Contemporary liberalism and its role in Islamic anti-Americanism.

[Patroklos]

Oil is a strategic resource. They don't just want to make profit from it. It's the military industrial complex involved here as well as the oil industry. They want to establish control over a strategic resource and they can have substantial control over the world with it.

Oooooo, the big bad "military-industrial complex," I love they way you throw that around.

You know who also has a large influence on the reason why we think ME oil is important? The 150 million soccer moms driving their SUVs to the grocery store every week.

The economy needs oil, ALL OF IT. And not just ours, you do realize that Europe and Japan are dependant on it too? So it is not even a selfish desire to keep the oil trade open.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


So the unpopularity and eventual overthrow of the Shah had nothing to do with the fact that he was a tyrant and a stooge for a foreign power who overthrew a democratically elected president.

It was because Dallas was on TV.

Like most huge political events, there was more than one cause. And my citation of Dallas was obviously reductionist and for effect.

So let me take of my forum-post hat, put on my old media professor hat, and say it more circumspectly: there is abundant evidence that the Shah's insistant importation of Western media, with its depiction of non Islamic values, played a key role in inflaming the fundy element off Iranian society and, more importantly, in driving the Iranian middle class, which had no love of the fundies, into their camp.

Let me also say that replacing a democratically elected leader with a tyrant might piss of people in some places, but given how little democracy is valued throughout the Middle East, and how much strong-man rule is valued, the narrative that the people threw off the Shah because he deposed their democraticly elected leader 23 years earlier just doesn't wash. It's an explanation the West offers itself to flatter itself. The more reasonable explanation -- that the Shah was too much an agent of the West -- is perhaps harder to swallow.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Oooooo, the big bad "military-industrial complex," I love they way you throw that around.

You know who also has a large influence on the reason why we think ME oil is important? The 150 million soccer moms driving their SUVs to the grocery store every week.

The economy needs oil, ALL OF IT. And not just ours, you do realize that Europe and Japan are dependant on it too? So it is not even a selfish desire to keep the oil trade open.

Soccor moms don't do **** but drive SUVs. You've got to be kidding. Why does everyone argue with me but stuff like this passes through?

[Patroklos]

So you don't think the every day energy demands of 300 million people have any effect on our governments wish to keep the greatest source of oil available to them open?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Patroklos
So you don't think the every day energy demands of 300 million people have any effect on our governments wish to keep the greatest source of oil available to them open?

I'm sorry Patroklos, you are obvioulsy agreeing with me that the reason for US involvement in the ME is economic, but you choose to agrue with me instead of the people who oppose that arguement. Start another thread for this argument. Title it Soccer Moms vs Military Industrial Complex.

[Solly]

I've found a pretty good correlation with people who use the term Military Industrial Complex and people who are wankers

[Patroklos]

I agree with you in that oil is ONE reason that keeps us there, and a very important one. I don't share your view that this is a negative thing (which is what I get from you, perhaps I am wrong) as securing the foundation of your economy is what your government is suposed to do.

However, you are trying to suggest some fantacy of an industrial-miltary complex conspiracy theory is the prime motive behind our need for oil. It is not.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I agree with you in that oil is ONE reason that keeps us there, and a very important one. I don't share your view that this is a negative thing (which is what I get from you, perhaps I am wrong) as securing the foundation of your economy is what your government is suposed to do.

However, you are trying to suggest some fantacy of an industrial-miltary complex conspiracy theory is the prime motive behind our need for oil. It is not.

No problem. I probably won't argue with you on this. It's kind of silly. Saying that soccer moms buy SUVs doesn't really mean there isn't a military industrial complex. Anyway I don't want to argue whether there is a military industrial complex or not.

[Berzerker]

there is abundant evidence that the Shah's insistant importation of Western media, with its depiction of non Islamic values, played a key role in inflaming the fundy element off Iranian society and, more importantly, in driving the Iranian middle class, which had no love of the fundies, into their camp.

Why would non-fundies fall into the camp of fundies because of western imagery?

[Jon Miller]

Because they are still conservative compared to our values?

JM

[Berzerker]

They attacked globally recognized symbols of American domination. What would they do in your straw-man scenario, blow up the famous "Hollywood" sign? "Ins'Allah, that showed those decadent Americans! It will take them weeks to rebuild!"

