Checking my own records
Jul. 1st, 2010 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaNot unrelated to the previous post:
I was reading the NY Times Week in Review from last Sunday--specifically the article on how, surprise surprise no one could have predicted yadda yadda, all of the recent Islamic terror attacks on the US are driven by anger about the US's destruction of Iraq and, to a lesser extent, the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
My brain started ping-ponging backwards through my own attitudes towards our Glorious Mission in the Graveyard of Empires to see whether I really had documented my reluctance to the war at the inception, as I now like to think I did.
What a relief: I did. I found a post I made on rasff praising this ob:
On Tue, 16 Oct 2001 02:11:30 +0100, "Michael Paine"
<mikepaine@extinction.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>At core my concerns are two: that more
>innocent people are going to be killed (in Afghanistan) and that this method
>of response is ineffective as a tool for taking terrorism apart (and hence
>more innocent Americans will be killed). I believe that the US (and its
>allies) can more effectively combat terrorism by other means. I believe that
>footage of killed innocent Afghans will contribute to raising support for
>terrorist causes, and that it is likely that some of the children of the
>dead may, in turn, rise as terrorists in turn to attack innocent Westerners
>in the future. I believe that it is more effective dealing with the causes
>of terrorism by preventing the creation of terrorists than it is to deal
>with terrorists after they have committed their acts of terror.
It was vaguely conceivable to me, in September 2001, that a very carefully managed military action in Afghanistan--even a fairly large one--could have a positive net effect in reducing terrorism, but that there was basically no chance that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld troika could do it, even if they contented themselves to stopping at Afghanistan.
One of the many many bad things about the US invasion and destruction of Iraq was that it was done in such a way as to further the perception that "the West" was "attacking Islam". The invasion of Afghanistan could be justified as a response to the country that had aided the September 11th attacks; the invasion of Iraq could only be seen as "some Muslims attacked us, so let's kill some other Muslims", despite a few thin efforts by Bush to say that no, no, really we weren't attacking Saddam Hussein just because he was a camel jockey heathen.
Anyway, I'm glad to see I had some sense back then.
I was reading the NY Times Week in Review from last Sunday--specifically the article on how, surprise surprise no one could have predicted yadda yadda, all of the recent Islamic terror attacks on the US are driven by anger about the US's destruction of Iraq and, to a lesser extent, the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
My brain started ping-ponging backwards through my own attitudes towards our Glorious Mission in the Graveyard of Empires to see whether I really had documented my reluctance to the war at the inception, as I now like to think I did.
What a relief: I did. I found a post I made on rasff praising this ob:
On Tue, 16 Oct 2001 02:11:30 +0100, "Michael Paine"
<mikepaine@extinction.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>At core my concerns are two: that more
>innocent people are going to be killed (in Afghanistan) and that this method
>of response is ineffective as a tool for taking terrorism apart (and hence
>more innocent Americans will be killed). I believe that the US (and its
>allies) can more effectively combat terrorism by other means. I believe that
>footage of killed innocent Afghans will contribute to raising support for
>terrorist causes, and that it is likely that some of the children of the
>dead may, in turn, rise as terrorists in turn to attack innocent Westerners
>in the future. I believe that it is more effective dealing with the causes
>of terrorism by preventing the creation of terrorists than it is to deal
>with terrorists after they have committed their acts of terror.
It was vaguely conceivable to me, in September 2001, that a very carefully managed military action in Afghanistan--even a fairly large one--could have a positive net effect in reducing terrorism, but that there was basically no chance that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld troika could do it, even if they contented themselves to stopping at Afghanistan.
One of the many many bad things about the US invasion and destruction of Iraq was that it was done in such a way as to further the perception that "the West" was "attacking Islam". The invasion of Afghanistan could be justified as a response to the country that had aided the September 11th attacks; the invasion of Iraq could only be seen as "some Muslims attacked us, so let's kill some other Muslims", despite a few thin efforts by Bush to say that no, no, really we weren't attacking Saddam Hussein just because he was a camel jockey heathen.
Anyway, I'm glad to see I had some sense back then.
