Ex-Premie Forum 7 Archive
From: Sep 21, 2001 To: Sep 26, 2001 Page: 2 of: 5


btdt -:- Living Master -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:58:06 (EDT)
__ suchabanana -:- da Massa baiter:Savior/Lord claims -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:07:37 (EDT)
__ name withheld -:- Re: Living Master -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 21:52:40 (EDT)
__ __ Chuck S. -:- To this very day, yes indeed... -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 05:20:03 (EDT)
__ Joe -:- Exactly -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:10:02 (EDT)
__ __ btdt -:- Re: Exactly -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:00:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ suchabanana -:- ASK MIRAGEY THIS: re living massas[s]: -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:26:11 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ btdt -:- Re: ASK MIRAGEY THIS: re living massas[s]: -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 14:00:09 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ such -:- Mohammed got wealthy via his rich wife -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 16:17:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ Pat:C) -:- where is his current living master? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:12:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Brian Smith -:- Re: where is his current living master? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 20:35:29 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Brian's Maharajism Primer -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 21:03:51 (EDT)
__ silvia -:- Of course he said to be God Incarnated -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 11:03:20 (EDT)
__ __ Chuck S. -:- Maharaji is a weasel... -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 15:03:12 (EDT)
__ __ __ salsa but no ketchup -:- Maharaji is a LIAR -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 16:03:37 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Free-of-cult-Bob -:- Re: Maharaji is a LIAR -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 19:57:03 (EDT)

Mel Bourne -:- More Arab states support of US waivering.... -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:02:35 (EDT)
__ janet -:- ooohh. not good. -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 03:23:07 (EDT)
__ Ben Lurking -:- Re: More Arab states support of US waivering.... -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:52:03 (EDT)
__ __ Mel Bourne -:- Re: More Arab states support of US waivering.... -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 17:59:58 (EDT)
__ __ __ Ben Lurking -:- Re: More Arab states support of US waivering.... -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 20:04:17 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Mel Bourne -:- Who's 'Carnivore?' -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 07:07:48 (EDT)
__ AJW -:- Why no UN mandate. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:16:01 (EDT)
__ __ Mel Bourne -:- Re: Why no UN mandate. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 09:38:59 (EDT)
__ __ __ AJW -:- Casualties -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 09:39:56 (EDT)
__ Mel Bourne -:- The 2 buggered links..... -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:10:33 (EDT)

Mr. Dooley -:- Isn't this where we all came in? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 06:34:15 (EDT)
__ A Friend -:- Re: Isn't this where we all came in? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 16:42:31 (EDT)

Blasted -:- To pat: Gamma explossion. ())? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 03:12:45 (EDT)
__ Pat:C) -:- Re: Gamma explossion. ()) -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:51:33 (EDT)
__ Pat:C) -:- Interesting article. Thanks. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 04:09:10 (EDT)
__ __ Steve Quint -:- Hi Pat -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 13:40:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Re: Hi Steve - I'll do that -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:14:34 (EDT)

corvuscorax -:- Terrorists & Armies -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 02:20:13 (EDT)
__ AJW -:- Re: Terrorists & Armies -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:43:38 (EDT)

Scott T. -:- Robyn, see below. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 00:47:39 (EDT)
__ Robyn -:- Re: Robyn, see below. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:15:14 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- Bye Robin, and everyone. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 09:40:20 (EDT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- Again Scott? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:12:57 (EDT)

Salam -:- where are the Pommy reporters? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:49:10 (EDT)
__ AJW -:- Pommie reporters. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:08:17 (EDT)
__ __ salam -:- Re: Pommie reporters. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:11:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ AJW -:- Memories. -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 09:46:37 (EDT)

Salam -:- Religions suck -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:52:32 (EDT)
__ silvia -:- totally -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 02:26:42 (EDT)

Dermot -:- Should Ariel Sharon be indicted -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:43:30 (EDT)
__ JohnT -:- Eye witness account -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:47:05 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- Yes, and let's get Arafat too! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:49:42 (EDT)
__ __ Please let me introduce myself -:- Pleased to meet you ,hope you know my name. -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 05:59:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ Stonor -:- Re: Pleased to meet you ,hope you know my name. -:- Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 00:55:51 (EDT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Faulty logic -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:03:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Jims amazing logic trick -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 14:59:25 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Good point, Dermot -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 15:35:23 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- The PEOPLE have legitimate grievances -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 17:03:20 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- The PEOPLE didn't hijack the planes -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 19:55:32 (EDT)
__ __ Dermot -:- Blinfolds on, fingers in ears -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 09:25:38 (EDT)
__ __ __ Tim G -:- Re: Blinfolds on, fingers in ears -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 20:18:32 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Hi Tim -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 04:45:40 (EDT)
__ __ __ Joe -:- Wonderful Post -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 13:15:21 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: Wonderful Post -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:14:42 (EDT)
__ __ __ JohnT -:- Bravo! Fortisimo! Virtuoso! Excellente! -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:07:53 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: Bravo! Fortisimo! Virtuoso! Excellente! -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:07:43 (EDT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- No, I don't agree at all -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:45:41 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Your case is literally hopeless -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:34:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Re: Your case is literally hopeless -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:22:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Oh yeah, thank bL for really sensitizing everyone! -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 21:15:59 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- You see this Jim???? -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 11:00:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Nah Jim , that's an emotional response only :) -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 04:29:14 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- I think that's ridiculous -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:41:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- I can see you are scared to face -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:05:33 (EDT)
__ __ gerry -:- Sharon is a war criminal... -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:15:27 (EDT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Good point, Gerry -- let's get Peres! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:19:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ gerry -:- Why, I thought everyone knew... -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:22:16 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- But, Ger, everyone DOES know that -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:26:09 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ gerry -:- Good then I guess we all agree -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:31:27 (EDT)

Rick -:- Anyone see BBC/Discovery's 'Behind the Terror'? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:07:39 (EDT)
__ Joe -:- The rhetoric and the campaign -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:08:19 (EDT)
__ __ Rick -:- Re: The rhetoric and the campaign -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:02:09 (EDT)
__ __ __ Joe -:- Re: The rhetoric and the campaign -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 11:54:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Rick -:- Re: The rhetoric and the campaign -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:10:32 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Chatting with the guru of terror. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:33:33 (EDT)
__ __ Rick -:- Re: Chatting with the guru of terror. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:51:01 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Chatting with the guru of terror. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:59:28 (EDT)
__ PatD -:- Is this article accurate ? Salam maybe you know. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:25:41 (EDT)
__ __ PatD -:- Sorry fucked up again with this bastard machine -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:30:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ Stonor -:- just simplifying it ... -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:45:49 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Belief in Paradise is a recipe for hell -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 04:25:49 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Hey Pat -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 13:10:14 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Re: Hey Dermot, I'm not a Tory either -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:20:35 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Fantastic, Pat! [nt] -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 11:15:13 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Salam -:- Mighty good review, but -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:50:32 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ PatD -:- Thanks Salam but , -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 18:48:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ salam -:- forgot to say -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 01:00:10 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatD -:- Thanks , I'll look at those [nt] -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 17:59:03 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Stonor -:- Great post. Thank you Salam. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 18:08:03 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ salam -:- Re: Great post. Thank you Salam. -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 01:08:10 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Stonor -:- S:)l:)m. -:- Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 01:34:41 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Stonor -:- Thanks Pat - Great articles. [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:09:57 (EDT)
__ Suedoula -:- 'Behind the Terror' -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:24:04 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- Re: 'Behind the Terror' -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:44:36 (EDT)
__ __ __ Rick -:- Re: 'Behind the Terror' -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:59:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: 'Behind the Terror' -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:39:25 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Rick -:- Re: 'Behind the Terror' -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:40:10 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: 'Behind the Terror' -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 00:01:25 (EDT)

btdt -:- Draft Age -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:30:38 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Why? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:17:44 (EDT)
__ __ btdt -:- Re: Why? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:27:20 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Why? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:49:56 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ btdt -:- Re: Why? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:54:47 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Why? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:23:58 (EDT)
__ __ __ Rick -:- you go, girl (nt) -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:33:26 (EDT)
__ Suedoula -:- Re: Draft Age -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:36:11 (EDT)
__ Rick -:- Re: Draft Age -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:46:37 (EDT)
__ __ btdt -:- thnx Rick and Sue -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:20:12 (EDT)

Jerry -:- Evolution -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:23:35 (EDT)
__ Pat:C) -:- Darwin's Dangerous Idea -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:16:03 (EDT)
__ __ a0aji -:- Re: Darwin's Dangerous Idea -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 00:55:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ a0aji -:- :: dormant, even :: [nt] -:- Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 00:56:58 (EDT)

Jim -:- Perfect Solution to Avoid War! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 15:16:25 (EDT)
__ AJW -:- Errrrrr. -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:40:35 (EDT)
__ silvia -:- You can't reason with religious fanatic -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 06:47:12 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- I wasn't serious, Silvia [nt] -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:47:26 (EDT)
__ __ __ silvia -:- I thought you lost -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:56:26 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Re: Perfect Solution to Avoid War! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:38:27 (EDT)
__ __ Dermot -:- Yeah you and Jim are SO clever -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:54:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Jim and I. That's a hot one. (Chuckle) -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:02:33 (EDT)
__ btdt -:- Re: Perfect Solution to Avoid War! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:53:40 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- This is truly sad. [nt] -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:05:44 (EDT)
__ Sir Dave -:- Re: Perfect Solution to Avoid War! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:14:03 (EDT)
__ Jerry -:- Are you serious? -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 15:49:34 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- Oh my God! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 15:56:08 (EDT)
__ __ __ Jerry -:- Re: Oh my God! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:22:25 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ silvia -:- naive, you nt -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 06:49:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Ya think so? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:04:56 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ salsa -:- Re: Ya think so? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 19:47:38 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Re: Ya think so? -:- Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 22:31:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Oh my God! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:33:06 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Re: Oh my God! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:43:23 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- Slight difference with Ireland -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:51:47 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Slight difference with Ireland -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:53:29 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Oh my God! -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:59:27 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- I think YOU'RE a terrorist -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:09:40 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- I'm not surprised. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:18:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Re: I'm not surprised. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:27:59 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: I'm not surprised. -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:39:06 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- You'll see -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:49:47 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: You'll see -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:32:50 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- We all say something dumb once in a while -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:30:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Jerry -:- Talking doesn't cost a thing -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:38:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Sir Dave -:- On the spot (sound familiar) -:- Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:29:16 (EDT)


Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:58:06 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Living Master
Message:
Hasn't M said numerous times a person needs to find a living perfect master of the time? I specifically remember the analogy about having a live doctor not a dead one.

He talked about Krishna, etc etc as previous perfect masters, lord etc. Doesn't he put himself in that category then, and contradict his ' I never said I was lord' routine?

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:07:37 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: da Massa baiter:Savior/Lord claims
Message:
What about Maharaji's and Elan Vital's present claims that he never said he was god or a savior?

Exhibit A: [from the Elan Vital website]

'Did Maharaji ever say he was God?
No, Maharaji never at any time claimed to be God. As an Indian national, when Maharaji first started teaching in the west when he was 13 years old, he used many examples from eastern traditions which demonstrated that a student seeking fulfillment could do so by choosing to follow the teachings of a guru or master. As he matured he realized that western traditions put a very different emphasis on the idea of guru and wrongly attributed messianic labels in this process. He changed his language to use the term master only and gradually removed all Indian associations from his teaching, as this is not a path just for Indians but is something that is available for anyone regardless of color, religion or race. It is acknowledged that many people at the time were already looking for a messianic type figure. That Maharaji was not such a figure disappointed some people.'

'He recollects: 'I remember coming to the West and talking to
people. Some had the idea that once you attained this ‘high’ state of being, you would become super-human. You would be in a perpetual state of peace with no confusion in your life, ever. Even at my very young age, I understood that this was not the way it was supposed to be.''

Please evaluate the following official historical Guru Maharaj ji [aka Prem Rawat aka Maharaji aka Lord of the Universe aka Balyogeshwar (born living god of the yogis)] and other authorized cult/church statements and records. Note the implications, claims, and any concepts found therein, and compare/contrast with any evidence of inconsistency or inaccuracy with the present official authorized portrayal and representations of Prem Rawat by EVI [Elan Vital] and those made by himself.

Exhibit B: [from official Maharaji cult archives]

'Who is Guru Maharaj ji?' The 'authentic authorized story':
'Why do more than six million people around the world claim he is the greatest incarnation of God that ever trod the face of this planet? Why do Christian priests claim that he has taught them the way to love? Why do Hindus refer to him as the Swan Avatar?'
-- DLM/EVI, Bantam Books, 1973

'God is the same, but now we look for Him to come in a new way, to give His Knowledge. Jesus gave this Knowledge, Krishna gave this Knowledge, but now we must look again for a new Master to show us the light. I have not come to establish a new religion or sect, but I have come to give you Knowledge...' --Maharaji

...'they expect God Himself to come, they pray for it, they ask for it, they announce about it, but when He comes they fail to recognize Him. And not recognizing Him is His physical form, they cannot recognize him within themselves.' -- Maharaji

...'whenever he comes to the physical world, the Perfect Master has to tolerate many difficulties.' - Maharaji

'We have to find this Word by a teacher, a guide. A guide who is perfect, and who can teach this perfect Knowledge to us. A perfect guide can guide us. You need a burning lamp to light other lamps. So, in the same way you need an enlightened Perfect Master to make you enlightened and perfect also. IF THE MASTER HIMSELF IS NOT PERFECT, HOW CAN HE MAKE YOU PERFECT? YOU NEED A PERFECT Master.' -Maharaji

'when Satguru comes... He is perfect, He was perfect, and He will be perfect... A devotee is sitting in America, Guru is sitting in India, but both have a very powerful connection...So, remember. We have to find that God, that person who is perfect... So, remember: we are part of Him who has manifested Himself as a Guru and who has come into this earth, and now we have to be One with Him. We have to completely merge and make our souls one with Him because He is perfect, and once we merge with Him we will also be perfect.' - aka Guru Maharaj ji [aka Maharaji], 15 years old, 1973 Shri Hans Productions.

Peace and lentils,

da lil' swami

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 21:52:40 (EDT)
From: name withheld
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Re: Living Master
Message:
To this very day, in the current broadcasts which I hear every week, he is saying he is the perfect master. Gets so close to saying he is the 'Lord', but always shies away at the last second. Wouldn't take a genius to make a case that he is in fact still saying he is the 'Lord'. He stays far away enough from it to not get caught, but the implication is more than obvious. He fills me with disgust.
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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 05:20:03 (EDT)
From: Chuck S.
Email: None
To: name withheld
Subject: To this very day, yes indeed...
Message:
So many of the premies like to think of the exes here as sadly out of date, but many of us only departed Maharajism recently. I only left 8 months ago, and it was just as you say. And you say it's still that way to this very day, I'm not suprised. Thank you for sharing that.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:10:02 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Exactly
Message:
This is part of the reason Maharaji's statement that he never claimed to be God, including the blatant lie Maharaji engages in which you can read in the video clip on the Elan Vital website, is so outrageous.

