Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: miko2d on September 17, 2001, 09:02:00 PM
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Guys,
First I want to assure you that I am an american patriot who chose this country for myself and my children with all its good and numerous bad sides - unlike many who were lucky to be born here.
I would have much rather have written some piece like "letter to the terrorists" or "terrorists suck and stupid" but many people with more time on their hands have beaten me to it while my office's Internet access is not back after the blast... :(
There is always a devil's advocate in any discussion and since nobody has volunteered so far, I intend to post a series of thoughts on the subject.
Never from the point of view that America is evil but with the intent of assesing what kind of people I will have alongside me when the next load of crap hits the fan and what we think we know that may not be true.
We know the enemy or at least quickly learning about him. Let's not forget about knowing ourselfs.
1. I have always had the greatest respect to the expert opinion. They usually know what they are doing being experts and such...
My observation is that quite a few educated and intelligent experts on terrorism, terror tactics and terror effects strongly believe that it is productive to apply terrorism to our country. That is can be forced to change it's behavior. That we, Americans, can be scared. That we can be split more. That we are spoiled by comfort and easy life.
Those people lived among ourselves for quite a few years, head a chance to study us, learn our strength and weeknesses.
They knew that we will try to retaliate and cause problems for them. They may actually have counted on that. In their view the benefits obtained from terrorism outweight the disadvantages.
Those people were giving their (or their accomplices lives) largely for religious reasons. Nevertheless they did not think they expected to die for no gain to their cause.
Think about thet carefully. If the enemy is shooting at you, he may wrongly think he is in range but there is a chance he knows what he is doing. Flag-waiving and boasting is the last thing you would want to do. The right thing to do would be to drop man the trenches, don the helmets and look carefully behind you. The shooter in front may be the least of your troubles.
2. That brings me to my second point on how effective the terrorism can be here. If I look on the recent history, US does not strike me as a particularly brave nation.
I am not even talking about politics, like abandoning Cuban's patriots and South-Vietnamese to communism (and throwing away the casualties borne by heroes that fought there).
There was a time when Atom was the bright and shining future. When people planed to excavate harbors by nuclear explosions to having nuclear-propelled planes. Cheap energy, independence from totalitarian religious regimes that have the oil. Nothing seemed too small for a country on the forefront of the technological progress. Nobody expected the process to go along without errors.
That all came to a screeching halt after one accident - which could have been terrible but luckily actually was quite small. The whole world learned from it. Do not build the station over the ground waters, next to the river in the middle of a densely-populated area. Make safer reactors. Dig the whole stuff deeper underground in some desert and put thicker concrete shell over it. There are dozens of nuclear power stations working in the world. Hundreds of ships powered by nuclear power.
But americans got scared. All their dreams disappeared. All the faith in america's science and engineering, in the ability to overcome any difficulties was lost overnight.
The whole direction of progress based on cheap electricity was closed - electric cars, magnetic trains, clean industry.
Guess what - there is no life without risk. If you do not take risk of a nuclear station blowing up on you, you run a risk of hostile powers controlling your lifeblood - oil. You have to intervene into that God-forsaken area to ensure the supply. You have to pay trillions of dollars to people who are hostile to us and get entangled into their politics.
Any engineer can tell you that there is no way to avoid risk in a system. You can move it around. You cannot lose risk but you can lose control.
Why risk an accident if some saudi promises to supply us with oil for reasonable price - if we support his corrupt and oppressive regime against population and other countries.
Why be capable of owning and using weapons if the policeman is going to protect us...
That is enough rumblings for tonigt.
Obviously there must be argumants contrary to those two points.
But I would not post them here if I did not see for myself some validation for them. Which one will prove stronger - I do not know.
What do you guys think?
Most importantly, if you take this stuff seriously, what do you think we can do to improve the odds?
miko
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I'm not sure how to respond.. valid points, I think.
And not to hijack, but Cuba was not abandoned to communism. It wanted communism - it got it. As for South Vietman... little we could do there, same situation. It was a grass-roots movement.
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And by the way, if I haven't been devil's advocate (by your perspective, not mine), who has?
;)
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I don’t know how the concept of “clean power” got linked with nuclear fission. Nuclear power is far from “clean”. In fact it’s the filthiest most dangerous power source we have with a byproduct that remains lethal for a hundred thousand years.
