Sorry for today’s day late/dollar short entry. I had one of those days yesterday, during which I mostly wandered from room to room, starting projects and not finishing them. It was good news-bad news all day. Good news: The bathing suit bottom and top that I ordered from two different catalogs arrived, and match perfectly. Bad news: In trying to remove them from the packaging, I snipped a small hole in the bottoms. Good news: They’ll take them back. Bad news: They’re out of that color. Good news: The hole is small; I can easily repair it on the machine. Bad news: I can’t find my white thread. And so on, all day.
So the hell with that. I’m starting to sound like Lileks.
Besides, London’s in trouble and I have a deadline. We’ll try for something later. Until then, discuss terror if you’re so inclined. I’ll be watching CNN.
mary said on July 7, 2005 at 10:44 am
The in-house Brit here is fairly disgusted with Bush’s comments from Gleneagles regarding the bombings. Bush saying that terrorists hate the us because they operate from hatred and violence and we operate on hope and compassion is particularly peeving. No one is blowing up the subway because they hate compassion, George. Get a grip.
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Nance said on July 7, 2005 at 11:24 am
The guy’s working without a net, and his default position is, “they hate us for our freedom.” They hate us for no such reason — I’d think our policies in the Mideast, our presence there and other factors have a great deal more to do with it. By this point you’d think he’d have a stock response prepared to deliver, but, er, maybe not.
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Joe said on July 7, 2005 at 12:21 pm
Ask your self this Question, If we would pull all our troops from Iraq,and afghanistan, do you think the terrorist would stop? I don’t, these people hate us and would not think twice about putting a knife in you or me or your kid, if they thought it would further their cause. So far the USA has not been hit since 9-11 what ever we are doing seems to be working, lets hope it continues.
Joe
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mary said on July 7, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Joe
We have not been hit here, but Spain and England have been hit for being involved in Iraq as our allies. One could argue that our presence in Iraq is causing terrorist attacks. Not on us, but is that the point? Is the “war on terrorism” solely to keep terrorists out of the US or is it to wipe out terrorism? Can a country in fact declare war on terrorism, since it has no home or national affiliation? And most of all, there was no terrorism coming from Iraq before we invaded, so how did invading Iraq prevent any terrorism? Hasn’t it caused it?
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David said on July 7, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Of course invading Iraq has caused it. What possible other reaction could come from people whose sons, daughters, mothers and fathers have been caught up in ‘collateral’ damage of the war, even if somebody manages to prove that this war is desirable for any reason. I just wonder what some people on this side of the ‘fence’ who say there is good being done in Iraq would do if their mother had just been killed by a random bomb and they were given the chance to hit back randomly.
The best way to make a terrorist out of peaceful people is to terrorise them. The world has seen this fact for thousands of years. Maybe Bush should read more history books.
-David
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Angie said on July 7, 2005 at 2:20 pm
My brother (active U.S. military) made this comment as we watched Bush’s impromptu speech this morning: “If he says ‘folks’ one more time…”
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Claire said on July 7, 2005 at 2:53 pm
My father-in-law and young bro/sis-in-laws live in London, my sister is at war in Mosul, Iraq. My heart goes out to everyone on the front lines.
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Claire again said on July 7, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Oh, and my husband (who is a British citizen) is flying to Glasgow tomorrow to see his sister off as she will be serving w/the Royal Army as a nurse in Iraq as well.
I would not call any act of terrorism justifiable.
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Miss Beth said on July 7, 2005 at 5:14 pm
My heart goes out to anyone directly and indirectly affected by this neverending crisis…which I guess means all of us. I know this is going to sound inflammatory and maybe I want to light a fire under someone, but it burns me when statements like “The USA has not been hit since 9-11…lets hope it continues,” are blindly made. This morning, I watched as people scrambled and bled and wept because they had been blown up on their mundane, normal commute. They had seen tragedy unfold along with their morning coffee. These people who, willingly or not, are the USA’a allies. And then, I couldn’t watch anymore, because every station tuned in to the previously programmed morning crap. I don’t have cable so instead of getting updates, I get to watch an Ambush Makeover. I don’t hate America; I’m embarrassed by her.
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brian stouder said on July 7, 2005 at 7:59 pm
>”They hate us for no such reason — I’d think our policies in the Mideast, our presence there and other factors have a great deal more to do with it.”
Oh, my.
Have you noticed how snarky folks like Keith Olberman have become about how they (leftist New Yorkers) essentially “own” September 11, and uncouth people in red-state fly-over country are thumping their chests and usurping the tragedy so that they can achieve some sort of a quasi-sexual ‘thrill’ (and at a safe distance from any probable future American target area)??