On numerous occasions, Maharaji claimed to be in the same category as Krishna (he even dressed up like HIM and danced around), Jesus Christ (he never put on that costume, but he said Christ revealed the same knowledge), Buddha, etc., and also stated that Guru Maharaj Ji was the incarnation of the energy force that is God. He also repeated said he was 'The Superior Power in Person,' among other things.

I would say for at least the first decade Maharaji was in the West, Maharaji said that there was only one living Perfect Master, equivalent to a divine incarnation, and that you had to find him to have the true experience of God.

The general explanation was that God incarnates into the world and is always here in human form. Maharaji claimed to be the current incarnation, with Jesus and Krishna having been early incarnations. Those of us who were adolescents when Maharaji arrived and who grew up Christian were primed for this kind of lie.

Now, Maharaji just lies about the fact that he did all that. From what we hear from his latest revisionist rantings, he is blaming the mahatmas, or maybe his mother, or the premies for any 'confusion.' Of course, he lies and says he has nothing to do with it.

Nevertheless, I think many, if not most, of his followers still believe he is the incarnation of God. Most premies will not deal with this issue. If you see the website put together by Mitch Ditkoff and the Andersen twins, there is nothing there about it.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:00:00 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Exactly
Message:
Yes, exactly!!! I've been attending video events until just recently and he is still saying it.....find the living master of the time, not a dead one. So if he isn't the lord, and only the living master, but he refers to all the other bona fide lords as masters, then, pray tell, where is his current living master? Let's ask, shall we?

'Ohhhhhhhhhhh, Elan Vital...........wanna 'clarify' this?'

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:26:11 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: banana@freeatlast.com
To: btdt
Subject: ASK MIRAGEY THIS: re living massas[s]:
Message:
In point of fact: Somebody, Please ask miragey to speak publicly of the existence of other current living Masters - or the patent subjective relativity of the term 'Perfect Master', or the perfection of the massa himself 'who is perfect', too.
e.g. 'We have to find this Word by a teacher, a guide. A guide who is perfect, and who can teach this perfect Knowledge to us. A perfect guide can guide us. You need a burning lamp to light other lamps. So, in the same way you need an enlightened Perfect Master to make you enlightened and perfect also. IF THE MASTER HIMSELF IS NOT PERFECT, HOW CAN HE MAKE YOU PERFECT? YOU NEED A PERFECT Master.' [according to the person formerly known as Guru Maharaj ji].

Like a revivalist preacher, m. refers to dead guys (i.e. Kabir) [just like other cults and religions defer to scriptures and dead massas], but he never acknowledges other living teachers [da competition], other living voices, examples of inspiration - except himself, of course.

PS Somebody, please ask miragey about this important Kabir quote, too:

'Also, you know that Saints cannot be bought with money; They do not expect and They do not accept anything from Their disciples. If anyone is accepting any worldly riches from his disciple, he is not a perfect Saint - because the Masters always earn Their own livelihood. They do not accept anything from Their disciples. If anyone is accepting, he is not a true Sadhu.' -- Kabir

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 14:00:09 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Re: ASK MIRAGEY THIS: re living massas[s]:
Message:
Looks like Mohammed wasn't into materialist things, either:

There was no type of household work too low or too undignified for him. Aiysha (ra) has stated,

'He always joined in household work and would at times mend his clothes, repair his shoes and sweep the floor. He would milk, tether, and feed his animals and do the household shopping.' (Qazi Iyaz: Shifa; Bukhari, Sahih Bukhari, Chapter: Kitabul Adab)
He would not hesitate to do the menial work of others, particularly of orphans and widows (Nasi, Darmi). Once when there was no male member in the house of the companion Kabab Bin Arat who had gone to the battlefield, he used to go to his house daily and milk his cattle for the inhabitants (Ibn Saad Vol. 6, p 213).

I don't know where I just heard or read M saying something to the effect that perfect masters didn't have to be the same as each other, just like several siblings born and raised in the same house are not alike.

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 16:17:54 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Mohammed got wealthy via his rich wife
Message:
his wife was older, and upon her death he took some young wives

Mohammed was no renunciant

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:12:28 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: where is his current living master?
Message:
I used to wonder about that too back in the days that I took the fool seriously. He supposedly worships a dead one or he used to. He prays to a life-size statue of his dead daddy in his garden in Malibu. I saw a pic of him doing it. Nowadays he simply worships the god Mammon.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 20:35:29 (EDT)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: where is his current living master?
Message:
I wonder, does he worship himself? Could he possibly appease his beliefs rooted in this master theory by looking at himself and thinking; I am God in human form. He denounces the truth about publicly declaring that fact, but he did nothing to prevent the perpetration of that very premise. He was treated like god incarnate from childhood, both subliminaly and outwardly, so there has to be residual psychological effects.

Out of this delusion he may think, I can do anything I please, since I make the rules up as I go, I can insert my own self serving provision so that the rules apply to everyone but me because I am god.

In other words, You should not smoke, drink alcohol, eat meat, have sex, or covet material wealth. And YOU need a living master, except for me, I myself can have a dead one, the rules for me are different you see.

And the only reason I am doing this is to test your devotion, it is for your own good. Think how strong and unshakable your faith in me will be when even though you know that I am a hypocrite, you won't even care, you will still love, worship and respect me. For I am god, I am your master, and this is my lila to determine how good your seats will be at my next event.

By the way, you can always redeem yourself if you have been a less than perfect devotee and still get good seats according to the amount of money you contribute each month. By my grace, even though you will never be worthy or deserve any reward or acknowledgement from me, Still I am a just and merciful master and god.

The higher the dollar amount, the higher your devotion, Hence, better seats at the events. After all, seats close to the throne of God on earth don't come cheap, they are rare and need to be priced accordingly.

I can't believe that I subjected myself to this sort of spiritual, mental and emotional lobotomy for the sake of a living master for so many years.

Brian the living master of his own destiny

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 21:03:51 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Brian's Maharajism Primer
Message:
I think you described the Rawat ego-trip perfectly.

Lila once was used to describe the games of flirting between Krishna and the gopis. Rawat turned into an excuse for his hypocrisy and a mask for his greed.

But, since he has lived in the west for 30 years - most of his life - I think he is simply a cool calculating conman now......but maybe he's completely nuts and really believes that he is god or at least the master who is greater than god because he can show you god.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 11:03:20 (EDT)
From: silvia
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Of course he said to be God Incarnated
Message:
that is why so many of us bought his shinnaniggans....

Kiss the feet to the living Lord, surrender to him, let him take you to the other side...yeah, darkness...

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 15:03:12 (EDT)
From: Chuck S.
Email: None
To: silvia
Subject: Maharaji is a weasel...
Message:
He tries to have it both ways, he is God, and he isn't. He's a teacher, and a Master, even though he's said many times that he's not a teacher. When you start to look at everything he says, he contradicts himself. That's when the premies trot out that lame old excuse, '...it's not the WORDS that are important...'

There really IS a simple explanation. Maharaji is a bold-faced LIAR.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 16:03:37 (EDT)
From: salsa but no ketchup
Email: None
To: Chuck S.
Subject: Maharaji is a LIAR
Message:
He tries to have it both ways? He has it both ways and without people's permission. Premies are under his influence and depend on him. Premies are programmed to give him any possible brake. I feel disgusted when I look back and think the level of brainwashing he put me through over the years, how I couldn't digest his inconsistencies and see them as lies, how good I had learned to justifiy them, TOTAL LIES because as a dog who forgives his master after been hit because it has to eat I had become so dependant on the bastard and forgave him all!

The words are important, you are right. Of course they are important. Word have power and define true or false statements. LARD is a liar, all in the name of money.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 19:57:03 (EDT)
From: Free-of-cult-Bob
Email: None
To: salsa but no ketchup
Subject: Re: Maharaji is a LIAR
Message:
Yes, he certainly does try to have it both ways! Maha. is a walking contradiction, one minute the avowed Lord, the next minute a humble servant of God, next thing you know he is the implied living master, or simply the special friend you will never meet. It all depends how Maha. wants to manipulate, cajole .pressure,mislead,confuse,and or disempower an individual or group, as to the manner in which he presents himself.The bottom line is you are sold a belief system based on Maha. the divinity/master of the time.Maha. offers the gift of attribution, just meditate on some common yoga techniques( which he has the copyright for) and gleefully attribute your wonderful experience to him, who made it all possible.I ask you, why would a seeming intelligent
individual, such as myself fall into such a obvious enslavement. I was simply a suggestible,naive,(immature 19 year old), sincere seeker of THE TRUTH.That was in 1972, and now Maha. continues to invite the gullible (well meaning folks,of course) to reach for the gilded carrot of enlightment, actually its more like enheavyment. I urge all to trust and follow your innate wisdom within .Maha. fosters a cult of exclusivity, which negates self discovery and personal growth.Pray for peace !
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:02:35 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: All
Subject: More Arab states support of US waivering....
Message:
I'll refrain from making any biased remarks and simply post the links.

MUBARAK RULES OUT ARAB COALITION WITH U.S....

LEBANON RULES OUT HELP TO U.S....

However, both these states are on the US list of nine nations reported in the Malaysian alternative press Malaysiakinias harbouring terrorists. This list includes Malaysia.

< ahref ='http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2001/september/09_24_4.html'>KUWAIT SHIFTS UNEASILY AMID EMIR'S ILLNESS

Although Islamic state support appears to be waning, the former Soviet states to the north (the 'stans') appear to be filling the vacuum (under Russian guidance).

Mel

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 03:23:07 (EDT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: ooohh. not good.
Message:
that puts them in the column on bush's hit list of 'those who are with the terrorists'.

egypt.
great.
maybe the great pyramid will levitate and save everyone at the last minute. yeah, thats it. the UFO's will coe down and land by a beacon from its capstone. uh huh.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:52:03 (EDT)
From: Ben Lurking
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Re: More Arab states support of US waivering....
Message:
Mel,
Is it true that M and EV have financially supported Bin Laden in the past? Do you agree with this?
Ben
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 17:59:58 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Ben Lurking
Subject: Re: More Arab states support of US waivering....
Message:
Mel

I have no idea, maybe you shoul direct that question to them!

Mel

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 20:04:17 (EDT)
From: Ben Lurking
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Re: More Arab states support of US waivering....
Message:
Maybe Carnivore will come along and direct someone else to go ask them.
Ben
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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 07:07:48 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Ben Lurking
Subject: Who's 'Carnivore?'
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:16:01 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Why no UN mandate.
Message:
I'll refrain from making any biased remarks and simply post the links.

MUBARAK RULES OUT ARAB COALITION WITH U.S....

LEBANON RULES OUT HELP TO U.S....

However, both these states are on the US list of nine nations reported in the Malaysian alternative press Malaysiakinias harbouring terrorists. This list includes Malaysia.

< ahref ='http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2001/september/09_24_4.html'>KUWAIT SHIFTS UNEASILY AMID EMIR'S ILLNESS

Although Islamic state support appears to be waning, the former Soviet states to the north (the 'stans') appear to be filling the vacuum (under Russian guidance).

Mel


---

Hi Mel,

Support for US and British military action isn't as solid as the media would have us believe. This is why the case hasn't been dealt with through the UN, which was specifically set up to deal with international incidents like this.

Usually the US and her allies use the United Nations to justify their military escapades. This time, it looks like they don't want too much international debate going on, which would give a platform for voices of opposition. The Western media is giving little space to critics of US foreign policy, as this is somehow interpreted as 'supporting terrorism'.

I really hope Bush can suprise us all, and sort this out with sensitivity and clinical style, avoiding massive casualties. Unfortunately, history makes me think things will get much worse before they get better.

I'd be so happy to be wrong on this one.

Anth the bushkashi kid.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 09:38:59 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Re: Why no UN mandate.
Message:
Anth

I have read (in my wanderings) that the more moderate Muslim commentators propose a similar process to what happened with Milosovic: that the US present it's evidence to the UN or a similar body (War Crimes Tribunal?)and let the processes of apprehension and real justice take it's course. There has also been comment from UN sources supporting this.

The problem is that the US (which at the best of times regards itself as only arbiter of freedom and justice in the world) does not agree. It believes that the attack on it's own soil gives it 'more right' to implement justice, and is dictating the terms as to how this should be carried out - backed up with it's colossal fire powere.

In my view, the 'coalition' it seeks to create, is really a polite name for an international lynch mob. Fortunately, it seems that some European countries like France, Germany, Norway, Italy etc, while supportive of the US victims, have got wind of this sentiment and are simply not interested in commiting to this way of resolving the terrorist issue.

Hopefully, when the US has got through it's current paroxysm of rage (without, hopefully, doing a huge amount of collataral damage), it will remember that it is part of a world community and look will look for more rational solutions that do not involve the simplistic polarisation of such a complicated issue.

I get the impression that the huge build up in the Middle East is not necessarilly going to be used on Afghanistan, but is really there to ensure that all the Islamic states do not resist US objectives. Very much the spaghetti western solution; put a gun tot someone's head and they will do exactly what they're told... 'Ah've got them covered, podner'!'

The Islamic governments may tow the line, but will their people?

I saw an interesting interview with Imran Khan who is now the leader of a moderate political party in Pakistan. His view is that although the moderates are relatively placid at the moment, when they see the results of attacks on Afghanis (casualties, more refugees and the other horrifying results of war) they will become 'radicalised' and join the Jihadis. He was very pessimistic, even predicting a Pakistani civil war. I think that his scenario could easily be extrapolated to most of the other Islamic states. To keep control the US would then have to 'öccupy' these countries and install puppet governments, which would in turn escalate terrorism/'freedom fighting'.

What a lamentable situation, considering the US itself created some of these Jihadi organisations and fostered them. What a scourge that past US foreign policy (administered by the likes of Bush sen and his ilk) has unleashed on the world, and we all (including New Yorkers) have to suffer the consequences.

Mel

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 09:39:56 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: Casualties
Message:
Hi Mel,

There's another thing that changes once the dead start coming home, and that is attitudes.

Criticising the war becomes, 'an insult to the people who gave their lives for freedom', or oil or whatever. Things look very different when the fighting starts. Attitudes can become extremely polarised. There is a lot of opposition to heavy, military retaliation in the UK, from all parts of society. I think there's also a large voice for restraint in the US. People are not as stupid as the politicians sometimes think, and some politicians often surprise us.

The new, very right wing member of the Conservative party can only give unequivocal support to Blair and Bush, on their crusade. One news commentator said last night, 'He has to agree with Blair, because it's impossible to take a stance to the right of him.'

Ah well, maybe it will all blow over by Christmas.

Anth the reshuffle please.

I've got a close relative in the US armed forces. The thought of anyone trying to kill him fills me with horror. But the thought of him firing off missiles at Kandahar, like he's playing a computer game, also fills me with horror.

I want to go somewhere where this isn't happening, but there's nowhere to go.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:10:33 (EDT)
From: Mel Bourne
Email: None
To: Mel Bourne
Subject: The 2 buggered links.....
Message:
Sorry the other two links....

Malaysiakini..

and....

