[lit-ideas] Re: Europe's September 11 ?
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:01:12 -0800 (PST)
--- Scribe1865@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> Omar, hi to you too. I meant really terrible
> measures. The (by comparison)
> polite, media-friendly actions in Iraq and
> Afghanistan were not what I had in
> mind. Iraq and Afghanistan were leisurely, not
> desperate actions.
*I think you are confusing representation and reality,
Eric. Iraq may have seemed not so terrible in the US
media, but take a look at the current Iraq Body Count
(rather conservative estimation):
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm
I would guess that for those 8437 to 10282 civilians
killed, their families, friends and so on it couldn't
have been so pleasant.
(snipped)
> Besides, who would the US negotiate with? It would
> only take a single
> loose-canon cell to violate an agreement and send
> any negotiation down the tubes.
*I recognize that the Al-Quaida structure is a
problem. I am not, of course, arguing against
negotiations with regional cells or organizations that
would involve local governments, but it looks like
some form of global-level negotiations will be
necessary and it only has a chance to succeed if it is
conducted by the US. Also, I do not promise that it
will work - it is possible that there is no quick way
to stop it, but it is pretty clear that attacking and
occupying nation-states is only making the things
worse. Another possibility is to keep a low prophile
politically, apply low-key security and police
measures and hope to outlast it.
Finally, of course, there is the issue of long-term
policies that need to change, but I will talk about
that some other time.
O.K.
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