Let's not mention the fact that hunger strikes get you no where.  Remember the '81 hunger strikes by IRA prisoners fighting to be recognized as political prisioners and not ordinary decent criminals?  Of course not, you weren't even born, were you?  Anyway, Thatcher let Bobby Sands and 9 other die refusing to negotiate.  The lesson that was learned was that nonviolence doesn't get you any further than violence.  No concessions were going to be made by the British Government, and in the meantime 10 "volunteers" perished.  (On an aside:  Everyone should read Nor Meekly Serve My Time.  It's an incredible account from inside the H-Block during the strikes.  Whether or not you agree with the IRA, the book certainly sheds light on their perspective and motives).

Muggaz, the double standard is stronger than you're stating.  Look at the IRA again.  Where do they get their funding from? Until 9/11 it was predominantly coming from the US.  It's sad that we Americans had little problem throwing some money into a tip jar in a 'RA bar in NYC knowing full well that the money was not being added to the Republican Library Fund.  So why, after supporting armed struggle elsewhere did we expect the world to mourn with us on 9/11.  I was actually in Belfast on 9/11 and I can't tell you the number of times that I was greeted with, "yes, it's a very sad day, but now you know how we feel, what we've been going through."  It was a startling wake up call.

It all just leads me back to the question: "who decides who is a terrorist?"  I haven't got the answer, though I've attempted to answer it twice in blogs.  The first met with bitter critism accusing me of "giving terrorists ideas."  The other has been virtually ignored.   

Muggaz: I think your weed habit has damaged too many brain cells so I'm going to be brief here and then not respond again since there's really no point trying to discuss this with you since you seem incapable of reading words people write and understanding them.

1) I didn't imply that you were happy that people died on 9/11.

2) I never implied that people don't have a reason or a right to have hostile feelings towards the United States.

My position is pretty simple: Being mad or politically opposed doesn't give you the right to murder someone.  I don't agree with your political positions but not only do I choose not to have you killed, I tolerate them by giving you a vehicle to express them to thousands of other people.

The blame for people who murder other people lies with the ones doing the murdering.

I wrote that in Northern Ireland I was told:

Gerry Attrick wrote that a Peruvian friend told him:

If this is such a common response, why aren't we (America) understanding it? 

Muggaz and Brad:  The blame game is not going to get anyone anywhere.  Terrorism is currently a fact of life on this globe.  The question is, how do we deal with it?  In order to deal with it, we need to understand it.  We can't fight this nontraditional enemy with traditional warfare; it just won't work.  If we are going to use violence and warfare (ie. Brad's preferred method) we are going to have to be as cunning as the terrorist that we are fighting.  However, there is a strong possibility that this will cause an intractable arrangement.  Will violent responses simply breed more terrorists who conduct more violent attacks?  It's very likely.  If we aren't going to use violence (ie. Muggaz's choosen path), what are we going to do?  We can't simply sit back and do nothing, and we are definitely not going to concede the Western way of life to appease terrorists.  But, there has to be a middle ground. 

I do?

alright Mug... since we're all playing the hypothetical game, and drawing up these scenarios, let me ask you this:  what would you have the U.S. do in response to 9/11?  Since you're not in favor of us removing Saddam from power, or hunting down Bin Laden, what is it that you would have us do instead? 

You've made numerous references to our 'foreign policy', and how poor it is.  What would you suggest?  How should we handle things so that the world will view us more favourably?  What would you have us do so that the folks in the Middle East will miraculously stop hating us & everything that we stand for? 

Don't bother bringing the prison abuse scandal into this, we all know that was a fucked up situation...

BAM! You're a member of Congress for a day, what do you propose?! 

you too... we'll talk about this next week...