Our way of life (in US)

[donnap99]

Reading over what happened in Birmingham this morning, and the nut at O'hare over the weekend...  Our way of life has always been such that we don't have to worry about those things.  They could never happen around us.

I don't know why - maybe delayed reaction - but this morning I'm just remembering my visit to Israel 16+ years ago, and how I wondered how they could live under that constant anxiety.  

One day our tour was somewhere a bus of school children also visited, and DH and I just about had a cow when the first, then every 10th person off the bus was an adult with an automatic weapon!  Our tour guide (who moved from the US to Israel as an adult) realized then that he had not given our group the shpeil about how on school field trips it is a law that for every 10 children there must be an adult with a gun.

Could you live like that?  They've been doing it for years, and I can't say I'd want to live without laws like that if I lived there, but it's just so foreign to me...

Your thoughts?



DonnaP99

[spitfire78]

Donna, you must have read my mind!  While driving into work this morning, I was thinking along the same lines.  For years, I've heard about IRA terrorist attacks in England.  Now, I may rile some of our U.K. folk, but the following is only my opinion.  I have always felt that Ireland should be left to rule its own country and that England should stay out of it.  Therefore, whenever I heard that the IRA had set off a bomb in London or wherever, I would say "oh those poor people" (and mean it!).  Then in my smug self-righteous world I would think, well if they'd leave Ireland alone, the IRA would leave them alone.  After 9/11 my thinking has changed entirely.  While I still hold the same belief regarding the English/Irish situation, I now realize that the IRA has been going about this entirely the wrong way.  It is one thing to attack a country's military institutions.  It is something completely different to attack innocent civilians.  It's a shame it took something like this to open my eyes.  All of a sudden, I'm thinking, "Wow, what we're going through is what these people have been going through for YEARS."  I wouldn't blame these other countries for just smugly saying "now you know what it feels like."  Speaking for myself, I know that my view of the world has changed entirely.

[kittie]

I can see your point about UK and Ireland.  We were taught about how the situation started at school in A Level history and I used to think to myself "How on earth did we get to the situation we're in today?"

The thing is that blowing people up or killing people deliberately for causes like this is never justified.  A lot of countries around the world haven't really seen terrorism on a large scale like we have in the UK and it's come as a big shock that there are people out there unfeeling enough to do this.  It's just a shame it takes the death of 6000 people for the world to come to the realisation that terrorists are real and dangerous.

[suewilkins]

Yes I am riled by that comment. I am Northern Irish British born and bred as are generations of my family. I do not want to get into a discussion about the complexities of my country’s situation but what riles us is that Gerry Adams a former IRA prisoner and leader of their political wing is welcomed into the USA with open arms.

Only last week, he spoke at a US friends of Sinn Fein dinner in Manhatten and gave all the proceeds to the various charities in NYC. Normally this money goes to the IRA. How can your country allow a terrorist to speak in NYC???

We have been at war for the last 30 years my family has lost relatives and friends at the hand of bombers and gunmen.  Our Prime Minister is intent on kicking Afghan butts but refuses to sort out problems in his own backyard.

The worst thing is our Education Minister in Northern Ireland is the Chief of Staff of the IRA Martin McGuiness. My kids education are in the hands of a terrorist. Can you imagine having Osama Bin Laden as your Education Secretary? No there would be revolution.  The problem here is that both sides of the conflict say they are ‘freedom fighters’ but they are all nothing more than terrorists.

[spitfire78]

"Freedom fighters" are one thing.  If in fact you feel repressed, it is your right to fight for your freedom.  However, I do not feel it is your right to take innocent lives to do it.  I realize that in "war" there are always civilian casualties.  If they bombed military installations and civilians were accidentally involved, that is one thing. I feel it is completely different for them to set off car bombs on public streets or near public buildings where the ONLY lives lost or injuried are civilian lives.  I am very sorry for the members of your family who were killed or wounded.  Fortunately, I did not know anyone personally who was involved in the 9/11 incident, so I can only imagine how that must feel.

Again, so much has changed in my outlook since 9/11 - and I am happy to say is still changing as I listen and learn more each day.  Prior to 9/11 I would not have thought twice about the speech you just wrote about.  Looking at it now, I feel the same horror as you.