Posted on 10/25/2002 12:14:19 AM PDT by jennyp
The Recent Nightclub Bombings in Bali Illustrate Just What the "War on Terror" Is Really About
On the night of Saturday, October 12--the second anniversary of the suicide bombing of the USS Cole, a year, month, and day after the destruction of the World Trade Center, and mere days after terrorist attacks in Yemen, Kuwait, and the Philippines--two car bombs detonated outside neighboring nightclubs on the island of Bali, triggering a third explosive planted inside, and killing nearly 200 people (the majority of whom were Australian tourists), injuring several others, and redirecting the focus of the war against terror to Indonesia.
Also on the night of Saturday, October 12, the following bands and DJs were playing and spinning at several of Seattle's rock and dance clubs from Re-bar to Rock Bottom: FCS North, Sing-Sing, DJ Greasy, Michiko, Super Furry Animals, Bill Frisell Quintet, the Vells, the Capillaries, the Swains, DJ Che, Redneck Girlfriend, Grunge, Violent Femmes, the Bangs, Better Than Ezra, the Briefs, Tami Hart, the Spitfires, Tullycraft, B-Mello, Cobra High, Randy Schlager, Bobby O, Venus Hum, MC Queen Lucky, Evan Blackstone, and the RC5, among many, many others.
This short list, taken semi-randomly from the pages of The Stranger's music calendar, is designed to illustrate a point that is both facile and essential to reckoning the effects of the Bali bombings. Many of you were at these shows, dancing, smoking, drinking, talking, flirting, kissing, groping, and presumably enjoying yourselves, much like the 180-plus tourists and revelers killed at the Sari Club and Paddy's Irish Pub in Bali. Though no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the bombings, they were almost certainly the work of Muslim radicals launching the latest volley in the war against apostasy.
Whether the attacks turn out to have been the work of al Qaeda or one of the like-purposed, loosely connected, multicellular organizations that function in the region--groups like the Jemaah Islamiyah (an umbrella network that seeks a single Islamic state comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore), the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (led by the nefarious Abu Bakar Bashir), Laskar Jihad (which waged holy war on Christians in the Spice Islands before mysteriously disbanding two weeks ago), or the Islam Defenders Front (which makes frequent "sweeps" of bars and nightclubs, attacking non-Muslims, and violently guarding against "prostitution and other bad things")--will ultimately prove to be of little consequence. What matters is that the forces of Islamic fascism have struck again, in a characteristically cowardly, murderous, and yes, blasphemous fashion that must register as an affront to every living human with even a passing interest in freedom.
The facile part: It could have happened here, at any club in Seattle. It's a ludicrous thought, of course--at least as ludicrous as the thought of shutting the Space Needle down on New Year's Eve because some crazy terrorist was arrested at the Canadian border--but that doesn't make it any less true. That doesn't mean we should be looking over our shoulders and under our chairs every time we go to a show. It simply means that it could happen anywhere, because anywhere is exactly where rabid Islamists can find evidence of blasphemy against their precious, imaginary god.
Which brings us to the essential part: The Bali bombings were not an attack against Bali; they were an attack against humankind. In all the jawflap about the whys and wherefores of the multiple conflicts currently dotting our collective radar screen--the war against terror, the war on Iraq, the coming holy war, et al.--it seems worth restating (at the risk of sounding pious) that the war against basic human liberty, waged not by us but on us, is at the heart of the matter. Discourse has justifiably, necessarily turned to complexities of strategy, diplomacy, and consequences. The moral truth, however, remains agonizingly basic. We are still dealing with a small but indefatigable contingent of radicalized, militant absolutists who believe that every living being is accountable to the stricture of Shari'a, under penalty of death. As Salman Rushdie wrote, in an oft-cited Washington Post editorial, the fundamentalist faction is against, "to offer a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex." If these were fictional villains, you'd call them hyperbolic, not believable. But they aren't fictional. Their code would be laughable if it weren't so aggressively despicable.
As headlines about Bali cross-fade into news of North Korean nukes, and there are further debates about the finer points of Iraqi de- and restabilization, it's crucial to remember that there is, in fact, a very real enemy, with a very real will, and the very real power of delusional self-righteousness. How to remember? Consider the scene of the attacks (as reported by various Australian and European news sources):
It's a typical hot, sweaty, drunken, lascivious Saturday night. People, primarily young Aussie tourists from Melbourne, Geelong, Perth, and Adelaide, are crammed into the clubs, mixing it up, spilling out into the street. Rock band noises mix with techno music and innumerable voices as latecomers clamor to squeeze inside. Just after 11:00 p.m., a car bomb explodes outside of Paddy's, followed a few seconds later by a second blast that smashes the façade of the Sari Club and leaves a hole in the street a meter deep and 10 meters across. The second bomb is strong enough to damage buildings miles away. All at once, everything's on fire. People are incinerated. Cars go up in flames. Televisions explode. Ceilings collapse, trapping those still inside. Screams. Blistered, charred flesh. Disembodied limbs. Mangled bodies. Victims covered in blood. Inferno.
