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Ingrid
| | Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2001 - 05:54 pm: | |
When I had just moved to a new community, the Fraternal Order of Police asked me to take out an advertisement in their anti-drug publication. I asked what means were proposed for dealing with substance abusers. The answer was, "hit them with a 2 x 4."
As I write this now, Henry Kissinger is speaking on CNN and telling the world is that we have to make those who harbor terrorists more afraid of us than they are of the terrorists. If you listen to his logic, it is the coercion of pointing out to "others" what is in their interests. . . implying, of course, that we have "interests" also, probably ones that far exceed domestic security.
It goes without saying that I did not take out the ad nor can I see fear of punishment as a suitable way to address deep global tensions, religious and social differences, or the tremendous consequences of massive freezing of assets and economic sanctions. |
dgore
| | Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2001 - 10:39 pm: | |
If you people were in charge in 1942, we would all be under Zazi rule and there would be 25 million jews slaughtered instead of 12 million. WAKE UP> These people need to be stopped in the only manner that they understand..... |
Ingrid
| | Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2001 - 11:03 pm: | |
As moderator, I will step in and point out that this is a forum for peace. No one is condoning crime, racism, slaughter, or or genocide.
This said, in order to conduct a serious and constructive forum, dissenting opinions will be permitted because all conflict resolution begins by listening to all points of view.
So, the first question I would ask is whether ending the Third Reich brought an end to anti-Semiticism, ethnic cleansing, or war. If the answer is "no," then my next question is how to wage peace.
I might be a cynic when it comes to the motivations of people of great wealth and power, but it is very likely that tremendous support for the agenda of the Third Reich permitted it to persist in its atrocities. Likewise, tremendous support for anti-terrorism can have far-reaching impacts on the innocents who will inevitably be affected by the war on the guilty.
Through our war on terrorism and the fear it has inspired in Afghanistan, we have already caused the dislocation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent Afghanis. A band of individuals with a tenuous hand on the government may look like a raggle-taggle group of extremists to us, but what do our officials look like to them? This is the beginning of dialogue, discussion, and resolution.
Any Afghani listening to our news saw a whole Nation distracted by a president caught in a sex scandal and another congressman caught in a missing person scandal. In a very closed and fundamentalist society, no one could get away with such behavior and hence no one from such a society wants to import the American way of life.
It is very important when watching the news that we not fall into any myths about thinking that because a country is very poor or because its government is extremist that these people want to leave their country. I am certain that Afghanis do not want to live in Pakistan. I am certain they do not want their social ties disrupted by moves that break up families and clans. I am certain they do not want their lands plundered or bombed. I am certain that even if they have issues with the Taliban, they do not want a foreign country to install a puppet government.
We all want a measure of autonomy. We all want safety. We all want the freedom to pursue our beliefs. Most of all, I hope more of us will want peace than war.
Today, there is overwhelming public support for war, but if the war drags on for years and years and more victims are placed into body bags and more flags are flown at half mast, there will be a cry for peace that is louder than the marches we are hearing now.
God bless and protect all of us! |
Ingrid
| | Posted on Sunday, September 23, 2001 - 11:06 pm: | |
Next, I would really like the strongest hearts and clearest heads on this Planet to consider what we have to learn from the Middle East. We for sure have seen that endless suspicion and tension has only aggravated the global situation. Finding a way to live in harmony is the only lasting solution. |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Sunday, September 30, 2001 - 03:25 am: | |
A Vote for Sanity
Rigoberta Menchú Tum
Nobel Peace Laureate
After learning of the events which moved the world in the early hours of today, I wish to make my position public with the following words:
1. I strongly condemn and repudiate the terrorist acts that have cost thousands of innocent civilian lives and have unleashed a spiral of violence and unforeseeable consequences. Terrorism, regardless of origin, is a politically unjustifiable and morally unacceptable conduct.
2. I express my deepest feelings of condolence and solidarity with the victims, their families, and the people of the United States.
3. I put out a call for calm and sanity to avoid responding to this provocation and senselessness with actions that could then result in a retaliatory offensive that would only fuel an escalation of violence. Despite knowing how and when this violence would start, no one would be able to foresee how or when it would end.
4. I invoke making full use of the resources that would make a dialogue possible between a hegemonic world system that includes and excludes selectively and unilaterally, and the desperate radicalism of the responses it has engendered.
5. I alert the international community to the danger that the actions of these terrorist groups may contribute to unleash a warlike logic seeking to settle old and new controversies between nations and justifying actions against groups and sectors which, within the current institutional framework, have not found a pluralistic disposition for the recognition of and respect for their expressions of identity.
6. I call upon the media to avoid alarmism founded on interpretations of strong ideological affiliation, which only promote confusion and feed the ghosts of intolerance.
7. Finally, I summon the planet's civilian society -- the Nobel Prize winners and those who carry the responsibility of governing all the countries of the world -- not to hasten to conclusions about today's events, but to commit to a grand FRONT OF SANITY which may halt the cowardly senselessness of violence and avoid greater suffering for humanity. |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2003 - 05:35 pm: | |
What is the idea of posting an anonymous letter & then writing ?own name as "Nobel Laureate". I can understand only this part that while posting it, becomes easier to post as anonymous & click post message button.
Getting Nobel Prize... does it mean that one knows all subjects? with such letters one gets irritated.
When you write,
"not to hasten to conclusions about today's events, but to commit to a grand FRONT OF SANITY which may halt the cowardly senselessness of violence and avoid greater suffering for humanity."
one feels why a nobel laureate has to use such complex language whree on can always say "I did not say that"
particularly ...
"not to hasten to conclusions about today's events, but to commit to a grand FRONT OF SANITY which may halt the cowardly..."
Here you are not sure about he effects of such grand FRONT OF SANITY so you have to use word "may"., You are worried that people would reach some immidiate conclusions, and advocate formation of "Grand FRONT OF SANITY" meaning would be understood may be by "only INSANE PERSONS"!!!
One only knows from sure that in this world when 3000-5000 sane inocent people die at incidences like WTC towers etc. & Even if 5000 are killed as counter reactions....
Yet speed of multiplication of terrorists community is always higher than the speed of multiplication of sane inocent communities like Jew, So at the end after birth of Israel Population of jews has remained static where as Terrorists manufacturing companies (Countries) are manufacturing tomorrows terrorists at a speed may be 10 times higher.
These terrorists are not only going to attack world with new weapons in more numbers but in form of more diseases like HIV, SARS & Hepatitis & many more to come.
While talking about Crime & Punishment one must take into consideration not only about crime, & its due punishment but also population of criminals.
When one kills infected chicken, Mosquitoes, flies, Rats, fleas, you don't kill only the mosquito that has done the crime of biting & giving malaria you have to get rid of mosquitoes in general.
Who will think about this angle of punishement.
Nobel laureates of Peace or those Science(scientific ones)?
-- one Soul of 9/11 |
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