Response to Anonymous

Anonomous Wrote:

Are you serious or just trying to be provocative?

It's a serious question, but I'm not completely sure of the answer that I've come up with. There are some parts that I'm sure about, and some parts that I'm not.

One HUMONGUOUS distinction is: our forefathers were fighting against another organized army who attacked them in their own land while terrorists use innocent people in an attempt to advance their cause.

In their own land? The land belonged to the British, and we were British citizens. We revolted against our king and the "legal" rulers of our land. Also, a large number of colonists were in favor of British rule. Obviously there were also a large number of people in favor of the revolution or we could never have found the soldiers to fight for the revolution. I don't know what the percentage was, that number was never mentioned in the history books we read as kids, but I think it's safe to say that the people in favor of revolution forced their ideas on those who were in favor of British rule. I'm not trying to say that our forefathers were in the wrong, only that things were not as clear cut as people think. As for them attacking us, I don't know who fired the first shot, but I do know that we had committed such acts as the Boston Tea Party and had formed our Declaration of Independence. We also formed an alliance with France, an enemy of the British Empire. Had we lost the war, our forefathers would have been branded as traitors to the British Crown and would be vilified today.

Have you heard of the beheadings of simple worker-bees by the terrorists in Iraq? Did you hear the stories about the combat in Fallujah where 5 "human shields" were executed at the last minute while the terrorists scrambled to their own safety? Have you heard of the terrorists using ambulances as their vehicles of choice from which to shoot the enemy, knowing that we generally abide a different set of standards of ethics and decency during combat? Have you heard of the terrorists using white flags to indicate they were surrendering only to begin shooting while "the enemy" was approaching to take them into custody ( and give them food, medical attention, bedding, clothes, etc )? Have you heard of the terrorists using their own compadres' dead bodies to set off IED explosives when "the enemy" approaches to bury the dead?

Let me start by saying that I don't condone terrorism, but the main reason I don't condone it is because I think it's ineffective. The powers that you're trying to influence through terrorism can't succumb to it because that would only encourage more people to use terrorism as a means of influence. Having said that, however, I would also say that the acts mentioned above are just the types of techniques that you would have to use when battling an overwhelmingly superior enemy. Do we really have a different set of ethics? We torture the people we capture and justify it by saying that that the information we extract can be used to save American lives. How is that different than using a white flag to get close to the enemy, and then justifying it by saying that it's a good way to kill a large number of the enemy.

Our forefathers would put individual soldiers in trees along the side of a road to wait for the British to come marching down the road. Then the soldier would take one shot, kill one British soldier, then remain perfectly silent while the British looked for him. With just one shot, it was hard for the British to tell which direction it came from, so most often they could never find the guy. The British probably thought that we were cowards for not confronting them in a real battle, but we thought we were being really clever and taking advantage in a weakness in the way the British did things.

I'm not trying to say that the things that terrorists do are okay, only that they are not fundamentally worse than what we do, or than what happens in a conventional war. In fact, I think it's arguable that by making a big hoopla about every person they kill, e.g. by video taping the execution, etc., they are actually using each death a lot more effectively than we are when we kill a lot of people and then trying to play it down.

Why are you so quick to vilify America and yet constantly defend Hitler, Hussein, terrorists, etc?

I am only interested in the truth. I'm not claiming to be any better at discerning the truth than anyone else, only that it's the truth that I seek. Having said that, I believe that our history books contain a version of history that is biased toward a particular view point. Therefore, if you're interested in the truth, you have to point your compass a little to the anti-American side of what our history books say, and say that the real truth is probably somewhere over there. Another thing I try to do is to look at the actual events, ignoring any opinions that I may have heard from other people, and try to guess what could motivate someone to do what they supposedly did.

BTW, what is it you think the terrorists are fighting FOR? What is it that you say are "the problems that the terrorists are trying to solve [that] are real"?

Good question, and one for which I don't have a good answer. I don't think there is any question that we're the most powerful nation in the world, and I think we use that power to influence other nations to our benefit. When we give aid to developing nations, it is with strings attached, either to open doors for trade, or to get favorable trading terms, or to influence governments to crack down on drug trafficers, etc.. Is this bad, or is this simply fair competition? I don't know. Our companies engage internationally in practices that are illegal in this country, but not illegal in the countries in which they operate. They hire children to work 16 hour days sewing soccer balls, for example, and pay them only pennies a day. However, that's pennies a day more than they would be making otherwise. The children may have been lured away from their families with promises of a better life, and the managers of the shops may intimidate the children to get them to stay. People may blame our companies for these crimes, but the people committing these crimes are not U.S. citizens and are just doing things the way things are done in their country. To give one, somewhat horrific example, there was that U.S. chemical company in India a few years back that let a bunch of toxic gases out that killed hundreds of people, but they were following the safety guidelines of India at that time, and India has had a lot of cases train crashes or earthquakes that kill a lot of people. I work with a lot of people from India, and one girl I work with told me about hearing about a train crash in India that killed a lot of people. She called up her father in India to express her concern and ask for the latest news about it. He said that he had heard about the crash, but didn't know too much else. He really wasn't too interested in it because it happened in another part of the country and didn't involve anyone he knew.

In all honesty, When I said that what the terrorists are fighting for is real, that was based on a vague idea that the media that we're exposed to is generally pro-American, and that the real truth is going to be on the anti-American side of what we are hearing. There is the U.S. support of Israel, but then again, we're probably justified in support countries that are friendly toward us, and not supporting countries that publicly malign us and call us evil. However, after all of this wishy-washiness, I will state that I do believe that when a terrorist group starts up, there are generally valid causes that they are fighting for. Those causes may be different for each group, they may be just or they may not be, but they are there.

I'm going to skip some stuff here, and now:

Based on everything I've read on this blog so far, I'm assuming you did NOT vote for Bush. Having said that, and because Bush won the recent election, do you claim that you are NOT innocent and that if you are killed by a terrorist that you deserved it?

I will not go as far as saying that I will have deserved it, but I will claim that I am not innocent. I work and live in this country. I take advantage of its benefits, and the result of my labor supports its policies. I would say that I am less guilty than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or a lot of other people high up in the administration, and I am less guilty than the heads of corprations, like Halliburton, that make a lot of money off of this war. I may even marginally less guilty than someone who voted for Bush, except that a lot of people who voted for him did so because they thought he was the best person to get of out of this mess, not because they are happy we got into this mess. However, I am not less guilty than most of the soldiers in Iraq. They joined the military with the honest desire to be there to defend the U.S. if she is attacked, not to go on the offensive against another country. However, like any group of people, there are both good and bad people in our military. I do consider myself to be less guilty than those that committed the crimes in Abu Ghraib, or those that killed Healing Iraq's cousin.