h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[LIL]
*nothing substantive to add, boookmarking in solidarity to wishes for speedy resolution forensic investigations*

Peace.

Agreed.

-bookmark-

I've a place on my Home Page also & a poem on the thread titled:The Day The World Cried.
A childhood friend was on one of the downed flights. I can only hope she fought to the bitter end!

for Pandora and a for your friend.

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As an expressedly left-wing person myself I would just like to say that if you supported the attacks you are, frankly, an idiot.

(howmany more have died)

Lets face it, it's a horrible fact, but the reason we're all so upset about this is because we all saw it live on TV. If it had happened out in the jungle somewhere, or tucked away in some remote third world country, with no-one to point a camera, we wouldn't have even got a paragraph at the bottom of page 10. And obviously that's why guerrilla terrorists choose high profile targets.

I understand what you mean, but in an increasingly small world is this not becoming less and less true?

One of the results of this event will be to make us painfully aware of just how small and fragile the world is, and how connected we all are. Unfortunately, this perception will come at a very high price, most of which has yet to be paid..

Peace

Just felt I should put down my thoughts on this.

The events in New York are horrible. There's little else I can say on that subject. All sympathy to those who have been touched by these events including, it seems, some on h2g2

These events have also brought to light once again the sickening philosophy that has pervaded much of the last 100 years. The concept of "total war", that is the notion that both a government and it's people are a target in wartime.

There have been many events recently that have brought home the cheapness that human life is regarded with in these modern time. Recently we had a war in Yugoslavia where NATO forces attacked cities rather than armies and brushed aside the many civilian deaths. The Serbian president who has murdered so many in Kosovo and Bosnia has been put on trial but some are defending him purely out of anti-american spite. The US and Britain continue to punish Iraq for the Gulf war, we have no idea how many are killed regularly. Russia has recently spent much of it's considerable firepower blowing up villages thought to be "harbouring" Chechen rebels. Again, we may never know the death toll. Recently in Britain, the former Chilean dictator Pinochet was arrested. This man is responsible for thousands of deaths in his homeland, but he was defended by numerous people in this country who, unbelievably, can still call them selves "democrats" and "freedom-lovers". He was eventually released by a government that had neither the guts, nor it seems, the desire to see him tried. Across Eastern Europe, the former apprachniks in the murderous communist dictatorships have "reinvented" themselves as democrats and businessmen. Dr Henry Kissinger, the man responsible for the bombing of South East Asian in the 1970s, is a respected statesman. I could go on.

I would hope that these events will bring home to people the failure of the ideals that came about at the end of the Second World War. The end of aggressive war and the end of civilian killing. All members of the Security Council have failed to live by these ideals.

Peace

Zagreb

Zagreb brilliantly put. Myself? For the first time in many years, I have been playing the music of the 60s.

Give peace a chance. Or as America often puts it. "We have a god-given right to sell peas wherever we want to.

In the final meltdown, Moslems and Christians worship the same God.

loonytunes: (sorry if this sounds a little rude) but were you around in the sixties (no need to answer that if you don't want)? Can you see any comparisons? I'm really interested to know what people who were around then think of this attack.

Also, the people who carried out these attacks; They *must* have known how the US would react, we all did. To quote Foucault;

'terrorism... has a totally opposite effect which is to make the bourgeois class even more closely attached to its ideology. ... Using terror for revolution : it is a totally contradictory idea ..' (1976) 'Le savoir comme crime', in Dits et Ecrits, t. III. Paris: Gallimard, 1994. p.83.

Different context but... we didn't need a french philosopher to point this out, its common sense. Isn't War exactly what these terrorists want?

How to pray for Peace.

I am posting this in all relavent threads I know of - forgive me if it therefore looks like spam.

We all know what it feels like to be near someone who is full of anger. Fewer of us know the power of being with people who are full of peace.

There is a 2500 year old method of building peace in your heart, and spreading it out to others.

I have written a guide entry called How to Pray for Peace. You can find it here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A631261. Again. This is not my invention, it is 2500 years old.

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a girl called Ben

I think we are a nation big enough to handle this. We've been bloodied, but we won't collapse.

I am happy to live in a country at peace, if you can find such a nation. I'll be happy to have it when this is resolved.

Right now, I demand justice. I've been to war before, I'll go again if needed. I think I'll go talk to a recruiter today.

As a United States military member I feel strongly about the recent terrorist attacks. It makes me proud of my country to know that we were prepared for this and our government is functioning properly. I am glad also that President Bush is keeping calm, and has self control, because I know how he must feel, it is a horrible weight to bear and I think he has done a wonderful job. I know that if we do end up bombing someone it will be in a sane way with 100% certainty of the responsible person. I do not wish that we go to war but if that is what it takes I will follow the orders of the man I swore to follow under the constitution.