Tearing apart the fabric of physical reality is not something that “intelligent” creatures do.
http://www.ccnr.org/index.html (http://www.ccnr.org/index.html)
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There ya go again, labeling anyone who my be an advocaate for an alternative to "your way of thinking" as unintellegent,geez. Take a break on that, please. It doesn't add anything to the discussion except emotion.
Shouldn't we reinvestigate nuclear power, why not? I would guess that research continues to improve this power source. Closing our eyes to its possibilities may not be in our best interest in the long run.
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Originally posted by 1776:
There ya go again, labeling anyone who my be an advocaate for an alternative to "your way of thinking" as unintellegent,geez. Take a break on that, please. It doesn't add anything to the discussion except emotion.
I stand corrected.
If you replace “intelligent” with “sane” in the last sentence it will be more accurate.
It occurred to me that an individual could have great intelligence but be utterly insane. ;)
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So the French, with ~80% of their electricity from nuke powerplants, are all insane?
This is the generalization you're making?
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Now that the PC handgrenade has exploded and all of France is determined to be insane.....
Shouldn't we reinvestigate nuclear power, why not? I would guess that research continues to improve this power source. Closing our eyes to its possibilities may not be in our best interest in the long run.
[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: 1776 ]
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Apparently you folks haven’t heard of the massive protests occurring in Europe over the transportation and storage of nuclear waste?
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I guess my question should be made clearer. Should we(the people of the United States of America).........
Ok, an issue identified for discussion, nuclear waste. What do we do with it if it is created? What have we done with it in the past?
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Actually, Cuba did not want to be communist, but we were unable to deal with Castro over U.S. property claims, so he turned to the Soviets. He was NOT communist before and during his revolution.
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Yes, heard of the protests.
Does that change the fact that the French are using nuke power extensively?
Any "chernobyl meltdowns" in France so far?
Are you still generalizing all the French as insane?
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Originally posted by Toad:
Are you still generalizing all the French as insane?
The “insane” are the ones who are aware of all the ramifications in the use of nuclear power and then continue to pursue it.
Are the French insane?
Not sure, using the above criteria insanity would have to be determined on a case by case basis.
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So you are "not sure" if the French are insane because they get ~80% of their electricity from nuke power...
Do you think then that the French are "aware of all the ramifications in the use of nuclear power and then continue to pursue it"?
Or do you think the French are using nuke power and are simply UNaware of all the ramifications, etc.?
[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: Toad ]
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Here's a no-risk option: conservation.
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Originally posted by popeye:
Here's a no-risk option: conservation.
Two words: Solar Power.
not viable you say ?
Well I guess all the people who are using it today must be nuts.
For example..A couple built a Solar house on the coast of Maine a couple years ago. http://www.solarhouse.com/main.htm (http://www.solarhouse.com/main.htm)
It suppies more electrical power than they need. The surplus gets "pumped" back into the power grid.
Their heat (air & water) water also comes from the sun.
It cost them 14% more to build than a conventional house and they never get a bill.
The interesting thing is that if everyone's house was built like this (or converted) those with cloudy days could get power from other regions with sunny days. Net result.. the power companies become re-distribution companies and have little need to actually GENERATE power. :)
At the very least it reduces the need for power plants.
The technology is there now...
EDIT: quote....
"In 1993, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) retained Solar Design Associates to provide program definition and technical support to their in-house engineering group for their pioneering solar program. Following the example SDA set in Gardner, SMUD embarked on an ambitious plan to install PV systems on many hundreds of their customers' buildings each year. In 1995, some 580 kWp of systems were installed on buildings as well as a 263 kWp ground-mounted PV system at a substation. SMUD is leading the country in utility use of PV and plans more than 10 megaWatts of additional PV capacity over the next 5 years.
SMUD customers voted to permanently close their nuclear plant at Rancho Seco. It now
stands idle, surrounded by a sea of photovoltaic modules" http://www.solardesign.com/ (http://www.solardesign.com/)
Hmmm.. Miko2d i think your thread got re-routed. I think you have valid points.
[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: Snoopi ]
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Originally posted by blur:
The “insane” are the ones who are aware of all the ramifications in the use of nuclear power and then continue to pursue it.
Are the French insane?
Not sure, using the above criteria insanity would have to be determined on a case by case basis.
I've to admit I'm completly insane ...
But don't generalize all French are not insane :D
In fact we don't have any alternatives to nuclear power to produce our electricity.
So we do.
Our major problem is Nuclear waste (especially the German one ;)) so we have done a lot of research on fusion and at this point we don't have been successfull :(
Btw our nuclear plant are made to be safe even if a plane crash occur (well we hope...).