KUWAIT SHIFTS UNEASILY AMID EMIR'S ILLNESS

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 06:34:15 (EDT)
From: Mr. Dooley
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Isn't this where we all came in?
Message:
Frustrations from realizing that government is not 'of the people and for the people'. Wanting a real peace not finding it in drugs; so, taking the easy way out by purchasing a load of shit packaged as a Hindu Lord of the Universe....

...indeed, these are dangerous times

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 16:42:31 (EDT)
From: A Friend
Email: None
To: Mr. Dooley
Subject: Re: Isn't this where we all came in?
Message:
Aye, me laddy. Twas Fundimentalism, pure and simple. HINDU FUNDIMENTALISM. Fundimentalism always puts someone between you and God,and then THEY get to play God - or the Prophet.

Jewish Fundlmentalism. The Chosen People.
Christian Fundementalism. The Saved People.
Muslim Fundimentalism. Holy War Specialists.
Hindu Fundimentalism. Guru 'Living God' specialists.

Guru is greater than God. Then they poke your eyeballs, and you become an extra in their Holy War.

Were we not DEVO ?

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 03:12:45 (EDT)
From: Blasted
Email: None
To: All
Subject: To pat: Gamma explossion. ())?
Message:
http://www.jhuapl.edu/public/pr/space/NEAR/gamma.htm
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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:51:33 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Blasted
Subject: Re: Gamma explossion. ())
Message:
That's better but you ruined my response by changing your title you naughty boy and I was feeling so nice and superior to you. ;)
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 04:09:10 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Blasted
Subject: Interesting article. Thanks.
Message:
Damn silly title for your post though unless you are a psychiatrist who specializes in the study of gamma rays on people and know what you're talking about.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 13:40:28 (EDT)
From: Steve Quint
Email: the_avenger55@hotmail.com
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Hi Pat
Message:
Hi Pat:

I spoke to Janet yesterday on the phone and it was great. I've also spoken to Jim many times. If you could email me your phone number I'd love to talk to you.

All the best,

Steve

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:14:34 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Steve Quint
Subject: Re: Hi Steve - I'll do that
Message:
I hope you are well and happy.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 02:20:13 (EDT)
From: corvuscorax
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Terrorists & Armies
Message:
Someone said to me the other day, 'A terrorist is someone with a bomb that doesn't have an airforce'. A tad pithy but it got my attention.

Jamie

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:43:38 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: corvuscorax
Subject: Re: Terrorists & Armies
Message:
Someone said to me the other day, 'A terrorist is someone with a bomb that doesn't have an airforce'. A tad pithy but it got my attention.

Jamie


---

Hi,

A 'terrorist' sometimes changes into a national leader too- see the history of Ireland, America, Kenya, Cyprus, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Israel and probably many more countries. What one country calls a 'terrorist', another calls a 'freedom fighter'. The Nazis called the resistance in Europe terrorists. Many Israelis consider Arafat to be a terrorist. The men who became the first government of Israel were terrorists according to the British. They had set bombs off just like the IRA. The Russians consider the Chechneyns to be terrorists. The British consider the Irish republicans to be terrorists.

Jerry called me a terrorist recently. Maybe he was joking, but, as Pat pointed out, it's hard to tell nowadays.

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for being a terrorist. The ANC were a 'terrorist' organisation, until they were voted into power.

By the way, just for the record, I don't think the terrorists who attacked Washington and New York were 'freedom fighters', and I am not trying to justify their actions in any way. I am concerned that anyone the

Anth, who has to spell it out nowadays.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 00:47:39 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Robyn, see below.
Message:
I posted a response to your message in the infamous 'Let me get this straight' thread, about to set over the horizon.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:15:14 (EDT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Robyn, see below.
Message:
Hey Scott,
Thought you forgot about that, thanks for answering. I think what you describe, polititians not telling all, would make sense to me if I trusted them. As I read in a post from Bobby, I didn't trust them before the bombing and I don't trust them now.
Through my job I am learning about the corporitization of America. I find it very frightening. The corruption is thick and solid. It gives me a sense of hopelessness that I don't like but it links to every faucett of life here, the environment, aggression, motivations are in question in my mind and heart. Something is wrong here, could well be in other countries too, I just know what I feel being an American.
I hope we can agree to disagree cause I haven't formed my opinions totally based on facts, it is also a gut feeling I get from seeing these politions in action.
Also, if Rick it is the Rick I think it is he IS well informed. People see things differently Scott, diversity should be something we are proud of here.
Love,
Robyn
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 09:40:20 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Robyn
Subject: Bye Robin, and everyone.
Message:
Robyn:

I'll be exiting the forum now. I see no reason for me to keep swimming against the tide. No, I don't think people here are well-informed, or very logical. Bobby, for instance, never answered Jim's rather simple question. What should we do about the attack on the WTC, apologize? I think if there are many people with the attitudes held here then the way of life you take for granted (and you *do* take it for granted) is probably gone. First our economy will go, and then our freedoms, and finally everything else. I guess if things are as bad as you say here in the good old USA that'll be a good thing.

You can probably draft a letter to Bin Laden to find out exactly how the apology ought to be worded, and then see how soon he wants our oil supply cut off. And then we can thank him for not destroying our population when we have no will or resources to fight, he's such a great humanitarian. But heck, it'll sure get rid of those nasty corporations, huh? Good riddance! Yeah, it'll be heaven on earth.

Bye

Scott 'now working for the evil corporate conspiracy' T.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:12:57 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Again Scott?
Message:
How many times have you left now?

I quite enjoy your posts........don't agree with many.......and you exasperate me quite a lot.....but after all is said and done I don't resent you or deny you your right to speak your mind.

Anyway, if you go .....cioa.....Take care and happy cycling.

Dermot

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:49:10 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: All
Subject: where are the Pommy reporters?
Message:
I read a repot in the British sunday Mail and sunday times that British troops working behind enemy line has been engaged in fighting with Talabans already. can you please post a link of confirm dat, yar?
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:08:17 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Pommie reporters.
Message:
I read a repot in the British sunday Mail and sunday times that British troops working behind enemy line has been engaged in fighting with Talabans already. can you please post a link of confirm dat, yar?


---

Hi Salam,

The British developed their media manipulation techniques during the Falklands war. It was used to good effect in the Kuwait Oil War.

It involves total control of all media output from the front. I think this is pretty normal. You can't go broadcasting your troop movements to the enemy on the BBC World Service.

If the action is taking place somewhere with lots of media access- Europe for example, it is much more difficult to control what gets out. With somewhere more isolated, like an island, or a desolate, mountainous region like Afghanistan, it is easier to control the reporters and put out what you want. You decide which reporters are allowed near the front, and you control what they see.

Propaganda is an important weapon of war. If morale is low, the troops don't fight well. Motivation is important.

I don't know if you remember the start of the war in Kuwait. Congress were going to vote on military action. The evening before the vote, there was a press conference in Washington. A Kuwaiti girl, about 17 or 18, appeared at a press conference and gave a tearful, harrowing account of how she's seen Iraqi soldiers marching into hospitals and ripping life support equipment from babies, even taking their beds and leaving them on the floor.

Guess what? She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington. She hadn't been in Kuwait, witnessing these scenes she was describing. She'd been briefed and coached by an advertising agency, hired by the Kuwaiti government. The next day, the vote went as hoped.

Anyway. We shouldn't expect too much accuracy from the British media Salam, as it will be tightly controlled during the forthcoming conflict. There have been reports of the SAS doing stuff. (Did you know the SAS trained Bin Laden and his men, by the way? I saw a documentary a few years ago that claimed they also trained Pol Pot.)

I hope we learned some lessons from the Gulf War. The RAF were eager to demonstrate their low level flying tactics. This turned out to be a bit of a disaster, and they lost about a dozen planes before someone told them to stop.

It was a bit of a disasterous war for us. Our air losses were all self-inflicted, and our troop casualties were shot by the Americans, by mistake. It's called, 'Friendly Fire'.

War is shit.

Anth trying to Imagine.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:11:18 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: AJW
Subject: Re: Pommie reporters.
Message:
The most emotionally explosive lie told during this time was the 'incubator story.' Testifying to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990, a 15 year old girl introduced only as 'Nayirah' claimed that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers taking babies from incubators and 'leaving them on the cold floor to die.'l17 This story was quickly used by the Bush administration for its push toward war. Bush repeated it in numerous speeches, claiming 312 babies had died this way. Amnesty International reported the story as truth in a December 19, 1990 report.

The story has been thoroughly discredited since the end of the conflict. It was later revealed that witnesses who spoke before the Security Council and the Congress did so under false names and identities A 'Mr. Issah Ibrahim, the surgeon,' was really Ibraheem Behbehani, an orthodontists Nayirah, the 15 year old who testified that she was volunteering at the hospital when the atrocities allegedly occurred, turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, a fact known by organizers of the October 10 hearings. 119

Amnesty International retracted its support for the story in April 1991. In February 1992, Middle East Watch issued a report stating that the story was 'clearly wartime propaganda,' as were other stories of mass rape and torture by Iraqis. 120

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 09:46:37 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Memories.
Message:
Yes salam,

it's all coming back to me now. And remember the aim of the war was to 'Free Kuwait' from the despotic, totalitarian Iraquis.

Everybody seemed to forget about 'Freedom' as soon as the fires were out. The old, despotic, totalitarian government was restored to power (no elections, no opposition parties) and everybody suddenly forgot about 'Freedom and Democracy'.

Ah well, what the hell salam, maybe freedom and democracy is just for us white folks after all.

anth the sun tanned.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:52:32 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Religions suck
Message:
So is da fat guru, dar?
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 02:26:42 (EDT)
From: silvia
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: totally
Message:
I just a had a conversation about how bad they suck with my brother, who got sucked by a while by the Catholic Church because the fish converted to get married...What a peste religiones are.. They make people very stupid, the more fanatic, the worst human beings they are.

Yes, including the pope, and specially the lard of the universe.

LUNATICS!

Yes, I was too, and I'm glad I'm not. BVuuuuuuuuuu())

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:43:30 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Should Ariel Sharon be indicted
Message:
for war crimes in South Lebanon , 1982 when THREE THOUSAND innocent men, women and children were slaughtered?

We all seem to agree that Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and other muslims should be brought to justice, what about Sharon?

Some say he is directly responsible, some say he is indirectly responsible and others say he is innocent.

Those who say he is innocent point out that it was the (Israeli controlled,backed,financed,armed)South Lebanese Christian militia who perpertrated the horrific war crimes.
Those who point to his guilt say that he, in full knowledge of the militias barbarbarity, sent them in , locked all escape routes and waited till the slaughter was completed.

Just as Bin Laden himself didn;t actually fly a plane into a building , Sharon didn't go into that enclave of terrified innocent victims.

Should he be added to the list of the wests targets?

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:47:05 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Eye witness account
Message:
by Dr. Ben Alofs a Dutch doctor, currently living in North-Wales. In the summer of 1982 he was working as a nurse in West-Beirut, which at the time was being besieged by the Israeli army.

http://mediamonitors.net/drbenalofs1.html
[ Eye witness account ]

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:49:42 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Yes, and let's get Arafat too!
Message:
What is your agenda right now? There's a current, immediate, massive problem before us. Are you interested in solving it or ... what? What's your pleasure? A little U.S. bashing, a little this, a little that, what's your interest?

Maybe it's time to talk about El Salvador again. What do you think?

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 05:59:19 (EDT)
From: Please let me introduce myself
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Pleased to meet you ,hope you know my name.
Message:
Are you blind? Sharon is and always wil be a fat murdering thug. Do you understand the concept of cause and effect.
Dermot has shown remakable insight in bringing this forgotten piece of 'history' to light. What of Jerusalem and the West Bank?
Ever wondered what it might be that could create the mentality of a suicide bomber?
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Date: Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 00:55:51 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Please let me introduce myself
Subject: Re: Pleased to meet you ,hope you know my name.
Message:
Here's what Benazir Bhutto has to say, and it is, IMO, another piece of the puzzle that 'fits'. (Thank you, Chuck de Sprague)

And from my friend Helen, in BC, not Washington DC, another link that promises to have some interesting opinions, but I haven't had time to check it out yet,

Z Mag

Anna
[ Benazir Bhutto's opinions ]

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:03:28 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Please let me introduce myself
Subject: Faulty logic
Message:
First, why don't you introduce yourself or is this how you normally discuss things, with anonymous notes left scattered on tables, pinned to doors, left under windshieldwipers? Who are you and why are you hiding your identity?

Are you blind? Sharon is and always wil be a fat murdering thug.

Say that's true, for argument's sake. Fine, that would put him squarely in the camp of Arafat and many, if not all, of the other middle east heads of state and political leaders. And he wouldn't be the first military leader who committed some act of brutality in war, either. So what? Where does that get you? Are you saying that there's been no peace since he allowed the Philangists to go into the Palestinian camps in '82? If not, what about all the many years of compromise, negotiation, accords, treaties, even Nobel Peace Prizes, for that matter?

Do you understand the concept of cause and effect.

Yeah, enough to know that you can't just pick any act back in the past and attribute causation to it. If you were a communist, you could start talking about how poverty, class disparity and capitalist oppression was the root 'cause' for the terrorism of Islamic fundamentalissts. Problem is, there are lots of poor places in the world that don't breed 'jihads' like this. Why not there too?

Dermot has shown remakable insight in bringing this forgotten piece of 'history' to light. What of Jerusalem and the West Bank?

'Remarkable insight'? Why? Because now you can pretend that's the reason? Why stop there? why not include the existance of the state of Israel in the first place? This is a silly game. I don't think you can just pick out your favorite faults in Israel's or America's past and point them out as being significant causes for anything particularly.

Ever wondered what it might be that could create the mentality of a suicide bomber?

Yes, sure, but I don't think you or Dermot are shedding any light on the question. I'm sure there are lots of angry Palestinians, there are lots of angry Israelis too. Lots of angry people all over the world. Suicide bombers don't just crop up everywhere, why is that? What's unique in this culture?

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 14:59:25 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jims amazing logic trick
Message:
If it's assumed Sharon is a war criminal , then so too are others so why bother with trifling details like bringing him to justice? Nice concept. Maybe Milosevic can use that concept in his defence, should get him back to Belgrade quickly.

Also…. Since Sharon 'allowed the philangists to go into Palestinian camps in '82 ' ….reminder: to butcher 3000 innocent civilians…nobel prizes have been dished out. Hmmm if only Bush would hold his horses, maybe one day nobel prizes will be dished out to some Islamic terrorists……that'll make the WTC victims relatives sleep easy at night.

Also ….'Can't just pick any act back in the past and attribute cause and effect to it' Really? Not even ….you know....reminder: slaughter of 3000 innocent civilians. Just 'any ' act. Why should it be so special ……nah you're right Jim, it wouldn't cause any ripples over the years.
Like the WTC atrocity …..nah it's just the slaughter of 6000 innocent civilians …..no big deal folks is it?

