Some Interesting Thoughts Concerning September 11

[adjan jb]

America, the country where people believe the moonlanding was fake and wrestling real. Go figure.

Also the country where 33 % of the people believe that Canada is one of the states.

[Ulysses G.]

America, the country where people believe the moonlanding was fake and wrestling real. Go figure.

These are the same people who believe that Bush already knew that there were no WMDs in Iraq, and who pretend to believe that the Palestinians want peace. Actually, they are often found in Arabic speaking countries and in Europe

[Boon Mee]

Trouble is, Ulysses G., those pesky Liberals. They are the "Blame America First" crowd who sympathize with the Palestinians. And, only a religion with millions of practitioners trying to kill Americans and Jews is axiomatically described as "peaceful" by liberals.

As I understand it, the dangerous religion is the one whose messiah instructs: "f one strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" and "Love your enemies ... do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." The peaceful religion instructs: "Slay the enemy where you find him." (Surah 9:92

Go figure...

Boon Mee

[Axel]

If we quote the bible perhaps:

"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" should be remembered, which can be translated as 'limited' retaliation or to stop escalating violence by keeping punishment in proportion to the actual harm done.

Nothing to do with 'blame America First', the bible is a bit older albeit still helpful sometimes. No, I am not a Christian.

As for the Palestinians, yes, I believe they do hate the Israelis, who, have no real cause to complain about such fierce hatred. The Palestians sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes the Israelis turn into their own homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.

Try to understand both sides and you make a first step for peace. BTW, if Israel would have followed US-suggestions NOT to further expand territorial against US-guaranteed security, maybe the situation would have softened by now, nearly 50 years later.

As for Mr. Bush having known that there where no WMD's, I believe he did know but did not want to believe what Hans Blix had told him.

[Ulysses G.]

Axel, I don't mean to be critical, but, I have searched your old posts and it is often difficult to make out exactly what your points are, possibly because of your English language skills, possibly because you are being purposely obscure. That remains to be seen.

You actually write fairly well for a non-native speaker, but it still is difficult to pin down exactly what you are trying to say, in fact, it often seems that you are purposely avoiding being clear so that no one can be sure of what you are saying and respond to your opinions effectively.

Anyway I shall do my best.

You say:

If we quote the bible perhaps:

"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" should be remembered, which can be translated as 'limited' retaliation or to stop escalating violence by keeping punishment in proportion to the actual harm done.

You begin with a sweeping statement that comes from the Bible and sounds as if it must be important, but doesn't really mean much, at all, without making it clear what you are talking about, and you don't.

You don't say what you are referring to, but I am going to guess that you are trying to say that Israel should tone down their responses to Palestinian suicide bombings.

As far as the translation of the biblical passage that you have included goes, I've never heard it put this way. Usually the emphasis is the opposite of this, " You try to hurt me, and I'm definitely going to hurt you".

If we look at it this way, the Palestinians are simply reaping what they have sown.

Even if we look at it your way, is killing the leaders of terrorist organizations that are planning on killing more innocent men, women and children out of proportion to suicide bombings that can slaughter hundreds?

I would say that these murderers should be killed anyway, so revenge hasn't even entered the equation. In other words, the Israelis are already being remarkably restrained in their responses, although absolutely no one is giving them credit for it.

You also say:

As for the Palestinians, yes, I believe they do hate the Israelis, who, have no real cause to complain about such fierce hatred. The Palestinians sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes the Israelis turn into their own homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.

I don't think that anyone can not pity the Palestinians for losing their land, but to hold on to their hatred will only hurt themselves in the long run, and, it could be argued, that if they hadn't tried to throw the Jews off of legally bought land in the first place, they never would have found themselves in this predicament.

Americans are never going to give the North American continent back to the American Indians. Australians are never going to return their land to the Aborigines. It is time for the Palestinians to wake up, stop murdering, and trade land for peace.

You also say:

if Israel would have followed US-suggestions NOT to further expand territorial against US-guaranteed security, maybe the situation would have softened by now, nearly 50 years later.

Anyone, who knows anything about Jewish History, or history in general, can not blame Israel for not trusting the words of other countries when it comes to self-protection, particularly countries that have elections every four years, and who have often changed their commitments in the past. Israel, quite rightly, feels more comfortable protecting themselves.

You also say;

As for Mr. Bush having known that there where no WMD's, I believe he did know but did not want to believe what Hans Blix had told him.

Every intelligence service on Earth believed that Iraq had WMDs. Saddam told his own people that he had them. He had used them on his own people and on Iran. How was Bush to know otherwise?

