queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2001-10-07 01:12 pm
queerbychoice) wrote2001-10-07 01:12 pm
CBS News Coverage
CBS had some surprisingly pretty sane moments just now. They talked to a reporter stationed in Pakistan who put extreme emphasis on the importance of not killing any innocent Afghan people or else what little tentative support the U.S. has in Pakistan will crumble. Unfortunately they didn't quite go so far as to point out that the U.S. can't very well drop bombs on a city of over a million people without having killed innocent ones; but even so, it was a step in the right direction. I like it when they talk to reporters stationed in the Middle East; those people seem more aware of the lives at stake here.
They also showed enough of an excerpt of Osama bin Laden's videotaped message for bin Laden to get across some references to the atrocities committed by the U.S. government in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. Obviously most Americans will just patriotically ignore this, but I think they broadcast enough that some of the more intelligent (albeit ignorant) Americans might be motivated to start researching U.S. foreign policy a bit more closely.
I look forward to seeing a transcript of bin Laden's complete speech posted online, since it was hard to judge from this tiny excerpt to what extent the atrocities committed by the U.S. are just excuses he brings up when really he might well want to kill people for other, less rational reasons anyhow. When a person can rally massive numbers of people to die for his cause, that means his rhetoric must be tapping into some experiences and feelings which are (though I hate how both bin Laden and Bush are manipulating common feelings to suppport mass murder) very common, and in need of being addressed (and so we need to figure out what those experiences and feelings primarily are in order for us to come up with a nonviolent attempt to address these people's issues). So I'd like to be able to at least hear the complete set of rhetoric bin Laden is using, in order to get a better sense of what rhetoric has been most effective at motivating people to join his terrorist groups.
They also showed enough of an excerpt of Osama bin Laden's videotaped message for bin Laden to get across some references to the atrocities committed by the U.S. government in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. Obviously most Americans will just patriotically ignore this, but I think they broadcast enough that some of the more intelligent (albeit ignorant) Americans might be motivated to start researching U.S. foreign policy a bit more closely.
I look forward to seeing a transcript of bin Laden's complete speech posted online, since it was hard to judge from this tiny excerpt to what extent the atrocities committed by the U.S. are just excuses he brings up when really he might well want to kill people for other, less rational reasons anyhow. When a person can rally massive numbers of people to die for his cause, that means his rhetoric must be tapping into some experiences and feelings which are (though I hate how both bin Laden and Bush are manipulating common feelings to suppport mass murder) very common, and in need of being addressed (and so we need to figure out what those experiences and feelings primarily are in order for us to come up with a nonviolent attempt to address these people's issues). So I'd like to be able to at least hear the complete set of rhetoric bin Laden is using, in order to get a better sense of what rhetoric has been most effective at motivating people to join his terrorist groups.
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Thanks to God, he who God guides will never lose. And I believe that there's only one God. And I declare I believe there's no prophet but Mohammed.
This is America, God has sent one of the attacks by God and has attacked one of its best buildings. And this is America filled with fear from the north to south and east to west, thank God.
And what America is facing today is something very little of what we have tasted for decades. Our nation, since nearly 80 years is tasting this humility. Sons are killed, and nobody answers the call
And when God has guided a bunch of Muslims to be at the forefront and destroyed America, a big destruction, I wish God would lift their position.
And when those people have defended and retaliated to what their brothers and sisters have suffered in Palestine and Lebanon, the whole world has been shouting.
And there are civilians, innocent children being killed every day in Iraq without any guilt, and we never hear anybody. We never hear any fatwah from the clergymen of the government.
And every day we see the Israeli tanks going to Jenin, Ramallah, Beit Jalla and other lands of Islam. And, no, we never hear anybody objecting to that.
So when the swords came after eight years to America, then the whole world has been crying for those criminals who attacked. This is the least which could be said about them. They are people. They supported the murder against the victim, so God has given them back what they deserve.
I say the matter is very clear, so every Muslim after this, and after the officials in America, starting with the head of the infidels, Bush. And they came out with their men and equipment and they even encouraged even countries claiming to be Muslims against us.
So, we run with our religion. They came out to fight Islam with the name of fighting terrorism.
People -- event of the world -- in Japan, hundreds of thousands of people got killed. This is not a war crime. Or in Iraq, what our -- who are being killed in Iraq. This is not a crime. And those, when they were attacked in my Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam, Afghanistan, and Sudan were attacked.
I say these events have split the whole world into two camps: the camp of belief and the disbelief. So every Muslim shall take -- shall support his religion.
And now with the winds of change has blown up now, has come to the Arabian Peninsula.
And to America, I say to it and to its people this: I swear by God the Great, America will never dream nor those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land and in Palestine.
