Why Do They Hate Us?

[Gary Lawrence Murphy]

>>>>> "P" == Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net> writes:

    P> Oh really? So Microsoft (for example) could not be harmed by
    P> the US government?

Moot point, now, isn't it?

Next question?

Seriously, I wasn't talking about piddling interestes like Microsoft,
but more of Exxon and Mobil.

    P> This is factually incorrect. Insofar as they own a single
    P> square foot of land in the USA, or a single dollar in an
    P> American bank, the US government could confiscate that land or
    P> that dollar.

Can they? On what grounds?  Don't you need to have some charge of
wrongdoing under US law that a crime has been committed on US soil?

But ... let's say you'd like them to do as the US Ambassador proposed
in her meeting with Saddam just days prior to the invasion of Kuwait.
What if you wanted them to "give" some almost-friendly nation a break?
Would Exxon agree?

    >> .... In the developing nations, people, largely illiterate and
    >> puppetted by those who are literate, can only read the Stars
    >> and Stripes, and they conclude (wrongly) that the USA is their
    >> enemy.

    P> That's understandable. I'm more concerned about radical
    P> environmentalists, anarchists and other anti-globalists who
    P> have no such excuse.

Not me.  All those groups are just noise-makers and (sometimes
dangerous) pranksters compared to whole generations of people who when
they "ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose" -- a college prof of
mine once put it "If a man comes to your back door and demands $10,
you are more likely to give him the money if his eyes are bloodshot"

Anyone who's going to willfully live through standing in a disco and
pushing the button on explosives wrapped in nails around his belly
scares me a lot more than some aging hippy putting spikes in a few
old-growth trees.  Both are killers, but somehow, knowing that the
disco man is one of thousands just leaves me more queesey than knowing
there's lots of tree-huggers in the woods.

What is also disturbing is, again, the cost-benefit evident in that
the disco-bomber comes wrapped in a device that cost huge amounts to
develop, import and assemble, and this happens with a regularity that
implies _someone_ has a _lot_ of money they'd rather spend on blowing
up civilians than on protecting forests or keeping nuclear subs out of
fishing villages.  I mean, just what if Greenpeace had a fraction of
Al Queda's annual budget?  Since more of our collective good hangs on
the outcome of Greenpeace efforts, why don't they have a comparable
budget?

Bush said "Al Queda is to terrorism as the Mafia is to organized crime"
and I think there's something else in that analogy: The Mafia makes
big money off their activities, it feeds their bosses _very_ well.
What's in it, financially, for the Al Queda bosses?