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Warning: Unpopular point of View coming...Warning: Unpopular point of View coming...

2005-07-08 - 10:47 a.m.
On September 11th, 2001, three thousand people had their lives cut short when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The heroes of Flight 93 prevented an even more serious tragedy.

On March 11th, 2004, in the middle of rush hour, 10 explosions on commuter trains in Madrid killed 191 people and injured more than a thousand.

On July 7th, 2005, again in rush hour, 4 explosions rip through the London Transport system killing at least 50 people and injuring 300 others. At the time of writing, the final numbers are not in.

These are the most visible examples of terrorism in recent years, but in truth terrorist attacks occur somewhere in the world every few weeks, on average. This has increased since the 1960s, where back then there was one every couple of years.

Some terrorist groups have a history of providing warnings before the blast, giving people time to evacuate. Others do not. All groups seek to instill fear in the populace they threaten, thus destabilizing the country and hopefully causing the applicable government to change its policies towards this country, that group of political prisoners, or some other variation on a theme.

Some groups cause political change, and afterwards are viewed as freedom fighters, or patriots. Others fail, because they are captured, killed or unable to break the resolve of a country�s government or its people.

Terrorism is not new. The Sicarii of first century Jerusalem fought covertly against the Roman occupation. The Hashhishin of the 11th century gave us the term �Assassin�. There is also the US revolutionary war and the fall of Apartheid in South Africa, in more recent times.

Most religions teach respect for life, and yet so often in recent times we hear the name of God being invoked to rationalize the terrorists� actions.

To me, this is the most appalling atrocity of all. I do not believe for one millisecond that God really gives a rat�s ass how one honors him, nor what one calls him, or by what gender he is referred to. Furthermore, I�m fairly certain that anyone who has studied the nature of God in detail (as the leaders of Al-Qaeda claim to have done) would know this.

The story goes that Abraham had two sons. Gold apparently told Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of faith. While the Bible states that Isaac, the son of Abraham's wife, Sarah, was the one to be sacrificed, most interpretations of the Qur'an, the holy scripture of Islam, say that Ishmael, son of his slave-woman, Hagar, was to be sacrificed.

The most likely explanation is that Abraham had spent too much time in the Sun and was simply delusional. But regardless of that, the current wave of terror attacks are not really about Isaac and Ishmael. They are about land, wealth and power.
Let�s say you have 10 people. 7 people have all the food. 3 of them have none. The obvious solution would be to share the food amongst all ten.

But the 7 people decide not to do that. They may even vote on it and find (not surprisingly) that there is a ruling in favor of the 7 people keeping their food. Perhaps, for humanitarian reasons, they decide to provide aid to the three people in the form of food, but only sufficient food for one person. Then they tell those three people to share, and the seven feel good about themselves.

The 3 people decide to fight the 7. But they are weak and the 7 are strong, so they can�t fight fair. They strike at the seven where they are weakest, killing the youngest, which really pisses off the remaining 6 people and they get angrier at the 3 and kill one of them in return, and withdrawing aid from the two that are left.

Things go from bad to worse from there.

This scenario is being played out on a much larger scale. And yet right now, the larger group is attempting to do what it should have done in the first place, for a group that so far has been so weak it has been unable to do anything except fight itself.

The G8 is attempting to share. Egged on by the One Campaign and two billion people around the world, debt forgiveness and aid for Africa is now a very real possibility. Yesterday�s attacks draw attention away from that, and that may well have been their purpose. But the attack should and must serve as a warning to the G8. Don�t give the people of Africa just enough aid that they stay pissed at you, but can now fight you. Give them enough Aid that they can stand on their own two feet and feel proud, and no longer want to destroy you, or each other.

As for the middle-east, Iraq, Afghanistan and al-Qaeda? I don�t know how this will end, only that it will end one day. But more blood will be spilled in the meantime. So weep for those who have died, and pray for their loved ones. Pray for those of us who are still here and have greater horrors yet to face. But also remember, Revenge and Ignorance are no substitute for Forgiveness and Understanding.

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