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

Boy have you guys been at it while I was asleep...

Alec - you seem to take Bush's concept "if you are not with us, you are against us" as axiomatic.

To which I ask always? In all circumstances?

If we don't play baseball with you we therefore play against you? Not playing baseball is not an option here?
If we don't eat Big Macs with you we are rabid vegetarians seeking to destroy the fast food industry?
If we don't speak English we therefore want it banned?

I am just trying to understand this polarisation thing.

a human being called Ben

should have listened to the rest of the speech before posting. still glad though that the response isn't "nuke the b*****s!". oh well. pure rhetoric is nothing new.

We're *not* rabid vegetarians seeking to destroy the fast food industry?!??!!!

Just a little note... I dont think his speach was empty... he said alot in it... I did get a little peeved that they have to have an ovation every 2 miniutes... but then some people deserve recognition for their deeds...

Oh anyway... I dont think anyone has room to complain... whatever happens happens... all you can do it have faith and pray (or whatever you do in times of uncertianty)

What say we all hold hands & have a monent of silence?















***This has been a mental health interuption***









...ahh...wasn't that peaceful?

Okie-dokie...back to the debate...

it's politics, they are showing their support however they can

You know... it is funny... no matter what happens... every single life on this planet affects everyone else's lives... so really IT IS MY BUSINESS!!! -a silly thought for the day...



*meditates*

Holding out a hand to join the circle...

I'm not here often enough to read all the contributions - sorry if I repeat stuff that has gone before.

I sense people who are only human, trying to encompass something which is bigger, faster, more powerful than any of us. And that applies to this debate as much as poor Mr Bush.

I sense intelligence agencies trying to make up for what they and others perceive as recent failures. They are clever, but in their eagerness to regain control they may not always check that their evidence has been sufficiently checked.

I see a country run by people who do not have the support of the general populace, welcoming as guests those who may bring destruction raining down on their unwilling hosts.

I hear that not a single one of the terrorists who have been named or even tried as associates of Osama bin Laden is an Afghan.

I see two sides judging their opponents - as war often makes us do - simultaneously all-powerful and worthless, superhuman and subhuman.

I fear that the "targets" have already moved beyond the reach of cruise missiles.

I fear that Saddam Hussein might take a look in a dark, hidden room and discover a bottle of anthrax.

I fear that many innocent people will die, and that I might be one of them.

And I question my innocence.

If I have to die now, I'm ready to go. I've made my own inner peace. I would rather die than turn into a killer to avoid death.

HUH?

Nevermind....I misread the post!

Hit me with the wet noodles!

NM

No wet noodles for you today, FS

I started reading the Ladenese Epistle
(1996), in which Osama Bin Laden urges
the Islamic world to wage war against
the Zionist-Crusader coalition. Oh, and
he also complains about the water supply
(I haven't figured out how that can be the
fault of the Americans, but maybe I just
need to reread it a few times. .)

Like most Americans, I did not know
that war had been declared on us Zionists/
crusaders until after the Sept. 11 atrocities.
I would be happy to share some of my good
springwater with Mr. Bin Laden, if that
would help......

With respect, Paul H, you exemplify the American problem. You are a good person (wanting to share water) who does not know that he is hated.

We can argue (and we have done!) about hate of a political system moving to hate of a number of individuals, but many of us were probably more surprised by the audacity of the actual thing that happened on 11 September than by the fact that somebody chose to attack the US.

The US should ask itself not just why people hate it, but also why its own people could be unaware of the fact.

Ya know...I refuse to believe we are as hated as these threads seem to show.

I find that, no matter how the forum starts, it eventually finds its' way 'round to "US bashing"....and seems I see a lot of the same names popping up on the headers.

You may hate us, that is your right(Lord knows, enough of our own hate us), but the last time I checked we weren't the "Evil Empire".

Most of us really don't care what goes on in your country as long as it doesn't affect us....and why should we? If our country didn't affect yours you'd not care what happens here. Thats' normal human behavior.

The trouble comes from the fact that if we sneeze wrong every news wire and related website picks up on it and picks it apart....'cause for some dumb reason it matters. We make a mistake and we are dreadfully evil. Any other country makes a mistake and no one notices.

Sorry...I'm tired, and I'm tired of everywhere I go in H2G2 I'm some sort of "satan". My country is evil and my government is a joke.

We are no more those things than your own country is...we just happen to be in the spotlight too much.

NM

...yay ! ! !

alec.

NM, I posted this in one of the forums you mention. Perhaps it makes more sense to post it here.

When the American president speaks of a "crusade" and others within his administration of "civilisation" versus "barbarians", we out here in the rest of the world should be allowed some room for dissent. Just as we might wonder why the countless other tragedies befalling large numbers of innocent people in other places do not warrant the kind of 24-seven attention currently focused on Manhattan.

