Poll results

I saw on television a poll that shows over 60% of Americans would support military action in response to this terrorism even if we were sure that innocent people in other countries would be killed. Is this what we want? We would be as bad as the terrorists...they certainly have their grievances against us and took it out on innocent people? Do we really need to do the same?


What I fear the most is that we will become a beacon for terrorist attacks like the Mideast. We certainly don't need to provoke this by reacting incorrectly to this. Punish the guilty and protect the innocent...that's the American way. And I feel it's moral to apply this to folks who aren't American as well.


Thoughts on this?


BTW I'm perfectly aware that innocent people will often get killed in legitimate exercises...but there's a difference between unintended collateral damage and initiating attacks with no regard for civilian life.

We should not allow ourselves to adopt the immorality of the terrorists. Again, I point out the World War II began with President Roosevelt pleading with the adversaries to refrain from killing civilians, and ended with the U.S. firebombing every Japanese city, except for Kyoto and the two that were saved for a different type of hell.


It's difficult to talk of morality when you're fighting a war, but not impossible to distinguish right from wrong.

***BTW I'm perfectly aware that innocent people will often get killed in legitimate exercises...but there's a difference between


unintended collateral damage and initiating attacks with no regard for civilian life. ***


I have two comments here. One is that many of the people who selected this response to the poll may have been thinking of exactly what you mention, that is, they probably believed that it was more important to eliminate the terrorists responsible than it was to ensure there was absolutely no collateral damage. There may be some people in favor of senselessly slaughtering innocent people, but they are far in the minority, and are clearly wrong.


My second comment is that people keep saying things like, "We have to make sure it was bin Laden before we go kill him, so we don't the wrong guy." I personally don't care. Even if bin Laden wasn't responsible for this tragedy, he was responsible for others, and he could be responsible for more in the future. He needs to be found and killed regardless of whether this was his fault. That goes for any other known terrorists, regardless of their culpability in this matter. Terrorists are, by definition, not innocent people.

There is no comparison in scale between what has been done to us and anything done in the history of the activity, which is traceable to the Algerians' (successful) efforts to oust the French from their homeland beginning in the early fifties. Yes, "collateral" casualties ARE acceptable. Ben Laden, all his lieutenants, and the heads of any governments who have helped him must be ushered onto paradise.

There is no dobt that the atomic bomb is a horrible terrible weapon but it was neccessary to safe guard american lives. Would you rather we had a long drawn out conflict where we invaded Japan and took it hill by hill? The loss of american lives would have been hideous and produced the same end result. Like it or not americans care about american lives more than they care about Japanese or Afghanistanian lives. How many people would you kill to protect your family and friends? We have to protect our people and we have to make sure this never happens again. I agree with you that we need to kill the terrorists and not the innocents. Only time will tell whether an entire nation will back these dispicable people and launch us into a war...


Zach

There has been a long debate over the necessity of the atomic bombings. Truman flat out lied when he claimed, at various times, that they saved half a million or one million or two million lives. There is no question an invasion of Japan would have cost many lives, but no military leader ever estimated anything remotely close to those numbers.


I've done a lot of reading about it; I'm just an interested citizen, not a military expert. There seems to me to be no question that 1) an element of racism entered into the decision (Truman wrote that when you deal with beasts you have to treat them as beasts); 2) the fact that Russia had, as promised, declared war on Japan, caused us to want to get things over with before they had any influence in Asia; 3) the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki was completely unnecessary to end the war (the necesssity for the first dropped on Hiroshima is somewhat less easy to question, but only somewhat); 4) a moderation of our demand for unconditional surrender might have yielded a Japanese surrender more quickly and painlessly; and 5) general considerations about the nature of the post-war world and our place in it figured into our leaders' thinking about dropping the bombs.


But my point in bringing this up was that it becomes very easy when a country is at war or enraged or both to lose sight of the fact that in trying to defeat a vicious enemy, we might well end up doing the same things they do, for example, killing innocent civilians. Remember the soldier in Vietnam, who, while burning down a village hut, told us that in order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it?


Would I kill to protect my family and friends? Of course. Would I kill several innocent people who were "in the way" of someone who was threatening my friends and family? Much more difficult problem.


The terrorists say that the ends justify the means. We make value judgments about which ends are indeed justifiable. My point is that the mindset that claims we are good and they are evil and that god is on our side produces skewed judgments about which ends do justify which means. Ronald Reagan claimed that the contras were the moral equivalents to our Founding Fathers. Thus many of their atrocities were not viewed as reprehensible because of this mindset.


The stakes are huge right now. Let's defeat the monsters, not imitate them.

Would I kill to protect my family and friends? Of course. Would I kill several innocent people who were "in the way" of someone who was threatening my friends and family? Much more difficult problem.


Lets expand on this analogy. You family is on one end of a gymnasium and you are on the other with an Uzi. Enter terrorist stage left. What would you do? Personally I would unload on the terrorists knowing that I may accidentally hit some people. I would mourn them but I would feel justified for saving my family. I honestly think that this situation is just as dire as my example. My girlfriend of 2 years and friend of 6 years missed being in New York while this happened by 2 days. I understand that this could have killed some of my family. It is necessary to conduct our selves in a honorable manner but not at the expense of justice.


Zach


P.S.- God is not on our side the American people are. And Ronald Reagan was an idiot.