On September 4th 1997, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself in a shopping centre, killing a 14 year old girl and seriously injuring her friend. This girl was the daughter of Rami Elhanan, an Israeli ex-soldier. His father survived Auschwitz; his grandparents, along with six aunts and uncles, did not. He says that he feels all the anger a man would feel over losing his daughter; he says that he will not forgive the man who did it; he says he will not forget; he says that criminals like that should be punished. But this man is differant from others in his situation. This man, Rami Elhanan, an Israeli Jew, wants to understand. He wants the truth, not revenge. He wants to know why young Palestinian men and women kill themselves and others; not Al-Quada trained terrorists, who get thousands of dollars for doing so, but twelve year old girls - victims of rape and constant racial abuse, who decide to blow themselves up in Israel. Rami Elhanan would like the man to have been imprisoned for a very long time if he had survived. He may have wanted him dead. But he knows that that man was a victim himself. A man living in poverty, with no prospects - no money, little food and no happiness. After some of the tributes of September 11th, I felt like crying - hearing about firemen who perished doing their jobs beyond their call of duty; hearing about all the orphans and widows who have been made. Unfortuently, I also felt nauseas, hearing about how we must take our revenge; how we must eliminate the scourge of the earth who kill people. Yes, find terrorists. Yes, treat them as criminals. But remember that there are men out there who have never been to Dunkin' Donuts; men who eat the amount of food from a meal at Fudruckers in a month; men who can not walk down the streets without coming to checkpoints and knowing that a sniper is aiming at them from a hundred metres away; men who cradle their children in their arms whilst listening to the bombers and helicopters ahead. There is only one way to make peace with these people - the same way Rami Elhanan wants - to understand them, and to try.. just to at least try.. to make their lives worth living for. The people who want us to defeat evil without having to dig any more graves are the true heroes of all this. I am sure the innocent firemen of Sept. 11th would not want to just be a grave among millions. Bullets and bombs are not the answer. Learn from Rami Elhanan; learn. www.johnpilger.com/palestine/suicidebombers1  (information on Rami Elhanan & Palestine)
 
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        Captain Aaron "Bear" Le'pue, Naval Instructor & VE Today Chief Editor
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     INS/CAP Aaron "Bear" Le'pue/Flight School/Training Fleet/ISD II Crusader/VEN/VE
(=A=) (=SA=) (=MA=) (=FOCE=) (=JCPA=) (=SCPA=) [BRC] [BRC] [LSM] [LoC] [NDM]
                                                        ~~~
                                      Bear : [email protected]
                             Vast Empire Today : [email protected]

Anyone - and that means ANYONE - who has reached a point where they value their own life less than the deaths of their chosen enemy is beyond understanding in my book. As for those who are poor and destitute, particularly with much education and no job prospects, what can we really do? It seems world opinion is for the West to quit meddling in the affairs of other nations.  Well, the problem is, we helped create some of the situations these nations are in - and now we are supposed to leave them alone when they obviously cannot deal with the results? I don't think so. It took many decades - centuries even - for the US and Western Europe to get used to an industrialized system.  We are all still getting used to an information and service-based economic structure.  We are asking billions of people to make these same adaptations in a much shorter timeframe. None of this, of course, means nothing to a guy in Palestine who feels oppressed and without hope.  However, there are more sides to stories like these than what the media tells us.  I doubt Rami Elhanan is alone in wondering why someone would do this to themselves.  I think most people are aghast at this situation.  But consider this: most families of suicide bombers are well compensated for their loss.  In a perverse way, this is just a couple steps beyond selling your plasma for quick cash.  Basically, this bomber, and others before him saw a way to, yes, make what they think is a political statement, but also they saw a way to improve their family's situation.  Step back for a minute.  Isn't the job of a government to provide options for their citizens to prosper?  And aren't these the same types of governments who oppress their citizens and deny them basic rights which most of us take for granted each day? I am all for understanding and this makes a great story, but knowing why a person does what they do does not improve the situation. The answer, sadly, is out of our individual hands.
 
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XO/HCOL Fury/VEA/TADATH/VE [PoC][SotE:HC][SotE:VEA][IOC]
Company Commander
Shopkeeper - Imperial Center

The sooner the US cuts down on energy use the better, we really need more people working on alternative energy
 
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SL/SGMTRaziel/4SQD/1COMP/1BAT/1RGT/Tadath/VEA/ {EW1} {WoS} {VP}
Squad Leader - Squad4 Wraiths
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989.

Re: Suicide bombers being paid Only suicide bombers in terrorists groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have ever received money for their crimes. Their aim is to spread as much fear and terror as they can through Israel, which is why Saddam Hussein has funded them. Respectable women (at least one suicide bomber was a female surgeon) have become "freelance" suicide bombers, so to speak. Women whose homes (and, in the case of the surgeon, hospitals) have been burnt down, their family missing and themselves raped, decide they have nothing left to live for, and have put together some explosives. They can not even be identified after their crimes. Roughly 25% of all suicide bombers (or thereabouts) have not been identified; no terrorist group has claimed responsibility - even the Palestinians don't know who they were. These people are the true victims - they didn't get a penny.
 
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        Captain Aaron "Bear" Le'pue, Naval Instructor & VE Today Chief Editor
                                                        ~~~
     INS/CAP Aaron "Bear" Le'pue/Flight School/Training Fleet/ISD II Crusader/VEN/VE
(=A=) (=SA=) (=MA=) (=FOCE=) (=JCPA=) (=SCPA=) [BRC] [BRC] [LSM] [LoC] [NDM]
                                                        ~~~
                                      Bear : [email protected]
                             Vast Empire Today : [email protected]