Innocent People

We have been hearing a lot lately, both on this forum and on the news, about the U.S. restraining itself so that innocent people are not harmed. This is a goal with which I agree. I do think, however, that we need to take a moment and consider who is innocent and who is not.


If, hypothetically, we were to discover that those responsible for these events were actually a right-wing group based in the US, would bin Laden then be considered an innocent person? Would anyone who works with bin Laden be innocent? Would anyone who helps to conceal his activities be innocent? Would anyone who knows his whereabouts and his contacts, yet chooses not to interfere be innocent? Now consider all those questions in relation to any other terrorist organization you can think of, and then think about them again, this time supposing that bin Laden is shown to be responsible for 9/11. Did any of your answers change? Why should they change?


I don't advocate killing every person who falls under one of the categories listed above, though I do advocate killing some of them, imprisoning many of them, and suitably punishing the rest. This would include removing from power the leaders of any country which has aided terrorists. How can we do any less?

You do what you HAVE to do, no more, and you do it with a heavy heart. You do it to prevent more people to suffer, and you do it to make the world of the future a better world than the world of today. You DO NOT do it "to show them", to take revenge, to punish. You DO NOT do it because "they deserve it". That is what these people are doing, and it's not doing any good. It's hard to be good and take responsibility at the same time, but please don't meet evil with evil and call it good, tapping yourselves on your shoulder for being "good guys fighting the evil guys". It ain't that simple. There's too much evil met with evil met with evil met with.... in this world, like some ping-pong game of hatred. Making the "enemies" pure, only black, evil ENEMIES is of course effective to motivate people, like we saw on 9/11 - these people saw the U.S. and probably the whole western world in that simple light. Otherwise they probably couldn't have done what they did. It's harder if you try and see the world in a more realistic way, if you see that your enemies aren't all bad, that you yourself aren't all good, and that there are reasons for what your enemies do and feel. Maybe even something that YOU did/do to them. It's harder to deal with that, so we tend to simplify: "they are evil cowards", period. It's easier to drop a few bombs and kill a few people than to try to make enemies live in peace and accept each other. Of course there might be a need to resort to some violence, but only if you really, really HAVE TO - if you cannot find another way. And there must be a goal of making things better for the future, not just revenge.

This doesn't change the fact that the avowed purpose of bin-Laden's organization is to kill and destroy us. I'm not talking about good vs. evil here; I'm talking about people in his organization who are so convinced that we are evil and that we must be destroyed that they are willing to die for this goal. Now what should we do, try and reason with these fanatics? Wait for the next deadly and massive attack, which will surely come sooner or later? Or should we try to eliminate the source of the threat?


Feel free to try and talk bin-Laden or other terrorists out of the next attack. In the meantime, let's hope NATO manages to do what is necessary so that he and other terrorist leaders no longer constitute a major threat.

In the Shatner TV series there was an episode where Kirk, Spock, Sarak and Abraham Lincoln fought Colonel Green, Kayliss, Attila the Hun and some other infamous entity.


What was proven is not that there are differences between the ways good and evil fight, but the diferences are in what they're fighting for. Evil is fighting for control of the world through destruction and terror, good is fighting evil using the same tactics and the same treachey but the goals for good are world peace and harmony.


The new line of demarcation does not sparate the old world from the new along some longitude. The new line of demarcation finds peace loving countries on one side and everyone else on the other.


An argument could be made that the peace loving nations of the world are the haves. And the have-nots are not so much against being peace loving but it will have to wait until they have a fair piece of the world. That argument does not hold up because many nations of the world are poor with no hope of ever becaoming world powers but have not been engaged in a war for centuries.

I'm sick of these bleeding heart liberals. America has been lulled to sleep these past few years. The enemy is out there. We must fight terror, with TERROR! If not, our nation will crumble. If a few innocents are killed along the way for the survival of our nation, then so be it.


Is our nation so EVIL, that we deserve to have our own jetliners used against us to kill thousands? I think not. This attack is going to change our way of life. I'm a proud member of the New Jersey Air National Guard, and I've worked my ass off these past few days. I do it unconditionally, for my country, and my freedom.


that is all,


dannyboy :o)

Travis,


I salute your vigilance. Its people like you that afford people like me my freedom. It does concern me that you would be willing to fight terror with terror though. If we do the same and kill purely civilians aren't we just as bad? Though in some cases the ends justify the means I really don't think we will need to crash a plane into their capitol building (if they even represent a country). I personally don't think our nation even in this time of sadness is capable of killing civilians for no other reason then to kill a symbol. We must kill the people who did this act and defend those cowards. We have no reason to sink to their level!


Thank you and your colleagues for defending Americans,


Zach

Of course we shouldn't target innocent civilians. Our country would never stoop that low.


I believe Bin Laden was the culprit behind this massacre. Afghanistan is harboring this fool. Pakistan is two faced. These countries are playgrounds for terrorism. Bush and Powell are giving them a chance to cooperate. Let's see if Pakistan is really serious about humanity.


that is all,


dannyboy :o)

You should try to eliminate the source of the threat, and the source is anger, hatred, injustice, intolerance, poverty and all kinds of complicated things still present in our world. By all means exterminate bin Laden and his organization, and do it without harming innocent people (right...), but see it for what it is, and see yourselves for what you are, and not as the heroes, the good guys. And unless you are able to solve all these other problems there is a good chance that the problem of "terrorists" will remain.

The flaw in your thinking is that the world is always going to be imperfect, and therefore the "causes" will always exist. What makes the difference is that some people accept limits and do what they can in a civilized manner.


Others seek to destroy and leave the civilized no choice but to destroy them.


The difference is that some are good! and others are evil!

There are "good" and "evil" in all of us. At the same time good and evil do not exist at all. And the causes of this kind of violence certainly can be (more or less) eradicated, although it will probably take several hundred years to do so. Thank god people are mortal.

Certainly there is good and evil in all of us, but in this case degree is everything.