Comments

Time to move on — 20 Comments

  1. Well said GD.  I couldn’t agree more. It has been said that as long as war is profitable, America will always be at war.

  2. But to be fair 9/11 sounds better than Bloody Sunday

    I couldn’t agree more, and have never referred to Bloody Sunday.  But then over here we have heard of “Bloody Friday” and “Bloody Monday” and every other Bloody day of the week so it’s significance is kind of lost anyway.

  3. People and governments will like to focus on atrocities perpetrated by ‘the enemy’. Of course ‘our’ atrocities are always accidents, collateral damage or justifiable revenge, often with interest, against a morally inferior enemy. Playing football with atrocities makes many people, and governments, happy. Your atrocities were much worse than ours. You started it all, so you got what was coming to you. We believe in freedom and you believe in postponement of freedom in favour of a better collective future; but since your better collective future is dubious and kills present freedom, our massive violence is morally superior to yours. We believe in democracy, as long as other democratic governments play our economic game. If undemocratic governments don’t endanger our economic or geopolitical game we’ll lessen our moral disapproval of them. Structural violence oppresses the underdogs, so anti-structural violence against the overdogs is justified, even if the anti-structural violence itself becomes oppressive against the underdogs.
    Who is innocent? What liberators have not become oppressors? Which lecturing governments have no compromising interests?

  4. Ah but the Criminals In Action group are tasked with keeping all Americans not in that tiny group of people terrified and therefore under control which makes it easy over tax them so they will keep 911 reverberating around the world for as long as possible.
    The Irish on the other hand don’t seem to have any equivalent of Criminals in Action and as far as I am aware are more than capable of being lead up the garden path, as a nation, by people like buffalo Cowan without an atrocity or two to scare the shit out of them.
    Forgive me if my interpretation is out of kilter but I’m new here and am just getting a handle on your leanings as it were.
     

  5. Ah, I’m in. I said (three times previously lol) …

    “Powerful stuff, Grandad. Excellent, thoughtful article.”

  6. An excellent point – If you want to contol the people, give them a common enemy.  If the enemy is external, then all the better as it gives the government freedom to impose massive taxes and restrictions on its own population.  Just look at the massive and extraordinary powers granted to the Washington government in the name of freedom?

    Here in Ireland, we too have a common enemy, but our enemy is our own government.

    Dick – Of course I have moderation, but only to keep out the spammers.  Contrary to a some people’s expressed opinions, I have never cut out any comment that I disagreed with.

  7. Well said GD. I remember being in an office reception in London that morning, and apart from the security guy at the desk and a guy i was with, everyone else walked past the TV screen too busy to notice (don’t think it was sinking in with many at the time).
    The three of us concluded America would go to war, but with no real idea of the consequences. Wouldn’t normally link to another article here, but this one in the Independent is worth a read…
    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/nine-years-two-wars-all-the-dead-nothing-learnt-2333680.html

  8. Thank You Grandad.

    This was the Act that brought on the War on Terror, so they have to keep rehashing it as a reminder of why the government is taking our freedoms. Not just here. Everywhere.

    By the way, in your name, I have burned a fact-filled research book. I won’t say what it was here, as to not put anyone in danger. And yes, the believers are protesting.

  9. I might agree more if this was an isolated attack, but people forget this was the second attack against the towers, not to mention the attack on USS Cole and the various embassy bombings.
    I certainly don’t agree with everything my country has done, but any who attack it have earned my enmity for life. I took an oath to defender her and I will whenever and however I can.

  10. Remember the ‘WMD’ mantra – the method by which most were sucked in. No WMD in Iraq as it turned out, and no confirmed link to the tragic events in New York.

  11. Mick – That is one strong article.  It seems I’m not alone?

    Quiet Reader – Ah Jayzus!!  You can’t come up with a statement like that and then leave me in suspense.  At least drop me an email!  What was the book?  Koran?  Bible?  An Inconvenient Truth?

    Jim C – You have a point, BUT compare the number of deaths before and after the WTC attack?  Bombings, suicide squads and general mayhem have increased ten-fold?

    Mick – I don’t think they ever seriously blamed Iraq for the WTC attack, did they?  That was just an excuse to follow their own agenda.

     

  12. Beautiful Grandad, simple and beautiful !

    Another one that pisses me off totally is the expression, “The International Community”. Like there is some shower of truly benevolent like-minded countries waiting in the wings to organise and selflessly give. Running hand-in-hand with the so-called International Community, is every countries “Self Interest”. Guess which tips the scales ??

  13. Quiet Reader – I’m always a bit wary about conspiracy theories.  I think they are all a conspiracy.

    Thanks, John, and welcome.  The one that terrified me was Bush’s call that anyone who was against the “war on terror” had to be for the terrorists.  It was a frightening form of moral blackmail, and a terrifying abuse of his position.

Hosted by Curratech Blog Hosting