Posted on 03/22/2002 2:24:42 AM PST by kattracks
Excellent. What makes these airheads who make their living pretending to be other people any more qualified to speak on issues than, say, pipefitters, roofers, cab drivers, or hotel maids?
When he says "we" who is he talking about?
Probably the majority of Americans.
Did you see it coming? If so, why did you not warn your compatriots?
We Americans were too self-absorbed to see it coming. We were too sure of our own virtue, and of our own strength. In response to the terrible attacks, many Americans have renewed our efforts to understand the rest of the world. Most of us now understand that we ignore the rest of the world at our peril.
We enlist Pakistan's help in driving the Taleban out of power in Afghanistan. That's a good thing. Musharraf is turning out to be an insightful and wise leader of that country. But various events, including the killing of Daniel Pearl, terrorist attacks against doctors in that country, and terrorist attacks against Americans in Pakistan, have shown that the job is not done yet--and it is not easy. Part of getting the job done, is understanding what's going on over there, and how to ensure that the mullahs are marginalized in their own land.
We, in America, need to focus our educational efforts on the rest of the world. We need to understand other peoples and other cultures. Since a failure to understand will lead to more terrorist attacks, it's simply in our selfish interest to make the effort.
Oh, yeah, he can put my money to better use than I can! For a minute there, I forgot my place in Redfordworld.
We are not to blame in any way for the 9/11 attacks. The only blame rests on the perpetrators. Period.
I agree 100%. Here's a link to thread that helps us to understand the Muslim culture: In Saudi Arabia, ideology is far more important than biology
Read it and weep.
If understanding Arab culture as Americans could have prevented 9-11 then answer this .... why can't we understand/anticipate/prevent the actions of our own sociopaths (ie. serial killers) as American where we have greath depth of cultural understanding?
The answer is, regardless of how well you know a culture you can not convert disturbed people to model citizens, nor can you prevent people bent upon destruction from realizing it.
No, that is not my premise.
I believe that, by acting as though we were an island, our society failed to appreciate what was going on in the rest of the world. Because of that, we failed to do the following:
1. Take seriously what was happening in Afghanistan, and relate it to a threat to our country's security;
2. Pay attention to complaints against America in the Arab world, and take steps either to address those complaints or to anticipate the consequences of the rage that some were expressing; and
3. Allocate necessary resources to sectors like INS and to airport security.
...Among other things. One or more of those steps might have prevented the outrage of Sept. 11. We could blame politicians for not allocating the resources to INS, but they were responding to the will of the electorate...and, therefore, we failed to do what was necessary to prevent it.
This is not "blame the victim." If some sleazeball steals my car, he is a sleazeball, and he should be caught and prosecuted. But if I fail to learn from it -- if I fail to lock my car, for instance, then I haven't learned any lessons from the event, either.
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