Bravo P-o-T!
Julian said; "Bboy: good post, thanks.. I am starting to get sick of reading the posts on here that seem to advocate doing nothing."
Okay, would ANYONE show me a post that advocates doing nothing?
One? Any? None!
What the 'I R Angry, I R hitting you' school forget is that RUSHING in will definately just increase the body count without achieveing the desired aims.
I am a pacifist, at least I think of myself as one. Yet I certainly see that there are times when action is neccesary. If someone hit me on a peace parade, I would insert my placard where the sun don't shine, slogan end first!
Thanks god the American government is showing a deal of restraint - I think they 'let slip' that there were covert operations going on purely as a PR move for the jung-ho lobby and psy-ops on the Taliban, who will no doubt be shooting any suspicious looking rocks or goats that loiter too long, fearing that every bush is an SAS man, or every turn in the road hides Delta Force.
What some people fail to realise is that there is NO use going in like a gunfighter, blazing away.
What some people fail to accept is that excessive use of military force will needlessly kill innocent people, which would be hypocritical, as we are mad with Bin Laden because that's what he does.
What some people are maybe just too dumb to realise is that the Western governments have allowed this situation to develop. Do you think, honestly, that if Israel were called Serbia they would get away with what they do? Do you think that Kuwait would have been freed if it had the same oil reserves as Bosnia? That Rwanda would have happened in any contry where a Western government had a major vested interest?
The Western governments rightly are trying to move the world to an age where there will be greater international security. However, this 'Peacemaker' old west image is invalid unless it not only talks but acts in an even handed manner. Being the guy in the white hat is about killing bad guys AND clearing up the mess afterwards.
At the moment certain parts of the developing world have every reason to doubt the Wests intentions.
Does this mean we should do nothing? NO.
What we have to do is convince those sceptical of the West's motives.
How? By, when the time is right, showing the evidencary trail. By not just shooting the bandits and vamoosing, but by sticking around and helping the peasents the bandits have been oppressing. The American's should know better. By criticsing the Israeli when they do things we would criticise other, less aligned countries for. By helping to bring about a democratic government in Afghanistan, and leaving clear proof that anyone even coming close to the actions of September 11th will be bought to REAL justice, and, very importantly, be SEEN by the world in general as being bought to justice.
Failure to do this will resuly in millions of deaths, all religions, all ethnicities.
Success in doing this will be seen by future historians as the start of cohesive world government.
This is Bin Laden's greatest risk; he has attempted to provoke a war between the West and Islam. Some idiots want to give it to him. However, if he is denied his war by skillful dipomacy, targeted aid to civilians, assistance to anti-Taliban factions and considered millitary might, he REALLY looses big time. Because it will signal the end of an era in which a cross between a mad cultist and a Bond villan can hold the world to ransom.
That, I honestly think, is what most people want.
Militaristic jerks who just want a war can, without being rude, go and perform a physical impossibility of a carnal nature. They are wrong, and you don't need an IQ in three digits to figure it out.
Keep on rocking in the free world...
