^ an(d).

So instead of bombing the people who shielded the terrorists, we should have bombed the terrorist's *enemies*?

Brilliant! Why didn't *I* think of that! Instead of working with the moderates we can ensure their downfall! Then, when the entire Middle East is filled with wall to wall enemies we can nuke them *all at once*!

And here I thought you were a pacifist. You're a hell of a lot more cold blooded than I am...

@Fried

No that´s no direct quote from Hannah Arendt, maybe you translated it so poor nobody can understand it, don´t you...

@strat

What the hell are you talking about?

Haha, there's nothing poor about it. Its ok, you can admit you aren't familiar with certain pieces of terminology -- like Erdkreis, which hasn't been in vogue since the 1940's, or selbst-Richtigstellung, a phrase introduced by American-German psychologists in the 1930's.

Look, nobody's going to criticize you for being ignorant of your own language.

Erdkreis is a normal german exopression...selbst -Richtigstellung is no word...
Your sentence makes no sence still makes no sence at all...fix the grammar, oh you are no native german speaker, aren´t you...

"Sollte der Rest des freien Erdkreis warten, auf Hitler eine selbst-Richtigstellung zu machen? "

...only aliens could make up such nonsense, Fried your are so special :-)

Not only you screwed the whole sentence, you tried to teach a German in his own language while you have absolutly no knowledge of german at all. You made me laugh out loud, thank you :-)

@Miro, let me break it down in simpler terms

Me: What would you do?

You: I'd use intelligence agencies instead of military forces. And instead of Afghanistan, I'd target Saudi Arabia

Me: Great plan, except an increased reliance on intelligence compared to other resources *caused* the Iraq war - if Bush hadn't been able to wave around the threat of WMDs, he wouldn't have had a cause belle. And Bin Ladin is also at war with the Saudi government, so picking on them is pointless. What else would you do?

You: I already *said* what I'd do!

Me: So you *would* attack the Saudis - who are (relatively) blameless, instead of the nation-state that was shielding Bin Laden? Uh, ok


***
Fully granting that English is not your primary language, does that put it into terms that are easier for you to understand?

Where did i say i they should attack Saudi arabia? You made that up.

Miro, the English translation is "Should the balance of the globe waited for Hitler to set himself aright?"

The translation is not mine; it is no translation at all, and is derived entirely from Hannah Arendt's correspondence. I'm not trying to teach you anything. I'm just saying, i trust the grammar comprehension of one of your country's greatest philosophers more than I trust your grammar.

Trust me, I'm an American, there are plenty of Americans who have terrible English skills.

^ (have) waited

"First i wouldn´t have attacked Afghanistan or Iraque, both lead to a great disaster and many people mentioned that before the war.
The terrorists and the financial support for the attacks came out of SaudiArabia and the Jemen, they organized their cell in Hamburg and were trained in the USA. As long as the US Government keeps kissing the Saudis asses, America will be threatened by terrorists.
Only a combined attacked by Intellegence Agencies(of all allied countries), poltical pressure on the financers and making friends in the arabic world (who also were victims of terroristic groups) would have a chance to destroy terroristic networks."

Note that a) intelligence agencies in general share a lot more data now, b) anyone even suspected of given terrorists money tends to get their accounts frozen, c) plenty of political pressure has been brought to bear, and d) many efforts have been made to make friends in the arabic world.

so your solution is to do... what is already being done?

Miro -

Another thing I *doubt* you've thought about is the reaction of the people in the U.S. Now, I'm assuming you've never lived through a terrorist attack (not that I was in N.Y. at the time), so it's hard for you to understand the feelings that were going on over here.

While in Germany, you may have felt saddened at the loss of lives, but you didn't have the very real fear in your life that it was going to happen again. I remember people wondering what was next. People were afraid to fly. They were afraid to go in prominent buildings (Sear's Tower, John Hancock Building, Empire State Building, etc) for fear that it was the next target. People were flat out afraid. But they were also angry. Angry at cowardly extremists who chose to murder innocent civilians in their blind hatred of the U.S. and western civilization.

In my opinion, George Bush did EXACTLY the right thing. He kept his calm (which must have been incredibly hard to do) and went on TV and told the nation that we're going to be OK. Just as important as that though, he told everyone that we're going to catch those bastards and make them pay. What do you think would have happened if he had told everyone that we were going after the Saudi's INSTEAD of the people who were ultimately responsible for the deaths of over 3000 American civilians?

The people would have revolted over your idea Miro. Let me give you another example to gauge your reaction. Assume that there's a gang. They hate your powerful family. So, they go and get some donations from someone and then come into your house and slaughter all your kids. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to go after the murderers? Or are you going to go after the guy who gave them some money? Even without the money, the terrorists would still attack America. They are to blame. Going after the Saudi's alone would have been silly and only caused problems at home with an upset and angry populace.

As much as I think Okra is a pompous ass, he does get points for making reference to Arendt.

And Miro, you might do well to read some political philosophy. If you did, you'd understand how unrealistic and ignorant you are sounding.

I'll lay it out for you. People are assholes. Some people are armed assholes. These armed assholes make life miserable for other people. They may have legitimate grievances (and I'll be the first to say that there is no such thing as a 100 percent military solution to any major world problem), but the fact that they are armed assholes is a problem.

