Ich bin leider zu muede, um auf Deutsch zu schreiben - so hopefully you’ll forgive for writing in English.
I would just like to say that, before people start speculating about who the perpetrators of these atrocious attacks were, who is going to ‚benefit‘ politically from the incidents, and who is going to lose out - please, could you all focus on the very few obvious things:
What’s happened has happened, and as much as we all would like to, we can’t change it back. Therefore, no matter who is responsible, I feel the most important thing for the US/Bush to do is to remain calm and NOT retaliate against anyone they may possibly suspect to either be behind the attacks, or to be harbouring those behind them.
(ie - if the reports of bombings on Kabul are correct, and if the US is behind them, their thinking is presumably that Afghanistan is responsible insofar as it has been provided a refuge to Bin Laden)
…
While I was writing the above, BBC News broadcast Bush’s speech - and I have shudders running down my back as my worst fears are being confirmed: ‚an eye for an eye‘ and ‚we will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbour them‘ (direct quote from Bush’s speech) stick in my mind. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
I’m sure Bush doesn’t just write off the dead in New York as ‚collateral damage‘, so how could he justify the possibility of innocent civilians dying elsewhere, ie Afghanistan?
I will never condone violence. But in the case of the superpower that is the US, what all of us are obviously more worried about than ‚a few dead civilians in some remote middle-eastern country‘ are the far-reaching implications for the entire world. Gulf War #2, or World War III? It doesn’t really matter - it’s perfectly clear that in any retaliatory action by the US many more people will lose their lives than did today in New York. And it certainly won’t bring peace to the Middle East.
The (not so very new) idea being that ‚fighting for peace‘ is a contradiction in terms.
Please don’t get me wrong - I’m in shock, just like anybody else here, at what happened today. And my thoughts are with everybody in the US, including a handful of friends of mine in New York. But I think Bush’s record so far makes it pretty clear that peace-brokering isn’t exactly a strong skill of his. And that’s why at least the near future looks pretty bleak on a world-wide scale. Bush may very well use this terrible incident as an ‚excuse‘ to take it out on what he (and, incidentally, Israel) call ‚rogue states‘, ie those who don’t cooperate with the States of the Western World.
I’m starting to ramble, so let me leave it at that.
Greetings from Dublin from a very shaken woman,
Isabel
Dear Isabel
In Switzerland we are shocked and terrified about the things
happened in New York and in Washington. We have not yet heared
exact details about bombing of Kabul. It would be a new spiral
of violence and the next „eye for eye“ would be programmed.
We still hope, that human intelligence should be able to stop
all this violence.
But it will be a long way back to survival the point we reached
yesterday.
We have to pray for peace and to do everything to make the world
better, more legal and justifiying for everybody and with more
tolerance against all the strange we fair.
Sorry my English, my language is German. Bernhard
Liebe Isabel,
I am tired of English, so I will answer in German ;o)
Ich bin im Moment in den USA und bekomme das ganze „hautnah“ mit - und Du hast genau das geschrieben, was ich fuehle: Angst vor einem „Vergeltungsschlag“. Bush’s Rede war schrecklich, aber zu erwarten - und sie entsprach der Stimmung in einigen Chatrooms, in denen ich mich gestern aufgehalten habe. Im „richtigen Leben“ ueberwogen gestern noch Unglaeubigkeit und Entsetzen, ich habe keine Racheschwuere gehoert. Ich befuerchte aber sehr, dass sich das aendern wird - und auch ich bin der Meinung, dass Bush das nicht „auf sich sitzen lassen“ wird. Irgendwie hoffe ich, dass man nie rausfindet, wer das getan hat. Auf der anderen Seite bin ich mir nicht so sicher, dass das eine neue Katastrophe verhindern wuerde - vielleicht zerbomben sie Afghanistan dann als Ausweichopfer oder so.
Ich bin unglaublich traurig und schockiert ueber das, was passiert ist, aber viel schlimmer ist die Angst vor dem, was noch kommen mag.
Sylvia