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Egads! Sarcasm from a Yank!Minor Drag said:Here we go again. Thank God the UK can hold her torch of truth so high as to illuminate the US' hopeless folly. I can only grovel in thanks.
Maybe the reason there hasn't been any American posts is because y'all get out of bed 5 hours earlier than us! This thread started 3 hours before I got up!
Niles Calder said:I recently realised that the primary reason we got a War after the worldshaking events of that day was that it helped maintain the status quo. Otherwise the powers that be might have actually had their rule threatened by a new set of memes sweeping us into a more benign global do-dad.
The sense I got in the days following the attack was one of global horror. An attitude that this should NEVER happen again. When the a vast majority of people across the world are united towards a single goal anything is possible. If T.W.A.T had been enacted by the UN rather than US then perhaps that unity could have been maintained, but the US had a stake in prosecuting the conflict directly.Minor Drag said:Niles, perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but I fail to see how 911 had the potential of leading us into a more benign state.
Nor do I see how it didn't demand a response--we lost half that number of people in Pearl Harbor, and quickly laced up our ass-kickin' boots.
What are the "memes" to which you're referring? Perverse Islamic fundamentalism? The much deserved "come-uppance" of the States? Useless, evil slaughter?
Ultimately, the last way to effect useful change was to commit such a heinous act. As for the status quo, power seeks only to maintain and increase itself.
What's so miserable about this is that we've killed as many Afghan civilians as we lost in the WTC attack. Don't hear too much about it.
Minor Drag said:What's so miserable about this is that we've killed as many Afghan civilians as we lost in the WTC attack. Don't hear too much about it.
Niles Calder said:Something that many Americans seem to forget was that although the 911 attacks took place on American soil, they were actually attacks against every nation who had citizens within the WTC at the time. Of course many of your country folk seem to think that the US is the world.
Originally posted by Niles Calder
Unless I'm very much mistaken wasn't the attack on Pearl Harbour directed mainly at the US Naval forces stationed there? An attack on a miltary target is an act of war; an attack on a civiliab target an act of terror.[/QUOTE
True, but deserving of a response nonetheless. The old way of waging war--uniformed combatants meeting on the field of valor-- is obsolete. No organized response would have been a clear invitation for further attack. I believe it was expected that our society would crumble in the face of such terror.
Originally posted by Niles Calder
World Peace, Global Unity (but not nessicarilly government), that sort of think. Call me an idealist but I want a better world rather than this shithole we currently have. Oh and since when has slaughter not been evil and useless?][/QUOTE
Never. Please see "buying drink" comment above.
Xanatic said:One of the reasons why I am tired of hearing about september 11 is their picky definition of the world.
When they attacked America it was an attack upon the whole world and democracy in general according to Americans.
In other terror actions that have happened to other countries, it has simply been seen as "something that didn't happen to America". Why is an attack on America is an attack on the whole free world, while an attack on another country is just "too bad".