[Austin-ghetto-list] Re: Time to bomb the Saudis? Maybe so.

[telebob x]

Well Roger...perhaps your sardonic analysis predicts more than you know.

I do not think I have ever seen a time when the struggle between the ideals 
of 'christian love' or humanism have been so starkly juxtaposed against the 
realities of Machiavelli or, if you will, even  B.F. Skinner. Can we admit 
to an evil that will have such a high price to eliminate?

The question we should all be asking is how much 'force' are we willing to 
use to assure a world in which civilized people can live?  Idealists say 
that 'love conquers all' but obviously those who espouse this response never 
dealt much with those who are pathologically unresponsive to such 'love' and 
only interpret kindness or fairness as a kind of stupid weakness.

We are not now in the position of 'destroying the village in order to save 
it'...but we may well be in the position of destroying the village in order 
to have a world we can live in without constant fear of destruction and 
attack. This very tough moral arithmetic.

There is going to be some very unpleasant stuff coming, and there will be 
many of us who will not be able to either forgive or understand it. But 
remember, it is the terrorists and their sympathizers who cannot tolerate 
us, not the other way around.

Osama bin Laden may just get the holy war he has asked for.  And then again 
maybe not. But if 'we' believe in justice then we are going to have to 
pursue this justice with force. Without it, there can be no future peace, 
not that peace will ever be assured.

If you like, we can take a detour as to what makes up 'justice'...but I 
think we all have some ideas about that.  What has happened is dark and evil 
and  comes from hearts deeply dedicated to ending the 'civilized world as we 
know it.'

So which side are you on Roger?  I think we all are going to have to make 
that decision soon enough. Eggs will be broken for sure, but there is no 
guarantee we will get mayonnaise.  But we should be thinking about what will 
happen if some form of negative reinforcement is not brought on the 
psychopaths who attacked us all.  It is not a world I wish to contemplate 
living in.

As the guy said on Flight 93 when he and his friends went after the 
hijackers..."let's roll."

I do not want anyone to ever wonder which side of this issue I am on...

Telebob

"I'm in love with the modern world..." Jonathan Richmond

telebob@hotmail.com
00 506 224 4858 Costa Rica
512 440 1862 Austin, TX

"Intolerance will not be tolerated"

>From: Roger Baker <rcbaker@infohiwy.net>
>Reply-To: rcbaker@eden.infohwy.com
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: [Austin-ghetto-list] Time to bomb the Saudis?
>Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:06:29 -0500
>
>Talk about ingratitude! Here we keep buying all that oil from the Saudis
>and now they don't even want us to use their airbases to launch bombing
>raids against the Taliban so we can teach the guys who did it that it
>doesn't pay to mess around with a superpower.
>
>And like GWBush says, we have to look at the world in terms of whether
>they're on our side or not and it looks like the Saudis are lining up on
>the wrong side and holding up our war against terrorism just because the
>Saudi kings and princes have started listening to a few terribly
>misinformed Saudi Islamic fundamentalists preaching religious stuff that
>is obviously way out of date in the modern world because -- DUH! -- they
>didn't even have any air bases when they wrote the Koran!!!
>
>And like Bush says, this is a crusade, and we know who did it and its
>time to bomb the Afghani terrorists even further back into the stone age
>than the Soviets did, and just like they did to us first. And anyway, a
>few demonstation strikes on somewhere that gets their attention real
>good like on Mecca, and just like that Saudi devil Osama
>bin-whats-his-name did to us, might convince all those Arabs and the
>Islamic fellow travellers to sell us oil even cheaper than now. You
>gotta break a few eggs to make a mayonnaise, right? No bombs, no respect.
>
>               *****************************************
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6731-2001Sep21.html
>
>
>
>"Saudis Balk At Use of Key Facility
>
>By Vernon Loeb and Dana Priest
>
>Washington Post Staff Writers
>
>Saturday, September 22, 2001; Page A01
>
>Saudi Arabia is resisting the United States' request to use a new
>command center on a Saudi military base in any air war against
>terrorists, forcing Pentagon planners to consider alternatives that
>could delay a campaign for weeks, defense officials said yesterday.
>
>Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is trying to persuade the Saudi
>government to reverse a decade-old policy in which it has refused to
>allow the United States to stage or command offensive air operations
>from Saudi air bases, officials said.
>While high-level talks aimed at resolving the matter are underway, the
>Pentagon is already considering moving the operations center to another
>country, the officials added. They did not specify where.
>
>A refusal by the Saudis would deal a significant blow to the Bush
>administration's efforts to build a broad international coalition in its
>effort to destroy the terrorist network of Saudi extremist Osama bin
>Laden and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, which has harbored bin
>Laden and many of his top lieutenants.
>
>The Pentagon had been counting on using the command center at Prince
>Sultan Air Base in the coming air war. Besides delaying any operation,
>Saudi unwillingness to allow the United Sates to use Saudi bases for
>offensive operations could send a strong signal to the Arab world that
>accepting Washington's demands is not a prerequisite for ongoing
>relations with Washington..."
>


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