Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id AAA18680 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 29 Sep 2001 00:43:28 +0100 Message-ID: <005901c14876$d39ff1a0$5c88b2d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <F18n0yjOEeN0kCLBjTa00002fda@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: state of memes Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:39:31 -0700 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Scott wrote:
> I don't think that anybody rejoicing in the tragedies of Sept 11 deserves
> much if any respect. Will these same people rejoice if the next terrorist
> attack wave is unleashed possibly replete with chemical and biological
> agents? Would this just be another "lesson" we would need to learn while
> others rejoice in our sorrow?
Rejoicing at other people's suffering is bad form. But it is understandable
in this case. Just take a look at Iraq. In a sense, there really wasn't a
"Gulf War." We had a six-week bombing campaign designed to destroy Iraq's
infrastructure followed by a three-day massacre. When it was all over,
100,000 Iraqis were dead, and New York had a parade. There's a certain
justice in this.
> Well the why question isn't too hard.
>
> 1. Our (US-ian) presence in Saudi Arabia, happening to contain Mecca and
> Medina which are two holy Muslim sites. We had fought a campaign against a
> fascist upstart named Hussein who had been gassing Kurds and Iranians and
> had decided to flex his newfound muscles on Kuwait.
That fascist belonged to a party brought to power by a CIA-backed coup in
1963. The gas he used to kill Kurds and Iranians was provided by the USA,
which continued providing it long after he had made ample use of it. Kuwait
was a province of Iraq surgically removed from the country in order to
promote British control of oil resources in the Middle East. Yet Hussein
was perfectly willing to relinquish Kuwait through negotiations. No
military buildup was necessary. Bush Sr. just wanted an excuse to build
permanent US military bases in Saudi Arabia.
> Saudi Arabia is a
> strategic location to thump any other attempts by the butcher of Baghdad
to
> assert himself is it not?
It's not as if the US is in the Middle East for humanitarian reasons. The
continued sanctions on Iraq have killed another half million, vastly more
than Hussein could ever manage.
> Maybe the mujahideen could have done better all by
> themselves (sans stealth technology and smart bombs) or maybe they might
> have suffered the same gassings handed to the Kurds and Iranians
previously.
The Afghans would have been a lot better off if we'd never intervened in
their resistance to the Soviet Union. Had we not begun arming the
Moujahedeen in order to induce an invasion, which did indeed occur six
months later, then Afghanistan would have been liberated at about the same
time as the Eastern European states. Instead of apocalypse, the worst the
Afghans would have faced was the same old structural adjustment imposed on
the rest of the former Soviet bloc.
> 2. Our continued support of Israel, who though not all that clean handed
wrt
> treatment of Palestinians would likely be driven into the Mediterranean if
> the Islamicist militants had their druthers.
And no doubt the Palestinians would be driven into the sea if the Zionist
militants had their druthers. The point is that Israel is oppressing
Palestine, not the other way around.
Instead of reacting blindly against the "other," we need to start asking how
our government created the conditions in which this kind of attack was
inevitable. That we would seek to execute Osama bin Laden, making a martyr
of him and thereby promoting his cause, only goes to show how fundamentally
irrational our response has been. We're dealing with a "mind virus" here.
That's the real enemy.
Ted
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