Well – here’s a clue regarding the attacks in the UK –
it ain’t all about us (United States) all the time – this horrific tragedy is not OURS to grab hold of, and Americanize.
And when some point to “our policies in the Mideast, our presence there and other factors” as having “a great deal more to do with” why these nihilistic attacks come, I simply disagree.
The point of these attacks – the “juice” for our barbarous attackers – are the attacks themselves.
If aQ’a attacks on the symbolic center of western economic power (and alleged injustice!) such as the World Trade Center were somehow understandable as responding to our ‘economic imperialism’ (or whatever) as Nut-Ward Churchill says,
then what was the “symbolism” of today’s targeted attacks in London? Double decker buses and mass transit trains, as London Mayor Livingstone says, are symbolic of ordinary workaday Londoners – and not emblematic of western policies and so on.
This idea of “chickens are coming home to roost” (as I think I saw someone say on daily Kos this morning phrase it) is simply wrong.
Two generations ago London got brutally blitzed, and there may well have been a psyche-Ward Churchill types around who would (quietly!)natter on about how “chickens were coming home to roost” each night – but Winston Churchill certainly never accepted, and never would accept any such frippery.
The nihilistic attackers are making war against common humanity.
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mary said on July 7, 2005 at 8:46 pm
Brian
Look at the way the word terrorize is spelled in David’s message. I bet he’s British. Being British, I bet he isn’t saying the attack was “all about us (America).” You need to start thinking that it isn’t about us thinking it’s all about us.
People who know me know I don’t bet unless it’s a sure thing, by the way.
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Nance said on July 7, 2005 at 9:09 pm
what was the “symbolism” of today’s targeted attacks in London?
Easy. Same as in Spain last year: You side with the U.S., you ARE the U.S.
Come on, Brian, at least have the honesty to acknowledge Osama didn’t pick us out of the phone book. He doesn’t give a shit if women walk around unveiled in the U.S. — he blames us for westernizing the Muslim world. And I’m sure he doesn’t want us to pull out of Iraq, because our presence there makes possible Terrorist U.’s graduate-studies program. Us invading Iraq was the answer to his prayers.
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Joe said on July 7, 2005 at 9:24 pm
So whats the solution? I still contend that these people hate us and if we pull out now they will just find some other reason to hate us. I guess I am just tired of having the whole damn world with their hands out wanting U.S. money then turning around and shitting on us at the drop of a hat.
Joe
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Miss Beth said on July 7, 2005 at 9:43 pm
There is no solution. Not really. But the reason the “whole damn world” wants U.S. money is because, well duh, we have all the money. It’s hard not to hate that. Case in point: I’m not poor but am far from rich and have made more than one snarky comment under my breath about Hummers and the like. Do I want to blow the rich up? God, no. My Catholic guilt won’t allow it. Do I hope they might fall down some stairs at the opera? But of course. And I swear, Joe, it seems like I’m picking on you, but it is not intentional. It is what it is.
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Claire said on July 7, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Well then thank God for Catholic guilt!
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brian stouder said on July 7, 2005 at 10:45 pm
“have the honesty to acknowledge Osama didn’t pick us out of the phone book.”
Agreed – Sammy hates the hell out of west…..ooops – I mean the “infidel, weak, cowardly, pig-dog Great Satan west”
and interestingly, Sammy was a monied playboy, back in the day (his cronies used to call him “Sammy” back in his mis-spent youth).
He apparently is able to harness whatever compelling resentments burn within the breasts of the lunatic fringes in the male Islamic world…
but even so, that does not compell any rational person – Islamic or Jewish or Hindu or heathen! – to grant any sort of legitimacy to their bill of particulars against us, and especially when their ‘advertising campaign’ consists of atrocities calculated to kill and dismember as many ordinary people as possible.
I say plainly – peremptory rejection is all that any political or historical grievance or statement or complaint that they (and by “they” I specifically mean the nihilistic shit-head killers) think they have, against anyone on this earth.
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Nance said on July 8, 2005 at 2:09 am
Maybe the problem is this: Some people read “terror is always unjustified” as meaning, “so we never have to explain it, because there’s never a reason for it.” Something can be always unjustified — murder is always unjustified — but still have an explanation. X may bust a cap in Y’s ass because Y slept with X’s wife, which doesn’t make it right, but is at least more intellectually satisfying than saying, X hates Y because Y is free and good and X hates freedom and goodness. Osama thinks we slept with his wife.
You still have to find and stop Osama. Invading Iraq was a titanically stupid way to do it, because now there are dozens more Osamas, and they all think we slept with their wives, plus we killed their mothers.
