Can we kick some real terrorist ass please?

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Odin
Emotions make you act irrationally, elijah is right. Knee-jerk reations make the torrorists more recruits.

I am not talking about letting your emotions make you act irrationally. But 3,000 dead is a big deal. You can't dismiss it as "tactically insignificant".

Then again, all conservatives are irrational and illogica (i'm starting to sound like Spock ).

That is not simply not true. That is ridiculous.

Liberals are the ones that always act purely on emotion. For example, Daschle often talks about how seniors have to eat dog food cause they can't afford both food and their drugs. Now that's an emotion based argument. And the environmentalists who oppose any kind of drilling whatsover because it might disturb a few Caroubou. That's irrational.

[GePap]

Individuas act out emotionally, regardless of their standing on the political spectrum.

I agree with Elijah in that 9/11 was a criminal act, not an act of war. 9/11 has little to do with the iraq war: 9/11 was an excuse for it, but it was a policy waiting for a time since 1998 at least.

That being said:

I agree with The Diplomat in one thing: the final aims of the Islamist are too different from those of the US, uropeans or Israelis for a diplomatic solution to be brought about. They are seeking to create a political world that is utterly different from that of most western states. Even Christian religious zealots have given up on the dream of theocratic rule, if only becuase they have been raised too deeply in the cuture of the West were that is no longer seen as the viable option. Islamic, hindu and jewish fundamentalists are a bit more zealous in their idea of the possibility of some level of theocracy, decending in that order.

But the fact is that a military solution is impossible. LoTM pointed to Egytp as a place were violence worked to end terrorism. I agree, and I sure as hell don;t want to live in Egypt, or think that more places like Egypt should exist. If we trully believe western values should triumph, then a military vicotry is impossibe. Now, you may say, who cares about ideas, lets just be safe: well, even then we will fail. As I said, look at Egyp. The gov. there curshed terrorist, but do they dare for a second dismantle the authoritarian apparatus? How is that living in security?

Islamists, like all politically motivated zealots, are the minority. The question is, how to keep them in the minority, how to take away the political support of individuals? In essence, modernity failed to take hold, or failed in imeplementation in most of the Islamic world. For one, the job was rushed: what took 250 years in the west was supposed to happen in 50 in those places. How? We had enough turmoil dealing with the transfer to modernity in the west with 250 years, and the Islamic world is to do it in 100-50 years? These places are not like in the East, with a single strong national state able and willing to force it down throats till it sticks on people. In this reard the Islamic world is like Africa. Certainly indegenous rulesr share the largest share of the blame, but sadly the west is not innocent either. The thing is, the west has to try to do what it can to push modernity forward in a way people are willing to accept it.

Sometimes force has its uses. For example, it is undeniable that Israel's operations in the west bank greatly hampered the ability of Palestinains gorups to carry out attacks. Sadly though as well all know, this did not bring about a political improvement (and no, kicking Arafat out wouldn;t have either), and since the problem is political, well.... The IDF can make it so it is much much harder for any Palestinains to kill and Israeli citizen. The IDF can never make the Palestinains accept their situation or give up on the idea of a non-political solution to their problem. In Iraq the Us can, with more effort and help end the insurgency. BUt the big question is how the political change of reaq is handled.

Violence can achieve certain goals, even huge goals. So what we are left to argue is not that vioelcne does not work: but if the jobs you can do violently are worth it, or if those jobs actualy help you reach a conclusion to your problem.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by The diplomat


Liberals are the ones that always act purely on emotion. For example, Daschle often talks about how seniors have to eat dog food cause they can't afford both food and their drugs. Now that's an emotion based argument. And the environmentalists who oppose any kind of drilling whatsover because it might disturb a few Caroubou. That's irrational.

Utter rubbish. As opposed to the Religious Right who never make appeals based on emotion, I suppose?

What you miss in your willingness to skewer 'liberals' (used in the American sense, I suspect) as weepy eyed irrationalists,is that all political grouping will use appeals based on emotions to sway their constituents- it's an integral part of populist movements. Appeals based not on logic, but nebulous references to blood, soil, race, homeland, the motherland, patriotism, etc. The creation of spurious traditions, fake history, the use of fake science to back up illogical racist creeds.

Not what I'd call a liberal monopoly on those options- unless you think Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Marshal Petain were all liberals.