Now flip things round .....in one day 3000 Israelis or Americans or British are first terrorised then brutally slaughtered. Nah we'd forget about in time wouldn't we? One thing for sure If it were Americans you wouldn't get the President mobilizing the world to put it right would you? If British, Tony Blair would come to see that it was just 'any' act no big deal. If Israeli, we'd have forgotten about it by now wouldn't we? I mean if any of the perpertrators, just on the off chance, happened to escape justice, Mossad wouldn't be hunting them down and issuing on the spot justice, Of course not.

'any act' ......woweeeeee

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 15:35:23 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Good point, Dermot
Message:
Dermot,

You're right. I admit it, the terrorists have legitimate grievances. I guess now it's just a matter of trying to address them, huh? What do you suggest? Arresting Sharon? Would that help?

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 17:03:20 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: The PEOPLE have legitimate grievances
Message:
the PEOPLE Jim. The relatives of victims and the masses who aren't terrorists.Just like the people now in NYC. The terrorists, whether or not they have a history to point at, to EXPLAIN their behaviour, should not escape the CONSEQUENCES of their behaviour (ie being brought to justice). I've never said or implied they should.I was explaining WHY they end up as terrorists, not EXCUSING their actions. Big difference.

Now should we arrest Sharon? Well, we can drag in Milosevic (when it once perhaps seemed highly unlikely if not impossible)..you know as well as I do Jim that where there's a will there's a way. The sad fact that there isn't a WILL to do it....not from within Israel, not from USA nor UK nor Europe or anywhere is the fundamental problem I'm trying to explain to you .....which brings me to my 'tough on the causes ' , without it we'll continue to live in a world where war criminals become Prime ministers and ordinary joe blows become insane terrorists.

You know what surprised me and really saddened me about the people of Israel (given their history of victimisation and unbelievable suffering).......the fact that they didn't drag Sharon THEMSELVES to justice but instead the majority of them later voted for him as PM after he cynically aggravated and took advantage of the situation on the ground.

That's SAD Jim. Very very sad. How noble and correct it would have been of the Jewish people to admit the guy was just a cynical piece of murdering shit.

and by the way Jim, that's coming from someone who likes , admires and respects Jewish people, culture and achievments.And someone who knows it isn't easy , I know the Jews are surrounded by hate, I know their situation is a suvivalist one. I just wish they would lead the way ....a more noble vision if you like ....to find a way out of the morass. They'd get more support and less condemnation from the world if they did.

Yes if I had a say in it I'd gather witnesses , prepare a case and try the bastard for mass slaughter and make sure CHAIRMAN ARAFAT is in the dock next to him for his crimes from the early 70's on.

Aint gonna happen though is it.

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 19:55:32 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: The PEOPLE didn't hijack the planes
Message:
It's the terrorists we're talking about, Dermot. Anyone else concerns are irrelevant. If the terrorists act out of anger because of some perceived injustice someone else is suffering, it's still the terrorists' grievance.

Anyway, the clearest single cause I can see so far is a religion that's ripe for deadly exploitation by fundamentalists. Everyone's got something they're pissed off about but not everyone has a religion that can be turned into a weapon like this. In your ranking of causes, where would you place Islam? Anywhere? Nowhere? At the top? Bottom?

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 09:25:38 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Blinfolds on, fingers in ears
Message:
And let's all jump up and down and shout ' They are evil, we are good, let's blow them to Kingdom come and call anyone who departs from this agenda ' Anti-American'.

Sorry, no can do. That attitude, though very, very understandable in the immediate aftermath of that hateful, appalling act of terrorism on September 11 just won't carry us far toward a true and lasting solution.

Of course there is a ' current , immediate, massive problem' .It is current for the very reason that it has evolved from a past. It didn't just begin on Sep 11 2001.That much is obvious. Unless the world community is genuinely prepared to get to the roots of the problem rather than concentrate solely on its symptoms then for every terrorist you shoot down, more will rise up to take his or her place.

We all seem to agree that one of the roots of this problem is ' Islamic terrorism ', for want of a better phrase. I agree completely. However, a lot of people stop right there. I don't. Ah, would that it was so simple, so contained, so boxed in, so divorced from other issues !

Do terrorists spring up in a vacuum? Are they , as Scott seems to affirm, just some weird, extremely violent cult ? Are they , as you seem to be suggesting, just a result of an inherently violent religious belief system? Well, no they didn't spring up in a vacuum. They may manifest in their actions, the traits of some weird cultists ( for example, the Japanese poison gas cult) and there may be elements of Islamic scripture that encourages violence (and the same can be said for most , if not all, the major religious belief systems).

Without regard of being labelled ' Anti-West', 'Anti-American' or ' Anti -Semitic' , I believe the roots of the problem also include Americas role and actions in the world, Americas allies ( especially the rich western nations) and last, but not least, Israel and its Arab neighbours .It seems to me that these are all inextricably linked ( whether it's comfortable to face or not) to the pressing problem of ' Islamic terrorism' To isolate just the one and close your mind to the others will just perpetuate ( and even make worse) what is already a global threat.

Now before you, or anyone else, dives in to say ' How can you equate anything or anyone with such obviously evil and odious terrorists ? ' Well, let me assure you I'm not 'equating ' them, as in allocating 'equal' blame and condemnation. Being 'inextricably linked' is something completely different and far more complex.

So by all means and without reservation I agree, yes, let's go after terrorist groups whoever they are and wherever they may be. In Afghanistan, Middle-East , cells in the West, wherever. I'm not arguing against that. I don't think many( probably none) of the people you conveniently label and dismiss as ' Anti-American' disagree with that approach. Some obviously and quite rightly worry about any future innocent victims caused as a result of such an approach but I think there is general agreement that these ruthless terrorists must be apprehended. But to label people 'Anti -American' is just a cop out. It's an over-simplification of a complex issue.

America and its allies have already pointed out that this is a long haul. Maybe the Afghan Theatre will be dealt with quicker than expected, maybe not. However, we are all agreed that this extends world -wide. Bush himself has admitted that the campaign will be one of many years, perhaps decades. Now if I'm right about this being not just an isolated problem but rather something linked to wider issues ( and I think I am) how long do you suggest we suppress discussion of those wider (but truly relevant )issues? Should we just ignore the effect America and its allies have on the rest of the world ? Should we just ignore the problems in the Middle East? For decades? Really, how long do you suggest , given that the problem will remain ' current, immediate and massive' for perhaps decades to come? In my opinion it certainly will be just that, if we ignore the problem as a whole.

Where do these terrorists come from ? Why do they choose to be terrorists? To join an extreme perverted cult? To follow the incitements within the Koran? Maybe the odd one here and there but not very likely in my opinion. I think, from the time they are born , through their childhood, adolescence and early manhood they feel (rightly or wrongly…that would need a whole other discussion) they are forever oppressed, downtrodden, and most importantly perhaps, totally ignored.

Why do you think I raise the issue of Sharon and the South Lebanese war crimes? What has that to do with the current situation.? To you, obviously nothing. It's not worth discussing right? It's irrelevant? Maybe you even think it's 'Anti-Semitic'? Sadly , I think it has a lot to do with the present situation. I'd even say it's central. I'm curious too as to why you think a war crime of just 19 years ago should be forgotten when obviously , from an Islamic point of view, it is as if it happened yesterday. Do you think the American people will remember Sep11 2001 in 19 years time? Will it be relevant? A milestone like Pearl Harbour? I think they will remember and quite rightly too. They will remember it in a hundred years from now if humanity survives that long. Why should we deny muslim victims the same human respect and remberance? Should 3000 innocent victims just become irrelevant? I think not. Quite rightly we make tremendous efforts, still, to bring Nazis to justice 60 years after the crimes. Should we make equal effort to bring justice to the people of Lebanon? If not, why not?

So again , why mention Sharon? Imagine yourself as an 8, 9, or 10 yo kid in South Lebanon, 1982 (about old enough to be a terrorist today). Imagine you live in a village close to the killing field in question., with relatives living in that notorious encampment. As you grow up , you see and compare the outrage expressed by the world along side similar expressions of outrage whenever a westerner is a victim. You think there is such a disparity. You also see and compare how the world acts to sincerely bring the evil perpetrators to justice alongside the efforts made on behalf of say the Jews in the Holocaust. It will seem to you that you do not really matter to the world. Your murdered relatives don't really matter to the world. You noticed it was on television around the world for a little while. Liberal commentators made a big issue of it for a little while. Then it was forgotten. Conveniently swept under the carpet by the powers that be. When you grow up , you also see a man who you feel responsible for the crimes lauded by world leaders. After all this time , here he is , aggravating the situation in Israel to get re-lected and when elected having the brass balls to call Arafat a terrorist whilst considering himself a statesman. Your anger and hatred of this man must be overwhelming. So what? He is protected and listened to by the likes of US leaders. He shakes Tony Blairs hand in Downing street.

Or imagine yourself as a young Palestinian boy all those years ago. As you've grown up, you've had no real homeland no rights. Always hassled, always ignored. Education disrupted. Houses bulldozed out of existence. Your school friends shot dead after throwing stones at well armed , supposedly disciplined soldiers. In the very core of your being you must inevitably feel that the world, especially the West and the State of Israel , doesn't give a flying fuck for basic human dignity, your basic human rights. Multiply that by thousands, nay millions . From birth to manhood living with a deep sense of injustice, a deep resentment. Festering all through your life till it becomes an abiding hatred. It's a hatred you can't escape from, it gnaws at your heart and soul. Consumes you so that , unlike if you had been born in Canada, U.K, USA or Australia , you turn for comfort, justice and retribution to politics and religion. After all, what else have you got going for you? Nothing. Zilch. Trapped in the same old ,same old for the rest of your life while , as usual, the , powers that be continue to not give a flying fuck.

In this cesspit of turmoil and grievance , your politicians, Mullahs, clerics (as fucked up with hate and resentment as you yourself) indoctrinate you with their agenda. They inspire, entice and encourage you to act . They even convince you that martyrdom is a noble objective that will at least give your life some meaning, even if it's the very last act you perform.

Hey presto ! One more hateful fanatical terrorist is born !!!

I'm not condoning the acts of terror nor condoning the terrorist. Mass murder is mass murder.Lebanon 1982 or USA 2001. Terror is terror. Mass murder is mass murder.I know that every single, individual who is a victim of terror has lost their precious individual life. And left behind a grief stricken family or friend. Every life lost is truly deplorable, truly truly sad. In each case, no words or deeds can compensate or bring that life back.

However, I'm saying without apology, that unless America and its allies come up with something more than a simplistic, gung ho ,cowboy & Indian , Hollywoodesque , good v evil approach only ( 'only' being the operative word) then I think the situation will get worse, not better .Even the imminent Western tactics of rooting out active terrorist groups, cells and individuals ( which I support because it has to be done to save innocent lives) will produce even more resentment in much of the Muslim world ( even here in the UK).Yet I support it because it has to be done. However to really rid the world of that resentment and hatred then America, Israel and the west must fundamentally address issues so that we somehow achieve a just , fair world. We in the west are not so consumed by resentment and hatred so we are best placed to act for the sake of good. Those consumed by hatred are not likely to want to work with us, so the onus really is on us. If we act correctly then we won't witness Arabs and muslims from birth to manhood , feeling hatred. Then we are less likely to witness such a one on an aircraft suicide mission. So, western military action alone ( though sadly necessary) will be disastrous. There MUST be a radical shift in the overall Western approach. Otherwise we are all fucked, big time.

It seems to me that the current Bush/Blair et al approach is akin to the approach Maggie Thatcher utilised on many an occasion. The Iron Lady. Inflexibility is the name of the game. You could argue that such an approach stood her in good stead at times. The Falklands war perhaps could be argued as a black/ white, right/ wrong scenario. Well, sort of. I'm sure any Argentine probably would or could argue the merits of the 'Malvinas' and cite many a historical fact to back up their argument. However, after all was said and done, the islands were inhabited 100% by British stock not Latinos. Perhaps there could even have been a diplomatic solution, something Maggie wasn't keen on. Nevertheless, a military junta overtook the islands and Maggie ordered British forces to reclaim them. Now it's up to the diplomats, hopefully.

In the case of Northern Ireland though, at the time of the IRA prisoners hunger strikes, the Sin Fein party only had a tiny proportion of the electorate on their side. Up until then the Catholic population voted in droves for the SDLP, a moderate and non-violent/non-terrorist party. She was totally inflexible to any demands because her principles wouldn't allow her any other course of action. So the prisoners duly died of starvation. The result? Sinn Fein then received really substantial gains in the elections and has managed to keep them.

You could argue that Thatcher was shrewd and intelligent here. Wrong. She abhorred Sinn Fein. The last thing she wanted was an increase of even one vote for them. Luckily for her, the intelligence was demonstrated by John Major, followed on by Tony Blair. They recognised that SF had gained the support of the Catholic community and that SF was inextricably linked with Provisional IRA . Hence negotiations, hence the semblance of peace we now have. Not complete peace but it is getting there, slowly (and in spite of often worrying setbacks), surely.

Thatcher resolutely continued to class Mandela as a terrorist up to the very end. Her champion was the weird and troublesome Zulu leader, Buthelezi. As it turns out he is now in the ANC government ( as leader of the Zulus) but he and Thatcher tried their utmost to marginilise Mandela till it became out of the question. Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not equating Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or their ilk with Mandela ( obviously) and I'm not equating the N.Irish and South African theatres of conflict with the global Islamic threat.

What I'm saying though is 'inflexibility' is only helpful in a very limited way in this present situation. In terms of immediate military action, global financial investigations, intellience matters etc , yes, these areas are not really negotiable . However, if the world community ( led by America) doesn't really address the threat in something like an intelligent manner and try to ultimately eradicate all possible root causes of terrorism then a gung ho wild goose chase will ensue for years, bringing the world close to total chaos and confusion.

We really have no alternative if we want a safe world. The rich must help the poor. The environment must be protected. All this stuff.But specifically for he terrorist threat , America MUST be more forceful with its close ally Israel. Maybe Europe has more leverage with Palestinians. But we can't have another 50 years of fucking about there.

I agree Arafat is hopeless but he's on the way out anyway. Let's hope a dyamic, intelligent and ,yes , more moderate leader arises from the Palestinian ranks. Someone sincere and charismatic enough to carry his/her people along.

America and the rest must also try as much as they can bring a more liberal, democratic culture in the vast majority of other Arab and Muslim states. Almost a quarter of the worlds nations are islamic , the vast majority of which are a sorry excuse for human decency. Opressive and autocratic. Unlike Christianity , Islam hasn't yet had a ' reformation'. Many muslims think it needs one.

As for the hatred terrorists feel , well I don't think we can change that for the present generation. For future generations though the onus is on the west to spread its ' good, liberal and democratic' values world-wide. It will mean not accepting states such as Saudi to exist as long as they supply oil. Not accepting, as in the past, states like Indonesia to exist in total corruption for the sake of being the wests military ally. The west has to decide if it really is sincere about its values and if it is then to share them.
Ok , all idealistic stuff but the West has never tried it. It's continued to apply double standards left , right and centre. Such blatant hypocrisy ( and the hypocrisy of backing BL and Saddam when it suits the west , then dropping them when they are no longer useful) is a fertile breeding ground for future enemies/ terrorists in the future.