Asking armed assholes to just chill out doesn't work. Some people simply have to be stopped with a bullet. Have we, as Americans, gone a little extreme in the past? Sure. Tragedies have happened. I regret them probably more than you do. However, the alternative is to be the proverbial good man that does nothing in the face of evil.

See, Americans have this thing about armed assholes. That is why we had to bomb the living shit out of your country and take it over. It seems to have worked out well for Germany, yes? We blew it all up, and then footed the bill to rebuild it, all over a little episode of wanton aggression and genocide. Thank General Marshall, who planned both the destruction of your genocidal state, and the rebuilding of it into the happy fuzzy Germans we know today.

Miro's angry because Germany's oil reserves are owned by the Russians. He just wishes he could get some of that cheap Saudi crude.

Oh, and Miro, just because you can't google.de something doesn't mean its not real.

There are these things that still exist outside of your country called :"books". I believe the German word for them (a mid-20th century neologism) is "firewood".

@Fried

"Now, another question I have to ask you, warum kannst du dieses Thema nicht ergreifen? War es schon lange her als Europaer dieses Thema aus eigener Ehrfahrung kannten. Sollte der Rest des freien Erdkreis warten, auf Hitler eine selbst-Richtigstellung zu machen?"

I doubt any german member of this forum could make sense out of this. Hannah Arendt never said this, i´d like to be disproven on that...
As i said your english quote makes a sense at last. Hannah Arendt would be insulted if you tell her that YOUR german translation of the quote was hers...

@strat

"In my opinion, George Bush did EXACTLY the right thing"

I can´t compromise you more than you have just done yourself...
Also you say "i am angry just kill somebody, and think about later if they are the guilty ones". Bush was wrong from the start, everybody tolds him, but instead he lead America in two hopeless wars, ruins the economy and didn´t solve the problem of terrorism, instead he mede it worse. Well be proud of him if you want...

@Klein

"he does get points for making reference to Arendt."

No he didn´t...

That was drano, not me. But please, feel free to make other irrelevant points instead of answering the questions I've raised.

Firewood? Sounds very german...

Miro -

You clearly can't read. The quote about George Bush was mine, not Strats. And I was referring to the war in Afghanistan, NOT the war in Iraq. Quit trying to steer the subject back to that. Noone here is talking about Iraq except you.

As for making the problem of terrorism worse. Really? So just ignoring the fact that the Afghani government was sheltering the extremist terrorists who murdered 3000+ Americans would have made the terrorist problem better? Not destroying their training facilities and freezing their assets would have made us safer and made them less able to attack us? Riiiiiight....man give me some of whatever you're on.

Miro:

Given: Your 'plan' consists of what is already happening
Given: You have issues with what is already happening
Conclusion: You have issues with *your own plan*.

As has been pointed out by others, it's extremely easy to bitch about How Things Are from behind your wonderfully anonymous keyboard, but actually putting forward solutions? Not so easy, is it?

Drano draugnar startagos, well you are telling the same so what?

I know you are not responsible for your hate and ignorance for the rest of the world, but why are you still coming up with such nonsense? Iraq was attacked, Afghanistan is occupied since 9 years but nothing was achieved under Bush.
Home many innocent people were killed in CIA concentration oh sry i ment interrogation camps? The truth is known to all but the americans still believe Saddam was linked to 9/11. Drano thinks Bush was right, should i say more?
Start thinks Afghanistan was a "nation-state" shielding Bin Laden? That should have isolated Bin Laden from the Taliban instead of forcing them deeper into their unholy alliance.
And than FriedChickenDude...He doesn´t speak a single german word and trys to translate Hannah Arendt...

What a poor company in a thread about rememberence on 9/11...

@Miro. You are - again - engaging in irrelevancies.

I am stating that the invasion of Afghanistan was justified.

You are stating that Bush was a bad president.

Whether he was a good or bad president is completely irrelevant to the discussion of Afghanistan. Stick to the topic.

Strat +1

Miro - Address the points people made in their posts. Specifically strat's point that your "plan" is already being enacted and yet you oppose what's going on now, and my question of whether it would have been smarter to just leave the terrorists alone in Afghanistan, thus inviting a repeat attack.

Doing anything else just shows that you can't even form a cohesive defense and must revert to propaganda to confuse people.

You have been asked what a better solution would have been. Your response was basically either "do nothing" or "the Taliban weren't really shielding Bin Laden". The latter is false, which can be proven by oodles of documentation freely available, and the former is either a contemptible attempt to avoid answering the question, a demonstration of someone who is completely divorced from reality, or basically feels that military force is *never* justified.

If the latter is true, I wish you'd have the courage to state it. I happen to disagree, but people will generally accept that you have a right to a strongly held personal stance and just leave it be. Trying to justify what you appear to be trying to state just make you look like an idiot.

@strat

"I am stating that the invasion of Afghanistan was justified"

And i am stating it didn´t solve a single problem instead thousands of innocent people were killed and terrorism is know destabilising Pakistan too. "Justified" is not the proper word i guess...

now not know *