Peter A. wrote: > Terrorists unlike rebels cannot easily exist without safe havens. > > These at best tolerate their presence at worst actively support their aims. > > These countries are legitimate targets. Maybe, maybe not. I once waxed Hawkish about the Columbians in re the drug trade, and my stepfather, who knows a lot more about such things than I do, stopped me in my tracks. He pointed out that some of the most courageous people in the hemisphere are Columbian officials trying to do their jobs. It's a lot harder for a judge, for instance, to make an unpopular ruling when he knows it might result in a firebomb under his wife's car. Similarly, Afganistan is currently involved in a civil war. The "central" government's control doesn't really extend much past the borders of Kabul, does it? And yet it's unpopular even there. I'm no expert on Afganistan, but if , say, there is an oppressed majority fighting to rid themselves of a fanatical government, then whose interests are served by blowing up the moderates and the rebels along with the Taliban? In Afganistan you certainly don't have anything nearly so clear-cut as a strong central government and a supportive people, all of whom are acting with a unified purpose. Even in Iraq, where the government is patently evil and the leader is a narcissistic and sadistic military dictator, you could argue that the bulk of the population are actually being oppressed themselves. They're suffering under Saddam and it's not hard to imagine them dancing on his grave, spitting on his pictures, and toppling his statues when he's gone. So you don't really do much good by bombing civilian populations there either, do you? I think one thing we have to watch is to consider WHY we're taking whatever reaction we take...is it for a legitimate and effective purpose, or are we just going to be doing it to make ourselves feel better? Sure we could flatten Kabul from the air, and we'd all feel avenged, but _would_ we be? I really doubt it. I guess what I hope for in this whole thing is a new way of dealing with terrorists from a legal standpoint. Right now we deal with them as criminals. We're hampered by our own laws and the sovereignity of other countries. It's as if we're hunting vermin but are restricted to hunting only in certain places at certain times and with certain types of weapons. It would be really good to see an international agreement come out of this that in effect declared "open season" on terrorists--all over the world, at any time, with the approval of all nations. I can't sleep tonight. I have a very dear friend who I _think_ worked in the World Trade Center (I'm just not sure if it was for current job, or the last one, or the one before that) who I still haven't been able to reach, and I'm getting anxious. --Mike P.S. Did you hear about Monica O'Leary? She thought she had no luck at all because she got the pink slip on the afternoon of Monday the 10th and was told not to return...to her employer's offices on the 104th floor of South Tower. True story. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
