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Re: For Tater et al: by tommie on 2001-09-14 12:46:23

You make a very excellent point: if we did give "these people" what they want, would they then get on with their lives? Or, would they "find" some other reason to hate us or some other persons to hate? What is the real agenda? I found one report from MSNBC very interesting... that several people reported that two of the terrorist in Florida had frequented a bar, where they drank and flashed wads of money. Drinking alcohol is completely inconsistent with Islam, especially with the fundamentalists.

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Re: Re: For Tater et al: by Mad Molly on 2001-09-15 11:42:02  |  Reply to this
  I dunno, Tommie -- what would you do the day before you're about to get a free pass into Heaven, no questions asked? Not that I didn't wonder about the same things, mind you. But it's not inconceivable that they decided to do stuff they'd only thought about before. Also, maybe they were cultural fundamentalists rather than religious fundamentalists. There's a lot of that on the U.S. side too.
Re: Re: For Tater et al: by Tetra Grammaton on 2001-09-15 16:46:14  |  Reply to this
  This is not really so very surprising. bin Laden himself had a big reputation as a drinker and a gambler before he went to Afghanistan. Look at Christians in this country. It's an old rule: sin on Friday, pray on Sunday.

I don't think anybody is saying that if we pulled all of our troops out of Saudi Arabia - to take bin Laden's primary demand - that the people involved would say, "Ah, cheers, mate! We'll go back to goat farming now!"

But we can look at our actions, and we can look at the hatred we've seen from ordinary citizens - not terrorists, and ask if there are changes we could make that would help the conditions that engender those feelings. More with an eye to the future than as any kind of solution for the present.
Re: Re: Re: For Tater et al: by tommie on 2001-09-16 09:58:41  |  Reply to this
  And, as you say in your last paragraph "look at our own actions", I beleive that there is nothing more important that individual citizens can do than to treat every other human being with respect. I've heard all of my life that "you have to earn respect." I disagree. I believe that every human being, sans sociopaths, deserve respect.