Um, no, it clearly wasn't 'random'? Did you forget about the previous attack? It was clearly the most obvious target in all of Manhattan. The WTC dwarfed all the other downtown buildings by far, and no matter which direction you came from it was always the first thing you saw.
Right, perfectly true. But why downtown (that's an ironic word to be saying considering my current avatar) New York? Since you're clearing looking at the symbolism angle, why not the Statue of Liberty. Why not any of a dozen buildings in Washington DC?
Ah. So now they hate our rationality and capitalism instead of our constant meddiling[sic] in their own affairs.
Maybe you haven't realized something.
They committing suicide with the express purpose of killing civilians that have done nothing to them. The west has meddled in dozens of regions, for East Asia to Latin America. And yet it's only the Islamic fundamentalists that are waging war in such a way.
There is no justification for that. There are no excuses. There are explanations as to why people these people are fighting, and often enough they take the form of the culturally relevant, politically correct type that you hint at. But that does not explain how they fight and who they target.
That is motivated purely by religious fanaticism.
No, stubborness[sic] is quite fitting for those who hate Muslims and have irrational fears of them. I wouldn't expect anything less from that particular group.
Let's get this straight. I do not fear Muslims, not in a David Duke way, and not in a Pannonius style "freak out whenever they show a hint of religious conviction/ascending power" I have no problem with 99.99% of the Muslim world. But that last .1% wants to kill me and you, and is convinced he will go to heaven if he dies in the attempt. I am afraid of that person, and you should be two. Not so afraid that we loose judgment, and go off and fight unnecessary and costly wars, but healthily afraid and looking to neutralize him.
Yeah, but we're adults, not five year olds. And "in your faceness" tends to promote more violence not less.
I disagree. To me, building some fancy memorial is "in your faceness" rebuilding and going on with life is adult-like. Rebuilding the same structure is a little more defiant, but the human psyche requires symbols, and a simple "rebuild, keep on living" message is a good one.
They could try to destroy us from the inside out (though we're all doing a pretty decent job ourselves).
These are the wrong kind of fanatic for that I'm afraid.
I think the more we try to "demolish their philosophy" and "USA USA USA!!!" & "Feedom Tower in your face biatches!!" & "World Trade, globalization, MTV, kill the tererists FTW!!" the more we're going to feed it.
Honestly, when have I gone overly nationalistic on you? Trying to convince them not to kill us is common sense, and the rest I haven't even hinted at.
They don't hate us cause we beautiful, they hate us cause we beautiful & vain & simply don't give a flying duck about them save for their resources.
Eh? How are we supposed to care in a way that would satisfy both you and them? Aside from military involvement, we have quite a bit of commercial involvement. That's the region's best hope of joining the first world in the long run, and they hate it. Liberated women and secular justice administering fair punishment, schools teaching non-Koran compliant science and people leaving Islam for other religions. The fanatics that blew up the WTC are horrified by our greatest gift, and just as horrified by the variation that you would offer. What else are we to do? Give them tons of cash by aerial drop, so that their minds might not be infected with heathen ideas?
Maybe if we cut off Israel's allowence [we'd decrease terrorism significantly.]
The Palestinian situation is a real can of worms and no mistake. Whatever mistakes we may have made in forming Israel however, if we "cut their allowance' sooner or later their will be a second Holocaust. Not little petty act of war and murder like we see now. Genocide with a captial G.
[Maybe if we] stopped invading Middle Eastern countries for fake reasons (WMD's, etc.) while Dafur & other world crises go on without a bat of the eyelash on our part we'd decrease terrorism significantly. But to gung-ho knuckleheads this amounts to defeatism. If we're not halfway down to their level we're not "showing 'em who's boss".
I agree with the bolded. We need to fight smarter and and we need to fight using things other than missiles and tanks. However I think you're misunderstanding how I'm using stubborn. By "stubborn" I mean that we accept that these attacks are intolerable, we move to cut them off at the sources, and we keep doing do until we find a way. Bad leadership and honest mistakes may lead to horrendous loss of life on the way, but we'll grit our teeth and try to minimize that, until we find a way to make the world safe, not necessarily for democracy, but safe from the fear of being killed by the hundreds and thousands while conducting our own business.
We certainly cant kill them all, and eliminating the influential radical religious figures would definitely help, but this problem will not cease until the underlying political and economic forces which breed terrorism are alleviated. Otherwise there is going to still be kids growing up to be radical figures and we have to go through the process of finding and killing them. Its just a lot easier to send in a bunch of troops and raid terrorist mosques and training centers than it is to enact policies which wont get any results for another generation.
Agreed. I would have emphasized some of the more economic and political methods of stabilizing SW Asia, but I was more focused on arguing on arguing with people who take umbrage at the presence of
any military component. However, it's definitely going to be more economic than political. Our focus right now should be on getting ourselves out of a tied down presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and concentrating on targeting Al Qaeda and related terrorist cells. If we do this write, we keep terrorism down and letting the famous Western Capitalism spread it's tentacles until we make life in SW Asia better, and remove the incentive for extreme religious/ militant behavior in the process.
