Omen
July 8
Yesterday was the bloodiest day on English soil since World War II. Four bombs in the morning rush hour.
I hate violence. I’m not a pacificst and I can’t live by non-violence (I admire Gandhi tremendously, but I just don’t have that kind of control over myself). I’m also a bit of a hardass on subjects like this. Before I get to any of that, though, Elaine pointed something out to me last night that’s kind of spooky.
She has a day calendar that sits by her bedside of quotes from the Dalai Lama. Usually just inspiration bits taken out of context which sometimes leaves them a bit confusing. Anyway, yesterday’s was:
Violence, once it starts, is by its nature very unpredictable. Originally you intend limited use of force. Then counterreaction. Difficult to stop. Devastation. So always, I feel, it is better to avoid.
Holy crap. Like I said, spooky. But pay special attention to some of his words in it later on in my post.
Anyway, horrible bombings. Innocents should never die for the actions of governments or organizations. Whoever is behind this deserves to be brought to justice. But in that is the Dalai Lama’s point.
Someone, probably the US and UK, will take it upon themselves to hunt down whoever is responsible for this and make them pay. Fine and dandy, you say. I agree. If it was done that way. It won’t be, though. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, the Taliban attacked us (we won’t go into any mitigating circumstances into why they would want to attack us, though). But instead of rousting the Taliban, we started bombing Afghanistan. Yes, they eventually toppled and left (for awhile, as they’re coming back now), but we killed hundreds — thousands — of innocents in the process. Creating more violence.
Then, before the job was done of bringing those responsible — Al Qaeda by all reports, notably Osama Bin Laden — we left to pursue another goal. I don’t care if you think Iraq was a good idea or a bad idea. It was a horrible idea at that time and place. The Taliban, those who attacked us, were on the run. They were pinned down in a mountain range, scared, hungry, and I’m sure wounded, and we left to pursue other goals. I know we didn’t pull out and leave them to do as they pleased, but we most definitely eased the pressure. Drastically.
Violence begats violence. Those who were wounded and hurt, both innocent and guilty, in Afghanistan don’t care about our wellbeing. They have no reason to.
In Iraq we toppled another government (are there any countries (other than most of Europe, of course) that we haven’t puppeteered?) and caused more harm and bloodshed. There weren’t many active terrorist cells and groups in Iraq before we went in. Not like there are today. Part of the reason they’ve been labelled “insurgents” is because they’ve surged in. Our violence of entering Iraq and deposing the government begat the violence of increased terrorism in the area.
Egypt recently last an emissary to Iraq to terrorists in the country. Would they have lost him without our being there? Probably not. Egypt seems to be highly regarded in the Middle East. Now, though, with this climate of terror and violence, no one is safe.
Back to the Dalai Lama’s words. “Then counterreaction.” Notice it’s counterreaction. Not counteraction or reaction, but counterreaction. We’ve acted, they’re responded, and we respond again. So the violence doesn’t stop after we fight or fight back. It doesn’t stop after we fight back a second or third time, either. It’s a never ending chain of reactions. “Difficult to stop. Devastation.”
I can’t think of anything more devastating than the loss of innocents. People that had no reason dieing. I’m not talking of the people in the World Trade Centers. Not them alone, at least. Nor the people commuting in London. The commuters in Madrid last year. The weddings and schools and hospitals we’ve attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take out a “terrorist threat”. Or a supposed threat, in the cases of the weddings.
Some of you may feel I’m a cold-hearted bastard over this. Maybe you think I’m not American (to me, protest is patriotism) ’cause I feel we have created cause (not necessarily just cause, mind you) for being attacked. I don’t believe we should be killed in our homes and in mass situations like September 11th, 2001. But I believe every life is sacred and special, be they Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist. No one is Iraq is any more or less special than anyone in Canada or the United States or North Korea. Every human is of equal importance and value and each is worth saving.
“An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind.” — Gandhi
“Every human is of equal importance and value and each is worth saving.”
That’s quite a broad statement. Does that mean that Osama is worth saving? Does that mean that we should’ve served the Taliban tea and cookies while they were trapped in the mountains? Did you know that Saddam likes Doritos? See, he’s just like us…
No one is down with war. No one digs a good slaughter (except a few sadists out there who just like killing people. and when they’re in the army, they’re just doing their job). But sometimes it is necessary. Now I’m no general, but I reckon that if you could devise a plan and all the technology and logistics it would take to launch a war without killing any civilians, I’m sure the US Army would happily give you all the stars that could fit on one skinny guy’s uniform. Even the most sadistic officer would avoid as many unnecessary killings as possible simply because efficiently doing your job is the kind of thing that gets you promoted in the military. Severely fucking up and killing civilians with no just cause is the kind of thing that will put you behind a desk for the rest of your career, in the very best scenario. Of course stupid mistakes will always be made. We’re all just humans trying to do our best.
