War, What is it Good For?

In my previous note, where I write ``the ends justify the means, even if the ``means`` involve attacking innocent people`` please add the words ``for evil, the ends justify the means...for good, the means are as important as the ends``. This makes clearer what I meant to say.

Stuka #12 ``TO THE PAKISTANIS ADVOCATING RESTRAINT..,``

I am a Pakistani, and I am not sure what you mean by ``advocating restraint``. So I refer below to the pieces from the remainder of your post to see what you mean.

You continue: ``I ask you this... Imagine Bombs exploding in Clifton and Defence. Imagine 5000 of Pakistan`s best and brightest killed by Hindu fanatics of the Bajrang Dal in a matter of a couple of hours....Imagine the international media showing Hindus in India celebrating and dancing on the streets...Would you worry about the innocent Hindus who have no part in the attack? ``

Are you, as an ``innocent Hindu``, therefore justifying that someone in New York can kill you despite your having nothing to do with this deed and indeed to have obviously grieved at this tragedy? Sorry to be blunt here, but it is important that we are clear on this central issue that separates good from evil: the ends justify the means, even if the ``means`` involve attacking innocent people.

``Imagine, that the Indian gov`t refuses to hand over the perpetrators to you...What would you advocate your country`s government to do??``

The same as what the US is doing: be ready to go to war. This may seem a contradiction of what I said above, but note: The US must go after the perpetrators, even if it means loss of life, sine the alternative is almost certainly worse - more such attacks. War is indeed evil, but sometimes there is no choice and this is the terrible cross-roads to which these attacks have brought the US. It is little different than the terrible decision the US had to make last Tuesday to shoot down the airliner headed for Washington in order to prevent bigger loss of life on the ground (a decision that thankfully no pilot was forced to implement due to the courage of the passengers in that plane who died anyway but almost certainly saved hundreds of lives on the ground).

The central conclusions one reaches therefore is: Killing innocent people for retribution, or for any other purpose is never justified. Never, ever. With one exception: if the option is the loss of more innocent lives in future.

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From AAmir the illiterate`s cut-n-paste post:

``The offer was highly unlikely to be used by America: India has no common international border with Afghanistan and any US troop based on Indian soil would still have to be flown through Pakistan’s air space into Afghan territory, the analysts said.``

Is it geography or is it a new found love for military dictatorships and terrorist harboring countries which drives US decisions?

Read Usman Farman`s deeply moving article. He had the first hand experience of the WTC trauma that galvanised the bonds of humanity between different creeds, races and religions. The jewish gentleman who pulled him away from the path of the wall of death was a great person, a very very tall figure.

Baghdad has suffered successive urban disasters of a much greater magnitude for the past 12 years, as a result of US bombing. Grozny was virtually flattened, with an estimated 130,000 urban deaths. Whole neighborhoods in Palestine / Lebanon have evaporated in a similar fashion. The Indian Army in Kashmir destroys villages and communities in much the same manner on a routine basis.

Very soon, you shall see a repeat performance on a much more horrific scale in Afghanistan - this time, we Pakistanis will be a party to it.

NYC WTC carnage is a crime against humanity. So are others ... . Right now Presidnet Bush is being urged to show leadership; i.e. shed more blood of innocents in a far off corner of the world - to even or better the ``baseball score``

We Pakistanis are ... ``Begani Shaadi Mein Abdulla Divana``. We wanna serve as hired guns for a petty salary - or perhaps no salary.

Where is our conscience ?????

In my previous note, where I write ``the ends justify the means, even if the ``means`` involve attacking innocent people`` please add the words ``for evil, the ends justify the means...for good, the means are as important as the ends``. This makes clearer what I meant to say.

Stuka #12 ``TO THE PAKISTANIS ADVOCATING RESTRAINT..,``

I am a Pakistani, and I am not sure what you mean by ``advocating restraint``. So I refer below to the pieces from the remainder of your post to see what you mean.