Logic rarely enters into politics, unfortunately. It might interfere with being reelected.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Utter rubbish. As opposed to the Religious Right who never make appeals based on emotion, I suppose?

Both sides do their fair share of using emotion and irational fears to advance their agenda.

The creation of spurious traditions, fake history, the use of fake science to back up illogical racist creeds.

What exactly are you talking about, especially the bit about "illogical racist creeds"? Today's conservatives are not racist.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by The diplomat

Both sides do their fair share of using emotion and irational fears to advance their agenda.

What exactly are you talking about, especially the bit about "illogical racist creeds"? Today's conservatives are not racist.

You'll notice the examples I gave referred to a wider spectrum than a simplistic 'illogical Liberal-v-rational Conservative' spectrum. The idea that conservatives have an exclusively rational approach to politics is very funny indeed.

It's also very amusing you choose to use 'liberal' to encompass everything from some person's concern over older citizens eating pet food to hard core environmentalists- some of whom would not take kindly to being called liberals. As for today's conservatives not being racist- could you tell Jorg Haider?

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by molly bloom
As for today's conservatives not being racist- could you tell Jorg Haider?

Haider is a Nazi. There is a difference between a fascist and a conservative. Conservatives do not equal fascist.

Newt Gingrich, Krauthammer, Buckley, Limbaugh, Tom Delay, they are all conservatives, and they are far from racist.

[Dom Pedro II]

Can't we just accept the fact that we live a world where there is a certain amount of risk? I mean, honestly, by comparison to 500 years ago, the majority of the planet is a lot safer than it was...

We have to be vigilant against terrorism, and I believe that terrorists should be brought to justice (or killed if they cannot be apprehended without great cost of life on either side). But that doesn't mean I'll go and back every hair-brained crusade garbed in the red, white, and blue and painted to be a War against Terror.

The fact of the matter is that we helped create the terrorists....

If we can attach one year as the watershed year in the Middle East, it was 1979. That was the year the Ayatollah came to power in Iran and it was also the year that troubles began between the Communist and anti-Communist forces in Afghanistan that prompted the Soviet invasion.

From these events, we made two important allies... 1) the mujahedeen (grand pappy of the Taliban) and Osama bin Laden (middle man between the Afghans and the Saudi/Arab investors), and 2) Saddam Hussein. We financed both groups heavily in order to try to take down the Ayatollah and the Soviet enterprise. We succeeded in at least one circumstance.

There is also clear direct evidence that the CIA had a helping had in creating and exploiting such terrorist groups as Hamas during the crisis in Lebanon. Also, we bribed a low level religious leader to declare the holy war against the Soviets that is the same jihad we are fighting to this day.

After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the USA withdrew support to the mujahedeen. Actually, they went one step further... they actually advised the mujahedeen to cooperate with the Socialist government that had still be left in power. It was this act that prompted Osama bin Laden to say that we had no morals, that we would do whatever we had to, sell out whoever we had to, to further our own goals. And he was right in that respect... but let me say though that this is not meant (my opinion, not his) to damn all Americans. Rather it is a fact that America, like every other nations and empire that has ever existed, has men who are only interested in their own personal gain... and it is these men who were practicing the sort of cut throat measures in the Middle East during this time. They are not the majority of the people in the government, but unfortunately, sometimes they make the differences.

The Afghan Arabs took to the wind... in 1990, with the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, the ideaological enemy of Osama bin Laden, bin Laden offered to send 30,000 Afghans into Kuwait to expel Saddam's forces. The fact is that Hussein's regime was a SECULAR one. bin Laden favored an Islamist state and thus their views were entirely incompatible. Knowing full well that the USA had been financing Hussein, it must have been strange to bin Laden (as well as many others round the world) when we suddenly jumped up and said we'd go after Saddam for this...

But the fact is that we were training for war in Iraq months before Saddam invaded. Furthermore, when his agents went out feeling around for whether or not such a move would be exceptable, the Americans essentially said they didn't care. And yet, we were shocked and appalled after the fact....

Frankly, I don't know why we suddenly made an about-face in policy, but it would not be the first time. America has what I like to call International ADD. We suddenly throw ourselves into totally different policies seemingly for no reason... maybe it has to do with the exchange of power, but it has been more than just that though since many leaders have done it in mid-office.

