You're making the same mistake many have made. Bin Laden's actions have nothing to do with American unilateralism. I am a little disturbed that people are going so far out of their way to criticize American unilateralism, citing examples that are relatively paltry (An unworkable Kyoto treaty that was already dead, a landmines convention that's been haggled over for years now, a conference on "racism" that had no actual power, etc). American unilateralism is criticized because it is fashionable to do so among talking heads. It is no more present that it as when Clinton or anyone else was president. Why would any of these issues matter to bin Laden (especially since this attack was evidently planned even before Bush took office)? That is the one question no one has bothered to answer. No to this point has connected America's position on missile defense (which is looking quite sensible right now) or any other "unilateral" position to international terrorism, simply because international terrorism is an independent phenomenom. Keep in my mind that we can go back over twenty years for examples of how radical Islam has attacked America. This is simply the latest volley in the struggle. While you may think it is "simplistic" to say that radical Islam hates America because it is free, then what is your alternative explanation? Do they call America the Great Satan because they don't like the IMF? To say we "created" bin Laden or Hussein is akin to saying their parents are to blame for having given birth to them. Hussein was given support against Iran, which at time was an even greater enemy of the US. Please elucidate how we could have cleaned up that mess. Or tell me how we could have predicted that, by giving bin Laden some stringer missiles to shoot down Soviet choppers, we could have foreseen what we was going to do in the future.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:44 AM EST EST