Time to vent...
Oct. 10th, 2001 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpBefore I go to bed, I've got to unload... bear with me.
Primo, I find it unsettling that so many people appear more willing to accept the Taliban's world view than ours, or at best engage in setting a tone of moral equivalence in the dispute. If my ears do not deceive me, I think I've heard the sides say, roughly:
US: This is a war against terrorism.
THEM: This is a war against Islam. We declare a jihad.
US: The people who committed terrorist acts on September 11 hate what we stand for.
THEM: It was done because of your support of Israel. It's payback time. Jihad!
US: This is a war against people who profane a great and peace-loving religion.
THEM: This is a crusade against all Muslim people, who must carry out a jihad against the unbelievers.
I particularly am impressed by reports I read calling the U.S. response a "knee jerk" reaction. Ye gods. A period of almost a month is a "knee-jerk" reaction? I must be missing something here.
Segundo, I am not a religious zealot, but I pray to the Creator to grant me the forbearance not to spit in the face of the next dolt who tries to explain why God caused the events of September 11 to transpire (e.g., 'our nation has strayed from the path of righteousness'). I simply cannot abide people who purport to know the mind of God.
I really wish such people would take a close look at the Lord's Prayer they generally profess. The part in there that goes something like "Thy will be done"? It's not language that implies a granting, on our part, of permission for God to do His thing. It's supposed to be an acknowledgment of our understanding that He will do what He will do. To suppose otherwise and claim to know God's rationale for doing (or not doing) a particular thing is, to me, not only arrogance of the first order, but also implies some pretty nasty things about God (along the lines of Twain's Letters to the Earth).
Tercero. While the pronouncements of the U.S. high command with regard to the effectiveness of military action against the Talibs are encouraging, they better not let their own wisecracks (e.g., "we're not running out of bombs, we're running out of targets!") go to their heads. You don't have to study military history much to realize that preliminary bombardments intended to destroy the enemy's will and ability to resist rarely accomplish the goal (see: Tarawa, Iwo Jima), and it's the poor grunt who pays the price.
Enough venting. Time for sleep and then to figure out how to do a network Linux install on a machine with a 1.08 GB drive. Is it even worth it? Maybe I'll defer it until later.
Cheers...
Primo, I find it unsettling that so many people appear more willing to accept the Taliban's world view than ours, or at best engage in setting a tone of moral equivalence in the dispute. If my ears do not deceive me, I think I've heard the sides say, roughly:
US: This is a war against terrorism.
THEM: This is a war against Islam. We declare a jihad.
US: The people who committed terrorist acts on September 11 hate what we stand for.
THEM: It was done because of your support of Israel. It's payback time. Jihad!
US: This is a war against people who profane a great and peace-loving religion.
THEM: This is a crusade against all Muslim people, who must carry out a jihad against the unbelievers.
I particularly am impressed by reports I read calling the U.S. response a "knee jerk" reaction. Ye gods. A period of almost a month is a "knee-jerk" reaction? I must be missing something here.
Segundo, I am not a religious zealot, but I pray to the Creator to grant me the forbearance not to spit in the face of the next dolt who tries to explain why God caused the events of September 11 to transpire (e.g., 'our nation has strayed from the path of righteousness'). I simply cannot abide people who purport to know the mind of God.
I really wish such people would take a close look at the Lord's Prayer they generally profess. The part in there that goes something like "Thy will be done"? It's not language that implies a granting, on our part, of permission for God to do His thing. It's supposed to be an acknowledgment of our understanding that He will do what He will do. To suppose otherwise and claim to know God's rationale for doing (or not doing) a particular thing is, to me, not only arrogance of the first order, but also implies some pretty nasty things about God (along the lines of Twain's Letters to the Earth).
Tercero. While the pronouncements of the U.S. high command with regard to the effectiveness of military action against the Talibs are encouraging, they better not let their own wisecracks (e.g., "we're not running out of bombs, we're running out of targets!") go to their heads. You don't have to study military history much to realize that preliminary bombardments intended to destroy the enemy's will and ability to resist rarely accomplish the goal (see: Tarawa, Iwo Jima), and it's the poor grunt who pays the price.
Enough venting. Time for sleep and then to figure out how to do a network Linux install on a machine with a 1.08 GB drive. Is it even worth it? Maybe I'll defer it until later.
Cheers...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2001-10-10 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-10-10 07:50 pm (UTC)I'll look forward to your posts.
Cheers...
no subject
Date: 2001-10-10 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-10-10 07:39 pm (UTC)Regarding the Mac, I'm running OS 7.5.3, according to the piece of paper taped to the machine. As best as I can tell I have no convenient way to move info onto or off the Mac... I really am a babe in the woods (e.g., will this thing read a DOS-formatted diskette?)
Thanks for the tip about the Adope app (not that I use Adobe all that much in my work).
Cheers...
Re:
Date: 2001-10-10 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-10-10 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-10-10 07:40 pm (UTC)Cheers...