Now transpose this horrible, fiery mass murder from the seedy, alien lushness of Bali to, say, Pioneer Square, where clubs and bars are lined up in the same teeming proximity as the Sari and Paddy's in the "raunchy" Jalan Legian district, the busiest strip of nightlife in Kuta Beach. Imagine a car blowing up outside the Central Saloon and another, across the street at the New Orleans. Again, it seems too simple an equation, but the fact remains that the victims were not targeted at random, or for merely political purposes. They were doing exactly what any of us might be doing on any night of the week: exercising a liberty so deeply offensive to religious believers as to constitute blasphemy. And the punishment for blasphemy is death.
There is an ongoing lie in the official governmental position on the war against terror, which bends over backwards to assure us that, in the words of our president, "we don't view this as a war of religion in any way, shape, or form." Clearly, in every sense, this is a war of religion, whether it's declared as such or not. And if it isn't, then it certainly should be. Not a war of one religion against another, but of reason against religion--against any belief system that takes its mandate from an invisible spiritual entity and endows its followers with the right to murder or subjugate anyone who fails to come to the same conclusion. This is the war our enemies are fighting. To pretend we're fighting any other--or worse, that this war is somehow not worth fighting, on all fronts--is to dishonor the innocent dead.
Yes.
Bad example of a bad proposition. The existence of this thread can be verified. You doubt me? Just try making some terrorist suggestions, and Homeland Security will be all over you before you can reformat your drive. The players in these threads can all be identified, if you have a proper search warrant. So if it's really important to verify that these things are being typed, and that certain people are participating, the facts can be verified. No faith required.
On the other hand, the brilliant dialogues I have while I'm daydreaming are not real -- not objectively real -- unless I choose to write them down, which I won't. If I somehow convince myself that I'm having real conversations with real people while I'm daydreaming, then I'm in trouble. I'm confident that you see the difference. Finally, I'm not really certain of the point you were trying to make.
I took as the relevent part in answer to my question as to why you object to the burning of witches,crazy people et al as "the extension of the same rights to all others as a predicate of me guaranteeing them for myself follows."
It seems to me that you are claiming that by extending to others the rights to which you feel entirled somehow guarantees for yourself those rights.
I respectfully point out that you have no guarantee,
The first portion of your sentence makes no sense to me. I will address only the "what if" portion. How in the world do you plan to use reason to accept canibalism? In an emergency, stranded on an ice flow situation, where it's only you and a dying companion, and if you don't indulge, you'll die? Fine, gorge yourself. It makes sense. (Tastes like chicken.) But in any circumstances less extreme than that, what is your "reasonable" argument? It's about as difficult as making a "reasonable" arguement for murder, unless you're talking about devouring only already-dead-from-natural-causes people. I'm interesting in hearing your argument.
Actually it tastes like pork. Cannabalism is dangerous to the practitioners in that certain, rather nasty diseases, are often transmitted from victim to consumer. A human version of mad cow disease (IIRC, called "laughing sickness") most readily comes to mind.
You need to get around more.
Cannabalism is dangerous to the practitioners in that certain, rather nasty diseases, are often transmitted from victim to consumer.
Well, we could always insist on scientifically raised, properly fed specimens. That's what the free market is all about.
Supposedly free-range "long pig" is healthier for you.
Other than that we have the math worked out better, there is little ontological difference between an attempt to achieve orbit using Newton's laws, and an attempt to make the universe a better place for humans using moral laws.
You want to say that at that the same time you can both obey and disobey the laws of physics.
To the best of my understanding, this doesn't follow at all, whether I am right about moral laws or not, from what I have said. However, amusingly enough, let me point out that at the present moment, reputable physicists are entertaining the notion that we haven't got the law of gravity quite right, because it fails to explain the outer orbits of stars around galaxies, by a very substantial margin. Just as the laws of classical physics failed to predict the perihilion of mercury, to usher in the era of einsteinian physics. There isn't an underwriter's lab guantee on physics, it is just a human idea, and it is just as subject to question and recall as notions of morality.
The key question is, why SHOULD I be moral tomorrow?
As an entirely logical question, you shouldn't. You should pursuade everyone else to be moral, while you remain a deceptive sociopath.
As an amusing example of how well your reasoning approach works, lets consider the case of fidelity in marriage by well off western men. Approximately 40%, with or without a religeous commitment, according to latest surveys, of them take wedding vows, and within a few years begin committing marital infidelity.