(If that makes sense. It’s late.)
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harry near indy said on July 8, 2005 at 9:38 am
nance,
don’t worry about sounding like lileks. you have more testosterone in your little finger than that wuss has in his whole body.
miss beth and claire,
in my understanding of catholic guilt, it’s ok to think about killing people. what’s not ok is to think about having sex with people — unless it’s your spouse, and you’re going to do it to have more children to praise god.
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Joe said on July 8, 2005 at 12:32 pm
Miss Beth, No hard feelings, this is what makes America great, we can agree to disagree and I don’t have to kill your children because I think your wrong in your views.
I really enjoy Nancy’s blog, I have been reading her since she first moved to the Fort way back when. We are about the same age (she has me by a year) and though we have never met, we have occupied a lot of the same places. O’sullivans Pub,(I played rugby for 18yrs) coldwater lake,Branch county fair,ect. I may be a Republican, but I do listen, Ya’ll do the same. Have a great weekend. Iam flying skydivers.
Joe
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Claire said on July 8, 2005 at 3:27 pm
Nance, I like your comment about the “unjustified” angle…but I think that by trying to apply intellectual reason (i.e., blame our Govt’s actions, etc.) to at least explain the acts, is naive, that somehow that will save us if we change our policy, actions.
IMO, these terrorists WANT us to think that way. But they don’t give a rat’s ass. They will still commit the unjustifiable acts because they believe they are doing god’s will. Changing our policy won’t change the actions of these terrorists – they are just using that line of reasoning to get people in a strange sort of way to sympathize with them, so they can then have power to do even GREATER damage.
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Bartleby said on July 8, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Claire: if the U.S. foreign policy of heavy Middle Eastern intervention is unrelated to terrorism — if terrorism is simply due to Islamic fundamentalism, “their hatred of freedom,” etc., etc. — then why is terrorism against the U.S. such a recent phenomenon? It’s only happened in the last few decades. Maybe it’s a pure coincidence that Muslim hatred of the U.S. parallels our unconditional patronage of Israel, our huge military presence in the Gulf region (with its occasional concomitant accidental airliner shootdown), Gulf War I, ten-plus years of the Iraq sanctions regime and frequent spasms of bombardment, permanent U.S. military bases in the region, and Gulf War II. But I would think the least-hypothesis principle favors the idea that they’re connected.
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brian stouder said on July 8, 2005 at 6:21 pm
“then why is terrorism against the U.S. such a recent phenomenon?”
What’s new?
The most ancient cities had walls to keep the barbarians out. Nihilism is not new – although I will agree that the term “terrorism” is itself one of those social/political terms that is essentially subjective. The “state sponsored terrorism” of the 1970’s was really just a new tactic in old fashioned warfare…and this new late-20th/early 21st century variant looks like an old tactic in a newer sort of warfare.
I think ol’ Nance simply has it in her bones that every story has a Who What Where When and Why….and the “Why” part is (to me) what is the least important when it comes to Sammy and his Egyptian concubine, et al.
When a serial killer like Unabomber gives all sorts of meticulous reasons why he devoted his lfe to sending bombs through the mail to unsuspecting people at universities and airlines – the “Why” part makes interesting feature stories, but is otherwise utterly beside the point. (there is a scene in Dr Zhivago where Omar Sharif is arguing with the revolutionary commander in the red train about a village that he [the revo commander] had ordered destroyed. The Commander said he had to “make the point” about the price of resistance, and Sharif says something like “It was your ‘point’ but it was their village”)
Claire is right.
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Nance said on July 9, 2005 at 9:00 am
Posting this for Jim, who said he was rejected by the comment-spam filter. We…shall…see:
Well, Brian, I guess a foolish fellow like me might think that the “why” could be useful to know for avoiding an endless series of repeats of 9-11, as well as perpetual war. But I’m sure you’re right. After all, in the movies, neither John Wayne nor Clint Eastwood ever spent any time puzzling over the motivations of their adversaries; they just shot ’em dead.
But wouldn’t it be a shame if it turned out that the War on Turr’r is simply a generator and multiplier of turr’r? Wouldn’t it be ironic if we looked around, years or decades from now, and concluded that Dubya was the only indispensable ally of bin Laden? Wouldn’t it be bad if it turns out that life ain’t Hollywood?
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Nance said on July 9, 2005 at 9:01 am
To clarify: That wasn’t me up there. That was Jim.
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brian stouder said on July 9, 2005 at 11:28 am
“That wasn’t me up there.”
Noted!
And indeed, even if I had misunderstood the opening sentence, the text following was sufficiently non-NN to have clued me in!
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