The Path To Peace
LaserWolf
Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
The Path To Peace Is Peace.It is hard to embrace pacifism. I have not succeded, though I know it is the only way.Many would not want to negotiate with bin Laden or al-Qaeda.Yet until we and al-Qaeda embrace peace there will be no peace.Defeating them will no more bring peace than defeating the nazis brought peace.PeaceDan
Comments
Defeating the nazis ended nazi agression and halted plans for the final solution. I'm with you. I want peace. I just think peace in of itself is not enough. If we accomodate the demands of al-Qaeda then don't you think we are abandoning Muslim women to 8th century male dominance; all other non-Muslims in Muslim lands to be third class dhimmi; atheists and drunkards to further lashings. There is a dillema here to tolerate stark intolerance, which was a policy before. They must be defeated, demoralized, panicked, humiliated.
that is actually sickening... Especially: "defeated, demoralized, panicked, humiliated"...
You are basically saying that their viewpoint is incorrect because you don't believe it? I am not condoning their tactics, but until we actually sit down with the aggressor and understand them, you can never defeat them... They are proving that right now. They can carry this on for years with no problem and the main reason is because they believe we as people do not understand them or want to understand them and the fact that we have toyed with that area of the world for decades giving them perception that we consider them disposable... They are no worse than Christian Fundamentalists and I don't see the US attacking and imprisoning them...
I mean pick yourself up out of your nice comfortable life and put yourself in their shoes and then what would you do?
True 'Dat.
I am all for understanding them better so we may demoralize, defeat, humiliate and panic them. I am not speaking of Muslims here. Only the ones that view the Koran as a license for holy murder. The Wahab and Salafist tradition, the state sect of Saudi Arabia. Now I want to defeat these people for the same reasons I would imagine you rooted for the Justice Department in the 1960s to defeat the KKK. One side, the bin laden side, in this contest are fighting for the return of the Caliph, they are fighting out of a sense of Muslim supremism, they are fighting for a society where wives and children are the property of men, where slavery is permitted so long as the slave is a dhimmi, where all forms of personal expression are regulated for their coherence to the Koran, a world where men are publicly whipped for uttering a perceived profanity against God. I don't want to yield to them even a little bit. I don't want to allow them to practice the ritual deformation of a young girl's vagina so she may not be tempted into adultery. I am intolerant of this extreme and arcance intolerance. So there you have it. This is not a tastes great/less filling dispute. If our enemies succeed at the very least, the entire Islamic world will go back into time to the days of the prophet, Israel will not exist and thousands of children will be taught that it is honorable and pleasing to God to kill us. The Iraq war by the way did not create this. It's been there for a while. So we have a big war. And we can't get soft and think about negotiating with them.
I am unfamiliar with this term, what does it mean?
Dan
Bush is catching alot of flack for going in without any real plan, and without acknowledging the aftermath, no "exit strategy", etc...
However, a pertual war is a great means of controling a populace... if you can pull it off right. Think 1984.
Exactly... And qute profitable for those in the war biz... I hope yall invested in Raytheon, Boeing and the likes... War contracts for days now...
peace just isn't profitable I guess.
Take that shit over there and join the Israeli Army.
I'm sure Vitamin can explain this to him.
Too bad it's just not that easy...
Your words just put the whole "Peace in our time" thing into my mind.
The fact that you can't even trust some of your own kin, let alone two people that don't know anything about eachother or care for that matter, try to keep the peace... Ain't never gonna happen. Unless you give everyone a lobotomy.
Now "Go home and get a nice quiet sleep"
In just one year the US has gone form "WMD" to "Democracy" to "fighting terror" that's some pretty quick revisionist history for your ass.
Don't get me wrong... I'm no Bush fan... Just a realist. There's a reason we study history. I'm just about tired of all of it from all sides and about ready to head to an Island and chill and eat mango's or some shit.
Someone start a thread on cute animals or beautiful works of art so I can step back and smile.