Now why is this? I suggest it is because we depend on rational arguments to dissuade a natural urge that has always produced extreme luck in the DNA raffle toward hypocracy on this subject. A human male who wants his genes spread best should pretend to a high-investment-in-offspring deal he's made with his wife and community, and trash the deal in private when no one is looking, so as to get both the high-investment high-commitment strategy, and the low investment, low commitment strategy. Note what a spectacular failure the transcedental moral argument has been in this case.
Morality has nothing to do with predicting physical behavior in a merely descriptive sense.
So sez you. I think I've just provided use-examples. Obviously, I fundamentally disagree, and invite you do prove it.
It has to do with what we ought or ought not do, in a prescriptive way. All evolutionary theory can do is attempt to expain how we got to where we are, not how we ought to act in the future. The problem is, for the umpteenth time, that if the moral obligation precedes the physical behavior, then it cannot at the same time BE the physical behavior. Your astronomy analogy actually illustrates the dilemna, as opposed to answering it.
And, for the umpteenth time, you cannot make this so with fireworks and orotory. I see physical descriptions of astronomical events--I use them to try to achieve orbit for good human ends. I see how humans behave without morals and I see that humans have a natural prediliction for tribal morals--I try to harness this natural tendency toward morals for good human ends. I see little difference between these two cases.
If you want to claim morals spring unbidden from Athena's brow, prove with something other than flashy card tricks. I have a perfectly sensible explanation, based, on available evidence, so I don't have to pull rabbits out of a hat to support it.
Yes, but is it an axiom, or a deduction? This was discussed here. Please, follow the conversation (it's not long at all) before responding. Then offer an explaination of how you can obtain knowledge from the axiom of the validity of the senses, without smuggling in some other axiom.
I think you are proving me correct then. The other 'something' is clearly not material since we are able to deny our physical or emotional inclinations.
Yet another painfully obvious fallacy of the excluded middle argument from you. There is a vast body of things which are not our DNA, including our evironment, and the chemical and physical structure of our sterling selves we inherit from our mother, which affect our behavior. The fact that we can make choices is not automatic proof of the existence of either God or transcendental morals, last time I checked.
I had that sense from the start.
Well, than, I'll repeat the question. How can I tell which are the "ceremonial" parts of the Old Testement, which I am allowed to regard as invalid and disregard? Is it an algorithm? Is it a list? I'd like the follow the Law, and be moral--how do you expect me to do that if I don't know what it is?
I can and I have. One this thread, to you, in fact, if memory serves me. I gave about 10 verses from John, and I gave you the famous verse from Matthew upon which many Popes have rested the argument that jews may be cast from full citizenship, confined to ghettos, and have their children kidnapped with impunity. I have also tried to acquaint you with the history of the use of these verses to justify persecuting jews. This is a very feeble response to all that.
or even suggests, this persecution. Meanwhile, you manage to ignore all the verses that demand that we love our enemies, neighbors etc. and pray for those who persecute us. This is difficult to do, if you ever read the Bible. It is a pretty important point of the book.
uh huh. Is this a pretty important point in the Book?
Those who know of jesus and do not accept him, are the unsaved. Therefore jews, who consider worship of Jesus to be violations of two the ten commandments, are, if they want to adhere to the holy beliefs of their fathers and tribe, unsaved, unclean, "children of vipers", as per the Bible.
Lets see, what is that called now? The doctine of the crucifixion and ressurection. Is that another of those "ceremonial" laws of the bible that are just (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) not so serious?
Meanwhile, you manage to ignore all the verses that demand that we love our enemies, neighbors etc.
If you pointed out that you are a good parent, and a loving husband, do think that should prevent you from being prosecuted as a serial killer?
You then imply the anti-Christian Nazis
The Naxi's were overwhelmingly dues-paying christians. A poll of Germany, about 1939 revealed about 90% of the country was christian, and about 43% were Catholic. You can find pictures of Catholic priests serving in the Waffen SS. This was a famous case, in that those priests invented a form of mass absolution--since their weren't enough service priests available to give absolution 6,000,000 times. In Slavokia, the priests helped load of the cattle cars. In Germany, most of the churches readily pre-processed and surrendered their marriage records to the nazis so that they could hunt out the hidden jews--raising a fuss only when the nazi's started hunting down catholic converts.
were humanitarians who killed Jews quickly.
I, of course, neither said nor implied anything of the sort. I merely suggested that the point of the nazi effort was cheap elimination, rather than to save souls through weeks of intensive torture, as was the case with the inquision's punishments.
In ovens.
Cheap theatrics here. You know perfectly well I meant the showers outside the ovens. I've researched this since we last talked. The ovens are overwhelmingly the principal operating tools of the holocaust. One camp's ovens, not the worst, is credited with 1,300,000 jewish deaths.
I'm sorry, but I can't take you seriously. You are expressing strong opinions about subjects of which you have no knowledge.
Ram your head further into the sand, maybe that will help, too.
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