This is not anti-American. Having visited the place, stood under those now-eviscerated towers and marvelled at the exuberance, creativity, diversity and freedom of that society, I despise its shallow stereotyping by ill-informed detractors. But just as despicable is the labelling of any attempt to dispassionately analyse a superpower, and particularly its foreign policy, as "anti-American" or somehow lacking compassion for the victims of terrorism. It is precisely compassion for all innocent victims of violence that demands that we look for the causes of such horror, not blindly endorse or follow policies that may help to create the next generation of terrorists.

If anything, the events of September 11 did not change the world, as some would have it, but served to underline what a dangerous place it is already. The question, as ever, is why.

Sharing water reminds me of the book Dune - water was more precious than anything else, and the gift of water made the giver an instant friend.

Since I've been engaging in conversations on this site, I begin to understand a little of why the U.S. is disliked by many. So far, I've heard many reasons, some petty, some legitimate.

The only thing I haven't heard, and what the news networks are saying, is that Osama wants the U.S. forces out of the Middle East. The terrorist attacks have been building in intensity, from the embassies to the destruction of the U.S.S. Cole, and were inspired by the positioning of U.S. troops in Somalia and Saudi Arabia around the time of the Gulf War. This tells me that the attacks were not motivated by hate. Osama is saying to the U.S. "Get out!" I'm sure that they hate us with a passion, otherwise they would not have conceived of such a horrible act. But as a general rule, human beings do not go around killing people that they hate just because they want to. (If they were, I'd have Kathy Lee Gifford's head on my wall... The problem would be finding a taxidermist who'll mount and stuff the head for me. No, no, that's awful. What am I saying? Make her into soup and feed her to starving children.)

Found a good site... (It's PBS, moderation dudes.)

[url removed by moderator]

From the CNN website:
In a CNN interview with bin Laden in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places."

The American people find it hard to understand why anybody would hate America, because to be honest, the majority of Americans like all nationalities. You'll have the occasional bigoted idiot, but these are not a rare species. Before the attacks, they were dispersing their hatred among a number of different cultures. Equal-opportunity hatred, so to speak. Now, since the terrorist attacks, all of those bigoted idiots have begun disliking the Muslim people. Just heard today of two stabbings in the Botanic Gardens... it boggles the mind, it really does.

I dont know if I am ready... there is so much I want to do.... have a child... get a house... have an actual marriage...

My wife is not ready to go... she dosnt feel like she will be intirely at peace...

I am glad the H2G2 community is here... it is so much nicer than the people I meet... I suck at meeting people...




A proud member of the man race...

Reply to Looney (post 716) - I think you have put it well.

There is no doubting that attacks by terrorists are appalling and all reasonable action needs to be taken against them. There is no doubt that the U.S. stands for any number of noble and admirable virtues.

But the same time, the problem will not go away for the U.S. until there is some revision of U.S. foreign policy. It may not worry me personally that the U.S. has military bases in about 60 countries world-wide. But, some are clearly upset by this, and by the extent to which almost everything that goes on in the world has been contructed as having something to do with "American interests".

America is not an "evil empire" - but there is certainly some claim to it being an empire. At the moment, we in Oz are on the side of the U.S., but what happens if ever we are not? How will the empire deal with us? This sort of thing is clearly an issue for a lot of people who are not U.S. citizens.

(Not sure if this last point is coherent - joins hands with circle anyway).

Solidarity fellow citizens (said hopefully)
Bran.

Please don't assume that I hate the US or its citizens because I talk about other people doing so. I count US citizens among my friends, I think the US has achieved wonderful things internally and externally.

I also think the US has done some things which are big and wrong - Hiroshima/Nagasaki, bombing Cambodia, bombing and blockading Iraq, for example. But the UK (my government) is also responsible for some of these (and for the firebombing of Dresden). I hate some of the things our governments do. And I hate even more that they might claim to do them on my behalf.

The exporting of some of the shallower parts of US culture (sometimes dubbed coca-colonisation) has resulted in the destruction of local cultures in some parts of the world, and threatens to impose an insidious uniformity. But real colonisation (and here the UK is again a major culprit) did the same kind of thing, and some of that was private enterprise too. We may do wrong. That doesn't make us all individually evil.

Other people in the world may live in desperate conditions, or in circumstances which I might judge to be ideologically stultifying. There are objective facts, such as US forces in Saudi Arabia which are elevated to the status of major sins (crimes against humanity?) and therefore achieve the status of a mythic imperative - get these people out, whatever the cost.

I don't seek to justify, but to try to understand. The conflation of these two terms is one of the burdens of current debate. UK prime minister John Major once urged us to "understand a little less, condemn a little more", and I can't even remember what he was talking about because the comment was so stupid.

I condemn the attacks on 11 September. I do not condone them. I seek to understand them, and can imagine world views in which the action might be seen to be justified.

I condemn the verbal and physical attacks on Muslims which have occurred in various coutries since that fatal day - the only difference between killing somebody in revenge for the World Trade Center and the original attack is one of scale.