> What happened to "Love your neighbor as
>yourself" and the Golden Rule "Do unto others as
>you would have others do unto you." We need a
>little more of this for a change.

Ask the people who commit acts of terror on this horrendous scale these same questions.

I don't understand pacifism. Why do some people think it's noble or right to allow others to do as they wish to you with impunity? Why do some people think it's more noble to avoid conflict at all costs rather than actually minimizing personal and national costs by assuring that those who would take advantage of others are not allowed to?

Pacifism is as incorrect as Militarism. All pacifists know is "War = Bad". Sure, nobody thinks war is a good thing. But in our world, and because of the nature of our species, war is often necessary and right. Pacifism is as much an oversimplification of things as Militarism is. Anybody who would allow themselves to be harmed without even attempting to put a stop to it and prevent it from happening again is as misguided as someone who attacks all people because one person once harmed him.

I know many people will bring up leaders like Gandhi and MLK Jr as people who used passive resistance to reach their goals. To that, I say this: Passive resistance only works when your oppressors are otherwise civilized and respectful of others. MLK was able to help bring about civil rights reform in the US through the use of passive resistance because the US Government and the US people are generally civilized and respectful of others. The work of MLK and others brought civil rights issues to the forefront of our collective consciousness and served to increase the awareness of what was going on. From there, our democracy legislated on behalf of the will of the people, as it was designed to do.

How far do you suppose passive resistance would get you in Iraq? As far as the morgue, I'd say. If 10,000 Iraqis had a sit-in in front of Hussein's residence, I'm willing to bet he'd have no problems calling out the army to gun them down, or gas them. You need look only as far as the Tineman Square incident to see this very thing in action.

> The people directly responsible for this act
>are dead. If anyone else helped them they
>should be brought to justice just like any other
>lawbreaker. But to kill more innocent people
>because we don't have the patience to do this
>properly means that the world will NOT be made
>into a better place.

Your arguments are not internally consistent. You say on the one hand that you want the people responsible for this brought to justice, and yet on the other hand you argue *against* the one thing that has a real chance of doing just that--military action. I'd like to hear how you propose we bring bin Ladin to justice without going in and foricbly removing him from Afgahnistan. The Taliban will not extradite him. Their demands for "proof" of his involvement are merely a poor attempt to justify their willful disregard for international law and human rights. I am about 99.9% certain that no amount of proof we provide (and yes, Colin Powell has said we *will* be providing proof) will satisfy them. What then? Do we just say "Oh well, we tried" and leave it at that? No. We go in and we get him ourselves.

Then you argue that we should not kill innocent people. Who said we were going to go kill innocent people? Do you really think that our response is going to be to carpet bomb Afgahnistan? Don't you think we'd have done that already if that is what we intended? We don't *want* to kill innocent people. We want to get bin Ladin and his consorts. We're not going to randomly bomb civilians to achieve this goal. We are going to attack his camps, his known hideouts, and the infrastructure in place around them (bridges, military sites, etc.) Unlike the terrorists themselves, we will attempt at all reasonable costs to minimize casualties of those not directly related to our objectives.

> And let's all start to support organizations
> and people who are trying, without the use of
> force, to make a better, more peaceful world
> for everyone to live in.

Name me some of these organizations and maybe I will. I'm not a warmonger, and I don't think all problems can or should be solved by use of force. If everyone would just be excellent to each other, this world WOULD be a better place. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't respond with force when force is used against us by those who don't hold these same ideals of peace and justice.

> Rob "I don't have much else to say" J D

Which is probably good, because what you do have to say generally doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense.

-- Dave