I was, and still am, very skeptical of Bush's intentions with Iraq. Firstly, he has surrounded himself with people who for years ignored Saddam's brutality. His father OKed the financing of another BILLION dollars to Saddam just a few months after he gassed the Kurds, and ol' Donnie Rumsfeld was sipping drinks in Baghdad back in 1983 as a middle man between American weapons dealers and Saddam.... not to mention the fact that eventhough Saddam's regime was crumbling at the crest of Operation Desert Storm, Bush called his forces back... He went in and said to Collin Powell, we have to end this war NOW! Why? Well, in part, it had to do with the billions of dollars owed to the Soviets by Saddam. If Saddam were ousted from power, the debts may not be repayed. So we stopped our advance, allowed Saddam to regroup and crush the democratic opposition that was sweeping the country. Ironically enough, however, the Soviets themselves would be removed from the game that very same year.

Secondly, I would have backed overthrowing Saddam if it had been a group effort and if it had been done properly. The fact is that the Bush administration played the Hope and Grope method with this... they started a little bit in the summer of '02 with the WMD stuff (even threw in Cuba for good measure) and remember? Collin Powell didn't think it was prudent, blah blah. And invasion was this sort of last resort, and all of the Bush supporters insisted that he was not looking for war...

And then 1441 came around... and the UN agreed upon this if for no other reason that to try to make sure the USA didn't take off on some unilateral crusade. And Bush was satisfied because he figured that Saddam would tell the US to fvck off and there's your reason for invasion. But instead, he didn't. He agreed. Foiled! Ah, but all it really did was buy Saddam some time. That he had WMD, I would not be surprised. Not definitely, but I wouldn't be shocked either. Well, he was in between a rock and a hard place now... if he cooperated fully, something might be discovered: war. If he didn't cooperate: war. If he cooperated somewhat, he may have had a chance because maybe he could let it go on long enough that the UN wouldn't back Bush and the press coverage would die down and it would sort of be swept under the table as it had so many times before....

And France told us to go to hell, which is exactly what we would've done to them if the situations were reversed.... I don't think we'd so readily go supporting their imperialist adventures, and actually, we didn't! We scolded France, Britain, and Israel for moving on the Suez in 1956. And yet for some reason we see them as these great betrayers, and us the injured and insulted party... well, that's the spin. It's to be expected.

So the UN didn't do what we wanted it to, and suddenly the UN is damn useless in the eyes of Americans, because, after all, if its not there to be our tool for manipulation, then what is it there for? If the UN is useless it is only because America has continually clipped its wings and usurped its power, but with 200 years of intranational policy behind us, what can one really expect?

So by this time, the one foot-in-the-door to war was used up, so it was time to go with plan B: Go in blazing and force everybody else to go behind or else look like fools. And that's what we did... we railroaded the world into accepting the war after months of Bush's manipulation to try to bring it to fruition in the first place in spite of all his denials of WANTING war. And suddenly WMDs are no longer the issue and its about Saddam's grip on the people and his evil regime... and then we HAD to go to war. We HAD to invade. And suddenly all the Bush supporters are lauding the decision to go to war as if it had been imminent when only a few months before they were insisting that Bush wanted to avoid war...

For that reason, I am skeptical of Bush. And for that reason, I refer to his administration as an administration of thugs...

Back to history now...

For his criticism of the US-led war in 1991, bin Laden was returned with expulsion from his homeland of Saudi Arabia. He then went to Sudan, and he had a great deal to do with the slaughter of US special forces in Mogadishu, or at least, that is what the most recent intelligence reports have indicated. It was while in Sudan that he solidified relations with Ramzi Yousef, a man who admittedly cared little about the Cause but really just seemed to like killing and especially since he was good at it. Yousef would later go on to be an integral part of the first attack on the World Trade Center. The plan failed, however. His hopes were to destroy the edifice, and in this, he did not succeed obviously.

The reason Yousef was so interested in destroying the WTC was because he was interested in starting a Holy War... he did not expect it to start from the Muslim side, but rather that the knee-jerk reaction of the Americans would be war. Terrorists, as evil as they may be, are not stupid. Particularly Al-Queda and its allies. They knew what they were getting into, and they knew from Pearl Harbor that such an attack on American soil would galvanize public support against the Arabs and that their attack would in turn cause the Muslims to take up arms, overthrow their secular leaders where they existed, and lead to a full-scale Holy War. This has, so far at least, failed as well even after 9/11.

