> Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> > If a foreign government killed _one_ American citizen
> > in an act of war, then I think the USA should go to war.
Alberto Monteiro wrote:
> I hope this has never been in question here.
Then Gautam wrote:
> But it does seem to me to have been called into question. I read people
> saying that we shouldn't use violence to retaliate for fear of a cycle of
> hatred, things like that. If a foreign government did this, helped Bin
I think there's a misunderstanding going on here, then. Regardless
of what I've said explicitly on the list, I'm sure I belong to that
group of people in your mind (no offense taken, none intended <g>).
What I'm suggesting is that our use of violence has to be very
controlled, focused, and directed so that the ONLY people who are
affected by it are the ones responsible for what we're doing.
Large-scale bombings of cities will involve people who, like the
people killed in NYC, want nothing to do with this conflict to
begin with. Kill one of those people, and you can leave behind
a child who will *remember* who it was who killed his father.
Just as children of the deceased in NYC will *remember* who
killed their parents, and so on. And then the stage is set once
again for more terrorist acts down the road.
I maintain that the best way to permanently rid ourselves of the
disease of terrorism is much more subtle than all-out war.
-CJ