You continue: ``I ask you this... Imagine Bombs exploding in Clifton and Defence. Imagine 5000 of Pakistan`s best and brightest killed by Hindu fanatics of the Bajrang Dal in a matter of a couple of hours....Imagine the international media showing Hindus in India celebrating and dancing on the streets...Would you worry about the innocent Hindus who have no part in the attack? ``

Are you, as an ``innocent Hindu``, therefore justifying that someone in New York can kill you despite your having nothing to do with this deed and indeed to have obviously grieved at this tragedy? Sorry to be blunt here, but it is important that we are clear on this central issue that separates good from evil: the ends justify the means, even if the ``means`` involve attacking innocent people.

``Imagine, that the Indian gov`t refuses to hand over the perpetrators to you...What would you advocate your country`s government to do??``

The same as what the US is doing: be ready to go to war. This may seem a contradiction of what I said above, but note: The US must go after the perpetrators, even if it means loss of life, sine the alternative is almost certainly worse - more such attacks. War is indeed evil, but sometimes there is no choice and this is the terrible cross-roads to which these attacks have brought the US. It is little different than the terrible decision the US had to make last Tuesday to shoot down the airliner headed for Washington in order to prevent bigger loss of life on the ground (a decision that thankfully no pilot was forced to implement due to the courage of the passengers in that plane who died anyway but almost certainly saved hundreds of lives on the ground).

The central conclusions one reaches therefore is: Killing innocent people for retribution, or for any other purpose is never justified. Never, ever. With one exception: if the option is the loss of more innocent lives in future.

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From AAmir the illiterate`s cut-n-paste post:

``The offer was highly unlikely to be used by America: India has no common international border with Afghanistan and any US troop based on Indian soil would still have to be flown through Pakistan’s air space into Afghan territory, the analysts said.``

Is it geography or is it a new found love for military dictatorships and terrorist harboring countries which drives US decisions?

Read Usman Farman`s deeply moving article. He had the first hand experience of the WTC trauma that galvanised the bonds of humanity between different creeds, races and religions. The jewish gentleman who pulled him away from the path of the wall of death was a great person, a very very tall figure.

Baghdad has suffered successive urban disasters of a much greater magnitude for the past 12 years, as a result of US bombing. Grozny was virtually flattened, with an estimated 130,000 urban deaths. Whole neighborhoods in Palestine / Lebanon have evaporated in a similar fashion. The Indian Army in Kashmir destroys villages and communities in much the same manner on a routine basis.

Very soon, you shall see a repeat performance on a much more horrific scale in Afghanistan - this time, we Pakistanis will be a party to it.

NYC WTC carnage is a crime against humanity. So are others ... . Right now Presidnet Bush is being urged to show leadership; i.e. shed more blood of innocents in a far off corner of the world - to even or better the ``baseball score``

We Pakistanis are ... ``Begani Shaadi Mein Abdulla Divana``. We wanna serve as hired guns for a petty salary - or perhaps no salary.

Where is our conscience ?????

Shah 11

Forget replicating anything else. Nobody should try replicating a fool like you.

Stuka #8 That was a very nice piece, and very well written. And the Hasidic Jewish chaps “Brother, if you don’t mind, there is a cloud of glass coming at us, grab my hand, lets get the hell out of here.” should be the rallying cry for all of us who know that we are ultimately all brothers and sisters.

Thanks for posting that piece.

Re: Stuka

Wow.

What still haunts me and makes me lose sleep every night is thinking about the victims` last moments of life. I can only imagine how much more horrible it is for people like this fellow who had a vivid and up-close experience with it.

For a lot of New Yorkers, there is almost a feeling of guilt associated with trying to move on with our lives...in trying to bring normalcy to it. In the subways, the offices, the delis, one notices this daze over a lot of people`s faces. Even something simple like going to a restaurant becomes a painful experience where you keep asking yourself, ``What`s there to be happy about? What am I celebrating? Why am I here? Is it fair that I am sitting here while someone just like me went to work Tuesday morning and never came back? Could it be me next?``

Take these emotions and multiply them several times and that is what people like this fellow are experiencing. Ouch.

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