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Hey Gayle, maybe you didn't mean it to come across that way...but I have to say I'm not really up for listening to anything that a mass murderer has to say. Yes I'm interested in and disturbed by many aspects of US foreign policy, but what that man says is not going to inspire me to research more, or have more understanding or compassion for those who attacked New York and DC. I'm guessing you didn't quite mean for me to take it that way. And I do think that a lot of Americans are starting to look into and second guess our governments' actions in regards to the Middle East.
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So if we don't listen to what he's saying, then we won't figure out how to address that same common anger against America ourselves, and resolve it in a nonviolent way. Right now, the violent response Osama bin Laden is offering to a lot of Middle Eastern people with anti-American sentiments is basically the only response anyone has suggested to them. We need to listen to what words he uses to motivate people to commit murder, so that we can develop nonviolent ways of addressing and resolving the common anti-American angers that he's trying to funnel into violence and mass murder.
But what do we do in the meantime?
What Bin Laden wants from us is impossible to give. Yes, we could stop sanctions on Iraq, and yes, we could remove our troops from Saudi Arabia. But he has also said that he will not be satisfied until all the "infidels" are driven from the Holy Land. And that basically means that all Jews and Christians must be expelled: the END of Israel. And that is NOT going to happen. So we are at an impasse if we want to satisfy him.
What are the nonviolent ways of addressing and resolving the common anti-American angers you might suggest? Can we do this before we find Bin Laden?
And what do you think of the humanitarian food drops that are accompanying the air strikes?
Re: But what do we do in the meantime?
I think it's a attempt to look like America just might care what happens to innocent Afghani citizens. We're supposed to focus on our wonderful government's humanitarian efforts and not on the fact that they're killing people. I also think it's horribly ironic that we're trying to deliver both salvation and annihilation at the same time.
Re: But what do we do in the meantime?
Something should also have been done to remove the Taliban from power ages ago; but the U.S.'s current anti-Taliban fixation is nothing but a pathetically narrow bin-Laden-focused effort that will not alleviate the human rights abuses in Afghanistan. If it succeeds in removing the Taliban from power but continues showing no interest whatsoever in opposing the United Front/Northern Alliance, then the U.S. is simply setting up Afghanistan to be taken over by the United Front/Northern Alliance, whose record on human rights is nearly as bad as the Taliban's. Since the U.S. was hugely involved in bringing the Taliban to power in the first place, these human rights abuses are especially obviously the U.S.'s responsibility - besides which, such extreme human rights abuses should themselves be recognized as "terrorism." If the U.S. would start showing some kind of interest in providing real help to the Afghan people by opposing all human rights abuses, instead of encouraging, perpetrating, and/or ignoring all human rights abuses unless perpetrated by a group which happens to also be refusing to turn over bin Laden, then the U.S. could gain a lot of sympathy among the people of that region. But instead all we get is a lot of empty human rights rhetoric and symbolic tokens of assistance for public-relations purposes.
"Airdrops of Food and Medical Aid Described as of 'Negligible Value' and 'Potentially Dangerous'"
Re: But what do we do in the meantime?
Also, new questions:
(1) It seems to me that, if you're a pacifist, you must be quite Kantian. You should always tell the truth, right? Even in the famous thought experiment where you're in the Netherlands during WWII and you're hiding a Jew in your basement and a Nazi knocks on your door and asks if you have a Jew in your basement--or for fun let's make it a Queer this time--and you say..."Yes." Because you always tell the truth, even if it hurts everyone beyond any worldly repair, even if it fails to serve a larger truth, it is important to uphold the system itself (which is the dirty secret of all Kantians). It is not so much that the Truth is inviolable. It is that the simplified system of truth is inviolable. And not admitting the messy complexities and attendant responsibilities of life's tough decisions. Really, a Kantian is
about the closest you can come to a-theistic fundamentalism. Such a noble philosophy has at it's dark heart the drive to be right.
(2) What good is peace without war? I mean it. In practical, political terms, but also in a much broader meta-philosophical way. Without the real
possibility of war, peace has no use-value politically. And without the feeling, the memory and/or experience of war, we have no way of appreciating peace. Would you do away with war altogether if you could? Would that be possible? Eventually, after forgetting war for so long wouldn't we stumble back into it somehow, as if by accident aching out our boredom in this imperfect world.
Why is there violence and hate in this world? What's the point of it?
Do you think that because you know that you yourself have such a super-liberal philosophy, you're a bit more free from the consequences of what you believe? I mean, in the way that a woman is much more free to be a pacifist right now or a queer is, because they have less at stake--they won't be called up for service in the military in which they could lose their lives. Some people who believe what you abhor would be willing to give their lives to fight for your freedom and security. Are you willing to give your life for peace and how are you currently arranging for this?
Okay, take care!