Guest Commentary by Bob Fink
--- In delian@yahoogroups.com, Greenwich wrote:
My replies interspersed in your text below:
Chad Wozniak wrote:
In re "Arabs from occupied countries": fifteen of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and three others from Egypt, as I recall; not exactly occupied countries.
There are other forms of occupation besides military occupation, which can undemocratically dictate and coerce the policies that another people will live under. There is also economic occupation, and political occupation. These can do violence to a people, such as causing poverty, disease, pollution, lack of education or hope. The "absentee owner" occupies using the long arm of power if not always the muzzle of a gun.
The Yanks were occupied by Britain in 1776, which enforced laws, taxes ("Taxation without representation is tyranny"), and other policies, and also I mention the occupations in turn of the colonists of aboriginal lands and Native peoples. As has also the Israeli State done to the Palestinians.
The oppressed (Jews and Yanks both) always learn from the oppressor how to do it, don't we?
Well, I view the government of Saudi Arabia as a puppet regime (as was Saddam Hussein's -- where do you think he got the poisons and weaponry so in abundance in Iraq and in the Mid-East? From Greenland?).
The people of Saudi often see their gov't as a tyranny supported by oil folk of the West and the US. They see their *lives* as "occupied." Perhaps we should take a Christian view of it -- when the devil "occupies" your body and mind, it is called "possessed." Far more apt word, especially in terms of economic domination and occupation. They are a *possessed* people.
There is also a sense of solidarity of most Arabs with Palestinians, such as we felt when the Russian children were murdered, that it was an attack upon *all* innocents, whatever country.
For Arabs, it is an attack on all Arabs to oppress the Palestinians with an occupation that follows all the strategies of terror and humiliation learned by Israel from its past Nazi experience (collective punishment, bulldozing homes of relatives, ad nauseum). As Israeli Prime Minister Begin once said, during the siege of Beirut, "this is Berlin, and the PLO are Nazis."
That's a most tragic warp of a sickened mind bent on some kind of psychological "balance" or unfinished business, taken out on whomever is nearest -- as I once suffered when I was eight years old or so.
The gov't of Afghanistan is also a U.S. puppet regime (which controls only Kabul, while the world's supply of crack, heroin or cocaine is contributed to, greater now than ever, from that country's warlords, with no concern to stop it by the Bush admin -- too busy in Iraq.
Want to see real terrorism? Look in the possessed eyes of an addict robbing the liquor or drug store, or mugging you to pay for the next "hit," and ask yourself if you'll live through the robbery by "reasoning" with his/her desperation (perhaps addicted at birth). Of course, not being addicted yourself, "it's the addict's fault" -- not the Afghan suppliers whose occupiers look the other way and shrug.... right?
What other Arab countries are occupied, besides Iraq (if, that is, one admits of that as an occupation) and the West Bank (in re which, one can hardly blame the Israelis for not letting up on people whose only interest in life seems to be in hating and killing Jews)? Would Afghanistan be among those "occupied countries"? one might well say that the Arabs of Afghanistan (i.e., bin Laden's bunch) were occupiERs, not occupiED, with their support of one of history's most counter-human regimes.
As for the cause of these terrible crimes, I would suggest looking at the criminals who commit those crimes - and then at other people who excuse and rationalize those crimes. Everyone has a choice not to do such hideous things...
This shows a lack of logic: How do you explain that terrorists generally come from certain common backgrounds and experiences -- if there's a choice? If it was choice alone, then terrorists would be equally distributed among all populations, among all economic levels, educational backgrounds, gender and nationalities, right? Or do you believe there are "inferior" or "flawed" types of peoples?
Did the Irish have a choice about opposing British occupation? Did George Washington or the minute men have a choice about obeying British "laws" instead of turning to illegal violence against "civilized" Brits? Did slaves have a choice about killing their masters to obtain freedom?
Did your childhood have a choice about which language you'd learn? Or do you think it's "lucky I was born here, because English is the only language I know?" Or choose which religion and creeds you would enter the world learning and adopting, or choose what amount of food and shelter your family could provide?
Or whether you'd learn how to "scalp" your enemies after the colonists taught the Indians how to do it, by doing it first to the Indians by offering money rewards for each Indian head-"pelt"? (The colonists' proclamations to pay for Indian scalps are available in abundance to see.)
Choice is *non-existent* for most people in the world, and if many do not undertake various behaviors, good or bad ones, unlike you, they still recognize choice was not really there. Instead they say: "There but for the grace of god (or luck or birth or circumstances) go I."
But is Chad above such human responses if mistreated long enough to either make your spirit break -- or bite back?
...A huge number, if not a majority, of people probably could claim to be abused and oppressed in some fashion, yet only these few use that as an excuse to commit their crimes.
So again, what's your answer to the same question, asked for the third time? WHY do they want to commit these crimes when others don't? Are you even looking for an explanation? Or is "hating back" just so much easier to do? Is an answer knowable, or is it an eternal mystery?