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Hmmmmmmmm, nuclear is unclean and unsafe to many, can't even think of using it . Use of oil produces pollution. Drilling for oil on our own lands is enviromentally not feasiable to most,sadly. Dependence on OPEC oil is acceptable. This seems to be the position of many in the USA.
Is it possible that we in the USA are willing to give up our way of life to save the enviroment? If the answer is yes then perhaps our own sanity should be brought into question.
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"The interesting thing is that if everyone's house was built like this (or converted) those with cloudy days could get power from other regions with sunny days. Net result.. the power companies become re-distribution companies and have little need to actually GENERATE power.
At the very least it reduces the need for power plants."
So who pays to maintain the "grid"? How does the power company benefit in all this? I assume you plan on using their "grid",right?
Alot of unanswered questions. The end result may be that the costs associated with this type of power generation will bankrupt the end users!!!
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This topic started on terrorism and has slipped sideways into the French, nuclear power and insanity. How about we combine them back into one topic again.
The Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior" was sunk with limpet mines on the 9th of June 1985 in Auckland, killing Fernando Pereira, a photographer and sinking the ship.
What Terrorist Organisation did this? el Quada? The Shining Path? The Basques or the IRA? No, it was agents of the French Secret Service, (Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur).
Why was this done? The Rainbow Warrior was about to lead a flotilla of ships to protest the ongoing nuclear warheads tests at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean. The French Secret Service thought it would be a good idea to sink the ship and thus stop the protest.
So given the information above do I think the French are insane? I don't think any more so than the average American.
I'm just concerned that the US Government is going to embark on a course of action which will produce a whole new generation of fanatics and martyrs without adressing the real problems with their foreign policies.
Anyways I could go on for hours but I have to get up for work in 4 hours and i need the sleep.
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I doubt any changes the US made to their foreign policies would stop the terrorist war against the US. This isn't based in reason; it's way beyond that now.
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-raxx-, you could say this thread got blur-ed ;)
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Originally posted by 1776:
"The interesting thing is that if everyone's house was built like this (or converted) those with cloudy days could get power from other regions with sunny days. Net result.. the power companies become re-distribution companies and have little need to actually GENERATE power.
At the very least it reduces the need for power plants."
So who pays to maintain the "grid"? How does the power company benefit in all this? I assume you plan on using their "grid",right?
Alot of unanswered questions. The end result may be that the costs associated with this type of power generation will bankrupt the end users!!!
The concept of the extra power you generate on "surplus days" being fed back into the grid, thereby reducing or eliminating your power bill is called "net-metering"
This is in place and being used now in 34 states.
Maintaining a grid with little need for expensive plants is also cheaper than the current system.
Everyone currently pays a basic monthly hookup fee that is the same whether you use the power or not. In Maine it is $8.00.
That is meant to pay for the grid itself.
Even if it was higher than that, it would still be cheaper than paying the current bills.
Bankrupt the end users ? How is paying $540 for 1 month(february, Fuel oil) in Maine vs paying $46 for Solar gonna bankrupt you ?
This is just one way it can work.
The other system is being self contained.
The solar house in Maine (1 of many) generates more power then it needs, when averaged over th whole year. Some months it needs power from the utility company..other times it produces more power. The end result is it produces MORE than it needs.
To store the excess power is easy.
Then there is no need to be attached to the grid at all.
The problem with this system is that those states that can't generate enough solar power still need nuclear, gas, hydro whatever to fill the gap.
By sharing the power it works much better for everyone.
And best of all...Conservation is not really needed.
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1. Nuclear power is dangerous and harmfull. That is true. If anyone thinks that any other kind of power-generation is not (coal, oil, animal, slaves), he is ignorant.
2. I've just called Americans cowards and all you can do is discuss power generation...
:confused:
miko
[ 09-20-2001: Message edited by: miko2d ]
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Originally posted by miko2d:
1. Nuclear power is dangerous and harmfull. That is true. If anyone thinks that any other kind of power-generation is not (coal, oil, animal, slaves), he is an ignorant.
2. I've just calle Americans covards and all you can do is discuss power generation...
:confused:
miko
A thousand pardons sir for highjacking your thread.
In my defense I interpreted your mentioning of America’s failure to manifest a glorious, shiny nuclear powered future as a sort of cowardice. A perhaps too subtle a point I was making was that common sense should sometimes override “bravery”.
The only thing “shining” in a nuclear powered future would be the people.
