🚀 go-pugleaf

"Michael A. Clem" <mclem@vigoris.net> wrote in message news:<3BD4B203.830A35B0@vigoris.net>...
> Scott Gilbert wrote:
> 
> >
> > > I see.  So it's some kind of macho game of honor and respect.  We can't change our foreign policy now, no matter how flawed it is, because
> > > to do so would be to "appease" the terrorists?
> > >   BTW, Jacob Hornberger's essay had nothing in it about negotiating with the terrorists.  And, as far as I know, no demands have been made
> > > relating to the attack.  Even the reasons for the attack are not entirely clear, in spite of what some people have said.
> >
> > Do this or we will do that to you is very clearly a "negotiation".
> >
> >
> 
> Do what?  No correlation between a demand and the attack has been asserted.

That's absurd.

> Sure, we know what Bin Laden wants, but he denied being involved in
> the attack, remember?

Even he didn't expect (or want) that denial to be believed.

> He never claimed that the attack had anything to do with his demands.  Nobody > else has, either.

right.  Whatever.

> 
> > Changing policy in response to murder only encourages ever increasing
> > body counts as every little splinter group with an agenda decides to
> > manipulate policy via terrorist acts.  Changing policy in response to
> > good faith negotiation on the other hand, is a viable option.  It's
> > simple behavioural theory: you positively reinforce those actions of
> > which you approve.
> >
> > Positively reinforcing mass murder is lunacy.
> 
> Negatively reinforcing bad foreign policy sounds like a good thing to me.  You're forgetting, the attack on the WTC was a *response* to previous
> actions, not a demand.  If anything, it seems to be more of an act of vengeance than anything else.

Your attempt to separate the issue of what they want from the issue
of... err... what they want, is noted and dismissed.