In short ,the onus is on the West to lead the world out of hatred by its honest , open and just actions. When it's put like that, going on past history, there isn't really much hope for us! Nevertheless, do you have an alternative solution that doesn't perpetuate terrorism?

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 20:18:32 (EDT)
From: Tim G
Email: timgitti@indigo.ie
To: Dermot
Subject: Re: Blinfolds on, fingers in ears
Message:
Excellent post Dermot. We really DO have to look at the whole picture and it's causes otherwise the spiral goes on and on.
I am not anti American, many friends there attest to that. But Bush's dangerous statement 'you are either with America or with the terrorists' is plain ignorant. I am with the Amerian people who have suffered and I am with the millions who have suffered at the hands of the America military. 'Terrorists' is what you call your enemy whilst your own terrorism is called 'covert operations'
How I long for a more enlightened leadership where Kindness can be the ideology. Bombs breed bombers. Looks like we must be our own leaders and our own followers. Let's hunt the human being behind the mask.
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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 04:45:40 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Tim G
Subject: Hi Tim
Message:
Thanks for your post.

I agree with you, the spiral will just go on and on.

As for the 'Anti-American' tag, it's just used as a debate stopper.Easy way to avoid uncomfortable truths. I don't take it seriously because I know I could like and respect anyone from anywhere...be they Israeli, American, Arab .....anyone.

Nice to hear from ya

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 13:15:21 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Wonderful Post
Message:
Dermot,

Thanks for taking the time to say all that. You make so much sense.

I always thought Sharon was a war criminal after the massacres in Lebanon. I never thought he would be indicted. But I also never thought he could become Prime Minister of Israel. There, the cowboys have clearly taken over.

Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I think the war rhetoric and knee-jerk patriotism is receding somewhat in the states. People are starting to think about what to do next, and I think blind revenge is looking a whole lot less attractive.

I went to the San Francisco Blues Festival over the weekend. There were thousands of people there and it was very 'peaceful.' No flag-waving. No war talk. A lot of the performers talked about the need to promote peace against war, and Los Lobos ended the program with Marvin Gaye's 'What's Goin On' with that 'war is not the answer' lyric. The crowd was very enthusiastic. Of course, this is San Francisco.

I kind of wanted to put an American flag on the house because I wanted to reclaim the symbol. But Kevin didn't want to. So, we compromised and put up an Earth Day flag, the one that has a picture of the earth from outer space. It seemed like a good compromise.

Thanks again Dermot. It's great to hear from the voice of reason.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:14:42 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Wonderful Post
Message:
Hi Joe,

Thanks for your post. Got to rush actually so can't respond in detail.
Got a few things to sort out once again so I'll have to cool it , posting here for a while.

I was up till 4-30 AM the other day exchanging posts with Scott... it's time for a break for a few days. Just wanted to post that long post to clarify my position a little, after so much to and fro posting.

Hey, glad you enjoyed the festival .....as you say, 'Of course , this is San Francisco".....maybe not the ideal weather guage for the country at large, then again maybe it is in this instance.

Anyway, Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:07:53 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Bravo! Fortisimo! Virtuoso! Excellente!
Message:
Tough on terrorism,
tough on the causes of terrorism

Way to go!

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:07:43 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Re: Bravo! Fortisimo! Virtuoso! Excellente!
Message:
Haha, tony Blairs ' Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime'.....yeah , I guess.

Cheers John

Dermot

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:45:41 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: No, I don't agree at all
Message:
You seem to forget that many years have passed since 1982 with many a compromise, many a peace treaty, many a nobel prize between Israel and the Palestinians in the interim. If you allow bL or friends to reset the agenda, they've won. Puts a lie to all the negotiation, co-operation and what have you between the parties for years. That's completely wrong; the next step is granting bL a place at the table. Nice way to get there, huh?

Your anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-whatever it is you don't like is going to have to wait for a while. Bring it up next time the Palestinians decide to negotiate peacefully instead of by sending their boys out in the streets (with a few snipers mixed in for good measure) to attack the army -- yes, even with stones. Or next time they decide to abandon their dream of exterminating not just Israel but the jews instead of living side-by-side with them. Right now there's more immediate business at hand.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:34:30 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Your case is literally hopeless
Message:
as in devoid of hope. It also appears to be biased and one-sided.
Although, I mentioned more than just the Israel/Palestinian issue you responded just to that without recognising or accepting its wider context.Then throw in the possibility of BL at the negotiating table. Is that the sum and total of your argument?

Can it be that Israel is so innocent and blameless. It's all one way traffic?

As for the hundreds of pre-teen stone throwers cynically and cruelly shot dead (not even shot in the leg or something, though that would be bad enough. No shot in the head or heart). when the Brits killed 13 or so people in Londonderry(years ago in the 70's) when,arguably,the Paras lost control and shot anyone they felt like there was unbelievable uproar in Britain and other countries.Had it happened in any almost any other democratic country, again there would have been uproar.Had they all been CHILDREN, my god!!! But in Israel, who gives a fuck eh? Shoot the fucking kids dead ....perpetuate deep hatred, why not?

Your excuse? There is a sniper hiding somewhere too. So one of the best trained and armed forces in the world is so inept that it it has to mow down unarmed kids. Hundreds of them over the years. Give me a break. It's deliberate.

Finally you confirm what I pointed out .....fuck everything else... 'there's more immediate business at hand'. Yeah, and when that business is concluded, following your blinkered agenda, the ' business' will start up again. An endless cycle of hatred and terrorism.

As I said, devoid of hope and, frankly, devoid of intelligence.

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:22:19 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Re: Your case is literally hopeless
Message:
The point about Bloody Sunday is spot-on -- it was the biggest favour that the Brits could have done for IRA recruitment. As we would say these days, it kick-started the IRA in Derry and all across the North. This fact is pretty much common knowledge in Britain (despite ongoing prejudice against the Irish) and may help to explain why the Brits are talking so urgently to the States about their response to the Manhattan massacre.

But please note that Isreeli squaddies are not issued with anything but lethal weapons. They do not have given access to non-lethal alternatives -- or trained in their use -- by the Israeli state.

So the that State brutalises its own squaddies, at the same time as it gives the cycle of violence another push.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 21:15:59 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Oh yeah, thank bL for really sensitizing everyone!
Message:
I guess it comes down to this, doesn't it? The bad, bad U.S.A. that had the temerity to try to defend Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, that propped up its evil puppet state, Israel (which, we all know, doesn't really have a right to exist), that so audaciously sent in its so-called 'peace keeping' force to Somalia (bL's newest, most virulent fan base) is finally getting some sensitivity training. Yes, let's take out bL because what he did was very, very bad. But let's not forget to consider all the good things he can teach us.

That's ridiculous yet that's exactly where your rationalizing goes. You seem to assume that if someone does something extreme they must have a good reason. I don't agree.

I also think that your characterization of the Intifada is way off base BUT I don't want to argue about it now because I don't want to get dragged into what I consider an irrelevant argument.

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 11:00:07 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You see this Jim????
Message:
Jack Straw says the following: 'one of the factors that helps breed terror is the anger that many people in the region feel at events over the years in the Palestinian territories'

Note, he doesn't say 'the only factor' just 'one of the factors'.
Any rational, thinking person would agree with him, wouldn't they?

He's pointing out, as I have done that anger (especially if this anger is festering for decades) will produce terrorists, especially if the terrorist have no conventional army, no tanks, planes, helicopters.

Please remeber it was a former Israeli Prime minister who blew up the King David Hotel (and other acts) under British rule pre the State of Israel. Terrorist? Freedom fighter?

Also, I bet Jack Straw agrees with me that Israelis also feel anger. That Israelis have been victims of terror. That the Palestinians are as intractable (often times more intractable) when dealing with the Israelis. This is all obvious to me.

I'm surprised a Dawkins inspired rational atheist such as yourself can only distort what I say and respond with emotional outbursts.

Cheers

Dermot

PS Jack Straw better cancel all future social events with the North London Jewish community as it's likely he'll now be branded "Anti-Semitic". Already one Israeli cabinet minister has called his quote an "obscenity". Yeah, nice way to have a rational, honest and frank discussion.
[ Jack Straws quote ]

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 04:29:14 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Nah Jim , that's an emotional response only :)
Message:
That's a really good debating trick Jim ......point out what you hope I meant as opposed to what I ACTUALLY said and meant.

Where do you get this 'bad bad USA ' stuff from ? You'll notice when I criticise the USA foreign policy approach (and the West in general of course) it doesn't mean I consider the USA 'bad bad'. That's absurd, irrational, emotional.

Same goes for 'evil ' Israel. Evil? So are you saying if I chose to continually PRAISE USA and ISRAEL, then that's fine.....it's sort f just stating the truth, the facts but if I have the temerity to CRITICIZE them then suddenley I'm branding them as 'bad' , 'evil' !!!!! That's clearly absurd.

If I actually said or implied they were evil, then fire away. But please don't TWIST my words to suit your emotional agenda. It just aint an honest way to discuss matters.

Also if you read my posts carefully I have been critical of the vast majority of ARAB states too. I think the imbalance lies with you not me.

As for Israel doesn't REALLY have a right to exist .....again BOLLOCKS Jim, I never said that. I never implied that. I never meant that.

Then to state I want to learn from BL. Pleaseeeeee .

As John T pointed out , I was proposing a 2 track approach

1. Tough on the likes of BL , without compromise ( and I DID make it clear )
2. Tough on the causes again without compromise.....which as I CLEARLY pointed out means a radical shift in the approach of US, Israel and the West in general.

I'm Irish and love Ireland. I'm English and love England. I'm European and I'm proud of it. I'm on planet earth .....a small world.

You criticise, even condemn, any of the above and I'll listen , debate, agree and disagree....whatever, but I won't twist your words and meaning. Why on earth can't you do that with USA and Israel ????

It's really baffling.

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:41:24 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: I think that's ridiculous
Message:
I don't see you proposing a response so much as just using the opportunity to slag the west. 'Tough on the causes' is meaningless to me.
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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 13:05:33 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I can see you are scared to face
Message:
uncomfortable facts and uncomfortable viewpoints so instead of responding to many of the points it's more convenient to broadbrush it all with a 'slag the west" comment

Pointless talking then aint it? ......so much for your rational view of things.

HA !!!!!

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:15:27 (EDT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Sharon is a war criminal...
Message:
but Peres is the cold blooded murderer I'd like to see go down.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:19:54 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: Good point, Gerry -- let's get Peres!
Message:
That's an excellent idea, Ger.

Now, what were we talking about?

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:22:16 (EDT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Why, I thought everyone knew...
Message:
Peres engineered the murder is of Rabin.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:26:09 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: gerry
Subject: But, Ger, everyone DOES know that
Message:
Really, Ger, that's old news. I'm surprised you think you even have to mention it. Oswald is to Kennedy as ... oh, sorry, I guess that wouldn't work for you. Well, anyway, it's common knowledge, Ger. No need to remind anyone.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:31:27 (EDT)
From: gerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Good then I guess we all agree
Message:
Israel is ruled by thugs. Duh!
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:07:39 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Anyone see BBC/Discovery's 'Behind the Terror'?
Message:
I just saw 'Behind the Terror: Understanding the Enemy' (a joint production of BBC and Discovery Channel). I suspected there was more to this than CNN and the rest of the media were explaining, and there is.

Anyone else see this documentary? I'm inclined to agree with Jerry, that it isn't impossible the U.S. ends up talking with al Qaeda. We trained these guys when they fought Afghanistan.

I know the U.S. will try to destroy this enemy, but I don't see it happening.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:08:19 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: The rhetoric and the campaign
Message:
Is bin Laden easy to get? We sure are getting mixed messages.

Last week, I remember sitting in a hotel cafeteria restaurant watching Bush tell us that 'we're gonna smoke'em outta their holes,' we're 'gonna get 'em on the run.' God, I thought, he sounds like a small boy.

Earlier, I heard him struggling again for presidential-sounding words, telling the press that we were going to 'whip the terrorists' as if 'the terrorists' were a specific and limited entity that could be located and eradicated by military force, never to darken our doors again. And 'whip?' That's what your high school football team does to the cross town rival. That's as bad as using the word 'crusade' which Bush did repeatedly, as if he had no idea how offensive that word is to the people of the Middle East.

But Bush has an 80% approval rating, which is fine by me, because I myself would hesitate to say: 'I don't support the President of the United States.' Of course I support the President. I just wish he were someone else. But under our system, our country relies on one individual at times like this, and he's the man. I have no doubt the 'support' is very high. What else are people going to say? But what is he thinking? Is he thinking?

He just isn't inspiring about all this, but thank god for Colin Powell. He at least sounds intelligent and thoughtful. I think Powell actually understands the military, and he has a long-standing doctrine of never getting the military involved unless there is clear goal, exit strategy and means. He went up through the ranks. Unlike Bush, who was a draft dodger, who got into the National Guard and then didn't even show up half the time, and Cheney, who has said he 'had better things to do' than be in the armed services. I sure hope Colin Powell is listened to, and given how the rhetoric has quieted down in the past few days, I think he is.

I'll just say one thing about bin Laden, If the US goes out next week and finds bin Laden and kills him, and destroys his operation, I, for one, am going to be extremely pissed off. Won't you be pissed? The man destroys two embassies and a warship and we do next to nothing, except shoot some bombs harmlessly into the desert and bomb a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which we later embarrassingly admit was not only NOT producing harmful chemicals, but actually, it turns out, had absolutely nothing to do with bin Laden (ooops, yet ANOTHER intelligence failure).

So, in the meantime, we let bin Laden hang around and plan the murder of 6,000 people, and THEN we go get him? And we find out that it's not that hard after all? Yep, pissed.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:02:09 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: The rhetoric and the campaign
Message:
Getting bin Laden will take alot of hard work and alot of luck. That isn't the hard part, though. We're walking into a tenous situation that could easily backfire and put us in any even worse situation.

We're taking the risk of upsetting some countries with delicate governments, and an entire region with an explosive temperment.

I don't think the reason we haven't got bin Laden so far, is as simple as incompetence. I think it's a matter of weighing cost versus return, and right now return of catching bin Laden is high compared to the cost. Somehow, it was below the marker before September 11.

Bush is an absolute moron, and you're completely right in your characterization of him as a locker-room adolescent. There are people I think I'm a little smarter than who I really like, but I can't find anything redeemable about Bush. It wouldn't normally mean much, so what if I don't like the guy and I think he's an asshole. It's just that he shouldn't even be a mayor of a small town, much less president.

I don't trust Powell nearly as much as you. I know he's capable and competent but I think his soul is so completely sold that there isn't any chance he's going to do anything remarkable here. And I didn't exactly hear him screaming about the dire reality of an attack like the WTC before Sept. 11.

The problem isn't bin Laden; it's a huge network of some mean, determined and often sharp people, with an entire different reality than we have any experience with, and hardly any ability to understand. That's what worries me more than anything... that we're just seeing this as good vs evil.

Final thought: I can't ever think of Bush as my leader. Not ever. Not in a million years.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 11:54:30 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: The rhetoric and the campaign
Message:
I agree. I just think our massive intelligence failures should be looked at carefully and corrected. The track record isn't very good so far.

