I am frightened

[Bill Ballard]

At 7:40 PM -0600 9/13/01, Keith & Linda Corbridge wrote:
>      SO AM I, WE SHOULD`VE ALREADY TURNED AFGANISTAN INTO GREENGLASS THAT
>GLOWS IN THE DARK. ONE PEACEKEEPER MISSILE COULD DO THAT AND THE SUDAN TOO

At 4:01 PM -0700 9/13/01, pianolover 88 wrote:
>Now LISTEN! We need to come together as ONE NATION, put political 
>bia aside and SUPPORT OUR > > >PRESIDENT! The LAST thing we need is 
>for you to BASH our commander in Chief! PLEASE! 
>This > >Anti-BushCRAP makes me SICK! This was an act of WAR these 
>low-life COWARDLY SCUM BAGS >perpetrated on our great Country, adn 
>the last thig we need is someone trashing our president! So STOP

Nothing like a hateful act to bring out a hateful response. Actually, 
in the long view of it, this is a historical tide of power. Whoever 
the perpetrators are, they have skillfully used our strength (besides 
an unstoppable economy, a high-speed transportation infra structure) 
to their own advantage. This is not a new kind of war, although its 
effectiveness has been sharpened to surgical grade. The French didn't 
win in Indochina, we didn't either. Nor have the British in Northern 
Ireland. The Israelis are getting ground down by their unending state 
of war.

Humanity has never won these wars of the indigenous against their 
invaders, because war is the wrong response. The conflict between the 
fundamentalists and the civil, prosperous industrialized countries 
resembles, on a smaller scale, crime seeping into an upscale 
neighborhood. Crime is simply a means of rapidly transferring 
wealth. The good people of the town bring to bear on the police 
constabulary to "git tuff" on crime. The police quite effectively 
oblige, at the cost of even hungrier and more resentful criminal 
outcasts. The fundamentalist extremists of course have God on their 
side (~don't we all). If we have anything to fear it's far more than 
an individual Bin Laden, it's the possibility of all the outcasts in 
the world (the narco-trafficers, the islamic extremists, the IRA, the 
Indonesians) forming their own network and dividing up the world.

Instead, the US should lead in the defense of moral and civil 
behavior among nations. The revulsion against this brutal and 
barbaric attack is global, and ready to move. But in doing so, this 
country should be an example of moral and civil behavior. Our own 
instant focus on Bin Laden is misplaced; most non-western nations see 
it as the same old same old. Where were we during the butchery of 
Bosnia, East Timor or Rwanda. Our focus on Bin Laden also removes a 
fundamental stone in our legal system, the presumption of innocence. 
What we need now is the kind of quiet intelligence work that the 
Israelis have gotten so good at, not the commotion of a cowboy. 
What's more, our indictments of the individuals and countries need to 
be flawless. So, in its response to this outrage the US needs to 
perform well, if we are to get anything near the coalition we had 
going into the Gulf War.

But if we see it is a war, we'll never win. The advanced nations are 
too vulnerable because of technological infrastructures built on 
political stability (like tall buildings which can ordinarily count 
on not being run into by airplanes). Instead we must steadfastly 
insist on a civilized response to this, one which serves as an 
example of the rewards of political stability for the people and 
governments among whom these terrorists live. It's a hard sell, and I 
can see why this country might prefer to shoot bullets at these 
people rather than tell them how they'll benefit from a peaceful 
world.

If anyone uses the word war, they use it for their own emotional 
purposes, not because it is a long-term winning strategy. But oh God, 
what horrific destruction, and murder of people. Those twin towers 
went down quicker than the Titanic, and crushing with it what I hear 
is the daily number of people, 40-50K.

End of sermon.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"Baa, Ram Ewe....Baa, Ram Ewe,
To your breed, To your fleece, To your clan be true
Sheep be true.......Baa, Ram, Ewe"
     ...........Conversation starter in uncertain social situations
+++++++++++++++++++++