True enough but we must preserve our right to live before reasoning with anything, don’t you think? By ‘Extremists who cannot be reasoned with’ I meant people who answer words with bullets. Everything else must be a gradual process of consciousness raising. I think we can already see the improvements in our society from what it was back in 1983.

Of course I don’t think Tamil people or indeed any person deserves this. Not even Vellupillai Prabhakaran “deserves” to die. Is that even a question?

Who created what, who is to blame etc. is irrelevant now. We aren’t living in the past. We are living in the present. And the question is how to solve these issues in the present, while learning lessons from the past.

Once again you talk of morality with no mention of how your high ideals are maintained in the face of bullets and bombs? No mention of who is going to maintain these ideals while simultaneously fighting a terrorist organization. Are we to expect a benevolent messiah from heaven?

Please read this discussion, I’ve clarified the point I’m trying to make.
http://www.groundviews.org/2009/05/13/fear-psychosis-state-of-our-nation-terrorism-and-sri-lanka-our-motherland/#comments

It’s about being genuine about your intentions…it’s about taking courage to do the right thing when the world is saying no to it. It’s about believing that Good intentions and good actions will be rewarded.

You think the Tamil people deserve this? To die like cats and dogs? To be placed in Camps like animals in farms in the name of doing good for them?

Do you see a difference in a Tamil and a Sinhalese? Army soldier vs LTTE soldier? Soldier shooting at a LTTE soldier with a gun to kill vs LTTE soldier shooting at an Army Soldier with a gun to kill? LTTE sending a suicide bomber to kill bunch of civilians vs Army shelling which kills civilians? Remove the classification and it will sound the same.

It’s worst for Army because they are bound to protect these civilians vs LTTE is a terrorist organization with no one to answer.

In the first place, who created the LTTE? who created the voice and story for them? Southern politics and Sinhalese mindset!

It’s very easy to be on the sidelines passing moral judgement. It’s much harder to achieve peace in practice, as we have seen from the cost we’ve had to bear. At least, the most brutal, extreme manifestation of the problem is now dead or dying. As has been demonstrated to us amply, extremists cannot be reasoned with, even in the face of their own impending demise.

More reasonable people can take over now and do their best to carry on from here onwards. You can convince and negotiate with other reasonable people, but you cannot negotiate with a bullet.

You condemn the GOSL and say there’s no difference, but you don’t mention how this problem can be resolved and how lives can be saved in the long run. We’ve seen the results that pacifism has yielded with the likes of the LTTE, who do not themselves attach any value to life. Your appeals to morality should be complemented with suggestions on how the problem can be resolved reasonably while respecting those said morals, in this case your suggestion of zero cost to lives. Only then will it have any true meaning.

That’s the way of life in the “Dharmadeepa!” where Buddhist Priests goes to street asking for war and killing humans completely invalidating their own doctrine!

The war is over. Sri Lanka is the first nation in modern history to eliminate a psychopathic murderous bunch of killers who tried everything possible to create mayhem in this beautiful country.
G.W. Bush forged CIA documents to suit his desire to attack Iraq, and killed 150000 in the process. Sri Lanka LIBERATED innocents from this psychopath’s human shield. Likt it or not, the West will have to follow Sri Lanka if they genuinely want to eliminate the scrough of world terrorism

Congratulations Sri Lanka.