Read the article below that came out many months after Gulf War II. It is quite obvious that Blix wasn't sure about no WMDs, except in retrospect. Even in retrospect, he doesn't seem that comfortable saying it. He seems to be hedging his bets.

Iraq dumped WMDs years ago, says Blix

No evidence to link Saddam with September 11 attacks, Bush admits

Oliver Burkeman in Washington

Thursday September 18, 2003

The Guardian

The former UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, believes that Iraq destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago, according to an interview broadcast yesterday.

The claim came on the same day that President George Bush stated more bluntly than ever that there is no evidence to link Saddam Hussein to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 - despite 69% of Americans believing Saddam had a personal role, according to a recent Washington Post opinion poll.

Mr Blix, who spent three years hunting for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq as head of the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation listeners: "I'm certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991. The more time that has passed, the more I think it's unlikely that anything will be found."

Saddam kept up the appearance that he had the weapons to deter a military attack, Mr Blix added. "I mean, you can put up a sign on your door, 'Beware of the dog,' without having a dog," he said, speaking from his home in Sweden.

Investigators with the US-led Iraq survey group would be unlikely to find anything more than some "documents of interest", he predicted.

Mr Blix had previously declared himself "agnostic" on the issue of if or when Saddam destroyed such weapons, and has never dismissed so forcefully the arguments of Mr Bush and Mr Blair.

"Time will tell," the prime minister's official spokesman responded in London. "We have to exercise a bit of patience and recognize the survey group has been operational for a matter of some weeks. And clearly there is a lot of work to get through."

Mr Bush's remarks, made to reporters as he met members of Congress at the White House, place him at odds with his vice-president, Dick Cheney, who sought conspicuously to leave the question of Saddam's links with September 11 open in a TV appearance at the weekend.

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 [attacks]," Mr Bush said, though he said there was "no question" that the Iraqi dictator "had al-Qaida ties".

On Sunday, by contrast, Mr Cheney said the popular belief in a link was "not surprising ... we don't know." Victory in Iraq, he went on, would strike at "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Mr Cheney also returned in the interview to an allegation, attributed to Czech intelligence, that the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met a senior Iraqi intelligence official in April 2001 in Prague. According to numerous reports, the FBI and CIA found no evidence of such a meeting, and Vaclav Havel, the then Czech president, told the White House that there was none.

But Mr Cheney told NBC's Meet The Press: "We've never been able to develop any more of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know."

Democrats have accused the Bush administration of deliberately seeking to convey a false impression about the relationship between the terrorist network and Saddam.

Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser, told a US television interviewer on Tuesday that Saddam was targeted because he posed a danger in "a region from which the 9/11 threat emerged".

Asked about Saddam's weapons, Mr Cheney referred only to the Iraqi leader's "capabilities" and "aspirations", not to weapons themselves.

"To suggest that there is no evidence there that [Hussein] had no aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons I don't think is valid," he said.

[Axel]

OK, Ulysses G., I try to make it clearer and hope my limited knowledge of English allows me to do so. Generally, I try to be as short as possible, assuming that everybody checks to which topic we post and, of course, some basic back ground knowledge.

Boon Me started with some biblical quotes, to which I added one, that in fact I do remember from schooling days, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth". Something that I do prefer over the "cheek/cheek" one.

Neither quote has anything to do with "those pesky Liberals. They are the "Blame America First" crowd who sympathize with the Palestinians...." but suddenly appeared in this threat.

You mentioned: "You try to hurt me, and I'm definitely going to hurt you" is in my feeling a colloquial translation, I heard before, but learned in those school days, it is wrong. I looked it up for you:

"And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast."

"And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it; and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death."

are two reference found under Leviticus 24:18 respectively 21.

Some Interesting Thoughts Concerning September 11

is the topic here, so if you accept the explanation, Leviticus 24 :21, is the answer. Limited retaliation against Al Quaida and OBL.

Put them to death and that's it. I personally, would prefer arrest and hand them over to the courts in The Hague, wether GWB accepts the courts there or not.

Strange enough, the threat than jumps to "Palestinians" and to Bush's believing Iraq to have had WMDs. Reason enough for me to wonder, what has this to do with 9/11?

Let's start with Palestinians. Seems you agree that we should 'pity the Palestinians for losing their land...'

Wether or not Israel acquired such land legally, let's keep if off this discussion. If you bring the Indians and the Aborigines, same comment, i.e. no comment, it would explode this threat.

However, my point is much easier. We should reflect for one moment and find out 'Why the other side has so much hatred'.

