[lit-ideas] Re: A Movie [longish]
- From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:54:35 +0100
Simon Says: Just how many would that be?
The 300 million is not MY number. Perhaps I should have taken my own
advice and quoted. I'm sorry, but I've heard that between 10-20% of
muslims are what Ireney would term "radical". Since there are something
like 1.2-1.3 billion, some people were putting the top possible as "as
many as 300 million". Of course I'm not advocating the mass slaughter of
300 million people. Don't be silly.
I won't be silly if you won't. Yet it disturbs me how numbers that someone
'has heard' somehow get turned into hard fats that are used to create
policies. Where did you hear about the 10 - 20 per cent (I love specific
numbers).
And when you say:
"I am simply saying that our only response is to kill every last one of them
BECAUSE they want to kill us and BEFORE they kill us."
You didn't actually mean that we should kill them.
What you should be concerned with is not the inciters (we have enough of
those in the west), but rather why it is that the rest would feel the need
to listen to them and take them seriously. To my mind, that 'why' is
concerned with how the west is perceived which in turn is shaped by how
the west acts.
That's interesting too: the psychological necessity for half the western
democracies' populations to look inwardly and say "we MUST have deserved
this hatred... because why else would they hate us?" I thought myself one
of those people, but my inclination has been tipping towards "no, they
just hate us because they are bred to hate." I don't think the "WEST" has
done anything even approaching what they propose to do and evidently would
do if they had the wherewithal to do it. And I'm not even pissed off about
the terrorist attacks. Of course they are horrible and when hundreds and
thousands of "innocent" people die, it's bad, but it's not that they have
bombed, NY, D.C., London, Spain, Bali, Morocco, Israel etc. etc. it's
their obvious, concerted effort to continue and never surrender no matter
what we do. For some reason, they have made up their minds to kill us all.
I can't think of a single act, or even a group of acts that 'the west' has
perpetrated that could warrant that kind of retributive fervor. It'd be
very easy to see if it were true, we accede to all their demands and then
see if they keep boming the shit out of us. My bet is that they might take
it easy for a while, but then they would resume. Another little
'experiment' would be to give them a nuclear weapon... then when they use
it, we would at least have 'just cause'. Really, I'm not fooling here...
at least I'm trying to think of a solution. We can't go on like this. If
nothing else, the whole world is going to die of PTSD donchaknow!!!
And I really thought you had sense Paul. Or are you going to say next that
you didn't really mean that we should give them nuclear weapons.
It comes back to whether you believe, as a result of US and UK actions
after 9/11, the number of muslim fundamentalists has grown or subsided.
Though I can't know myself, I would imagine that of all those people
arrested this morning, the vast majority would never have dreamt of taking
part in such a plan before 9/11
So... let's get this straight, 19 terrorists blow up downtown newyork and
kill 3000 people living their daily life and it's The West's fault that
there are MORE fundies? All the more reason to hit back harder, faster.
My VERY FIRST thought on Tues, Sept 11 at 9:15 when, for some reason I
turned on CNN was "Oh, man, someone is going to get their ass kicked." But
it never happened. It's too bad. Early detection, early response.
Try reading rather than reacting.
or before the Iraqi invasion.
This makes much more sense, since at least The West DID perpetrate that.
Indeed.
Simon
Now heading off to get pissed...
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