So really, our involvement in the Middle East was what prompted much of this... argue all you want about whether or not our actions were justified, that is not the point of contention here, the point is that we played a very important role in making the current thorn in our side.

And what's more, we (and by we I mean the Western world as a whole) have helped create during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s a certain feeling of acceptance of terrorism. We cultivated when it suited our purposes and we also ignored it as well. Take the Jackal... never has there been such a bungling terrorist... yet he was allowed to continue his idiotic, romantic schemes for YEARS. And the Western nations did NOTHING. It surely wasn't hard to find him! He never went into hiding...

Trade with the Middle East does not mean interference in the Middle East. If we bought our oil from them and simply left our interaction with them at that, it would probably go a long way... although by this point, it is probably too late for even that... we cannot pull ourselves out of this quagmire, and we can certainly not do it with military force. If that were the case, we would have to move from one successive Muslim country to another. We'd have to occupy the whole damn world from the Atlas Mountains in the west to Papua New Guinea in the east! And I'm sure that there are plenty of jingoists here who would leap at the chance to carve out such an empire for America... but if it is done so, it will be made with blood, and not just theirs either... don't be so ready to throw others into the meatgrinder unless you yourself are willing to go first.

If anything, the War in Iraq has created specters that we will not see emerge for another ten years possibly... the doom-sayers of the 1980s promising resentment from the Soviet-Afghan War were right but it took YEARS to show that... not months. If Saddam really did have WMDs they've flown the coop. You can be sure that while Syria was sending weapons INTO Iraq, Iraq was sending weapons out! And those are now gone, finished, you'll never see them again... that is until they're used against innocent civilians in New York, or Washington, or Baltimore, or hell even London... Don't think you Brits are safe. I'm sure you've earned a special, warm fuzzy place in the hearts of extremists everywhere for your support in the war.

And we can war all we want but the fact is that the terrorists are already where they need to be... the former members of the mujahedeen, the Afghan Arabs as they're called, have turned up in Somalia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Philippines... these names sound familiar? They've been following our progress very closely.

Terrorism cannot be destroyed completely... ever. Not unless the human species is taking a turn for the better on a genetic level... Maybe it won't be this generation... maybe it will be in a few years when, because they've outlived their usefulness, the tribal chieftains in Iraq we're bribing today stop receiving their payments... Then they, like the mujahedeen, will turn on us.... in the end its all about the money. Or camels, or donkeys, or sacks of flour, or whatever the payment may be. Remember, our enemies today were our allies ten years ago.

And even if its not a matter of vengeance, it becomes a matter of survival. In Brazil, the CIA was paying off many of our high-level military officials for years until after the revolution... then they had no use for them anymore since a permanent capitalist dictator was no firmly in place. Once the checks stopped, men who were used to lavish lifestyles on American taxpayer's money, had no way to support their debts or their girlfriends... so they resorted to kidnapping. Even the President of the Bank of Brazil had his son kidnapped and tortured, and he was barely returned alive. My father had to get one of his friends out of such a predicament, and the man was all but dead. He came home only to die in a warm bed... You can be sure, when we stop paying these men to do our dirty work, they'll find ways to make more money, and if it means resorting to terrorism-for-hire against us, they'll do it... Violence begats violence.

In short, the best we can do is catch the ones we know about, find out about the ones we don't, tighten security at home, and except the fact that, sometimes, the fit hits the shan.



P.S. elijah... You're British. I wouldn't be talking about the Arab's impressions of OUR imperialism.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by The diplomat


Haider is a Nazi.

He would be a centrist in the US political system. Whether that contradicts your claim, I leave to you.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

So spare me the indignation for the moment you honestly care about all human beings equally (whether that value is tota or low is immaterial), for I have no time for those that choose who is worth tears ad who isn't.

Everyone who is less sensitive than a saint and more sensitive than a sociopath chooses who is worth their tears and who isn't. If you don't have any time for them, you don't have any time to be posting on Apolyton.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by elijah

What I mean is that terrorists are an extreme end of society that hates the West. We remove that reason for them hating us, and then leave them be as much as possible for a while, and they will stop hating us. Part of that will be because they realise they are dependent on us economically, thus hatred would move to popular support for a love fest. More extreme elements would still remain, but they would be far reduced, and easily taken out by the military or intelligence, and not be replaced (providing one judges it correctly).

