Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 23:06:15 +0000 From: "Matthew Hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [LIB] Car power adapter
>Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:33:46 +0800 >From: Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: [LIB] Car power adapter > > >>>I'm in Australia so I've got no idea what the equivalent stores in the US >>>would be but... >> >>Oh yeah! I often neglect to mention what country... residual American >>arrogence of some sort I suppose! Well... guess you'll be glad now that >>the cooler weather of fall is approaching, huh Raymond? ;-P > >Oh ya, hopefully it'll cool down some of the politicians over your end of >the world ... hehe > >- Raymond > > >P.S. before anyone spams me, this is NOT a criticism of American foreign >policy ... Okay... well then they can spam ME! As is understandable, military rhetoric is in fact dominating most politicians comments these days. I actually think the state department is making a HUGE mistake by not addressing the problems of terrorism through a war of diplomacy to address Islamic anger towards the USA as intensely as they are addressing it from a military perspective. The heavy diplomacy we've seen has only be directed in gathering global support for a military campaign to attack the Taliman and terrorist camps in Afghanistan. The most visible diplomatic efforts we've seen to address Islamic anger towards the USA has been to air drop some food to refugees. Dismissing debts and sanctions to Pakinstan and other countries helps, but it's looking in the media that this is more to garner intelligence and military support. I can actually can agree with valid points that both Bin Ladin and Arab diplomats have made concerning the US not having properly addressed the problems of suffering, disease and poverty through their involvement in the middle east for decades. The CIA's selecting the most brutal factions of the Mujah Hadeen to support in Afghanistan, then just leaving them there in control of the country, and not getting involved in post-war reparations, was the travesty that helped give birth to the Taliman and bin Ladin. As bin Ladin said, millions of children in Iraq did in fact because of the overly stringent sanctions imposed on the country that other western countries did not follow. How many people have any idea that the USA has been getting about 5% of its oil FROM Iraq in recent years! This leaves the strong impression to many that the US is more concerned in it's own interests in the region than it is for the that of the countries and people of the area. Don't get me wrong... I agree that we have to go after the people that committed the horrendous attacks on Sept. 11th. Back when the Berlin wall fell, and the cold war ended, I knew very well that the next big war was going to be terrorism. For anyone who has been following the USA's military involvement around the world in the cold war era well before Vietnam of the 60s (e.g. the Iran and Guatemala coups of the early 50s), the present violent reactions against the USA from Islamic militants is no surprise at all. In fact the intelligence community has a term for it... 'blowback'. I've just always doubted that many of the bloody dirty deeds these agencies were involved with around the world in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, really did as much to increase the USA national security as they probably did to undermine it. After years and years of learning to doubt what the government has been telling people in the media, from Kennedy's assassination to misinformation about how well we were doing in Vietnam (the Secretary of Defense under LBJ, Dean Rusk, admitted to this, and admitted the campaign there was a mistake, angering much of the military), I still have to take a lot of what we're being told these days with many grains of salt. What the US state department needs to do aggressively right now in my humble opinion, is launch as strong a war on all of the death, disease and suffering of the peoples of the middle east who have been living under brutal regimes and dictatorships like the Shaw's who we reinstated and supported in Iran (after a moderate was democratically elected in 1952-3 may I add)... as the present military war being launched against the deserving Taliman in Afganistan. I really think that people around the world need to be hearing, via the media, as much on a day to day basis about all that what the USA could and should be doing to address these problems as they are hearing about bombs hitting Taliman targets. The US's being seen as actually doing powerful and positive things to address problems in the Islamic world would seem to do more than merely saying this is not a war on Islam. Unfortunately I wonder if we can divert enough resources to address this important issue after all we've taken on to address problems here in the USA resulting from the Sept. 11th attacks. Okay... I'll keep this 'short' (what me 'short'! :-P)... but there is much to address as far as the USAs culpability in contributing to the underlying problems in the middle east. Problems that have resulted in millions of Muslims suffering terribly and being extremely angry at the USA... say for playing a large role in the UN's actions in kicking the whole population of Palestinians out of their homes to give another dispossessed people a place to live back in 1948. Just where did anyone think those Palestinians were going to go? It's a bit like kicking black Baptists in the US south out of some area, and saying, "well, they can go over to Utah and live with the Mormons... THEY'RE Christians too!" The west's ignorance of the Islamic peoples in the middle east and how they think and interact was, and is still depressing. There... just a little added to be 'short'. All angry replies can be addressed to me, and not the list unless they want to be recognized publicly. Though if this starts a lengthy thread... we should move it elsewhere. I probably wouldn't feel to the need to be doing this if I were back in commie infested N. CA ;-P , and not stuck here in S. FA. Shel Ritter (AKA: Matt Hanson, my 'nom de plume' as Neil put it... I just liked the name years ago when I first got a Hotmail address before this group existed.) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ************************************************************** http://libretto.basiclink.com - Libretto mailing list http://libretto.basiclink.com/archive - Archives http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/portable/faq.html - FAQ -------TO UNSUBSCRIBE------- Reply to any of the list messages. The reply mail should be addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Then replace any text on the message's subject line: cmd:unsubscribe --------TO UNSUBSCRIBE DIGEST------ Do above but with this on subject line: cmd:unsubscribe digest **************************************************************
