Message-Id: <200110220404.AAA12135@all-night-tool.mit.edu>
To: "Prez H. Cannady" <revprez@MIT.EDU>, eit@tep.org,
        bexley-minus-fascists@MIT.EDU, in-house-pikans@MIT.EDU,
        spa-discuss@MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.5 million people at risk of dying in afghanistan
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 21 Oct 2001 20:31:38 EDT."
             <200110220031.UAA29175@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu> 
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 00:04:48 -0400
From: Eric S Hansen <eshansen@MIT.EDU>

   first off, the first logical step of any military action is to remove the
ability of the target government to organize itself and respond effectively.
destroying aid stations and landmine clearing centers are obviously
advantageous to a military trying to paralyze a poor, extensively mined
country.  from a strictly military perspective it makes perfect sense to do
something like this, and afghanistan is one of the few places where such
things would be easily accomplished.  I don't think it was an accident, no
matter what the military says, for the simple reason that if i were the
military i would do the same thing, especially if i thought the press would
never find out.  I'm not saying blowing up these vital outposts of humanitarian
aid and assistance was wrong in any sort of an immediate sense -- it probably
saves american lives, but it still deprives the afghans of food, and that is
wrong.
   As for your drivel about suitcase nukes -- the notion of a 'suitcase nuke'
is one pushed by conservative pundits with the aim of striking fear into the
hearts of americans.  Conservatives thrive off of fear, as they claim to have
fast and easy solutions.  The fact of the matter is that if we could have made
suitcase nukes and dropped them on japan we would have -- a large part of
the trouble we encountered in blowing up nagasaki and hiroshima arrose from
the massive size of our primitive weapons.  If terrorists have the level of
refinement necessary to make reliable, effective suitcase nukes, then the
number of americans they could kill in a single attack would number in the
hundreds of millions -- that level of refinement would almost surely come with
great capacity as well.  stop trying to scare the people you talk with into
agreeing with you -- they know you're doing it and they don't like it, though
they may not tell you to your face.
   coincidentally, you failed to refute my argument on motivation, you simply
called it a 'straw man argument'.  I advise you to look up the term as you are
misusing it.  We are currently killing in a nearly indiscriminate fashion,
and if these people starve we will kill far more moderates than taliban
or Al Qeada.  A terrorist organization looking for recruits against the
united states will find eager volunteers among the survivors.  Just as you
would willingly kill every last muslim on the face of the planet,
a significant portion of the survivors of our attacks will willingly
kill every last american.  There is a time and a place for violence, but
violence must be used judiciously as it has a tendency to snowball into
bigger and bigger problems.
   I did not mention this the last time, but you should also consider the
perspective of the terrorist.  If you believe bin ladin did this, which no
doubt you do, you should ask yourself why he did it..  He's not blowing up 
buildings as a sign of protest, that kind of terrorism is largely gone.  He's 
also not trying to damage the united states -- he knows that anything short of
 a platoon of suitcase nuke-carriers would do very little if any long term harm
to the united states.  You need to understand that, unlike the united states,
the largest terrorist organization in the world won't allow itself to be led
by any old dumbass.  Look at everything that this guy has done, what has been
written about bin ladin, and think about how smart this guy is.  Then, ask
yourself, if gary kasparov had been trying to blow up united states structures,
airplanes, etc for two years, why would he be doing it.  Bin ladin's been 
trying to get us to kill arabs indiscriminately for a long time, that is the
only explanation that makes sense to me.  you might not see it yet, but think
about it, and you will agree.  The Muslim empire was once great and vast, and
now all that remains is the religion.  There are many who are working towards
a unified muslim state, and the united states' foreign policy is geared 
towards preventing this (if you look closely you will see the u.s. induced
instability in the region.  leaving sadam in power, for example, adds to the
instability, as no one in the region trusts him.)  Bin Ladin wants a unified
state, and the only way to do this is to radicalize the masses against their
oppressive pro-us non-democratic regimes.  he thinks if he can get the u.s.
army into the region, bombing a country already so poor it was on the brink
of total collapse and a massive die-off by famine, that the muslim world would
turn against the united states.  Sadly enough, i fear his plan is working.
that is why we should support democratic systems rather than friendly regimes
-- if we are seen as the country that gave the people a voice in their own
lives, they will love us.  if we are seen as the country that supported the
royalty and the suppression of opposition, we will have enemies in charge of
our energy supply.  
