take care on 4th of July

One of the prime lessons to learn from the September the 11th incident must be the fact how vulnerable we are. For a very long time the US played it bold on the international scene in the staunch confidence that their (indeed very real) military superiority would protect them from any harm. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the USA thought itself invulnerable to harm. No nation could ever muster the forces to take on the US, no matter what weapon or delivery system they used.

Diplomatically USA is able to apply enough pressure to make sure no rival superpowers with the capability to ever seriously threaten USA could ever form.

But the problem is that Al Qaeda is no nation at all. It is merely a fanatic islamic faction having no base of operation.

In order to safeguard against international terrorism one cannot rely on military might. But what then?

One could be to withdraw totally from the international scene, But that just isn't possible nowadays. (Eventhough many right wing Europeans think so).

The other option would be to make sure that no terrorists could exist to pose a threat. This is not just as simple as to kill all Al Qaeda warriors. Becoming a terrorist must simply not be made a valid choice. This is not done through the official bannings of any kind of terrorism we hear everyone spouting recently.

Rather this must be done by grabbing the evil by it's root. This meaning; to combat the social factors that leads people into terrorism.

One of them is to undo the picture of that grand adversary that have swelled in the minds of many fanatics.

This can omly be done by practicing humility in international dealings instead of trumpeting ones own feeling of cultural superiority.

Still there is also a need to actively work against some of the growing tendencies in the middle east. The hatred and strife as well as overly strong fundamentalist religion. For example by supporting democratic and reform movements. To be able to do such things USA (and the rest of the western world) must be able to acquire the trust of the middle eastern countries and cultures. This cannot be done if the Israel/Palestine situation is allowed to go unchecked.

This, of course, raises a whole other set of problems.

It is accepted that the whole reason for the attacks on the USA, and Sept 11 was only the last in a few years of attacks, others took place abroad, is America's supply of weapons to Israel and it's veto of any UN resolutions against Israel, America cannot try to be the world's peacemaker/policeman when it is so biased in it's handling of the Middle East

Word to that.

Takedown!

There will be trouble from the human rights people as he is a U.S citizen and being treated as an "enemy combatant" with less rights to defence lawyers

There will be trouble from the human rights people as he is a U.S citizen and being treated as an "enemy combatant" with less rights to defence lawyers

Maybe, but what sane-minded person or group would align themselves with a person who is going to be painted as a terrorist and traitor in the media? I don't think even the Hispanic advocacy groups are gonna want to touch this guy.

There were plenty that aligned themselves to Walker's rights, trust me

IMJack said:

Takedown!

ARGH

That guy blinked at me, I swear!

You know what I miss? Weekends filled with boredom. Sometimes I wish I lived in Iowa... unless the terrorists are jealous of our supply of corn, they wouldn't hit there.