Why did 9/11 happen? Only when one understands the enemy one will be able to solve the problem. It is easy to shout "these murderers should be killed anyway". And these shouts I hear from both sides, USA and Iraq.

Greater men than all of us have done it. One, who I do respect, although he once was in prison as 'terrorist', made a full statement, part of which I had in my head last night. I traced it for you:

.. . Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived....

Moshe Dayan in oration at the funeral of an Israeli farmer killed by a Palestinian Arab in April 1956:

(You find this in "The Iron Wall By Avi Shlaim" p. 101.)[QUOTE]

I said above USA and Iraq. Honestly, till now I have no idea what Iraq had to do with 9/11 or Al Quaida. Neither do I have an idea why GWB attacked and occupied the Iraq. Everything, I hear turns out to be wrong, admittedly some with hindsight. Everything I read, e.g. in this forum is half cocked, jokes or blaming the other side. Means only GWB might know why he send his troops to Baghdad.

WMD? Hans Blix was very careful at the beginning and politely pointed out to need more time. IMHO, even at that time, it meant bullsh...t, there is nothing. (Yes, I read your quoted article before)

if Israel would have followed US-suggestions NOT to further expand territorial against US-guaranteed security, maybe the situation would have softened by now, nearly 50 years later.

Seems you agree that Israel was right not to trust the USA and to go their own way. Without any bashing, I accept your comments on elections every four years, change of politics.... This was perhaps the reason the Israelis had and other countries on other issues should consider this carefully.

Hope, it is now clearer and the obscurity has been lifted.

[Ulysses G.]

Excellent post, and enough to prove that any lack of transparacy in your other posts is not caused by lack of English skills, but because you choose, on some level, to write the way that you do.

Thank you.

[Jeepz]

Axel's last post was particularly cogent. We all have different styles of writing. Some of us will do a "stream of consciousness" approach, others spend more time rewriting. Ultimately what is important is if someone else understands what you are saying.

I doubt that many folks look at posting here like it was schoolwork, to be judged and graded. So they will dash off a few lines, maybe preview it once to see if they left a word out or misspelled something, maybe not.

I don't think that Axel ever tries to be disingenuous. And he is more aware of (and sympathetic to) the Palestinian point of view than many of the US posters. Which is fine. There is no requirement for lock step political views here.

I thought his initial point about the admonition of an "eye for an eye" as guide against escalation was interesting and relevant. I have rarely heard that passage quoted thusly. But it does make sense and could be very applicable.

As for the Jewish possession of the land in Israel, I thought that initially, most of the land was either bought by Jews from absentee landlords while under the British Mandate, or awarded by a UN committee made up of Non-Major Powers after WWII.

Subsequent gains in territory by Israel were often those areas coveted by the Israelis prior to wars started by their neighbors. If they conquered land they didn't covet, they ultimately gave (or traded) it back. Losing land often goes with losing wars.

The opportunity for the creation of a Palestinian State is their (the Palestinians) best hope for a homeland and an opportunity to remake their lives. That they will have to accept Israel and give up part of the land they view as theirs will be hard for them, but necessary. That is if they want to raise their children in peace.

The rise of fundamentalist Islamic movements seem to be at least partially motivated by the failure of secular Islamic states to deal with the Palestinian problem, and particularly with the failure of their various military adventures. If Allah turned his face away from the secular states, then he must be showing his displeasure. Thus the rise of fundamentalist movements that detest not only Israel, but also the secular trappings of Islamic governments.

But that is my view. Other's will see it differently. I'm sure Axel does.

Jeepz

[Ulysses G.]

1) Axel's last post was particularly cogent.  We all have different styles of writing.  Some of us will do a "stream of consciousness" approach, others spend more time rewriting.  Ultimately what is important is if someone else understands what you are saying. 

2) As for the Jewish possession of the land in Israel, I thought that initially, most of the land was either bought by Jews from absentee landlords while under the British Mandate, or awarded by a UN committee made up of Non-Major Powers after WWII. 

3) Subsequent gains in territory by Israel were often those areas coveted by the Israelis prior to wars started by their neighbors.  If they conquered land they didn't covet, they ultimately gave (or traded) it back.

 Losing land often goes with losing wars.

Jeepz

I agree with most of what you say, but I feel that I need to clarify what I have said.

1) All this about writing styles is certainly true, however, there are a few posters that use the stream-of consciousness style in such a way as it is impossible to understand and answer them very effectively. ###### is a master of this type of writing, but he does not often use it for political posts, which is when it is a problem.

