Lucy,
Thanks for your comments. I'll try to respond to them
[Lucy]
Wow-you said so much in your last post that it's hard to know where to
begin a response. I suppose I agree with your facts but not so much
with your analysis of the situation. Osama is indeed a blessed man. I
wish I had 1/10th of the gifts God has bestowed upon him. He is
handsome (I'm not), charismatic (I'm not), fabulously rich (I'm not),
well connected (I'm not), and hugely successful (I'm not). And yet,
just look what he has done with all these wonderful gifts. To my
knowledge, he has done **nothing** to help the Palestinian people.
Yes...he did build one very long road in Somalia, but it was to benefit
his personal business enterprises. And I'm not certain that any of his
activities in Afghanistan have truly been for the benefit of the people
as much as for his business interests. So is he clever and successful?
Yes, but are his works "good" works? I think not.
[Chuck's response]
I don't think I wrote anything about bin Laden being blessed, handsome,
charismatic, etc. As to "doing nothing to help the Palestinian people,"
this is a matter of perspective. I'm going to play "devil's advocate" here,
but if he has not given the Palestinians money or fancy cars [ever wonder
why there are so many Mercedes Benzes in these places? I can't afford one
;-)]but maybe has given them more than money; he may have given them hope
that there will be better times ahead. Note that I'm not advocating driving
the Israelis into the sea; I'm only trying to see matters from a Palestinian
perspective, the perspective of people who have been driven out of their
homeland, mainly as the result of some foreign countries "giving" Palestine
to the Israelis.
[Lucy]
As far as the US is concerned, I am not convinced that everyone hates
us. I think, rather, we are just an easy target. Osama hates the Sauds
every bit as much as he hates us. Osama also hates millions of other
Muslims who do not share his radical religious ideas. He has chosen to
not attack those Muslins (yet) because it does not fit with his plan.
Their extinction comes **after** ours. Right now he needs them
politically to brew jihad. Beyond that, they have no value to him.
[Chuck]
I agree that not everyone hates the US. I don't; I spent nine happy years
there and came back with a spouse who can trace her lineage back to the time
of the Mayflower and who is now one happy Canadian. Maybe the behaviour of
the US, collectively, is that it tends to have little interest in anything
outside its borders, and maybe that comes with being big and powerful.
[Lucy]
And of course we do not fight every good fight. We can't. So we
"choose our battles," and, of course, those battles are the ones that
benefit the US the most. Don't think for one second that Osama and his
ilk are *one bit different* from us in their lust for control of oil.
[Chuck]
I have no quarrel with the US choosing to pick the fights that benefit
itself the most. However, this takes away from the "war for just causes" or
"justified wars." I can see the US, Canada, or the UK risking its soldiers
by going into Sudan, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone to stop the injustice. I have
some problem with the US, Canada and the UK ignoring Sudan and Sierra Leone
but focussing its efforts on Kuwait and wonder if they fight Saddam Hussein
because he invaded Kuwait or because Kuwait has a lot of oil.
[Lucy]
I could go on, but instead please go to amazon.com or a used book store
and buy a book entitled "The New Jackals" by Simon Reeve. You can read
it in one night. Reeve will do a better job of explaining the motives
of these guys than I ever could. I'm convinced the US and the Israelis
could march right out of the Middle East tonight, and by tomorrow you'd
see more bloodshed among Muslim brothers than we will ever cause. This
is all about who gets the oil and who gets to be emir. Saddam wants to
be CEO of oil, and he wants Osama to be the emir of social order (read:
subjugation of the Muslim masses). Read the book.
[Chuck]
Thanks for the tip. I'll look for the book.
Shalom,
Chuck
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Oct 25 2001 - 21:20:40 EDT