   At the end of the day, none of these guys could care less about our
freedoms or our sins or anything that we do within our borders -- they're
mad when we interfere with their laws, their governments, their people,
and you would be just as mad as them if your situations were reversed.  think
about it before you write about it again.  think about it hard.  you got 
into mit, eventually you'll realize that, while satisfying to the majority
of this country, the bombing of afghanistan does nothing to deradicalize
the pool of disenchanted upon which these terrorists feed.
   Oh, and coincidentally, disenfranchised means they don't have the right to
vote, and given that iran and egypt are the relevant democracies in the
region, and the egyptian government continually has its arm twisted by 
america, i'd say these guys were disenfranchised.  at least the saudis were.
the others were egyptian, no?  i'm not sure of their nationalities, but iran
is the only muslim country in the middle east not explicitly controlled or 
abused by the united states, and the palestinians in israel are not allowed
to participate in the government either.  The people in the region with money,
by and large, have that money because of the united states -- bin ladin is
one of few mideasterners with money who openly opposes the united states -- 
most of the others fear the masses like the romanovs feared the proles, and
cling to the united states.  
   Also, as religious fundamentalists, these terrorists are extreme RIGHT-
wingers, sorry to rain on your parade there.  they do have affiliations with
anti-globalists, but only because the united states is a liberal influence on
the society they wish to maintain and/or revert to.  I know it's tempting
for a prominent republican such as yourself to see any evil at all in the
right, and to see anything but evil in the left, but that's the way this
cookie crumbles.  Also, their argument is in fact 'let us choose our own
government and stop forcing your culture down our throats' rather than
'suck our dicks or die'.  I encourage you once again to learn more about our
mutual enemy.
   Now, in the paragraph subsequent to your eloquent 'suck our dicks or die'
abbreviation of the political stance of a billion people, you use a few too
many vague antecedants.  no doubt this was a result of my own poor writing
skills, but it is unclear whether you're saying it is easy to kill three 
year olds, antiglobalists, or muslim fundamentalists.  As for the reason it's
easy for israel to kill any of the aforementioned groups, i'd put my money
on the massive amounts of advanced military hardware we 'sell' to israel 
every year, not to mention the massive military industrial complex we built
for them there.  it might just be a wild guess, but i think a country with
tanks, nukes, fighter planes, attack helicopters, and nuclear weapons 20
years ahead of the neighboring countries would have a pretty easy time 
slaughtering whoever they want to slaughter, especially with the most powerful
country in the world tacitly if not openly supporting them.  Once again,
though, you should read up on the situation.  israeli policy towards
palestinians is a major motivation for thoe people who killed your family
members.  The reason the israelis have less to fear from the terrorists than
from the other nations is that half the world wants to nuke them for being 
such monumental ass holes to their own people.  If it were any country but 
israel with the same policies, they would have been a smoking bowl in the 
ground a long time ago.  They get special treatment that the muslims see as
a double standard, allowing israelis to commit atrocities while the muslims
may only sit and watch.  
   Now, for that nonsense comparing our conflict to that between carthage
and rome -- either read up on some history or lose the hyperbole -- when a
group of cave-dwelling dissidents in afghanistan has the capability of burning
america to the ground, only then will such things be remotely relevant.  The 
key to avoiding such things is not unifying, say, a billion people against
us in a jihad, as you seem to want.  back to your notion that culture and
government are inseparable, or even that the survival of either is inseparable
from the survival of the other, this is asinine.  many of your ilk have
been claiming for most of this century that american culture has been 
destroyed, yet the government seems to remain.  If you read carefully you'll
also see that i never characterized politicians, i merely stated that our
system allowed for the basest of politicians, which if you read up on the 
framers was a major concern at the time.  I made no claim about the nature of
politicians beyond the fact that they are interested in keeping their jobs.
there are few exceptions that i can think of off hand -- the five radical 
republicans who crossed party lines to vote against convicting andrew johnson,
for example, as well as the woman from wyoming who as a representative voted
against the declarations of war for ww1 and 2 even though she knew she'd
get voted out for it, and did both times.  by and large this system is good,
but i still want the greediest bastards available to represent me in the house
and senate, as they bring me back money from other people's wallets, or give
other people money from my wallet, and it's one or the other.  if some 
congressman 'does the right thing' and a lot of money on something noble that
i see no reward for, why should i reelect him, he's not representing me.  