I feel for those who died in the attacks and I know that people of every nationality, even arabs and Islamic people died in the attack. I am sure that even some of our fellow h2g2ers were killed in the acts performed tuesday.

I hope that everyone can realize that the thing that makes this nation great is that we have a common bond. The freedom to beleve what we we want and even though we may believe differently than those in the affected areas (victems, families, and rescuers) we will stand by their side in their time of grief and try to comfort them.

One last thing I would like to say, Thankyou to whoever did this and whoever let it happen, one of the goals in my life is now unatainable, I will never be able to go to the top of the world trade center or New York and have it be like I have always dreamed.

I have been thinking hard about Researcher 184310 and the matter of celebrating the death of the enemy.

You can certainly go a lot further back than the former Yugoslavia if you want to study the mass dispatch of civilians in war. You can study the fire bombing of Dresden or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's Troy, for that matter.

But these cases are all within the context of mutually declared war between nation states. Although the news that war is officially over has always been met by elation on the part of the civilian population, I believe it was traditionally considered morally inferior to dance on the graves of civilian victims.

In the Lincoln County Wars which took place in this area 125 years ago, members of Sheriff Brady's posse spent an entire night drinking and dancing among and on top of the bodies of those they had shot. We do not admire those men today, and their descendants do not feel pride about the behavior of their ancestors.

If the purpose of the attack was to modify US policy to something favorable to the interests of those whom Researcher 184310 represents, then it was an act of extraordinary idiocy. But as an attention-getting device it worked quite well. In the short term, it hurts the wallet, but the grim fact is that war is good for business.

So, what kind of attention was being sought? I don't know what the perpetrators THOUGHT they were accomplishing, but it smacks of personal glory to me.

These thoughts are scattered and spontaneous, but I hope it would help if we stand back and try to look at the context. I just think there is less to celebrate than Researcher 184310 might think.

Until two days ago, there were many in the United States
(and probably in other countries as well) who lived with the
illusion that the U.S. was somehow invulnerable. Our military
and CIA would keep terrorists at bay, our airports would do
their job in maintaining security, and even our skyscrapers
were capable of withstanding hurricanes and 707 impacts.
(The World Trade Center towers were specifically designed
to survive having a 707 hit them. Unfortunately, the 757
and 767 are larger planes that can do more damge--enough
more to bring the buildings down).

Now, two days later, we know better. The world (not just our
country, but many other countries) has been impacted.
The government of Thailand had an office in those buiildings,
as did Japan's Sumitomo bank, Germany's Deutsche Bank
and Commerzbank, Switzerland's Credit Suisse, and many
other businesses. Many people from these countries may have
been in these offices at the time of the collapse.

This a loss of innocence. I personally expected some kind of
horrific terrorist acts on American soil, but not this. Not the
Pentagon (don't they have radar to detect oncoming planes?).
Not the World Trade Center buildings crumbling before our
eyes. What point besides showing us how vulnerable we are
could the mastermind have had in mind, except to make us
so mad that we attacked Middle eastern targets and lost
a lot of our own men? We must proceed with wisdom. I hate
to think of innocent Arab-American citizens being denied
jobs or hassled in this country, though I fear some of this
will happen. Most people are basically decent.

Zagreb, were you speaking to me when you called someone an idiot? I've not had more than 3 hours sleep at one time since the Monday...If you were speaking to me, thinking I supported the attack then you misread me. What the meaning of my statement was: since my friend was on a downed flight, I hoped, instead of being totally afraid...that she fought. That's all I mean.

I would never bomb anyone, anywhere. That said, I do believe we MUST stand united. We MUST find & punish the guilty. What many cannot understand is that THE GUILTY are (only) guilty of truely believing in their Holey Cause. I dissagree with them. I want PEACE.....everywhere....all the time. A good hearty debate has solved the solveable problems in my life.

As a therapist I've spent so much time trying to counsel people I cannot talk today...and just now I'm not the brightest bulb in the box either. In the days to come I know the impact will be realized more & more. I pray for those who committed these acts. Love is the only way. It won't work...but it works for me, in my tiny corner of the USA.

Thank you...everyone for kind words, E's & prayers. We are a community. A multi-cultural community...and even when some of us don't get along we find a way to calm ourselves. Of course our spats pale when talking about billions of dollars, lives, etc.

I'm not making much sense.....sorry.

I am an aging Hippie...yep, I was there for the 60's...although it's been said, "If you can remember the 60's, you wern't really there."
~Peace Out~Pandora