The Brink of Madness

[CB..]

poor old Chamberlain..he allways gets the blame..yet time and time again i read that he bought us enough time to get the country onto a war footing- and that more than likely we would have lost the battle of britain if it had started even as little as 6 months earlier..given the grave circumstances i think Chamberlain was sacrificed to give us time to prepare...

but it was a war against a country.. against an insane political regime..this is a war against terrorism..this is a war against the man next door...every shot fired and every life lost re-inforces the convictions of those on every side..there are times when die-ing for what one believes or making other die for what one believes becomes the very act of terrorism that we need to stop...it makes a mockery of everything we have been brought up to believe.....

But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century,

our technology is in the here and now...our beliefs are 7th century..
dunno how but that has got to change

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by CB..

...our beliefs are 7th century..

Ours...?

And - war against terrorism? That's as if one is saying: "war against tanks". "War against air planes." But these are just the tools of war you fight with. WWII was fought against fascism. The enemy you fight against now is the one with the beliefs from the 7th century. If anyone still believes terrorism and the fight against it has nothing to do with religion and culture, then he is totally wrong. It is a clash of civilisations, and at least as much also a clash of ages 1500 years apart. It's about high time that we in the West finally - finally - get to realise that.

In the supermarket this afternoon, I overheared a talk between two men, who were buying the same political magazine. They mentioned that everything today (meaning the war in the ME, and the growing tensions between Islam and the West in general) would be much better if only we would apologise to Islam that after 9/11 some of us - so very few of us - dared to point fingers at it and put it under suspicion. such stupidity leaves me speechless. I makes me wanting to grab a heavy stick and wanting to beat some reason into people who obviously only carry braindead corpses through their lives. One could despair about such people and such a massive amount of naivety.

[CB..]

i agree completely...and that's my point.....it is a clash of civlisations..and religious beliefs...and of course about who is right and who is wrong...which is why what we believe to be right and wrong is absolutely central to the clash on all levels of intellect..
in order to resolve it peacefully (unlikely) some sort of debate is needed between partys...which is a nightmare when the issues are political- it is allmost inconcievable when the issues are centurys old religious convictions...but we have been avoiding the issue for allmost as long as those beliefs have existed.....now we can no longer have that luxury...either one has to wipe out the other..or all have ask the gut wrenching question...does the human race have to die because of what it believes..it won't matter a damn whose right or wrong in the end...it will come down to a simple choice...do we survive or do we die..

i dunno what the two idiots in the supermarket were on..they seem to be assuming that it is possible to deal with it in normal terms...it's far and away a much bigger issue than appeasment or aggressive attack can deal with..it is in fact an issue that adresses the very nature of our intellectual development as a species..IMO

[snowsub]

Excellent article Skybord, couldn't agree more

A lot of people today are letting they're emotions cloud their judgement, allying with the enermy just because they don't like someone/country etc. Especially when the one they ally with doesn't give a damn about them anyway.

and leads to things like this happening...
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=120233

[Rockstar]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

German Pastor Martin Niemöller - WWII

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Ours...?

And - war against terrorism? That's as if one is saying: "war against tanks". "War against air planes." But these are just the tools of war you fight with. WWII was fought against fascism.

No, it wasn't. It was fought against Germany, Japan, and Italy, and therefore it was a war with those three countries. And it ended when the Heads of State of each of these three countries, one by one, surrendered and signed peace treaties after their armies were defeated on the battlefield.

[Edit] Do these facts give you an inkling of why the "war" on terror can neither be fought nor won with the same tactics and mentality? Declaring war on terror is like screwing for virginity (to steal from something someone else once said).