Posted on 09/08/2002 7:16:48 AM PDT by aculeus
Well, then maybe I overreacted a little. But I know there are regular Freepers who do consider it a serious foreign policy option, so it was nothing personal against you.
However, I think you are being overly generous in spirit to the "civilian" population of these countries and whether they share their leaders' views. There has been plenty of coverage over the years of how the rank and file are taught, through religion and otherwise, to hate America with a passion.
First of all, I'm not inclined to blame these people for the lies their governments tell them. And secondly, it's nearly impossible to gauge the extent to which the people believe the propaganda. Opinion polls are useless, because they're put out by the same people who provide the propaganda in the first place. Demonstrations, which the governments organize, or in any case, could not take place without the express approval of govermnent, are similarly misleading. I trust you remember seeing footage of Cuba two years ago, where all those people were "demonstrating" for Elian to be returned to his Fatherland? I don't think too many people in this country - and certainly not very many here on FR - seriously entertained the notion that those people were turning out of their own free will. I don't think it's any different in Middle East dictatorships.
On the other hand, you take a country like Jordan, which I think is among the least oppressive of all the Arab states, and you see very few signs of anti-American hatred to speak of.
They already are trying to rewrite history. They tried to make the statue of the three firefighters raising the American flag into a PC representation which would not have accurately reflected history. Some are complaining that they don't WANT any memorials to this horrible event or even TV documentaries on it....some people say President Bush masterminded 9/11, and we only went to Afghanistan to take control of a non-existent gas pipeline and steal their non-existant oil.
An awful lot of people would like us to just forget 9/11 ever happened. Like most Americans, I don't want to forget the horror of that day. EVER. If we forget, we'll lose focus, then we'll lose the war, then we'll be attacked while unprepared again, then we'll probably lose our country.
NO one could handle that memory easily, my friend. No one.
Hubby was an ambulance driver in Houston, Texas. Over the years, he became worse than burnt out from witnessing horror after horror. He remembers each and every accident, shooting and assault victim that he couldn't save, though his record then - and now - is way WAY above the average. While he has sublimated those memories (mostly) in order to save his sanity, he prefers to talk only of the babies he delivered, or about the kid who came to the house he shared with his sister and brother-in-law while they were off duty and asked him to take him to the hostital. He'd been shot four times in stomach. Some gang thing. The boy lived, which is why Hubby can talk about the incident occasionally.
Unfortunately, he refuses to join an ambulance company here at home. He has kept up his EMT license, which is good because he's been first on the scene of several accidents up here, saved quite a few lives, and once doubled as ambulance attendent when they took me to the hospital. He'll never be a member of the ambulance association again though. He believes he can't handle it, especially since he's related to so many of the people up here. Sad, but a lot of them get that way. It's shell shock. Literally.
What a braindead poster; to post without reading the entire article. If you had, you would know the real meaning of the author. Instead, you just read the first two paragraphs and the typed.
1) I agree with you...
And 2) I don't like using a thread like this to ask my selfish questions but....
Being a Catholic, (Actually, just being a Human, because I don't practice my Catholocism) suicide is a sin that will keep you from getting into Heaven. So I ask myself...Are these Jumpers spared that fate?? (I think so).
Couldn't your comments also relate to the Assisted Suicide debate? (I think so, but I have a problem with the "Assisted" part).
Back to the topic at hand...May God Bless these people and their families. The one's jumping out of the first tower who made the people leave the 2nd tower are Heros.
Why did you feel the need to end one of your first posts with that comment, unless it was to start an argument? The nuke 'em all crowd is blowing off steam. We have no intention of nuking Iraq, unless they try to nuke us. If we nuke 'em and turn the place into a glass parking lot, it'll be too hard to get the oil <G>
inquest signed up 2002-03-20.
Welcome to FR.
Sorry, did I just violate one of the posting rules?
No, you simply spoke in realistic terms rather than hateful terms...Which seem to be the norm for the "Nuke Mecca" and "Kill all Muslims" crowd.
The only problem I have with your comment was the "Jumper's government" comment. I seriously hope you don't mean our government was somehow responsible for the actions of the terrorists?
How about the "Deport all Muslims" crowd? (Or even the few that states "KILL all Muslims"?) How are we to take their comments?
I had one tell me that even Kareem Abdul Jabbar is evil (Just because he's Muslim, of course). He said that Kareem would stand-by and do nothing if a Jewish woman was being raped and/or killed.
How do we take these freaks? Personally, I'm at a loss...I try to defend the FACT that not all Muslims are evil, hate America and want to kill ANY Non-Muslim but it gets harder and harder every day here on Free Republic. I'm honestly quite surprised that the Moderators put up with it.
Yes, I think so too. Part of the unwritten credo of the warrior is the option to choose one's form of death when necessary. They were faced with three choices: 1:) burn in agony, however short a time the agony might have lasted, 2:) suffocate (personally, I'm scared to death of suffocation...the result of nearly drowning twice before I learned to swim) or 3:) jump.
Years ago, when so called "witches" - actually political prisoners and business competitors - were being burned at the stake, those with the money paid for poison, opium or even a quick dagger to an area which wasn't immediately apparent to the "spectators". In short, they were going to die; they knew it and they simply chose their own form of death. That is as different from suicide as people are from ants.
I haven't heard of these before. Does anyone have a story about this?
In truth, both yours and inquest's reactions are normal. I don't know how long either of you have been lurking, but I fought - and frequently still do fight - against the "nuke 'em all", "deport 'em all", "interrment camp them all" and "nits make lice" crowds....I just learned to tell the difference between simple steam blowing, which has useful psy-ops potential and the true "crush, kill destroy" mindset.
I post on Arab forums as well as here. They are afraid of us. Why? Because in truth, they know we can kill them all. Also, we know full well the bulk of the Muslim Joes and Janes are more intersted in making their car payments, getting to work on time, finding a better job and raising their kids than they are in extremist jihading. That is the way I describe them, the people I don't want to kill. You are talking about the same description.
I was jking with inquest: we won't nuke them simply because it's wrong. We can easily defeat any Muslim country on Earth with conventional weapons. It's a moral choice we make...however, if they do something stupid with a WMD, that choice will swiftly and surely change, and the nuke-ee won't be Iraq. It'll be Mecca and the meteor they worship.
Viet Nam veterans. WWII...Korea...it's pretty well documented.
...Then you've never seen the results of a human being falling from a height. Yes, the body DOES burst like an ovverripe tomato.
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