I think I'm desperately searching for some reassurance when it comes to Powell. He just sounds so much more experienced and intelligent and logical than anyone else in this administration. I wouldn't say I trust him exactly, I just maybe am hoping he is a force mitigating against yahoo militarism as a solutuion to a problem that is too complex for that to be effective.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 12:10:32 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: The rhetoric and the campaign
Message:
Yeah, I see what you mean. I'm not only afaid yahoo militarism won't be effective, but that it will create more enemies, in addition to making our current enemies even angrier, resulting in an even less secure domestic situation. At the end of the day, I just want to not have to worry about terrorist attacks. I wonder if that's going to be possible again.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:33:33 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Chatting with the guru of terror.
Message:
I know the U.S. will try to destroy this enemy, but I don't see it happening.

Wanna bet? The skeine is unravelling as we speak. The Taliban now say they've lost track of him themselves, so have been unable to deliver the message asking him to leave. Sounds like they're worried to me, and are offering excuses. What's with you guys? You know more about people like Bin Laden than these BBC producers. Why don't you draw on your own experience? I don't get it.

He's isolated geographically as well as politically, and it'll only get worse for him. Shoot. I'm just wasting my breath. Going for a bike ride. Have a good time figuring out what Bin Laden 'wants.' Be sure to tell the White House when you have it solved. Leave a note under the door.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:51:01 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Chatting with the guru of terror.
Message:
Therein lies the piece of the puzzle missing. Who said anything about Bin Laden? Maybe they'll find him, maybe not. Maybe they'll kill him or bring him to trial and find him guilty. The thing is, ultimately it doesn't matter.

What matters is if the U.S. can make its borders secure from a major act of terrorism. It doesn't matter if you catch five thousand terrorists but one manages to unleash some chemical weapons.

What the BBC producers of this documentary know that I didn't was that there's a lot of these people with a gripe that's more sophisticated than simple 'evil'. The terrorists are in a lot of countries and they have financial support from individuals who aren't easily tracked.

Scott, I don't understand why you're narrowing your vision.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 23:59:28 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: Chatting with the guru of terror.
Message:
What matters is if the U.S. can make its borders secure from a major act of terrorism. It doesn't matter if you catch five thousand terrorists but one manages to unleash some chemical weapons.

Well as stated that's certainly a mathematical dilemma. But my understanding is that weaponizing chemical agents is anything but easy or cheap. If there's some sort of exotic process that does it, chances are there'll be a trail.

What the BBC producers of this documentary know that I didn't was that there's a lot of these people with a gripe that's more sophisticated than simple 'evil'. The terrorists are in a lot of countries and they have financial support from individuals who aren't easily tracked.

Scott, I don't understand why you're narrowing your vision.

I'm not. I think you're making an attribution error. I realize the terrorists have intense support throughout Islam. If there weren't such a generic resentment against the US I'd expect that support to dry up.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:25:41 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Is this article accurate ? Salam maybe you know.
Message:

[ Page Link ]
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:30:02 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: Sorry fucked up again with this bastard machine
Message:
the article is called Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection .

www.the Spectator.co.uk

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:45:49 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: just simplifying it ...
Message:
active link, I hope. I'm curious about your opinion too, Salam.
[ Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection ]
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 04:25:49 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Belief in Paradise is a recipe for hell
Message:
......on earth
by Matthew Parris (in the same issue of The Spectator which may be Tory but it's always a good read.)

To anyone but the believer, does it matter whether there is an after-life? Is it anybody’s business but the believer’s? Are we intruding — is it rude? — when we who have no faith question the religious beliefs of those who do?

It so happened that I was pondering this at the time when the World Trade Center collapsed.

Not many weeks previously I had written for the Times an essay about miracles. Taking the account of a claimed miracle performed by (or through) the late Mother Teresa, and now under investigation by the Vatican, I asked how Roman Catholics could honestly believe such things. Citing by name a list of respected Catholic figures in British public life — men and women of great influence whom I acknowledged to be of superior judgment — I asked, of each, whether they believed that, through the agency of a silver medallion that had touched Mother Teresa’s corpse, God had cured an Indian peasant woman of a life-threatening tumour.

When you write about religion you get a huge response from readers. Some were kind, but how quick many Christians are to become poisonous when their faith is questioned, impugning the character or motives of the questioner rather than engaging with the question. I was soon wading through piles of letters and emails, whose analysis will deserve another column for some interesting common themes link the letters.

But one stood out. Expressed in many different ways, it amounted to this: ‘My faith may be an imperfect thing, but at least I’m trying, and what I have is my own. To each his own gods. Keep your nose out.’ In other words, those without faith have no right to finger the beliefs of the faithful, because faith is private, and at least believers have a belief, which is more than non-believers do.

There are two strands here. First, a person’s understanding of the universe and its meaning is nobody’s business but his own; second, as half a loaf is better than no bread, so some kind of faith is better than no faith at all. Religious belief becomes a sort of possession — like a beautiful painting. Whether or not others share the owner’s taste is their problem, for he does not, by valuing something, force others to do so. The atheist, who cannot appreciate, should envy the believer, who can.

And, as I’ve said, it so happens that this was what I was pondering just before those two suicide pilots went in. They had faith, but my atheism does not envy them. Their faith was personal, but very much our business. Their God claims, as does our Christian God, to be the God of all mankind, including us infidels who do not acknowledge him. Their religion, like ours, promises Paradise to those who are faithful to its cause.

Now one had better at once make clear that no direct comparison is intended between a gentle and well-meaning Christian’s faith and the perversion of Islam that drove those young hijackers to their savage acts. Or, rather, we may make the comparison, but upon making it we will find that the two are in many respects different.

There is, however, an important core common to both. Both faiths claim universality. Both teach their followers that there is another world more important than this one, and that entrance into that Paradise is to be gained or lost upon the judgment not of this world or anyone in it, but of a Being who stands beyond the here and now. Both believe that in a most important sense of the word this world is not real, and that the here and now does not matter. Meaning is elsewhere. Results, in the ultimate, are to be sought elsewhere. Judgment will be made by Another.

If I have seemed to claim an absence of faith, then I take that back. I am a great believer in the here and now. I do believe in this world, in this humanity, its present and its future, and in results sought and found here on earth. And that it is we who must judge.

I believe that the here and now is good, and worth working to improve; that human suffering is bad, and worth seeking to mitigate; and that life and peace, beauty and plenty, are to be sought as ends in themselves, for ourselves and for those who succeed us. I believe this world and its future matters, matters completely, matters more than anything. I believe this world is real. I know of no other.

And I believe in the judgment of the here and now; that we and our fellow-men, in this life and for the sake of this life, can judge our contributions, applying our own standards, derivable from nobody and nothing but ourselves, rewardable or punishable by nobody and nothing but ourselves, rewardable or punishable nowhere but here. The reality in which I believe is not, however, solipsistic; it includes others, including future others. There is nothing necessarily selfish in a belief in the primacy of this life; any more than there is anything necessarily unselfish in the pursuit of Paradise in an after-life.

A belief in the visible is a wonderfully steadying thing. The here and now can be horrific, shocking, painful, but if you think it is what counts, then you will so conduct yourself as to mitigate the horror, minimise the shocks, avoid the pain, for yourself and others. You will not lay waste this world in hopes of salvation in the next.

You will not fly an aeroplane into a skyscraper. Or, rather, you will not do so unless convinced that others will benefit in this life. That you could benefit in Paradise is not an available outcome.

You will not preach to wretched people the evils of birth control in this world, on the grounds that their souls’ salvation is what counts and though their children may starve they will see Glory in the next. You will not incite the poor to stone the poor, and call upon God in Heaven, as Ian Paisley does, as your judge. You will not dismiss real lives, real feelings, real hopes and fears, as a mere chimera, a veil of tears.

For is the pursuit of the next life not a corrupter of this one? Is not the doctrine that this world does not matter an invitation to callousness, and the call of the next a call to madness? If we are not to judge by the evidence of our own eyes, then we are quickly in the hands of the mediators: those who claim to have glimpsed the invisible, to see illuminated by divine light what with our own eyes we cannot see, to hear voices we cannot hear, to know reasons beyond our reasoning.

As Richard Dawkins said in the Guardian last week, Paradise-seeking missiles are the deadliest of weapons. If God did not exist it would have been necessary for Osama bin Laden to invent him. Godlessness is a humanising force.

Matthew Parris is a political columnist of the Times.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 13:10:14 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Hey Pat
Message:
Good article. Matthew Parris used to be an 'out' gay tory MP a few years ago. Although, as your'e no doubt aware, being gay is not something unheard of in the tory party :) nevertheless, because he was open about it he was sort of ridiculed out of the party by colleagues.
All other parties and the country at large are pretty much at ease with gayness but the tories still support section 29, the bill Thatcher brought in to stifle debate in schools on gay issues.It made it illegal to 'promote' being gay but was so worded that it made it nigh impossible to even talk about. In effect it encouraged school bullying of those gay or as yet unsure or coming to terms with their sexuality.

I'm not a tory but I really like Matthew Parris and his political sketchwriting and profiles of politicians and the shenanigans in Parliament are sometimes really hilarious.

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 14:20:35 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Re: Hey Dermot, I'm not a Tory either
Message:
...but I have always enjoyed Parris' writing just because he does not toe the pc line. Actually I been a Spectator subscriber for 20 years. Some of the old farts in it are reactionaries but many are classical liberals, my kind of folks.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 11:15:13 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Fantastic, Pat! [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:50:32 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Mighty good review, but
Message:
Am not sure about the generalisation that all suicide bombers are Wahhabis, though am inclined to believe this man as there are a lot of evidence that these people are zealots capable of doing this sort of action. The Wahabis are a bunch of wanker poophtas; you can compare them to Pol Pot.

The Wahabi sect was started by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab (c.1703-1791). He was Driven from Medina for his preaching, went into the NE Nejd and converted the Saud tribe. The Saudi sheik convinced that it was his religious mission to wage holy war (jihad) against all other forms of Islam, began the conquest of his neighbors in c.1763. By 1811 the Wahhabis ruled all Arabia, by 1818 the Wahhabis were driven into the desert. In the Nejd they collected their power again and from 1821 to 1833 gained control over the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia. 1821 to 1833 gained control over the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia. The domain thereafter steadily weakened; Riyadh was lost in 1884 and in 1889 the Saud family fled for refuge into the neighboring state of Kuwait. The Wahhabi movement was to enjoy its third triumph when Ibn Saud advanced from his capture of Riyadh in 1902 to the reconstitution in 1932 of nearly all his ancestral domain under the name Saudi Arabia, (Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud) c.1880-1953, During World War I the British made slight efforts to cultivate Ibn Saud's friendship but favored his rival, Husayn ibn Ali of the Hejaz. In 1924-25, Ibn-Saud defeated Husayn and proclaimed himself king of Hejaz and Nejd 1856-1931, an Arab political and religious leader.

Some Islamic scholars believe that the Wahabs are the remnants of the ancient cult the Salafi or the Khawarij, that acted against Mohamed. See this Article:

http://www.geocities.com/~abdulwahid/muslimarticles/dogs.html

It looks that the Wahabs have also changed traditional books about Islam and Islamic way of live to suit their philosophy. It is a fact that when Bin laden was a pet of Al-Saud, he went to Pakistan to check the situation, came back to Saudia Arabia and lobbied the government to support the Talabans. See this article

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/masud/ISLAM/nuh/masudq3.htm

The Sauds interest in Afghanistan has many folds. First they are interested in establishing a gas and oil pipeline from Turkmenistan and linked to the Pakistani oil line. This 4 billion project in Conjunction with the California based UNOCAL, Pakistan Oil Company, with support from Russia and Japan was active until 1998, when the Americans bombed bin Laden training camps, the project was put on the back burner.

The other reason for supporting the Talabans is to try and contain IRAN. The Iranian Mullahs don't see eye to eye with the ruling Saudis, the Iranian are Sha'ai and a major thorn in the Wahabi side. If the Talabans can control Afghanistan then they can penetrate Iran space and send Wahabbies inside Iran to destabilize it.

Lastly, the Wahabbies are exporting their agenda to other neighboring countries of AFGHANISTAN including Chechnya, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, China, Kashmir and India.

Now add the fact that Pakistan has always had an eye to make Afghanistan a Pak protectorate allowing it a trade route to central Asia and a buffer zone against the Indian army, you can see where this all coming from. Not withstanding that during the cold war, India was more of a leftist country getting a lot of support from the USSR.

Though the Talabans are Sunni, am not certainly sure that they completely adhere to the Wahabbi doctrine. As this is determined by the Pakistani government and the ISI [Pakistan secret service]. But certain events, like the mass slaughter of ordinary civilians for no apparent reason except maybe for being Shi'ais, the destruction of the two large Buddhist status, the war with the Northern Alliance [Shi'ai], the treatment of woman, banning all music, TV, Internet makes me believe that the Talabans are Wahabies.

I have lived in Islamic culture; Islam may appear to be a backward step in time, but only because of countries like Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and their satellites. Look at Malaysia for example, it's officially an Islamic country, but there aren't the extremes [said with caution, as I don't agree with president Mahatia]. Not every Muslim keeps his wife looked in a cellar, live without a TV and recites the Quo'ran night and day, look in your neighborhood.

This is an extremely complicated subject to talk about lightly.

Oh and fuck the British and French, They started this.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 18:48:02 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Thanks Salam but ,
Message:
Seems to me it's this cap'n wahab guy got the show on the road .

All the best : Pat Dorrity

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 01:00:10 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: forgot to say
Message:
that the Talibans follow the Deobani fath. It a regional movement that was started about a 150 years ago in responce to the mal treatement of Muslims in The region [ Pakisatan ].

See this link:

http://www.pakistanlink.com/sah/04202001.html

There has been a general meeting of the faith in recent time. It the old retrics, kill so and demolish so and ban this and were are better than that. you can probably find info on the 3 day gathering if you are interest by following this link:

http://www.institute-for-afghan-studies.org/dev_xyz/taliban/deobandi_conf_2001.htm

Some of the article explain the relationship between the PAK goverment, the ISI, Jamit-i-Islam and the Talabans, moy interesting [to me at least]

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 17:59:03 (EDT)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Thanks , I'll look at those [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 18:08:03 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: Great post. Thank you Salam.
Message:
Thanks so much, Salam, for taking the time to do the finger-work and give your perspective on this. I really appreciate it.

I fully agree that something must be done to address the terrorist attack which has already occurred, as well as the threat of more to come - not only wrt to the western world, but all beings living on this planet. I can only hope that those with the power to act on this situation will examine and consider it thoroughly, in all its complexity, before they choose their course(s) of 'action'. It is obviously very complicated, involving far more than Bin Laden. As Joe wrote above somewhere, the track record of simple solutions has not been good, and this situation is far more far-flung than those he mentions.

As someone who has worked with adults from all over the world for 25 years, I can say with some confidence, that there is no way that we can overgeneralize about anyone on the basis of culture or ethnic background, and many of the most sweet, intelligent, and compassionate students I have had the pleasure to teach, have been of the Islamic faith. And of course, among a number of others, there is my very good friend, Salam.