Side note: I just heard a story about a major producer who is always talking about how they never spend money on records. But in reality...
Thoughts on this?
Wow... What a synchronicity. At the same time I read this post, in another open window, I was reading about Japanese beer, and found this pic:
What has al-Qaeda literally demanded of the world that, upon achievement, will result in governmental mandates akin to those you've described above? And how will a forced "democracy" achieve the goal of halting these extremes? It takes much more than military action to change the hearts and minds of a country (much less a country that has aspired to such beliefs for thousands of years). Cultural evolution is a slow process, and it cannot peacably be bourne of the weapons of invaders. I agree that that Taliban rule in Afghanistan was morally deplorable and involved the compromise of human rights in the interest of religious fanaticism. But the Taliban isn't the same animal as al-Qaeda.
I don't agree with intolerance, but I'm also not sure how to ethically go about forcibly altering others' intolerant mindsets 1) without further widening the, in this case, Muslim/Christian-Jewish rift and 2) keeping politics out of the the picture (or even to a minimum). The terms you use ("defeated, demoralized, panicked, humiliated") suggest an altruistic or ethical bent writ large with the language of "good v. evil." Does America de facto = "good?" Can our President be wrong? The fact that Ronald Reagan and George Bush were respectably rated #1 and #6 in the recent "Greatest American Ever" poll seems to point to the fact that most Americans love a Great Communicator that dabbles in Manifest Destiny-speak. Our country seems to have this megalomaniacal fixation through which it can't seem to see its own public shame or flaws. It's dangerous for any major force to envision its own cause as unflinchingly sterling. Senator Dick Durbin made the general (though oversimplistic) connection between historically corrupt and sinful regimes and our own (simply regarding the treatment of human beings at Gitmo), and he was forced to tearfully rescind his statement for fear of his job and life. An administration without a possibility of credible, visible public dissent is a Fascist one. America isn't fully there yet, but it is progressively heading down that path.
I'd at least consider your MO for change re: Iraq (or was it al-Qaeda? Oh, well - the majority of our country doesn't know the difference) if not for the fact that our government seems incapable of moving on "moral grounds" without certain political underpinnings (see our inaction in Darfur). Hey: Saddam was a cruel leader. We agree on this 100%. But our "pre-emptive strike" mentality was preached as an anti-Terrorist tool. Cruel leadership is not the same as Terrorism, unless you're dealing with a definition of the word that is so open-ended as to lose all independent meaning (which can be likened to the convienient broadening of the phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Now THERE'S a term I haven't heard for months). There are plenty of cruel leaders in this world that don't see eye-to-eye with America's WASPy leanings. We might threaten these folks from time-to-time, but we'll never invade, say, North Korea. I honestly believe that one of the reasons why we invaded Iraq was because we KNEW they couldn't launch a tactical strike against our homeland.
Now I'm just fucking rambling.
Although: I'm curious about these statistics: how many al-Qaeda cels existed in Iraq before the war? How many have been instituted after the war's onset?
Soon we will have peace.
b/w
Wicked... Thx! Brought a smile to my face!
It has not created peace. We've been there done that.
Peace through justice or peace through piety, nonviolence, justice, and peace has not yet been tried.
I am learning this from John Domminic Corrasan.
The hard part here is justice. How do we bring justice to people oppressed by goverments like the Taliban? How do we deal with the Taliban in a just way? Justice without violence or retrubution or revenge.
How do we get along with al-Qaida when I have trouble getting along with my family? I even sometimes have trouble getting along with other soulstrutters?
I want to reject an eye for an eye and embrace turning the other cheek.*
I, like more than 90% of Americans and the countrys of the world, supported the war in Afganistan. I supported taking the war to al-Qaida in Tora Bora. I will not morn bin Ladens death.
I am a failure as a pacifist.
I do belive that little has been accomplished through war, and that much can be accomplished through peace.
I belive that we need a new generation of leaders who will reject Peace through Victory and embrace Peace through Justice.
*Still Jewish, I aint converting.
Dan