> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of jon louis mann > Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 9:31 AM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: war is terror... > > That is one - rather bizarre - way of looking at things. I would > suggest that in fact the reason people are able to be more concerned > about collateral damge is because a) they are more aware of it and b) > the stakes are much lower. With the immoral bombing actions of the > Second World War a genuine case can be made for it protecting the > bombing nation (although I am not sure that personally I would try to > make such a case) whereas no such similar case can be made today.
> i think that now, more than ever, a case can be made for no more war. > the people in these mideast countries are being kept in poverty, > despite their fantastic wealth in oil. people are so full of rage and > desperate for work, that they join terrorist organizations. many > become martyrs simply so their families will be fed. Actually, that's not a typical portrait of a martyr. It's one that fits our preconceptions, but not the data. A friend/colleague Gautam is one of the world experts on terrorism. She has interviewed over sixty different terrorists. Off the top of my head, terrorists do not, usually, come from the poorest and most desperate. A better generalization is that they find meaning in their actions. Most members of terrorism organizations, such as AQ, come from middle or upper class families. Examples of this include Bin Laden, most of the 9-11 hijackers, and the physicians who were involved with the latest attempts in Great Britain. Another perspective on this is the conclusions of a French journalist who interviewed a number (>20 and probably 40-50) failed suicide bombers in Israeli jails. He said they talked freely with him....and he thought that they did so because they saw him as sympathetic. For the most part, their motivation was to purity which was ruined by the existence of Jews in Palestine. As with the 9-11 terrorists, Bin Laden himself Further, the suicide bomber is not, usually, a long standing member of the group....but sees this action as a way of gaining status/honor. If folks are interested, I can write Gautam and ask him to relay her findings in more detail, as well as other literature on the subject. But, I won't bother him if it will just be dismissed out of hand. > was it really necessary to fire bomb dresden? No >did america really need to use the a-bomb on densely populated cities? >was the alternative to invade japan, or were there other choices? If they wanted to end the war without an invasion, most likely. We can never know for certain what the consequences of untaken actions would have been, but we do have some indicative data. In particular, the Emperor had to decent from above to cast the tie-breaking vote on surrender. His cabinet was deadlocked 3-3 on surrender....even after two cities were devastated by two bombs. IIRC, even after the Emperor descended, he had to argue long and hard to get agreement on surrender. Given that, the evidence is that a blockade would not have ended WWII. Rather, it would have allowed the Soviet Union to switch it's forces to the Eastern Front....which probably would have resulted in a Soviet sphere of influence in the east like the one in the west (Eastern Europe. And, the invasion was expected to cost 1 million American casualties and far more Japanese. There were plans for a fight to the death by virtually the whole population. Remember, according to the Japanese viewpoint of the time, a defeated people lost their humanity when they lost....that's what made the killing of half of their POWs, their actions in Korea reasonable....they were dealing with sub-humans. >what role do governments have in going to war when the solution might be to >find a way to give people in these countries hope? It sounds logical, but most wars are not the direct result of a hopeless people. It's the result of a leadership that sees advantage in starting a war. Look at the wars that have been started in the last 60 years. I think it is more reasonable to see the view of people that they cannot resist their own dictatorships successfully as contributing to war, but the initiation of wars are not correlated with desperation. One way to look a this is look at the wars of the last 30 years and the big wars of, say, the last 250 years, and see if the cause is that the perpetrator of the war was a country with a uniquely desperate population (or at least trending towards significantly higher desperation in the population than other countries at the time.) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