A positive result of this highjacking is Snoopi’s posts on a solar powered grid. Fascinating. If everything else is being networked why not power?
Let’s see, a government giving subsidies and tax breaks to individuals hooking into an alternate energy grid instead of spending billions on weapons…..
I know I must be on crack!
Miko2d, I return your highjacked thread back to you.
I’ve been called many things but I’m no terrorist! ;)
[ 09-20-2001: Message edited by: blur ]
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Toad,
Foreign policy can change. The difficulty is taking the time to make it work. Would you have predicted 20 years ago that the United Soviet Socialist Republic would fragment into democracy and the Berlin wall would be smashed down? Yet slowly this has happened.
The main obstacle to changing US policy is the fickle political winds that our elected representatives sail with.
As a good example in the 1980's the Irish Republican Army recieved a lot of funding from US citizens and this was largely ignored by the US politicians and law enforcement agencies. Last week all the elected representatives in the US Congress bar one, voted to declare war on terrorism.
These are the same people who supported foreign policy to send either money, weapons or provide training to Manuel Noriega, (againt the Communist rebels), Saddam Hussein, (against Iran) and the Afgan Rebels, (against the USSR). Talk about backing the wrong horse!
At the moment the lack of sensitiviy the US President is showing towards Pakistan is just another example of the cultural imperialism that draws disdain for the US from the Middle East and around the world. George W has turned Pakistan's support for an anti-terrorism coalition into support for an attack on Afghanistan if the Taliban don't give up Osama bin Laden. If the US attacks Afghanistan then Pakistan risks civil war. Not a good thing for a nation that has only recently developed atomic weapons.
I sincerely hope that this situation can be resolved by non-confrontational means. It just isn't helped when you have one idiot spouting off that suspects are to be taken "dead or alive" and the other side is willing to kill and die for their misguided beliefs.
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Nonetheless, the Islamic radicals NEED a "Great Satan". It is their raison d'etre.
No matter what the US did, they would still find it insufficient. The "jihad" would continue.
Nice spin on Pakistan. We didn't "turn their support" into anything. We asked to use their airspace right up front; anyone who couldn't figure out WHY we wanted it... sheesh.
Their President had two choices... allow or deny use of the airspace. Either way, Pakistan could still remain part of the "anti-terrorism coalition". There's lots of countries that have already said they REALLY, REALLY support us... but can't help in any material way. Scan the newsites; the info is there.
Here's the deal... Yah, LOTS of people support an "anti-terrorism" coalition. They just don't want to DO anything about it or be involved in any meaningful way.
Because if they do get involved, if they do support the US in a material way... they become targets for these nutcases too. Irrespective of THEIR foreign policy towards anyone, if they help the US, they become part of the "Great Satan".
In the end, we'll go this mostly alone, with lots of well wishers watching on TV. I never expected anything else.
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What concerns me is the perception by the average US citizen is that a war with Afghanistan is a viable option. Is Pakistan the only US ally in the area? Why is George W is using a particularly nasty strong arm tactic on the Pakistani's.
Half a dozen countries share a border with Afghanistan, (which is land locked so a seaborne assault is difficult). Pakistan, Iran, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
Iran shares a border with Afghanistan and diplomatic relations deteriorated when the Taliban killed 10 Iranian diplomats and left the bodies out hanging for a couple of days. The Iranians are predominantly Shiite Muslims and don't get on well with Afghani Sunni Muslims. Naturally they would be the best country to ask. BUT the US supported Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war 20 years ago and the Iranians are still pissed.
China and the US have been getting on famously since their pilot ran into the US radio spy plane. Probably shouldn't ask them either despite the fact that Sunni fanatics have managed to set off bombs in Beijing!
The former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, (90% Muslim), Uzbekistan, (88% Sunni Muslim) and Tajikistan, (80% Sunni Muslim), aren't particulalrly aligned towards the US and added on top of that they have the US as the Cold War opposition under the Soviet banner. Can't really ask them either.
Pakistan is the least pissed at the US but has several good reasons not to be actively involved in open warfare with Afghanistan. Two thirds of the country is made up of Sunni Muslims many of whom fought with the Taliban against the Soviets. The other third is composed of moderate Shi'a Muslims, Hindus and Christians. It's suffering from the same drought that has hit Afghanistan and in involved in a nuclear race with India. The government was rolled over in a coup in 1999 and the current president is a figurehead with the Chief Executive/Prime Minister/Generalissimo due to end his term next year.
