RE: Do Not Participate in the Ill Considered "Peace" Rally

["Shahab Mesbah" <meteor2@moscow.com>]

Dear friends,

It is critical for us to be champions of justice. It is true that the
terrorists have to be punished. I would, however be careful how you make
your statements. We (US government) have destroyed people's peace and killed
millions of civilians either directly or by misguided support of tyrants in
the past several decades. While I lost a part of my heart on Tuesday the
11th, I had already lost much more due to atrocities elsewhere in the world.
You talk about hypocrisy... it is us as a nation who have been the
hypocrites so far. We claim to fight for justice and freedom yet we have
caused more injustice and chaos than any government in the history of our
world!

As I have stated before, I feel the attacks are appropriate for the time
being. In fact they are necessary and consistent with our ideals. It remains
to be seen if this administration will repeat the past mistakes. I see a lot
of signs that we are trying to avoid taking shortcuts and thus not making
the right moves. I feel that our government needs our support because of
this and this alone. If we do not support the government the pressure to
stop the war will cause us to leave the work unfinished. I do not feel the
other arguments against the rally so far are really relevant. They do not
make logical sense and appeal to emotional and patriotic emotions. We are
not fighting terrorism to benefit ourselves only... we are benefiting
others. This has to be the focal point of our attention. The fact remains
that you cannot fight violence with violence. The English should talk...
they have not been able to deal with the Ireland problem for decades. It was
Clinton who brought the problem in control. The Israelis are another good
example. The only way to eliminate terrorism is through eliminating what
causes it... injustice. To do this we have to stop being a bunch of spoiled,
selfish brats and learn that there are limited resources on earth. If we
consume too much and hog the good as we have, majority of the world will
have to go without... as they have.

We need to pound the terrorists, Help rebuild Afghanistan, help them develop
a democratic government, and watch them flourish just as Germans did.

If there is one thing we should have learned out of this it should be that
it is far cheaper to use money to help people than not. We are now suffering
great economic damage because of the events of 11th. Had we spent 10% of
that amount to help Afghanistan after the soviets left we would not have had
this problem and millions of Afghani lives would have been saved. This of
course is another area of fault... in reality we do not value Afghani life
like we value an Americans. This is prejudice... it has infested our society
and it will destroy it if we do not destroy it.

"Your brother in arms"
Shahab...


-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Whitney [mailto:dwhitney@moscow.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 9:02 AM
To: Duncan Palmatier; Vision2020@moscow.com
Subject: Re: Do Not Participate in the Ill Considered "Peace" Rally

Good for you Duncan. If  these people were really for peace, why were'nt
they demostrating against the terrorists on Sept 12? They seem to be
hypocrites to me, along with a couple of other things.

Doug
----- Original Message -----
From: "Duncan Palmatier" <dpalm@earthlink.net>
To: <Vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 7:29 PM
Subject: Do Not Participate in the Ill Considered "Peace" Rally


> Margaret Howe wrote:
>
>
> >... we hope to
> >promote unity in the peace process as well as to further eludicate the
> >United States' impact in Global Politics and the ways in which we too
> are
> >also terrorists...
> >
>
> (Emphasis mine)
>
> Dear Vision2020 and artists and citizens of Moscow:
>
> For my part, especially at this time when we rally our support for our
> country and all the people of the world, I write in this forum to
> encourage you NOT to participate in such an ill considered display. We
> Americans are not terrorists. We are good people, and reticent, and
> restrained, and generous, and, by contrast with our enemies, we are
> tolerant, and forgiving to the point of fault.
>
> We sought no war.
>
> But, we now have enemies we must face, lest all our ideals of equality
> and justice be foresworn.
>
> Those enemies killed our friends and relatives and countrymen and
> strangers as they started an ordinary day of work.
>
> Despicable and loathsome and cruel and stupid and unjust and idiotic and
>
> lunatic and intolerable.
>
> They killed our peace; so, must they also see us put aside our peace and
>
> reticence and tranquility, and they must see us go to war against them.
>
> Do not participate in this silly rally.
>
> Instead, rally for the equality and justice and peace that we Americans
> will now defend.
>
> Duncan Palmatier
>
>
>