White supremicists hate people who believe in racial equality. Should people who believe in racial equality quit doing so in order to prevent terrorism by white supremacists? OBL and his ilk hate the west for a lot of reasons, but no more so than because of who we are. Should we stop being who we are in order to placate them? This is a bizarre notion, a case of pacifism in such an extreme that it is destined to leave only its opposite as a viable system should it prevail in the west.

[Sandman]

How about we kick AIDS and poverty's ass? They are far, FAR more serious problems.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II

The fact of the matter is that we helped create the terrorists....

If you mean in the same sense that a butterfly flapping its wings creates a cyclone on the other side of the world, then I suppose you are right.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
If we can attach one year as the watershed year in the Middle East, it was 1979. That was the year the Ayatollah came to power in Iran and it was also the year that troubles began between the Communist and anti-Communist forces in Afghanistan that prompted the Soviet invasion.

From these events, we made two important allies... 1) the mujahedeen (grand pappy of the Taliban) and Osama bin Laden (middle man between the Afghans and the Saudi/Arab investors), and 2) Saddam Hussein. We financed both groups heavily in order to try to take down the Ayatollah and the Soviet enterprise. We succeeded in at least one circumstance.

The Mujahedeen weren't a "group", they were an amorphous group of groups. Some of them we supported, others we did not. Whatever they were, they were not the grandpappies of the Taliban. The Taliban were religious students of mostly Afghan origin who grew up during the war along the Afghan border in Pakistan. They were often orphans who were raised in religious schools (and hence their name) which were mostly Wahabbist and funded by the Saudis. They were organized by Pakistani intelligence into a well-supplied fighting force and were introduced in Afghanistan long after the Soviets had left and the remaining factions had bled one another white.

The war against the Soviets in Afghanistan was very much a group effort. The U.S. had a hand in starting it (starting a war in Afghanistan is as easy as catching a cold in Antartica) and were joined by Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia to one degree or another. We supplied a very few weapons, very few advisors, intelligence and diplomatic coordination for the various efforts. Pakistan provided a base of operations, intelligence, advisors. China supplied a lot of weapons, while the Saudis supplied a lot of money and over time recruited foreign Jihadists to fight in the conflict as local fighters were bled white.

OBL was a very minor figure in the conflict for the most part. The CIA officer who ran the war for many years (and who was interviewed extensively on Frontline a couple of years ago stated that we never worked with OBL, and that he only heard of him in the last two years of the war. OBL went to fight as a foreign volunteer. He saw very little action, but decided while he was there that the foreign volunteers needed to be much better organized. He returned and developed an organization to train and infiltrate the foreign Jihadis into Afghanistan. This organization was called The Base, or Al Qaida in Arabic. While OBL was of fairly minor importance in the war proper (as were the foreign Jihadis in general), he became very well known to the Arab Jihadis who served there and became the foundation of his political movement after the war in Afghanistan came to a close.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
There is also clear direct evidence that the CIA had a helping had in creating and exploiting such terrorist groups as Hamas during the crisis in Lebanon. Also, we bribed a low level religious leader to declare the holy war against the Soviets that is the same jihad we are fighting to this day.

Show us the source of this clear direct evidence.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the USA withdrew support to the mujahedeen. Actually, they went one step further... they actually advised the mujahedeen to cooperate with the Socialist government that had still be left in power. It was this act that prompted Osama bin Laden to say that we had no morals, that we would do whatever we had to, sell out whoever we had to, to further our own goals. And he was right in that respect... but let me say though that this is not meant (my opinion, not his) to damn all Americans. Rather it is a fact that America, like every other nations and empire that has ever existed, has men who are only interested in their own personal gain... and it is these men who were practicing the sort of cut throat measures in the Middle East during this time. They are not the majority of the people in the government, but unfortunately, sometimes they make the differences.

