13 Kzin's Mom 09-18-2001 11:58 AM ET (US) I know I am on record as a pacifist. I find my moral principles shaken. Can we justify war? Yes, I believe we can. The attacks on NY and DC involved civilians. The highjacked planes were not military air craft. Americans should feel safe walking the streets. Our nation has been attacked, within our borders civilians were murdered. Our nation needs justice. If we cannot bring the terrorists to a court of law, this semms an unlikely occurrnece, we must defend ourselves. I say "Bomb them!" (And now I will prepare to go to hell) \Just some thoughts for today from Everybody's Mom 12 Jon 09-12-2001 06:05 PM ET (US) I would change that just a bit, Matt: It's civilization vs. religious fundamentalism. And I mean religious fundamentalism in all its forms. Last night I joked to Matt that I thought we could solve half our problems by nuking Jerusalem. I think we could tell everyone they were welcome to draw border lines on the glass-lined crater in Magic Marker. --Jon 11 Matt Smith 09-12-2001 05:42 PM ET (US) I'm all for a tidy surgical strike that takes out an offending nation. Unfortunately, we're all in a state of tension. The US public 'joe six pack' (sorry Joe) wants to just start bombing. Jon and I were discussing last night, this appears to be a common reaction. After some sense of reason kicks in, our government is willing to wait and gather evidence. God help the person who we have definite evidence against. Unfortunately, if it is a government and not a group of radicals, it will be war. It might be war anyway if a country is stupid enough to try and harbor these fargin' arseholes. It was stated in Asimov's Foundation, by the character Salvor Hardin(sp?) 'Violence is the last refuge of the ignorant.' I'm afraid we have to be ignorant. In order to rid ourselves of radical Musilms we have to eliminate every one of them unless they understands not to fuck with us ever again. When religion is involved it is almost impossible to change someone's hard-core beliefs. Convincing Shi'ite Moslems to not attack us, is like telling fundamentalist Baptists that they can go back to Disney World even though gays are allowed. It just all seems so useless. It's government ideology vs. religious fundamentalism and civilians and followers are always held in the balance. 10 Jon 09-12-2001 01:48 PM ET (US) If I thought that bombing Kabul to rubble would stop this from ever happening again, I would send the bombers myself. But I don't think that will work. What *will* work: Get together with our allies. FORCE the fucking Saudis to be our point men in the Middle East on this one. Catch bin Laden, persuade him to tell us who his friends and allies are, then try him and convict him and execute him. Then rip down his organization. And any organization that had anything to do with him, including the Taliban. Make certain that the "rogue" governments of the world know that their childish games of let's-see-how-far-we-can-push-America are over, and that any deviation from the ways of civility will be punished with war trials and executions. These people wanted fear. They wanted terror. Let's give it to them. --Jon 9 Jon 09-12-2001 01:37 PM ET (US) Yeah, I work for assholes. 8 Mark 09-12-2001 01:35 PM ET (US) Oh, and Jon, you work for assholes. --Mark 7 Mark 09-12-2001 01:20 PM ET (US) Argh. I'm all in favor of world peace, and the idea of a war terrifies me. But what are you _supposed_ to do when someone starts bombing your cities? Ignore them and they'll go away? That's not "sanity." That's deliberate blindness! I'm sorry. I shouldn't be confrontational. I'm actually pretty calm now. I'd be the first to say we shouldn't rush off half cocked to accuse the Villain of the Week. But once those responsible are found with absolute certainty -- and that might take a week or a month or a year -- they have to be brought to justice no matter what it takes. There is no alternative to that. --Mark 6 Jon 09-12-2001 11:50 AM ET (US) Hoping for sanity in the wake of this is a noble thing to do, Ben, but it's not going to happen. A quarter of a billion people are screaming for blood today, and they have the technology and the power and the economy to get it. --Jon 5 Ben 09-12-2001 09:42 AM ET (US) Does this really have to come to a war? I mean at all, is there a chance sanity will come in and go "NO! WAR BAD!" making this idiotic threat at no one go away? 4 Jon 09-12-2001 09:08 AM ET (US) I didn't leave early, because the High Poobahs are so f***ing greedy that they couldn't see that everyone was wandering around in a state of shock. I am horrified at their lack of empathy. People who were leaving to take their kids home from school were told to take a half-day of vacation time or lose pay. The roads here in the Philly suburbs were very quiet when I left work at 5:30; it looked more like the roads at 8 PM, after the rush hour is over. Everyone I know was sent home early from work. Everyone. Even Springfield Mall was shut down. (Exton Mall was shut down quite early because its HQ was in the WTC.) After I got home, I watched the news on the TV. And I watched the President declare war on someone. We're not sure precisely *who* we're declaring war on yet, he seemed to say, but by God someone's gettin' warred on. I went to bed at 9:30, too exhausted to dream. I liked the World Trade Center, too. And I'll like it again when it's rebuilt. --Jon 3 Ben 09-12-2001 08:56 AM ET (US) Yeah, I can see a call t war, I can see it being a bloody stupid call too. Yesterday I saw someone close to me beat up for helping someone with a turban. Can we just admit the terror attack reduced us to our worst, refortify and get on with our lives? Then again, our government has been itching for a war. Anyone wanna plan routs to Canada with me? 2 Mark 09-11-2001 06:17 PM ET (US) What a nightmare. I left work early. Nobody was getting anything done. I stopped at the video store to rent some games to take my mind off this mess (although I doubt my ability to shut off the TV news... at least I finally hooked up the TV antenna now, and discovered I get CBS, ABC, and PBS.) There seemed to be an awful lot of traffic outside. I looked around and saw a huge line of cars at the gas station next door, stretching for a block down two different streets. Gas lines, huh. Well, it's probably just a Central Illinois thing (a couple gas stations up in the Quad Cities have apparently jacked up their prices to $4.00 or $6.00 gallons. Profiteering bastards.) as prices in Chicago, for example, are about the same as they were and there's no lines there. But still, things are getting loopy, and it isn't going to end any time soon. This act was so flamboyant that there's no way the responsible parties won't be found, and then what's going to happen? Dammit! I _liked_ the World Trade Center. This sucks. 1 JonKilg 09-11-2001 03:18 PM ET (US) I am going to make a prediction: We are going to answer this with military force. And it will be a mistake. What we *should* do is answer it with Nuremberg-style trials. You answer terror with justice and law, not with war. That would be the civilized thing to do. It would be the moral thing to do. And it is the last thing America will do. --Jon	Upgrade to PRO Upload pictures, personalize your board, and more!