If you agree with the posters point of view, than what they have written seems self-evident, if you don't, it seems too vague and self-serving to answer directly, and therefore, it falls upon the person who disagrees to point this out, and to ask the writer clarify their positions.

I have to say that with Axel, I am most pleased that I asked him. I enjoyed his answer, and also I know that he can write as clearly as he wishes to.

2) Much of the initial Jewish land was bought from rich Palestinians who knew exactly what they were doing: Selling barren, "useless" land for a profit.

When they saw how the Jews were able to improve the land, they continued to sell, but also, behind the scenes, fomented uprisings against them in order to steal the improved land back.

Losing land often goes with losing wars.

3) This is a proven fact-of-life, but somehow, no one seems to think that it applies to the countries that have attacked Israel, time and time again.

[Bluecat]

If we quote the bible perhaps:

"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" should be remembered, which can be translated as 'limited' retaliation or to stop escalating violence by keeping punishment in proportion to the actual harm done.

And quoting Martin Luther King: "The doctrine of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind",...

[Ulysses G.]

Yeah, but if your eye was taken, could you turn the other cheek?

[et33.com]

i tell you

what's the problem

one is too rich

the other is too poor

the rich refuse to share

but keep on stealing and robbing more

the poor have no choice

life is already worthless

so why not hit the rich and then die

see ???

so simple

so the rich should share more with love

and the poor should be fed full

or else what do you expect

it's fight or die anyway...

[PlanetMan]

yeah...I know the small place you're talking about across from the pier in Huntington. Can't remember the name but went there loads of times.

I have been racking my brain for a week trying to sort this out. I went to this place many times in the early 80s, before the pier area was renovated. Think the place was across a little parking lot from what is now (or was as of a couple years ago) Papa Joes right on PCH. Entered the place from the alley/parking lot. Way dividsh, but they always had some cool cats laying it down. I remember seeing Robben Ford a couple times, and Larry Carlton.

Was the name of the place The Golden Bear?

We keep a townhouse overlooking Bolsa Chica, but don't get back there much since we rented it out a few years ago. The whole HB Pier area is very livable now, since the renovation. Especially liked the Friday afternoon market when Main street was closed from PCH to the post Office. Do a little knick knack shopping while sipping a latte, then pop into Longboarders for some big-boy drinks. Yummy.

Cheers

[thaihome]

Was the name of the place The Golden Bear?

Yes, that is it. I was going there in early 70's.

[Bluecat]

Yeah, but if your eye was taken, could you turn the other cheek?

Probably not. But would I take the eye of the other guy, so that he takes in "return" my only eye left. Maybe, I do not know. Sometimes emotions take over reason and I am not different. But of course I am not Martin Luther King and most of us are not. Does it make the world better? Probably not but who am I to judge?

[Boon Mee]

Was the name of the place The Golden Bear?

Yes, that is it. I was going there in early 70's.

Golden Bear is definetly the name of that place - Hoyt Axton practically made it his home for a long time in the early '70's.

[Axel]

...I am most pleased that I asked him. I enjoyed his answer, and also I know that he can write as clearly as he wishes to....

Appreciated your's and Jeepz' response. I was stuck in SIN-city for longer than I planned and will be out of LOS for another week. Only this weekend I am back, and found out something> Thaksin is right TG SUCKS!

[the gentleman]

111 shuttle missions, until it blew up - it seems a bit spooky

[Boon Mee]

111 shuttle missions, until it blew up - it seems a bit spooky

What's real scary is Janet Jackson born May of '66 the same month The Troggs had their Billboard hit "Wild Thing"

[the gentleman]

SPAIN FROM 9/11 TO 3/11

mmmm - there could be a movie Boon Mee - what could we call it?

[Boon Mee]

SPAIN FROM 9/11 TO 3/11

mmmm - there could be a movie Boon Mee - what could we call it?

Name it anything but it'll be a fer-sure Acadamy Award-winner!

[britmaveric]

Guess 7/11 will be next!

[the gentleman]

rememberance day - 11th minute of the 11th hour of the the 11th day of the 11th month - mmmmm

[Boon Mee]

What are you doing up this late - Gent? Georgie got you wound up?

[the gentleman]

What are you doing up this late - Gent? Georgie got you wound up?

No mate , I am "educating" the flock

[lamphun]

baaaa... hope you're wearing wellies !!!

[Membrane]

Sounds more like your up late, smoking a bowl or two...

[Boon Mee]

He'd better get some rest to be ready for another day of Georgie's onslaughts...