Yup, military, government and economic targets - not cultural targets. They could have flied a plane into the Golden Gate Bridge to show their disgust with the liberals, but they didn't. To argue they hate liberal culture based on what they targeted is illogical.

Yeah, for a whole year, and part of a second.

Yup, right on up until we were going to invade Iraq. Imagine that.

But mostly the American anti-Americans were just waiting for somebody else to say it first. Then the election cycle hit, and whoever said it first got lost in the mad rush to say it second.

huh?

Dsouza is looking at the media's depiction of the world's reaction to the media's depiction of Bush's foreign policy and blaming liberals. That would be because the liberals are looking at the media's depictions and saying, "See? We're right!"

You mean Bush has wide support throughout the world?

Because it was so much better when their dictators were selling off their resources to the Soviets, or the French colonialists, etc. And it is so much better now, with their dictators making deals to sell off their resources to China.

They dont like that either, both the French and Russians fought wars trying to hold onto colonial acquisitions.

News flash: the dictators know it always helps to demonize your enemy. USA makes a fat target, and largely inconsequential because the US companies that have to do business there (in Venezuela, e.g.) will do business there no matter how much the dear leader villifies the US.

You mean western corporations dont make deals with dictators to steal resources from the people living on the land? We've been doing it for decades... Sometimes we even send in the troops to make sure the flow of resources continues.

[Berzerker]

Because they are still conservative compared to our values?

Then who is using up, consuming, all that western media? In Tehran the fundies banned satellite dishes, so obviously many Muslims are more drawn to western culture than the fundy's way of life. But since many Muslims have this hypocritical point of view of blaming others for their alleged shortcomings, i.e., women wear veils because men feel lust, the fundies blame the west for "tempting" other Muslims. But we dont see vast Muslim armies lining up to invade the west to do away with "our culture", we see the US getting attacked by relatively small groups in response to US involvement in their countries. How does one turn that into, "they attacked us because of our freedom"?

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Then who is using up, consuming, all that western media? In Tehran the fundies banned satellite dishes, so obviously many Muslims are more drawn to western culture than the fundy's way of life. But since many Muslims have this hypocritical point of view of blaming others for their alleged shortcomings, i.e., women wear veils because men feel lust, the fundies blame the west for "tempting" other Muslims. But we dont see vast Muslim armies lining up to invade the west to do away with "our culture", we see the US getting attacked by relatively small groups in response to US involvement in their countries. How does one turn that into, "they attacked us because of our freedom"?

On one point we agree. Yes, the spineless Muslims blame their lust on whatever they are drawn to.

If we had a contiguous border with them, as Israel does with Lebanon/Hezbollah and with Palestinians, then we'd be seeing the same attacks Israel endures month after month. We'd have millions of undocumented Arabs instead of millions of undocumented Mexicans. We'd be fighting our neighbors instead of countries half a world away.

No, they couldn't have flown into the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a harder target in terms of structural strength. The attack would take place half a mile away from land, with nowhere near the visceral impact of taking down a monumental building in the middle of Manhattan. The economic effect would be purely localized, and the eeevil joos who control the American lapdogs don't live in San Francisco.

As I pointed out (but not in so many words) they couldn't attack the nebulous "culture." A bridge isn't symbolic of our cultural "decadence." Nor is the Statue of Liberty. The decadence in our culture is peripheral, not central. We don't build monuments to it, unless you want to count Graceland or the Hollywood sign.

Why would non-fundies fall into the camp of fundies because of western imagery?

Because that's their culture, and Western imagery isn't. They don't fall behind the wackos because of Western imagery, they do so inspite of enjoying Western imagery. The middle aren't enthusiastic about sharia, but they do buy into the Muslim-as-conqueror-by-divine-right mindset. They largely accept the one as the price of magnifying their group self image.

Also, many don't like either sharia or the militarism, but don't have the courage to face people who hack off hands and heads without compunction.

[Dr Strangelove]

The "value" rift in American politics wasn't a product of 9/11, it goes back to Falwell's Moral Majority organization thumping for the Republicans in the late 1970s to 1980s, or even earilier when white southern "evangelicals" protested school desegrgation and began to flock to the Republican banner. In fact 9/11 if anything reduced that rift, at least until Bush began attacking targets unrelated to al_Qaeda.

[Sandman]

The decadence in our culture is peripheral, not central. We don't build monuments to it, unless you want to count Graceland or the Hollywood sign.

What about Las Vegas?