August 19, 2005
By the shores of Gits-i-mo, where the tropic breezes blow....
Natalie writes, sensibly...
...I do not think it is unduly ethnocentric to think that anti-western terrorism has flourished because the west condoned and flattered terrorists. It is true that the motivation in the foreground of the terrorist's mind is more likely to be something written by a radical Egyptian preacher in 1930 rather than by a radical Californian academic in 1970. However their own words supply evidence that terrorists and terrorist-sympathisers spend plenty of time looking over their shoulders to see what the West thinks of them.
They curse themselves for doing it. The asymmetry between how interested they are in us compared to how interested we are in them is further proof of the West's dominance, and part of what makes them burn. But they do it just the same.
What we say probably does not supply the most important part of the terrorists' motivation - but its effect is not negligible, and it is the part that we can change.
Change [I write, not sensibly or seriously]? Do we get to send some of those "radical academics" on all-expenses-paid vacations where the sweet Caribbean breezes will caress their downy cheeks? Hmm? Yes? NO. Oh well, a person can dream...
And what a sweet sweet day-dream it is. Thousands of poisonous America-hating Jew-hating "progressives" having their parasitic feeding-tubules torn loose from the hive-walls of academic group-think by federal agents...and then....well my college roommates used to play these Woody Guthrie protest songs repeatedly, and there's a line that pops back into my head. "...And they won't know your name when you ride the big airplane, all they will call you will beeeeeeee....Deporteeee."
Posted by John Weidner at August 19, 2005 11:54 AMTrue or not, I don't claim to know. But if true, it seems to hold validity across the board. I mean, for two decades anti-Castro terrorists who blew up innocents on commerical airliners and then walked the streets of Miami as heroes...Would there have been as many such attacks on all things Cuban had the U.S. not been granting them help, haven and applause?
Funny how it often goes back to the old "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter."
Posted by: Zoomie at August 19, 2005 06:37 PMZoomie writes:
"I mean, for two decades anti-Castro terrorists who blew up innocents on commerical airliners and then walked the streets of Miami as heroes...."
OK, Zoomie, care to name names and specify the dates of these incidents, the better to fact-check your backside? Or are you content to throw unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable assertions around?
It's your choice, and your credibility, dude.
Posted by: Hale Adams at August 20, 2005 09:54 PMZoomie may be referring to the fellow talked about in this article, one Luis Posada Carriles, who is supposed to have blown up a Cuban plane, killing 73 people. Considering that the charges come from Cuba and Venezuela I'd take them with a grain of salt, but in any case he doesn't, according to this article (and my memories of living in Miami for the first 36 years of my life) walk the streets of that city "as a hero."
Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 21, 2005 07:24 AMHe might be. But then he still needs at least one more a-C.t. to fill out the plural "terrorists" in his claim, which was:
>"two decades anti-Castro terrorists who blew up innocents on commerical airliners and then walked the streets of Miami as heroes..."
Hey!
Half of my comment VANISHED between Preview and Post. WTF is UP with that?
Anyway, to finish up, AFTER Zoomie gets at least one more "anti-Castro terrorist" for his example, he STILL has to contrast that number against the total tally of all PRO-Castro terrorists, which would at minimum include every a-hole who has ever hijacked a civilian airliner and flown it to Cuba.