I know that I cannot do this topic justice, but ...

Love to you, Salam,

Anna

(I think we've all fucked ourselves, on a lot of levels, thanks largely to unscrupulous and corrupt leadership, going back into ancient history. :(( ;)

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 01:08:10 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Re: Great post. Thank you Salam.
Message:
Unfortunatly St:)n:)r nothing is being done to address the problem. I was hoping that the shock of the WTC will awaken the US goverment so as to re=evaluate their forign policy, but fuck all. americans are immature as far as other nations are concerned, all they worry about is how does anything affect there strategic interests, anything else can go to hell. I don't think anything good will come out of this.

Salam

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Date: Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 01:34:41 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: S:)l:)m.
Message:
'Put on a 'happy' face' ... 'Smile and the world smiles with you,' right? What you wrote, is right, ask Buckminster Fuller - we're slaves, although we're well paid. And the 'fairy tale giant' are the multi-national corparations that straddle contents without needing a passport, and MAI will see to it that 'local' insurrections (in all parts of the world, not just the third) will meet with 'extreme' resistance while Mother Earth and most living creatures get fucked, not laid, (let alone 'made love to').

How's that for confrontational?

Do ya think gErRy's goin' ta bust me for obscenities or spamming? ;)

(typed without a smile on my face),

Anna

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:09:57 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Thanks Pat - Great articles. [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:24:04 (EDT)
From: Suedoula
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: 'Behind the Terror'
Message:
I missed it last night and will be putting the kids to bed when they run it again tonite -- I'm going to keep looking for it cause it's something I really want to see.

Best,
Susan

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:44:36 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Suedoula
Subject: Re: 'Behind the Terror'
Message:
Susan:

Is this the documentary that's been showing on TLC? If so it is top notch. Don't see where people come to the conclusion that the US will end up talking to him though.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:59:30 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: 'Behind the Terror'
Message:
The only reason we'd talk to the terrorists is if we have to. If we can't disable them we may have no choice. Also if we gain enemies along the way that we can't afford to have, we may have to talk to the terrorists. Even if we don't actually talk, we may have to take positions of compromise in order to gain the security we need.
I'm coming to this conclusion because this enemy is so elusive, so determined and so numerous, and because we're such an easy target. Once external terrorism has started in a country, it's never been unilaterally defeated.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:39:25 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: 'Behind the Terror'
Message:
The only reason we'd talk to the terrorists is if we have to. If we can't disable them we may have no choice. Also if we gain enemies along the way that we can't afford to have, we may have to talk to the terrorists.

You may not believe this, and it's a topic all it's own, but if this were to happen the government of the US, including it's Constitution, would be in serious jeapardy. Not that this won't happen, but understand the circumstances that would have to transpire. Any President who would negotiate with Bin Laden would be impeached, so we'd essentially have to be defeated as a nation for that to happen. Geez, the way you guys talk you'd think Bin Laden was George Washington or something.

Also if we gain enemies along the way that we can't afford to have, we may have to talk to the terrorists.

Well I guess, to use an analogy, we might have to choose Stalin over Hitler. I suppose under those conditions we might talk to someone of his ilk. But Bin Laden is no Stalin yet. That's getting way out in front of this.

Even if we don't actually talk, we may have to take positions of compromise in order to gain the security we need.
I'm coming to this conclusion because this enemy is so elusive, so determined and so numerous, and because we're such an easy target.

Why do you think they are too elusive to get, or very numerous? Giving in to such demands for the sake of gaining security will almost certainly result in the opposite. That's the lesson of history anyway. It's the lesson of Chamberlain, and also of how we deal with terrorists. Winston Churchill said something like 'Appeasers are the people standing around watching the Crockadile, hoping they're the last one to be eaten.' The only reason we negotiate with [small scale] terrorists is for strategic reasons, to delay them, or to gain intelligence, or to take surrender.

Once external terrorism has started in a country, it's never been unilaterally defeated.

I don't think there are any precedents for this type of situation. The Irish 'Troubles?' Israel and Palestine? No one in those struggles had the stigma of having callously murdered thousands of people, witout even making any demands. Besides, this isn't the same as the Irish situation. I don't see a problem with allowing the Middle East to have self government, or even promoting it. I don't think that's what Bin Laden wants, so I see no reason to negotiate. What he wants is to establish a harsh brutal theocracy, one that is not desired by the majority of people in the Middle East. To give in to him would be tantamount to a condemnation of Islam. We have an interest in increasing the social welfare and raising the economic conditions of people in the Middle East, again something Bin Laden does not want. In short, I see us as willing to provide the people of the Middle East with most of what they want, without going through terrorists as middle men. This is not Vietnam. It's not an ideological struggle that has no direct impact on the US. We'll kill Bin Laden and his followers (most of them) because we have to. The Moslem world will help us.

I'm getting tired of going through this, and suspect you'll just believe what you want to believe anyway. As I said before, when you figure it out just leave a note under the door.

That's an excellent documentary, BTW, if it's the one I'm thinking of. It has video taken within the WTC during the attack.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:40:10 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: 'Behind the Terror'
Message:
Any President
who would negotiate with Bin Laden would be impeached, so we'd essentially have to be
defeated as a nation for that to happen. Geez, the way you guys talk you'd think Bin Laden
was George Washington or something.

True, that's how it stands right now. But look down the road... Bin Laden is gone for whatever reason (killed by us, his power usurped by one of his own, etc) and another guy takes his place. Maybe we don't even know who the new guy is.

Then there's another attack, even bigger than Sept. 11.

Meanwhile, we've made a few blunders and lost some support from some Arab nations. And it's become all too clear that terrorism is here to stay. We're already doing everything we can, but it's still happening. I don't find it hard to imagine we'd negotiate if it was in our best interest.

But Bin Laden is no Stalin yet.

I think there's two different factors here: evil and level of power. Bin Laden is very evil in terms of the unlimited destruction he's willing to cause. But he's hardly powerful in terms of the types of resources a nation has. If it turns out there's an actual nation we lock horns over this, and they start garnering support from other nations, we may wish Bin Laden was the worst we were dealing with.

No one in those struggles had the stigma of having callously murdered thousands
of people, witout even making any demands

Israel hasn't been saved because it's enemies are worried about PR. If they could have been destroyed, it would have happened. I think the terrorists have done their best in Israel and will continue.

Israel negotiates with terrorists because they have to. If there was a solution that worked, that excluded negotations, they would use it. I don't see the level of destruction that terrorism causes, being the catalyst for negotiations. The problem that necessitates negotiation is that you can't separate your enemy from a surrounding population that isn't directly culpable.

The al Quada haven't listed demands but there are details movitating them. The U.S. presence in the Middle-East has enraged them. Their movement arose out of battles that didn't allow negotiations. It seems they have the same attitude towards negotiating with us, that we have with them.

I think they do have demands; they just haven't been identified yet. We don't feel any generosity to giving them anything but if it's a last resort, I think it will happen.

What
he wants is to establish a harsh brutal theocracy, one that is not desired by the majority of
people in the Middle East. To give in to him would be tantamount to a condemnation of Islam.

That's debatable. Islam isn't so easily defined. In the documentary, 'Behind the Terror', it explains how Islam had an identity crisis up until the Shah of Iran was overthrown. The dogmatic theocracy started by the Ayatollah has evolved and gained enough momentum that it has to be considered as a growing ideology in that part of the world.

We have an interest in increasing the social welfare and raising the economic conditions of
people in the Middle East, again something Bin Laden does not want.

Once again, from that documentary... this attitude is exactly what pisses the hell out of alot of the people; that westerners think they know what's best for the region and don't understand that what's held sacred there is different than in the west.

. We'll kill Bin Laden and his followers (most of them) because we
have to.

Most of them won't be good enough.

I'm getting tired of going through this, and suspect you'll just believe what you want to believe
anyway.

I'm willing to believe credible information about a part of the world and its history, that I know little about. And thereafter, apply common sense. What seems obvious to you, looks lacking in subtlety for a sophisticated situation.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 00:01:25 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: 'Behind the Terror'
Message:
But look down the road... Bin Laden is gone for whatever reason (killed
by us, his power usurped by one of his own, etc) and another guy takes his
place. Maybe we don't even know who the new guy is.

Then there's another attack, even bigger than Sept. 11.

Meanwhile, we've made a few blunders and lost some support from some Arab
nations. And it's become all too clear that terrorism is here to stay. We're
already doing everything we can, but it's still happening. I don't find it
hard to imagine we'd negotiate if it was in our best interest.

I think you need to make up your mind what we're up against. In what sense
could one negotiate with an opponent who is not capable of making a binding
promise? Negotiation with such an opponent intent on your ultimate
annihilation is capitulation, nothing less. We give up pizzas, hot dogs,
movies, shopping, biking, football, talking openly about politics and
religion, music, the Constitution, computers, TV, a kiss in the moonlight.
And totalitarianism doesn't stop there, because ultimately it will want to
control your every thought and action. But all this is too much for you.
I'm just being melodramatic, and lacking subtlety. YOU CAN'T NEGOTIATE WITH
AN OPPONENT WHO CAN'T MAKE A BINDING PROMISE. And who has as his ultimate
goal your complete destruction. No, we won't negotiate. If it comes to
that we'll fight to extinction, to the last man. Better that than the
other.

That's debatable. Islam isn't so easily defined.

We aren't fighting Islam. Get that straight. OK? I provide a few
citations. Take them seriously. Arendt. Jerrold Post. Just read a little
of what they say. It's not Islam. Get it?

Once again, from that documentary... this attitude is exactly what pisses
the hell out of alot of the people; that westerners think they know what's
best for the region and don't understand that what's held sacred there is
different than in the west.

Well let them have it their own way then, but from everything I'm able to
glean through opinion polling what they want is a Western lifestyle and
income within their current culture or a watered down version of it. The
attitudes and resentments you're talking about are an extreme fringe, which
you invest (for reasons completely beyond me) with the legitimacy of the
majority opinion in the Middle East. This is making me tired. What are we
talking about, the Middle East or Bin Laden and his cult? You've conflated
them.

Most of them won't be good enough.

I don't understand this. You mean they're better soldiers than we are?
Braver? Have cleverer leaders? Read Steven Ambrose about the American
soldier. And I leave you with this. They hijacked four planes, 25% of
which were targeted at the Capitol and were brought down by an American
amateur soccer player armed with a butter knife. You really think this was
some sort of accident?

I'm willing to believe credible information about a part of the world and
its history, that I know little about. And thereafter, apply common sense.
What seems obvious to you, looks lacking in subtlety for a sophisticated
situation.

Again, I've no end of subtle distinctions to invest in Middle Eastern
thought and culture. Have you ever heard of Ibn Kaldun? But I'm not
willing to invest them in a dumbass megalomaniacal cult. Read Jerrold Post.
Then let's talk. Or don't. I'm through.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:30:38 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Draft Age
Message:
How many on this forum are of draft age or have sons, brothers or nephews? And if they institute the draft for females, likewise?

I ask this because too many people are looking at the kids and telling them they better be registered and they better be getting ready, and if you have a child in preschool, well, be prepared if this 'war on terrorism' lasts twenty years. So we can spout all we want, but I'd really like to know, who here is of the age to go and who here is willing to let someone they are related to go without a choice in the matter?

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:17:44 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Why?
Message:
I don't think anyone ought to freely give personal information to some anonymous individual so dense they failed to recognize Jim's 'A Perfect Solution...' post as irony. You have no idea where he [she?] might stick it.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:27:20 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Why?
Message:
If you don't want to answer my question then don't answer my question. Did I miss something that exiting premies can only post here and PARTICIPATE if they give their names? Did you bother to ask me why I haven't chosen to divulge my name yet and if I intend to?
Are you Jim's publicist or is he capable of telling me on his own that his post was sarcasim?

When you speak to people, like you have to me just now, it does not lend to an atmosphere of freedom of speech, rights of opinions, let alone tolerance. When people are leaving the world of knowledge, posts like yours are not condusive to inviting people to share what is going on in their lives. I learn a great deal here, more than I have anywhere else in years, from everyone's opinion and experiences.
Even yours, but not from your rudeness.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:49:56 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Re: Why?
Message:
You're asking for information from people that may be sensitive and personal, info about their age, the ages of their children and relatives, and aren't even willing to divulge who you are? So, just who do you think *you* are? I certainly don't know who you are. No one on this forum knows much about my family, including people I've been conversing with for years. But tell me *why* you want to know, tell me something about *yourself,* and I'll consider it. Sorry about being rude, but the request wasn't exactly considerate either.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:54:47 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Why?
Message:
Did I ask for social security numbers, birthdates, blood type?
It was a general question, pertaining to the topic of the draft.
My point is this, does this touch us in a REAL way, as in, will people you know be sent to fight via the draft?

It's one thing to postulate, but it is entirely another when it is a family member who will be called up to carry on this war. As for the rest of your rhetoric, you sir, can go to hell, and possibly learn some manners.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:23:58 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Re: Why?
Message:
You may not be asking for SSN, but you are asking for information about people who have real identities presumably with the intent of impugning them if, for instance, they don't happen to have family threatened by a draft. In other words you want to identify someone as a 'free rider.' So you're innocent of that intent? Right.

Besides, the way you asked the question nearly everyone will have someone in their family of draft age within the next 20 years. And even if we were over 50 with no siblings or children, no neices, or other family, we'd still have a stake in liberty. A friend might have to go, whatever. Even more to the point, in a global war on terrorism everyone is in the front line. You, me, everyone... whether we're in the draft or not. You live in a city, you're a target. You drink water from a public reservoir, you're a target. So we *all* have a stake, and we're all at risk. We're all at risk anyway, so we might as well fight. Stop being so sensitive. This is the Internet, not a coffee house. Get to know people and they'll treat you alright (sort of).

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:33:26 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: you go, girl (nt)
Message:
nt
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:36:11 (EDT)
From: Suedoula
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Re: Draft Age
Message:
There isn't anyone in my immediate family that is draft age at the moment. My 'aunt' (not a blood relation kind) raised a foster son who is in the army and overseas already. He is scheduled to come home next month -- I guess his tour is done then. He is as close as we come -- everyone else is either too young or too old.

My kids are 6 1/2 and 3. I am hoping that this is not something they will have to inherit. Maybe it will be over before they are old enough to have it passed on to them. My cousin's oldest son is 14. He may not be so lucky.

My husband has mentioned moving to Canada.

Best,
Susan (who really doesn't want to think about the long term possibilities)

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:46:37 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: Re: Draft Age
Message:
Hi btdt,
The U.S. military claims the draft won't be re-instituted (they think there will be enough voluteers). I believe it used to be age 18-26.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:20:12 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: thnx Rick and Sue
Message:
I have two boys 20 and 18 in my home. I admit I'm concerned. I've heard conflicting things about the draft such as they won't need it but then again, they might. I'm just very surprised at the attitude of family, friends and strangers saying 'They better get ready.'
I'm seriously considering moving to another country, so I understand your husband's view! I'm wondering how others feel about it when it comes down to those they know and love being subjected to the draft, if it comes to that.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:23:35 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Evolution
Message:
For those interested, PBS is airing a 4 part series called Evolution (yes, THAT evolution, the one that began with Darwin) beginning Monday, 8PM EST. Liam Neeson narrates.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:16:03 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Message:
......is the title of part one. It may be a puff piece but I'm setting my recorder for Mon, Tues, Wed and Thurs nights.
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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 00:55:30 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Message:
It was a bit slow-paced but I think it also included
smidgens of cutting-edge talk on this important subject.