With Iran and Afghanistan on one side and India on the other the Pakistani's are being squeezed by the US into a decison that is driven by politics rather than reason. The American people want results NOW. The solutions will take decades if not the remainder of the century to fix. The Pakistan leaders are well aware of potential solutions and don't wish to have a war shatter their already fragile economy. The Pakistani Prime Minister is caught between a rock and a hard place risking ostracism from the Western world if he doesn't co-operate and internal warfare if he does. If a US military presence is established in Pakistan then there is an extreme risk that the US could find itself propping up a government which is unpopular with its populace if a civil war should break out, (sounds like Vietnam doesn't it?).
I have noticed over the last week that George W's rhetoric has been directed at the Domestic market while Colin Powell has been showing a more reasonable, (but still resolute), focus on the international community. Perhaps there is a velvet glove in front of the iron fist.
Spotcha in the Air,
P.S. Most of the information above was supplied by the CIA World Factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html)
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Raxx I think your missing it. You seem to fail to miss the entire situation. You spout off at the mouth about American policy and such and show alot of ignorance about the whole picture.
During the cold war be established a policy that our enemy's enemy is our friend. Yes, we supported some pretty lousy indiv's but the alternative was allowing communism to spread... and dont fool yourself it would of in certain areas. Central America was particualy vunerable due to its instablity and economic woes. The last thing the US wanted was a host of pro soviet nations on its border. Our policy was to provide training and some support. Our economy was much better able to handle this than the Soviets. The combination of a massive miltary buildup and supporting nations like Cuba eventualy drained the mighty Soviet Union. Our Star Wars program I think was the camel that broke the back... it lead to more pressure on a miltary/economy that simply wasnt going to take the strain. Thus the WALL came down. The cold war was won by economics more or less..
Our policy in the middle east is simple in regards to say the PLO and such. We support nations we feel are stable and have ties of meaning w/us. The oil reserves are a big part of our policy there... they are vital to western civilization at this moment. We support Isreal because THEY are reliable. We do not support indiv's like Arafat because we see him as a unknown factor w/many strong anti-american qualities... basicly he's more of a threat.
The Pak government has strong ties w/the Taliban. They also have nuclear weapons... what sort of potiental problem do you see there? If we DO NOT pressure the Pak gov to go w/us then what? Perhaps the Taliban's will bleed over...perhaps not.
If you look at the world community its NOT just BUSH who's talking tough. You have some VERY liberal,moderate governments out there who are supporting him and the US. WHY? Well because its ethier deal w/this now or wait for an attack that brings say 100k deaths perhaps?
I think the US will also look at it foriegn policy and start to look for solutions to the breeding grounds of this type of fanatic BUT the host nations of these indiv's will have to cooperate with us.
xBAT
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[duplicate post deleted]
[ 09-21-2001: Message edited by: -raxx- ]
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Bat,
The origin of this post is in devils advocacy and someone has to offer an alternate opinion to the bloodlust for revenge that is sweeping around the world. At present I feel that too many people are simply reacting to an event and not considering the root causes of the problem and attempting to address those underlying issues first.
While the attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon is a horrific act of terrorism, I also despise state sponsored terrorism and feel that too many people overlook the fact that many Western countries tacitly approve of such acts as long as it meets with their economic or political goals.
I'm not missing the overall picture but by using specific instances I'm trying to show that based on past history the US Government point of view and policy is not always right, or necessarily in the best interests of the people it is supposed to serve and protect.
There are several US supported programs that work fairly well, (the international space station springs to mind). We both agree that the "My enemy's enemy is my friend" was poorly conceived and Communism is being ground under by the economic basis of democracy. We agree that the US needs to redefine its foreign policy to stop the breeding grounds of dissent. The last point will take generations to work through and invading a county to extract a suspected criminal isn't going to help the situation at all.
There are several points that we don't agree on:
1) Support for a coalition against terrorism does not mean that those same governments support an invasion of another country to extract one suspected criminal.
2) I cannot see the difference between a car bomb killing people in Tel Aviv and a helicoptor gunship firing missiles to assasinate a suspected terrorist. I see both as an act of terror and do not support the policies of the PLO using violence or the Israeli Governments use of assasination.
As for the use of a nuke as a weapon of terror; Who would have thought that a terrorist faction would use aircraft as flying missiles to destroy buildings and kill thousands of people. If it can be thought of, then it can be done. I'm off to check the use-by dates on my canned food.