Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:37:18 -0400 From: kmart <thoucynic-AT-crosswinds.net> Subject: Re: not surprised "Michael A. Lewis" wrote: > The attack was not directed at human beings, though they were the > victims. In fact, the human victims of this attack were used as weapons by > the perpetrators, who targeted both the symbols and the infrastructure of > United States economic and military oppression of their compatriots. Perhaps, perhaps not. I am not at all convinced that this is the case, given that we really do not know who did the attack and for what purposes they performed the attack. > appropriate level or organization. The attack on the WTC and the Pentagon > was perpetrated by a group who have been engaged in destructive activities > in a wide international sphere, affecting a broad constituency of victims. Perhaps or perhaps not, again we are assuming that "Al-Qa'ida did it" which could be an erroneous assumption, the TV tells us this constantly, the pundits tell us this constantly, but there has been NO proof fostered, whatsoever, that this is the case. Indeed the only, the ONLY attacks that can probably be pinned on these people is the Khobar towers incident years ago, and it is likely that the USS Cole incident has their fingerprints all over it. If not them then certainly people associated with them, read and listen to Bin Laden's responses to questions surrounding these events, it differs GREATLY from his responses concerning the Embassy bombings and the WTC incident. We know that the people who carried this out looked, vaguely, middle easterner. Which by itself means nothing because to Joe Smith man at the pub a Sikh looks middle easterner. I'm not even from the region but a Sikh does not look middle eastern to me, indeed NO Punjabi looks Middle Eastern to me, they look Desi to me. To Joe Smith man in the pub, you can take a Puerto Rican dress him up in a robe and turban and our Puerto Rican friend will magically appear to look "middle eastern", while you can take a blond and green eyed Afghani and dress him up in an Armani suit and he will appear to look "kinda german like" to Joe Smith, man in the pub. And indeed we can take a Yemeni friend, put him in a Black suit and yarmulke and introduce him as "my friend, Schlomo Blatt" and convince Joe Smith, man in the pub, that he is a top Rabbinical scholar. At the turn of the century Eastern European Jews were subject to similar popular delusions regarding their phenotypes, if Arther Miller wore glasses he suddenly "looked Jewish", this results from an unfortunate manipulation of the public mind concerning non dominant ethnic groups. If someone sees a Korean he attacks him because he "looks Japanese". I am not sure that there is a solution to this other than constant education. And countering media stereotypes. We know that these guys had 'Arabic names', whatever that means, when in fact it is proved that at *least* 5, and perhaps more, of the identities used by the attackers were stolen from living individuals who had no clue as to what was going on. Arabic names being taken for granted, we have no clue as to the ideological disposition of these attackers, they could have Islamic militants, but they very well could have been Marxists, or non Marxist Socialists (like Iraq's Ba'athists), they could have been representatives of some official State ideology, the security apparatus from any number of states, there are many alternatives. We do not know who did it or why they did it so we convince ourselves of a meta-narritative in order to feel comfortable and give our actions some, vague, sense of direction. This could be an error on our part. > We therefore form a confederation with those societies also affected by this > group and seek to stop the destructive activity. How do you physically restrain them without applying very harshly coercive measures. How do you address the social conditions that spawned this type of behavior. Given the anonymous nature of much of modern terrorism, state sponsored AND OTHERWISE, how do you give your coalition a clear sense of direction. These are legitimate and well intended questions, I have no desire to shoot down your idea, just instead to explore it to a greater length. -- "Exit sanity; enter paranoia. " || thoucynic-AT-crosswinds.net --Ziauddin Sardar || neither paranoid nor sane
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