Perhaps it was our hope that the Soviet menace having been defeated (our aim) that a cooperative effort amongst the various parties in Afghanistan would bring peace to Afghanistan, which was sorely needed.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
The Afghan Arabs took to the wind... in 1990, with the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, the ideaological enemy of Osama bin Laden, bin Laden offered to send 30,000 Afghans into Kuwait to expel Saddam's forces. The fact is that Hussein's regime was a SECULAR one. bin Laden favored an Islamist state and thus their views were entirely incompatible. Knowing full well that the USA had been financing Hussein, it must have been strange to bin Laden (as well as many others round the world) when we suddenly jumped up and said we'd go after Saddam for this...

Aside from the fact that we would have been fools to allow OBL to take over Kuwait, his "30,000" Jihadists would have been defeated even more convincingly than the Iraqis were in 1991 in Kuwait.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
But the fact is that we were training for war in Iraq months before Saddam invaded. Furthermore, when his agents went out feeling around for whether or not such a move would be exceptable, the Americans essentially said they didn't care. And yet, we were shocked and appalled after the fact....

As long as it's a "fact", I'm sure you wouldn't mind providing a credible source for it. As for his agent feeling around, I believe what you are referring to is a meeting between April Gillaspie (the American Charge d'Affairs in Iraq) and one of Hussein's cabinet officials as well as Hussein himself. I've seen the video tape of the meeting. What Gillaspie stated that we had no opinion on was the dispute between Kuwait and Iraq over charges of slant drilling in the oil field that sits on the border between the two states. She at no time indicated that the U.S. was fine with Saddam invading and annexing Kuwait. This was Saddam's wishful thinking.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Frankly, I don't know why we suddenly made an about-face in policy, but it would not be the first time. America has what I like to call International ADD. We suddenly throw ourselves into totally different policies seemingly for no reason... maybe it has to do with the exchange of power, but it has been more than just that though since many leaders have done it in mid-office.

It's so hard to create a conspiracy to take the place of a logical policy which is for the most part truthfully arrived at and reported. So stop trying. The Iran-Iraq war was over and Hussein was expendable. He showed himself to be a danger to U.S. intentions in the region that could no longer be ignored. He invaded a state that the U.S. had protected during the Iran-Iraq war from Iranian air and sea attacks, and managed to net himself a huge chunk of the world's proven oil reserves. By doing so he ran afoul of the Carter Doctrine not to mention a host of other treaties and conventions.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
I was, and still am, very skeptical of Bush's intentions with Iraq. Firstly, he has surrounded himself with people who for years ignored Saddam's brutality. His father OKed the financing of another BILLION dollars to Saddam just a few months after he gassed the Kurds, and ol' Donnie Rumsfeld was sipping drinks in Baghdad back in 1983 as a middle man between American weapons dealers and Saddam.... not to mention the fact that eventhough Saddam's regime was crumbling at the crest of Operation Desert Storm, Bush called his forces back... He went in and said to Collin Powell, we have to end this war NOW! Why? Well, in part, it had to do with the billions of dollars owed to the Soviets by Saddam. If Saddam were ousted from power, the debts may not be repayed. So we stopped our advance, allowed Saddam to regroup and crush the democratic opposition that was sweeping the country. Ironically enough, however, the Soviets themselves would be removed from the game that very same year.

Refusing to go to Baghdad was a stupid mistake, but one honestly arrived at. We made a deal from the beginning with the Saudis and the U.N. to eject the Iraqis from Kuwait, the end. Bush began to waiver on that point, hoping that Saddam would be overthrown by his own people and gave the Shiites false hopes regarding our intentions. There was a genuine difference of opinion in the White House as to what to do. Air strikes were being flown nightly to try and kill Saddam, while allied forces were wiping out the Iraqi army in detail. Finally there was no more time for a dithering, and it was decided to leave a weakened Saddam in power as a counterweight to Iran, seeing as how efforts to kill him had failed completely. This left the Shiites high and dry, which is complicating our current Iraq adventure mightily.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II

Back to history now...

For his criticism of the US-led war in 1991, bin Laden was returned with expulsion from his homeland of Saudi Arabia. He then went to Sudan, and he had a great deal to do with the slaughter of US special forces in Mogadishu, or at least, that is what the most recent intelligence reports have indicated. It was while in Sudan that he solidified relations with Ramzi Yousef, a man who admittedly cared little about the Cause but really just seemed to like killing and especially since he was good at it. Yousef would later go on to be an integral part of the first attack on the World Trade Center. The plan failed, however. His hopes were to destroy the edifice, and in this, he did not succeed obviously.

