena
Reply
Leave a comment