You can view it as darwinnian selection if you wish, but yeah, that's the way
things work.  coincidentally we have ag/transport appropriations to keep
people in those industries because they aren't profitable otherwise, and
the small margin required to make them profitable is vastly exceeded by my
benefit from both.
   now for your bit on killing all of the 'islamists'.  well, first off
'islam' means peace in arabic.  that should be your first clue that most of
the adherents to the faith are peaceful.  That, and the fact that they 
occupy a continous landmass, outnumber americans 4 to 1, and control our
energy supply should all go together to convince you that maybe, just 
maybe, 'kill[ing] every last one of the bastards' is not a very good idea.  
Anything short of a premptive nuclear attack will run into more problems
than we will be able to handle, realistically in a finite timeframe.  Also,
i wasn't trying to convince you to care one bit about them -- i don't care
if you care -- caring is irrelevant -- but if you understand the grievances
of your enemies you'll be able to combat your enemies ore effectively.  you
don't seem to be too high on the understanding your enemy thing, so i 
recommend you read up on this sort of stuff.
   Oh, you really should just read a history of the islamic faith.  Unlike
western crusaders, muslim conquerers gladly lived side by side members of
other faiths.  They encouraged conversion, but they did not kill those
who refused to change their religion.  seriously, do some reading on the 
subject, unless you're trying achieve some comedic effect by sounding stupid
you have no idea how wrong you are.  Islam is peace, but in the middle
east a great dragon sleeps.  we can tame the dragon, we can delay the dragon,
but we cannot control the dragon indefinitely, and we cannot kill him without
resorting to unfathomable attrocity.  If we are to tame the dragon, we must
tread softly while it sleeps and whisper in its ear, so when it wakes, it
will see us as a friend, not as a meal.
   so lets see what i missed... bill maher -- he's conservative, i hope
you know -- that remark he made that has since been minconstrued was a 
criticism of the military action chosen by clinton after the embassy bombings.
maher thought that the cruise missile approach was inadequate and cowardly
compared to the terrorist acts of 9/11.  on most things, you can be a mile
right of center and still be to the left of maher.  also, you give no 
illustration for the proper use of violence.  surely you believe that a
death can only be justified by a reduction in total subsequent death or
an increase in some valuable freedom.  death for its own sake is wrong,
and death for money is wrong.  i don't think i'm too far off of center,
if at all on that.  if you think killing people is an intrinsic good, perhaps
there's someone you should see about that.  oh, yeah, changing people's minds
for the better is hard, changing them for the worse is easy.  i'd rather my
government changing people for the better than for the worse, just given this.
oh, yeah, the thing about the suitcase nuke -- i didn't express myself
clearly.  what i meant originally is more akin to what's up above here -- that
a lot of people try to scare americans with the warheads our military has
produced (suitcase nukes) when the real threat is a much larger in size, 
smaller in damage hiroshima-type bomb.  believe me, there was a time when
the suitcase nuke bothered me very much, and i researched the possibility,
and the operational complexity, and found out a great deal about the 
subject.  there are a few dozen sites that actually give step by step
instructions for the produciton of a plutonium or enriched uranium-type
device.  I think the terrorists would have used a nuke, actaully, if it
would have accomplished their goal, but no doubt a fair portion of the arab
world would have become smoking glass bowls if they had nuked nyc, and that 
is not what these people want.
   anyway, that was long and unproductive.  next time think and/or read up
on what you say before you say it.  i'd give you some places to start, 
especially with your misconseptions about islam and world history, or even
american history/civics, but for you i think just an encyclopedia would 
increase your knowledge and understanding many times over, and i trust you
know where to find one of those.