Re: OT: terrorism (was Re: A projec)t

bjm10 wrote:
>
>On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > It'd be no surprise at all if part of the goal of the attacks was to
>provoke
> > the USA to retaliate violently, reinforcing many Arabs (and others) in
> > seeing the USA as violent and dangerous. Whatever you do, or don't do,
>you
> > risk playing into the hands of the terrorists - such's life.
>
>Do you advocate doing nothing at all?  Do you advocate letting terrorists
>just push everybody around with impunity?  Paralysis by analysis is still
>paralysis.  If I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, then I'll DO and
>DO and DO and DO!
I didn't advacate anything - I just pointed out that the terrorist may
actually want America to strike back with maximum force, since they may be
thinking that a such response would blacken the USA's image even further,
thus winning more sympathy and resources for themselves. Whether they
actually reason along such lines, and whether they're right if they do, is
obviously beyond my knowledge. Even if the answer to both questions is
"yes", the American leadership must still ask itself which's worst -
creating more terrorist sympathizers by retaliating or looking weak in front
of popular opinion and the rest of the world by not retaliating.

                                                  Andreas

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