Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA11303 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 21 Sep 2001 06:34:51 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [209.240.220.151] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: Dawkins View Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 01:29:51 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F94DjsaoIi7Zdg7ZoNx000018b7@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Sep 2001 05:29:51.0509 (UTC) FILETIME=[6FEA9C50:01C1425E] Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: Dawkins View
>Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:01:23 +0100
>
>I'm sorry Richard, if you think I'm over contributing. I was under the
>impression though that this was an open list, in which people are free to
>air their views. I have no intention of deliberately offending anyone, I
>just felt your appeal to destroying was as emotive as Dawkins' piece, and
>your presumption that the US government knows how it is perceived was
>misplaced. If you read through the posts on this subject, I don't think
>you're claim that I'm all on my own in this view to be accurate either.
>But
>again, I meant no offence, so if any was taken by you I apologise.
>
If you think this list may have gotten heated, you oughta look at usenet. I
lurked on talk.origins for a couple times this past week and the discussions
there make whatever has happened here look quite polite.
I appreciated reading the takes you and Chris had on the Troubles. Didn't
the IRA have connections to the PLO and Libya terrorist organizations?
I've been trying to follow up as best I can on the CIA / bin Laden
association. Was this direct or indirect? I could see possibly that the US
supplied the mujahideen with weaponry (stingers?) and training and that bin
Laden left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan to offer his own sort of aid to
those same mujahideen rebels in jihad against the Soviets, but were there
any direct ties between our American intelligence operatives and bin Laden
himself? If so, this is chilling, but hindsight is 20/20. A major lesson
should be learned from this, that local support offered to unsavory types
could turn global down the road. How could anybody in the context of
fighting the Soviets in the late 70's and the 80's have had the foresight to
realize that they were helping create a monster?
Sadly, I'm not sure how many realize how pertinent the movie _Rambo III_ is
right now. In looking at the history of what helped fuel what we see now in
Afghanistan, though not an historical movie, just a right wing propaganda
flick at best, _Rambo III_ may serve as a barometer for some of the
sentimental undercurrents working in the American psyche ca. 1980's, though
it was a johnny come lately movie. It did glorify the mujahideen "freedom
fighters" as noble warriors.
If I'm not mistaken, when the movie opened, the Soviets were just about
pulling out of Afghanistan, their "Vietnam". How much did of a role the
taxing Soviet commitment in Afghanistan play in the crumbling of the Soviet
superpower and the fall of the Berlin wall?
The terrain in Afghanistan appears to be a logistical nightmare. I have seen
so much coverage lately that it all runs together, but I think some Soviet
miltary big-wig had said something like 'all the rocks on Earth had been
placed in Afghanistan'. Don't they have elaborate underground tunnel
networks too?
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