--Bob
My replies interspersed in your text below:
Chad Wozniak wrote:
In re "Arabs from occupied countries": fifteen of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and three others from Egypt, as I recall; not exactly occupied countries.
There are other forms of occupation besides military occupation, which can undemocratically dictate and coerce the policies that another people will live under. There is also economic occupation, and political occupation. These can do violence to a people, such as causing poverty, disease, pollution, lack of education or hope. The "absentee owner" occupies using the long arm of power if not always the muzzle of a gun.
The Yanks were occupied by Britain in 1776, which enforced laws, taxes ("Taxation without representation is tyranny"), and other policies, and also I mention the occupations in turn of the colonists of aboriginal lands and Native peoples. As has also the Israeli State done to the Palestinians.
The oppressed (Jews and Yanks both) always learn from the oppressor how to do it, don't we?
Well, I view the government of Saudi Arabia as a puppet regime (as was Saddam Hussein's -- where do you think he got the poisons and weaponry so in abundance in Iraq and in the Mid-East? From Greenland?).
The people of Saudi often see their gov't as a tyranny supported by oil folk of the West and the US. They see their *lives* as "occupied." Perhaps we should take a Christian view of it -- when the devil "occupies" your body and mind, it is called "possessed." Far more apt word, especially in terms of economic domination and occupation. They are a *possessed* people.
There is also a sense of solidarity of most Arabs with Palestinians, such as we felt when the Russian children were murdered, that it was an attack upon *all* innocents, whatever country.
For Arabs, it is an attack on all Arabs to oppress the Palestinians with an occupation that follows all the strategies of terror and humiliation learned by Israel from its past Nazi experience (collective punishment, bulldozing homes of relatives, ad nauseum). As Israeli Prime Minister Begin once said, during the siege of Beirut, "this is Berlin, and the PLO are Nazis."
That's a most tragic warp of a sickened mind bent on some kind of psychological "balance" or unfinished business, taken out on whomever is nearest -- as I once suffered when I was eight years old or so.
The gov't of Afghanistan is also a U.S. puppet regime (which controls only Kabul, while the world's supply of crack, heroin or cocaine is contributed to, greater now than ever, from that country's warlords, with no concern to stop it by the Bush admin -- too busy in Iraq.
Want to see real terrorism? Look in the possessed eyes of an addict robbing the liquor or drug store, or mugging you to pay for the next "hit," and ask yourself if you'll live through the robbery by "reasoning" with his/her desperation (perhaps addicted at birth). Of course, not being addicted yourself, "it's the addict's fault" -- not the Afghan suppliers whose occupiers look the other way and shrug.... right?
What other Arab countries are occupied, besides Iraq (if, that is, one admits of that as an occupation) and the West Bank (in re which, one can hardly blame the Israelis for not letting up on people whose only interest in life seems to be in hating and killing Jews)? Would Afghanistan be among those "occupied countries"? one might well say that the Arabs of Afghanistan (i.e., bin Laden's bunch) were occupiERs, not occupiED, with their support of one of history's most counter-human regimes.
As for the cause of these terrible crimes, I would suggest looking at the criminals who commit those crimes - and then at other people who excuse and rationalize those crimes. Everyone has a choice not to do such hideous things...
This shows a lack of logic: How do you explain that terrorists generally come from certain common backgrounds and experiences -- if there's a choice? If it was choice alone, then terrorists would be equally distributed among all populations, among all economic levels, educational backgrounds, gender and nationalities, right? Or do you believe there are "inferior" or "flawed" types of peoples?
Did the Irish have a choice about opposing British occupation? Did George Washington or the minute men have a choice about obeying British "laws" instead of turning to illegal violence against "civilized" Brits? Did slaves have a choice about killing their masters to obtain freedom?
Did your childhood have a choice about which language you'd learn? Or do you think it's "lucky I was born here, because English is the only language I know?" Or choose which religion and creeds you would enter the world learning and adopting, or choose what amount of food and shelter your family could provide?
Or whether you'd learn how to "scalp" your enemies after the colonists taught the Indians how to do it, by doing it first to the Indians by offering money rewards for each Indian head-"pelt"? (The colonists' proclamations to pay for Indian scalps are available in abundance to see.)
Choice is *non-existent* for most people in the world, and if many do not undertake various behaviors, good or bad ones, unlike you, they still recognize choice was not really there. Instead they say: "There but for the grace of god (or luck or birth or circumstances) go I."
But is Chad above such human responses if mistreated long enough to either make your spirit break -- or bite back?
...A huge number, if not a majority, of people probably could claim to be abused and oppressed in some fashion, yet only these few use that as an excuse to commit their crimes.
So again, what's your answer to the same question, asked for the third time? WHY do they want to commit these crimes when others don't? Are you even looking for an explanation? Or is "hating back" just so much easier to do? Is an answer knowable, or is it an eternal mystery?
--Bob
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