Clean out the hornet nest
Saturday, September 15, 2001 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
On the side of my house there was a huge wasp nest this summer. They had literally dug a cave into the ground at the base of the house. It was quite impressive really.My wife complained that I needed to do somethign about it. Every time we were on the deck, the wasps would be buzzing around us. Occasionally they'd get into our face and we'd wack one of them. A pinprick strike on them.
Last month, my 4 year old was getting the mail and when he opened the mailbox a wasp flew out and stung him on the arm. That was it. I knew at that point I had to do something about the problem.
The wasp nest by then was huge. I wish I had a picture of it to post. It was underground mostly and surrounded by bushes. But wish a shovel, anti-freeze, and a hose I went in there and eradicated them. I got stung in the process but I took care of the problem pretty thoroughly.
There are still wasps, but not nearly as many and not nearly as close to the house as they were. I obviously can't wipe out all wasps everywhere, but I was able to take care of the problem in a pretty decisive way. Now it's just a matter of keeping an eye out for new nests and making sure they don't get started. I was lucky, my son isn't allergic to wasp stings. My wife is though. The wasps didn't really bug me until I realized that they could really harm my family. If it had been my wife who had gotten stung it would have meant a trip to the hospital at the very least.
Terrorists are a lot like wasps. For the past 30 years we've been watching their nests but not really done much about them other than pinprick strikes. Now they've really stung us and we have to act. Because next time they may strike with much worse than a few airplanes.
We must find where they are and root them out. We must take preventative measures to change the enivironment that allows them to grow. We'll get stung some in the process but we must do our best to eradicate the problem on a sustained, long term, large scale.
Those of you who have given this subject some thought, what do you think the world community should do to solve this current problem?
Reply #2 Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:06 PM
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/14/afghanistan/index.html
Reply #3 Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:11 PM
Reply #4 Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:42 PM
The truth is, that we know very little about the facts.
There is a prime suspect, but there is not yet proof. I'm not saying that Bin Laden is innocent, even IF he was not responsible for this attack, there MAY be justification for a concerted effort to remove him from the planet. Reaction without clarifying which of these motives is the one being acted upon is dangerous.
We are not military expects. We do not know the best way to deal with this sitution. The primary focus during the Gulf was on the ground presence, but the majority of damage was done by special forces from nations such as the US and UK.
We should leave these decisions to those who know best as the world will be changed by the actions taken. It is dangerous to build up a demand for a certain route of action, which the US feels compelled to act upon when it may not be the right one.
I doubt we know the half of what is going on. I would suspect that Special Forces troops will either already in Afghanistan, or on the borders, just waiting for an order.
Reply #5 Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:50 PM
Reply #6 Saturday, September 15, 2001 5:30 PM
Islam does condemns these actions and such. There is no justification for what has been done.
In addition, I propose a more permanent solution. Obviously, taking out the person directly responsible for this will do little for the future. What's to stop a hundred more of the same to come up? We need to go to the root of the problem - the reason for their use of terrorism - to stay away from it.
Let's also remember that the US TRAINED Bin Laden - IF it is indeed him, he's just coming home to nest!
Reply #7 Saturday, September 15, 2001 6:38 PM
Reply #9 Sunday, September 16, 2001 12:56 AM
I do hope that the afghan people suffer as minimal as possible (not at all would be ideal) and that the "allies" take their time and do it right.
United We Stand
Reply #10 Monday, September 17, 2001 9:44 AM
On the issue of Usama Bin Laden, I can only agree with Jürgen Storbeck, head of Interpol. One shouldn't fool oneself, believing that this man is the leader of world terrorism, just because he has been portraited as the face of moslem terrorism in media. Contemporary terrorism is much more complicated than that.
Reply #11 Monday, September 17, 2001 12:18 PM
Reply #12 Monday, September 17, 2001 4:34 PM
On this point I stress that Osama bin Laden deserves to be put to death for his crimes of the past, regardless of who's responsible for NY and DC.
I think diplomacy is important here, not for the terrorists, but for the rest of the world. The US has bombed many a country in the past 30 years. Of course, they were all justified by our government in some way. I am not posting here to either criticize any of the past campaigns nor promote them. I'm merely stating that we've made decisions that have turned other countries against us. We need to rectify that. I think right now Bush and Colin Powell are doing a great job with this.
Reply #13 Monday, September 17, 2001 4:37 PM
I'm sorry, I was trying to get a fairly large post up. Apparently this isn't the place...and that's fine.

Reply #14 Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:01 PM
Air power will do very little in a country that has no infrastructure to destroy and where the Soviets bled themselves dry in recent history.
The effective tactics in Afghanistan of any value are the old ones, as ever, the PBI.
As a Vietnamn Veteran and (Recently) retired Regular Army type I wouldn't like the prospect......to have the President making ''Wanted Dead or Alive'' sound grabs is not very clever.
''Who Dares Wins''
Reply #16 Wednesday, September 19, 2001 2:25 PM

Reply #17 Sunday, September 23, 2001 2:04 AM
The question that should be asked is what those countries that we "bombed" did to warrant the bombing.
Let's look at the list starting from 1970:
Vietnam (1973)
Beirut (1984) - US was part of a peace keeping force.
Greneda (1985) - we didn't actually bomb anything here but US military was used to restore dmeocracy after a cuban led insurgency took over the little island.
Lybia (1986) - In response to a terrorist attack on US soliders.
Panama (1989) - In response to drug charges on Noriega, retaliation for attack on individual solders. Technically, we didn't bomb anything here.
Iraq (1991) - Iraq invaded Kuwaitt, US liberated Kuwait.
Sudan/Afganastan (mid 90s) - retaliation for bombing of US embassies.
Kosovo (1998) - NATO action due to ethnic cleansing by Serb forces.
The appologists for these terrorists really bug me. In every one of these cases, they were in direct response to a hostile action done to someone else.
The solution isn't to do things that make these people less angry, the solution is to eliminate these sick people that can justify murdering thousands of innocent people.
Reply #18 Sunday, September 23, 2001 2:05 AM
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Reply #1 Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:04 PM