I hadn't realized we're breeding new strains of HIV by
treating patients. I hope we don't accidentally breed
one that is also virulent outside the scope of treatment!

I find the exploration of chimp intelligence fascinating;
all that domant talent just waiting to be stimulated into
usage.

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Date: Tues, Sep 25, 2001 at 00:56:58 (EDT)
From: a0aji
Email: None
To: a0aji
Subject: :: dormant, even :: [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 15:16:25 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Perfect Solution to Avoid War!
Message:
I just saw Apocolypse Now Redux last night and realize now, like never before, that war never solves anything.

So here's the answer. The U.S. should invite bL to Geneva or Paris or someplace neutral and sit around a table and talk. No war-mongering, no CNN, just talk. Maybe send someone like Condalessa Rice so bL can see first-hand how sharp women can be if given half a chance. (I odn't know, I'm just thinking out loud here, believe it or not.)

But they should all talk and, more importantly, they shouldall really try to listen to each other. Hear what the other side's saying. Maybe bL has his points too. There are always two-sides to a story and now that the Taliban's kicked CNN's last reporter out of Afghanistan bL might be really hurting to share some of his concerns. Frustrated people do desparate things and that's exactly what we need to avoid here. We don't want to alienate bL any further than he already is, make him dangerous.

This is an opportunity for the U.S. to learn. Let's not blow it.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 08:40:35 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Errrrrr.
Message:
Didn't the Afghan government say, 'If you give us some evidence we'll hand him over'?

Why not hand over the evidence. They could have had it for a week already?

No, fuck it, lets bomb the bastards back to the Neolithic Age. No, the Russians already did that. Fuck it, bomb them back to the Paleolithic then.

That will solve everything won't it Jim? Fuck the evidence. Bomb them.

Anth the other side of the toast.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 06:47:12 (EDT)
From: silvia
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You can't reason with religious fanatic
Message:
'GOD' is on their side and they think you are against GOD.

How can you even think that it would be possible to reson with this guy or any other fanatic religious leader when America is seen by them as the core of all evil in the world?

Woman cannot even show their faces, people have no rights. Would ULB bend and think of us as human beings with rights when they disregard their own people in God's name? Look to what you posted yesterday about the Koran's hateful words for god's sake. They are hateful, savage, ignorant people.

I say' Smoke them. Their rights end where ours begin and they are ready to kill us all. SMOKE'M!

I saw on TV two programs and simply couldn't believe that this people are like suspended in time, in the dark ages. Unvelievable is not even the right word. Is nausating.

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:47:26 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: silvia
Subject: I wasn't serious, Silvia [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:56:26 (EDT)
From: silvia
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I thought you lost
Message:
your common sense... my stupidity. I should have know better.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:38:27 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Perfect Solution to Avoid War!
Message:
Jim:

See what I mean about the death of irony?

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 19:54:19 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Yeah you and Jim are SO clever
Message:
us lesser mortals are just numbskulls.

We're just not worthy to have any opinions are we Scott.....hey maybe Bush, Cheney and the rest can use you guys ,,,,,the world sorely needs you at this criyical juncture.

Save us from Islam and our own perverted, inferior brains.

Cheers Scott

Dermot

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 22:02:33 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Jim and I. That's a hot one. (Chuckle)
Message:
Dermot:

I never said any of that. And as far as I know any comments I make to Jim (and he to me) are open for everyone to see so there's no hidden agenda or alliance. I don't email Jim on the side, and he doesn't me. (Well, once in awhile about something unrelated that's going on.) Geez, if you knew anything about the history you'd hardly be uttering those words. Irony is (probably) dead. There, now I've said it to you too. What do you think it means? (Challenging people to think or reflect isn't the same as implying they're stupid.) Maybe I'm wrong about irony being dead. Maybe it's just sort of... sick.

--Scott 'Jim's evil twin' T.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:53:40 (EDT)
From: btdt
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Perfect Solution to Avoid War!
Message:
So now you're agreeing with Bobby from below?
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:05:44 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: btdt
Subject: This is truly sad. [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:14:03 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Perfect Solution to Avoid War!
Message:
Margaret Thatcher still has a lot of life in her. She should meet with bin Laden. He'd be impressed with her iron resolve expecially when she tells him about The Falkland Islands war and shows him that picture of her sitting in the tank.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 15:49:34 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Are you serious?
Message:
Hey, Jim, if we could talk to this guy, I'm all for it. Serious. Maybe somebody should make the offer. What's it gonna cost, eh? We could explain to this guy how we see things, or at least the government will explain how they see things, and bL could explain how he sees things, and then the rest of us would see how we're going to pay the price on how these guys can or can't get along. But seriously, you've got an idea there. Too bad nobody else thought of it.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 15:56:08 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Oh my God!
Message:
Jerry,

You can't kid a kidder. Now you're trying to pull my leg.

You are, aren't you?

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:22:25 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Oh my God!
Message:
Jerry,

You can't kid a kidder. Now you're trying to pull my leg.

You are, aren't you?


---

No, I'm not. I'm serious. We should send somebody to talk to this guy. What can be lost by it?

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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 06:49:00 (EDT)
From: silvia
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: naive, you nt
Message:
n
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 07:04:56 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: silvia
Subject: Ya think so?
Message:
Think of it, strategically, Silvia. We offer to talk. Bin Laden says no. People on the fence side with us thinking at least the US is willing to try to resolve this issue peacefully, while bin Laden doesn't even want to talk about it. But if he says yes, and agrees to talk, maybe some kind of compromise can be arrived at. Maybe we can convince him that we're not going away, and if he keeps it up, things are going to go from bad to worse for him. Maybe we can convince him that the only reason we're in his corner of the world is for the oil anyway, and if it wasn't for that we couldn't give a shit how fundamentalist any Arab state was. That is the truth, isn't it? All we're really interested in is doing business. Let's talk, bin. We know you're not going anywhere and neither are we. What're we going to gain by fighting over what we both already know? The two of us are here to stay.
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 19:47:38 (EDT)
From: salsa
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: Ya think so?
Message:
that would be the only advantage, to show the US good will, but it wouldn't make any difference.These savages have made up their minds long a go; they want to kill us all...Survival is the name of the game: Smoke them...nobody there to reason with...
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Date: Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 22:31:19 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: salsa
Subject: Re: Ya think so?
Message:
You don't know until you try. Right now both sides are appealing to the passions of their followers, but who's appealing to reason? Neither Bush nor bin Laden as far as I can tell. I think it's worth the effort if for no other reason than people are impressed by reasonable men over ones ruled by passion. If bin Laden can be shown to be a man governed by irrational impulses while Bush can prove himself to be a man who is guided by reason, Bush wins an important moral victory. As it stands now, neither he nor bin Laden have displayed any great sense of reason. In fact, both strike me as incapable of it or, at the very least, reluctant to excercise it. They look to inspire, or incite, by passion rather than appeal to reason. Until Bush shows himself morally and intellectually superior to bin Laden, he's never going to win the war against him because the battle against terrorism is one against insane beliefs about who the enemy is. To bin Laden, we are the devil's spawn, and if you ask me, there's nothing about Bush that would challenge that notion in people inclined to believe it. In fact, the measures Bush has taken so far by bullying other nations to fight with us, and by threatening to go on a rampage through the middle east to find a handful of terrorists could just be playing into bin Laden's hands with the picture he's trying to paint of us, only Bush is just too stupid to see it. If on the other hand, he would make a simple peaceful gesture, 'let's talk', it could turn many of those people suspicious of him into individuals more impressed with his character than they are of bin Laden's. And that might be the most important strategy of all, to appear morally superior to your enemy. Right now, I'm not so sure Bush is that.
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:33:06 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: Oh my God!
Message:
No, I'm not. I'm serious. We should send somebody to talk to this guy. What can be lost by it?

Self respect, sanity and legitimacy? Mostly legitimacy. I heard another one of these pundits on CNN recently make the point that the resolve demonstrated by the US at this point could be critical to discouraging further attacks and ultimately to the success of the coalition. Talking with bL would seriously undermine the coalition by sending the message that we can compromise or discuss rationally with someone capable of murdering 7000 people, or in Rabi Gellman's terms, murdering 1 person 7000 times. If he wants to talk with someone let him strike up a conversation with the firemen and rescuers at the WTC. They might even be interested in dancing him around the room a little.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:43:23 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Oh my God!
Message:
Maybe that's the problem, Scott. People are more afraid of their image than they are of the carnage that could linger on, indefinitely, if people don't talk to one another. Ask the British. They sent troops into Northern Ireland back in 1969. What's the end result of that? Gerry Adams is a member of Parliament. Do you really think we're going ot have that much more success against terrorism than the Brits did? Not that bin Laden's going to be a senator one day, but...
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 20:51:47 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Slight difference with Ireland
Message:
The British troops went there in 1969 to protect the Catholic residents of Ulster from the Loyalist mobs there. The troops were asked to go by the Catholics. Actually, thirty years later the sectarian hatred is still there as witnessed by recent events, to wit, the Catholic schoolgirls being mobbed by ''loyalist'' morons on their way to school. A sick business.

The main enemy in Northern Ireland is the same enemy we face with the Muslim terrorists. That enemy is sectarian hatred, polarization, prejudice, call it what you will.

And do you know who are the main proponents of such sectarian hatreds? That's right, the terrorists.

It's the terrorists who use violence to create polarization and divide people. It's the terrorists who whip up the religious fervor and hatred between peoples. That's one thing we've learned from Northern Ireland. Both sides know that now.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 21:53:29 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Re: Slight difference with Ireland
Message:
So Dave, do you see a resolution of the Irish Troubles now, that excludes the terrorists (or most of them)? Or have the terrorists come under the thumb of the people somehow?

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:59:27 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: Oh my God!
Message:
Legitimacy isn't image, it's legitimacy: the right to rule or govern, given by the people governed. Anyone that would talk to the likes of Bin Laden with any idea of resolving some sort of imagined problem he has should not be in a position of authority. Most people know that intuitively. Apparently you don't. If talk is that cheap then it's worthless. Now, I don't have any problem at all sending someone to 'talk' to him, if you know what I mean.

Here's a conjecture that's worth thinking about. Would there be some deterrence effect on terrorism if, instead of simply executing, we took him apart one piece at a time? I'm serious. He may not fear death, but wouldn't he (and the rest of his silly bunch) fear that a little? Do you think it might temper their lust for imortality a little? Hasn't he gone beyond the pale of mere murder, and shouldn't there be a punishment for terrorism greater than that reserved for a mere hoodlum? Fair question?

[I mention this because the Syrians seem to have dealt with an internal terrorism problem pretty effectively that way.]

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:09:40 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: I think YOU'RE a terrorist
Message:
You're fucked up. Would you like to be the guy who does the cutting up, Scott, or would you like to just read about it in the papers?
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:18:30 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: I'm not surprised.
Message:
All I asked was whether it's a fair question. Apparently not. Suppose there *were* a demonstrable deterrent effect? Are you unwilling to even consider it? You asked me to consider the unthinkable and I wrestled with it. Can't I ask the same of you? Would I have to be consumed in hatred to use it to deter people like Bin Laden, to make them think twice?

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:27:59 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: I'm not surprised.
Message:
Hold on, Scott. Are you saying that cutting people into little pieces is the only way to solve terrorism? If it isn't, why are you considering it?
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:39:06 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: I'm not surprised.
Message:
Jerry:

I don't know that it would necessarily solve the problem at all, or that it mightn't create worse. Just asking you to devote a little attention to the obverse of your flippant solution. Seems to me you shouldn't be allowed to reflect seriously on the potential for resolving horror with kisses, flowers, and talk unless you've got some appreciation for the depth of the crime. I could talk about the possibility of someone who survived the original blast, buried alive in that pit for six days before expiring of some secondary insult as the jet fuel seeps into his coffin, but I'll leave that to your imagination. Just how real are you with your 'costless' talk? And what is justice worth, if it has no cost? I suspect you're not paying attention. That's all.

--Scott 'the outrageous' T.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 17:49:47 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: You'll see
Message:
Scott,

I never mentioned flowers or kisses. I mentioned talk. Sooner or later we're going to have to talk to this guy and others like him, just like the Israelis had to learn the to talk to Arafat, and the Brits had to learn to talk to the IRA.

Wait and see.

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 18:32:50 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: You'll see
Message:
We won't talk to him, believe me. Any head of state who agreed to something like that would be impeached, and with good reason. Arafat is a political leader who used small scale terrorism, a practice that was also employed by Israel. Hamas, for instance, employs such tactics, but because they have an interest in public opinion have an incentive to moderate the size of their actions. You will note that bL has no such incentive. Hamas knows the consequences of taking that leap, which is why they haven't done it. The consequences are, in short, to pull out all the stops to rid the world of the menace, for this and for all future generations. Terrorism, even the small kind, may prove to be intolerable in the long run. I hope so. But no, no one is going to talk to bL from the US. Ever. We don't need to, and there's nothing to be gained.

Bill Clinton just gave an interview after the event in Yankee Stadium where he indicated that he had signed an executive order to have UBL killed, and they had actually helped establish an action within Afghanistan that proved unsuccessful. They also planned commando raids but lacked the proper intelligence. I think we're willing to twist a lot more arms, and pressure a lot more people, to get that intelligence now.

But getting BL is only the first stage. We now realize that there's a new species of terrorist out there (that I've taken to calling 'horrorists') who simply have no internal controls on their behavior. Since we are sure to pay the highest price possible for leaving them alone there's no disincentive to paying that price early to take them out. (This is what Hamas has known for some time.) There *is* honor among theives, and UBL may find himself without any friends. He currently has no smart friends left. Both he and Saddam are almost entirely cut off.

But if you want to wait and see that's fine. Just don't hold your breath.

--Scott

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:30:24 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: We all say something dumb once in a while
Message:
Jerry,

I have nothing but respect for your intelligence. So what I'm going to do is forget you ever said that.

How're you doing anyway?

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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:38:07 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Talking doesn't cost a thing
Message:
I'm doing fine. How are you? Jim, maybe I'm being dense, here, but who knows? Maybe we can soften this guy's image of us if we have a little pow-wow. Not that he's going to agree to one, but what would that say about him if he didn't? If this is war, sooner or later both sides are going to have to sit across from each other at the peace table. Why not sooner?
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Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 16:29:16 (EDT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: On the spot (sound familiar)
Message:
According to John Simpson of the BBC who went to interview bin Laden back in 1989 in Afghanistan, bin Laden wanted John Simpson killed on the spot as soon as he saw him. However, his Mujahadeen soldiers had a vote on it and decided by 60-40 not to kill John Simpson, whereupon bin Laden went into a crying fit on his bed, banging the pillows with his fists.
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