The reason Yousef was so interested in destroying the WTC was because he was interested in starting a Holy War... he did not expect it to start from the Muslim side, but rather that the knee-jerk reaction of the Americans would be war. Terrorists, as evil as they may be, are not stupid. Particularly Al-Queda and its allies. They knew what they were getting into, and they knew from Pearl Harbor that such an attack on American soil would galvanize public support against the Arabs and that their attack would in turn cause the Muslims to take up arms, overthrow their secular leaders where they existed, and lead to a full-scale Holy War. This has, so far at least, failed as well even after 9/11.

So really, our involvement in the Middle East was what prompted much of this... argue all you want about whether or not our actions were justified, that is not the point of contention here, the point is that we played a very important role in making the current thorn in our side.

This doesn't make a lot of sense honestly.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
And what's more, we (and by we I mean the Western world as a whole) have helped create during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s a certain feeling of acceptance of terrorism. We cultivated when it suited our purposes and we also ignored it as well. Take the Jackal... never has there been such a bungling terrorist... yet he was allowed to continue his idiotic, romantic schemes for YEARS. And the Western nations did NOTHING. It surely wasn't hard to find him! He never went into hiding...

Didn't the French nail him? Anyway, I agree that we played a little on both sides of the law in regards to terrorism. Italy, Greece and France all bribed terrorists to some degree by giving them safe haven. The U.S. set up a car bombing or two in Lebanon. But our excursions on the wrong side of the law were (in comparison to the Soviets, Iranians, Palestinians) few, small and almost uniformly counterproductive, which is why they dwindled to nothing in the 1990s.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Okay, I'm coming very late to this, so maybe this has been said. Still:

Agreed, let's go after the terrorists. But don't yell at "leftists" (especially since actual leftists -- as opposed to Limbaugh/Coulter/FoxNews fantasy leftists -- have next-to-no power in the US). Tell it to the Bush administration. They bombed the crap out of Afganistan and turned their backs on the place, so that the Taliban has been free to regroup and is again gaining in power. They conducted a war against Saddam on the flimsiest of pretexts, a war that has had the net effect of creating terrorists rather than destroying them. They have refused to bring Israel to heel in the West Bank, even though Israel is our client state. They have turned a blind eye to Saudi funding of terrorism, going so far as to censor the 9/11 report that paints our oil-rich pimp-daddies in a bad light.

Let's get serious? By all means. Regime change begins at home.

[Whaleboy]

But 3,000 dead is a big deal. You can't dismiss it as "tactically insignificant"

Politically, its significant, tactically and materially, it has not affected America. It has only caused an emotional and political reaction, which is irrelevant. To that I can only say "get over it".

That is not simply not true. That is ridiculous

Logic dictates different levels of logic. One level might appear pragmatic, a small scale thing where conservatism triumphs. In the larger contexts (the environment as opposed to a few fish), the logic of the liberal and environmentalist in this case is stronger. Same situation here.

Both sides do their fair share of using emotion and irational fears to advance their agenda.

Indeed, thats what I hate. I prefer it when all stick to rationality and logic, but then, I do work on the conceptual level so I suppose I'm biased against that.

White supremicists hate people who believe in racial equality. Should people who believe in racial equality quit doing so in order to prevent terrorism by white supremacists?

Of course not, indeed I would be the first person to attack the concepts behind the terrorists. But you are confusing what the terrorists want, which by no means we should offer, and what they as part of a wider society need to stop... which is completely different, I have already covered the specifics.

If you mean in the same sense that a butterfly flapping its wings creates a cyclone on the other side of the world, then I suppose you are right.

Its more direct in this case. Chaos theory does not apply.

The bottom line really is this. Force against terrorists will not work. If you want to stop terrorism, you do something like what I am proposing. If you want to win votes, power and money, you do exactly what cons here are proposing, and what the US admin is doing.

P.S. elijah... You're British. I wouldn't be talking about the Arab's impressions of OUR imperialism.

Indeed, we are historically more at fault than you are, but they see you as the contemporary nemesis, and our two nations as two sides of the same coin of Western culture (great analogy there ).

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by elijah
To that I can only say "get over it".

I'm eagerly awaiting the flamefest that will come to you. You sure would have deserved it.