In no way am I condoning the murder of civilians by terrorist groups so they can make some pointless political statement. However, nothing is black or white. People can easily ignore what isn’t shoved in their faces. If I remember correctly, the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq has about equaled the number of people who died in the twin towers, but for some reason the population doesn’t exactly seem to be up in arms about it.
Weeping over all the precious snowflakes will get us nowhere. The disgusting abundance of human snowflakes on this planet is what will eventually destroy us. In reality, the majority of people out there are completely useless, myself included.
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tessie on July 8, 2005 at 9:58 pm
I stand by my “every person” statement. I don’t think Osama or Saddam (who I still don’t think needed to be deposed in this manner) or any other person deserves to be hunted down and killed. Or blown up, gassed, strangled, raped, or any other violent form of injury or death. I’m against the needless taking of human life (I have no problem with assisted suicide, for the other side, though).
What would I do with Osama? Try him, imprison him if found guilty, and leave him there. Prison needs to be rethought, though. It needs to be cruel and unusual. People should fear being sent to prison, do everything they can to not end up there.
Of course all of this is so much conjecture anyway. Our opinions will come to nothing anyway.
And, yes, overpopulation/overconsumption is going to take us all down in the end.
Kenneth on July 8, 2005 at 10:55 pm
I think I would have to disagree with the whole “every human life” quote. I don’t want to sound heartless, but some people need to be disposed of. I try in my life to be as kind and compassionate as I can. However I would have no problem removing somebody who deserved it. I believe terrorists are the absolute scum of the earth, crawling in the filth with child molesters. I have no problem with people having a political ideal and wanting to change the way things are run, but killing civilians is never justified. They have no power to change whatever it is the terrorists don’t like about their lives. I firmily believe that each and everyone of them should be hunted down and captured or killed as necessary.
Having said that I also feel that our reaction to being attacked is careless and ill thought out. The problem we faced was this. We were angry and wanted to lash out. But instead of using a measured response and handling the problem in the proper manner, we took the gung-ho american attitude and went chasing grasshoppers with sledgehammers, when what we needed was a a can of raid. Instead the politicians, seeing an opportunity to advance their careers decided that blowing the shit out of everything in site looked like we were doing something about “the problem” and thats what the american people want to see.
Then, of course, as the war (I use this term loosely here) in Afghanistan began to loose steam the politicians looked around for a new “Bad Guy” as they were completely unable to capture Bin Laden who most likely fled the country before we even got there, or at least soon after. So they think to themselves, who else can we go after. Then it dawns on them “Hey!, we can go take down Saddam. People are still pissed we didn’t finish this guy off the first time around.”
So like a kid with eyeing the dessert tray, they dived for the cake before they had finished the meatloaf.
Now we are in a political mess that will probably still be going on when we finally leave this earth. So it boils down to this, avoid violence as much as you can, but when attacked we should (and must) respond to the threat, but we must do it in the most well thought out way possible. Will innocent people die?, probably, but we should try to limit the damage as much as we can. Don’t use a bomb when a knife will do just fine. These people are Criminals, not enemy soldiers. We need to detain them so we can gather information, killing them outright serves no purpose and makes our goal of ending their threat unobtainable.
As far as the prison thing goes I agree. They have become country clubs. They should have NO television, libraries, ping pong tables, weight sets, or cigarettes…nothing. Prison is meant to be a punishment. Put them in a cell and let them think about what they did to end up there. Feed them basic food. Water to drink, some bread and some meat. NO sodas, doritos, or steak dinners.
Then you take the ones who are redeemable and you put them to work, and teach them proper behavior and try to make them a usefull part of society, actually make them Correctional facilities. the ones that can’t or won’t learn to play nice you lock away permantly, or if need be terminated. None of this applies to child molesters however, they should be killed without hesitation or remorse. It is one thing to kill a man, or steal from him, But what these abominations do is much worse. They corrupt an innocent soul, causing permanent life lonf damage to people who cannot defend themselves. I am sorry if that sounds a little harsh…
sterling on July 9, 2005 at 8:24 pm