Well, I’ll be. Thanks for that.
You guys give **2.5 ** waaaay too much attention.
Let it go. He WANTS you to keep coming back.
DNFTT.
Umm…anyone outraged about the war?
Just sayin’.
Cite? What are you, Professor of Islamic Studies at Dartmouth?
This is a different kind of war, buddy.
The general idea behind a lot of terrorism, from before the sixties through today, is to compel the state to respond in such a way that the hammer comes down on the population or a targeted group, “helping” the population see how oppressed they’d been all along, where the cycle continues, the people get angrier, and ultimately they’re supposed to rise up. Or at least more people will be angry enough to join a radicalist organization.
There is still a terrorist threat in the United States today. It’s not some Sleeper Cell type Pod People bullshit, but just as in the European countries it’s a homegrown threat. Most of the 9/11 hijackers had Saudi Arabian roots, but that’s misleading: the key ones were sons of privilege studying in Europe. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was the grandson of a Jamaican immigrant in England (imagine being a British citizen and being told things like “Go home, nigger”). Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, was the son of a Moroccan immigrant woman to France; he radicalized while attending business school in England. The guy who killed the Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl in Pakistan, Omar Saeed Sheikh, was born in London. Same story for Tunisian-born Abedessatar Daham, who was radicalized after immigrating to Belgium --he’s the guy who blew up the head of the Northern Alliance right before 9/11 and we invaded Afghanistan.
It’s often people living in the Western world on their own, grew alienated from the society around them, gravitated to a local prayer group or mosque to find solidarity or friendship, got radicalized there, have a special intensity that only Born Agains do, soon a terrorist is born.
When we become less of a free society, into a distrusting society, one that calls brown people sand nigger and vandalizes their places of worship (hate crimes did rise after 9/11), treat every brown or funny-sounding man as a suspect, sending the message they are different, they’re not welcome here… how is that winning the war? How is that making us safer? Sure killing the bad guys in Afghanistan or whereeverthehell is important, but what about not creating more bad guys?
I think Sayyid Qutb’s experience in Egyptian jails and the writings he produced there had a very far-reaching effect on the Jihadi movement including Osama bin Laden.
I am not a Professor of Oceanic Studies, either;however, I know there is not going to be a general with the countries of Oceania.
But a general war would be the old-style of war. The West has better weapons. The only way the Islamic world could win would be to get Russia and Asian countries to be their allies.
I never said it helps to win the war. I just said that it does not mean that the terrorists (I mean al-Qaeda and associates) win. Their goals have been pretty clear. Ultimately, they want a new Islamic caliphate and the end of all foreign influence on this caliphate. How does getting a reduction in American civil liberties get them an Islamic caliphate with no Western influences?
So what?
And Al-Jihad was basically destroyed . It had to merge with al-Qaeda. It ended up with some of the top leadership positions, but the goals and philosophy of the merged organization were those of al-Qaeda.
Becoming the Great American Monster creates more recruits for jihad.
GWOT is a different animal.
2.5, what are you getting at in this thread? Maybe I missed it through all the splitting hairs going on, but was there at some point a thesis you stated and were arguing from, or is it that you are saying things contrary to what other people say and there is a back-and-forth going on?
Yes. He is toying with you.
You give him just what he needs.
DNFTT.
I doubt there are enough people in the world that care enough about America’s civil liberties that they are going to join jihad if we start limiting our civil liberties. People tend to care more about America invading Islamic countries and supporting Israel and other stuff like that.
But even if more jihadists are created, the terrorists are never going to get enough people to get what they want. There is not going to be a Islamic caliphate with no Western influence. The terrorists cannot win because they have set up an impossible goal.
As it stands now, but not if it turns into a general war between the Western world and the Islamic world (not that that is going to happen).
Someone asked what give us the right? And I replied that we do not need the right because there is no such thing as a right without a system to support that right with a remedy.
There is no Global War on Terror, only a collection of lies designed to get Republicans elected to high office.
Do not feed GWOT.
None of those posts state that power is not the ultimate decider. Quote me the parts that say otherwise
I am stunned that an adult man in the US can be so unaware of how right-wing politics works as to find yourself in your current condition.
- Kissinger: We need to humilate Arabs after the humiliation of 9/11.
- Weirddave, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle et al: Helped Israel.
- GOP: If you can do it with candour and honesty, it isn’t our policy.
As I said they are more distorting my position (claiming I am saying might makes right) than disagreeing with it.
So if you’re not saying might makes right, what are you saying? It seems to me you are basically saying, per your post #172 that the most powerful are capable of doing what they want regardless of opposition, a statement that is (a) a vacuous truism (b) nothing to do with the OP and © not said in counter to anything anyone here was saying.
Which is fine, I’m happy to accept that you inserted a useless non sequitur into the thread, but it seems to me you made this statement like it was somehow relevant. Do you contend your position is relevant to the debate or not, and if so why?
Someone asked what gives us the right. I said we do not need the right, because there is no need for a right, because there is no right.
Gen Odom who was Reagans N.S.A. director, Served in Viet Nam and was a hardliner died today.
This disgusting peacenik said Iraq war was wrong and we should withdraw. What could he possibly know . Our doper war mongers know so much more.
I’m sure you’ll bear that in mind the next time you get beaten up or stolen from.
I will, right before I go to the police―who have the power to fuck up the lives of those assholes.
Why are they assholes? They didn’t do anything wrong.
They did from my subjective position.
Oh, I see. So now that we are talking about something affecting you, subjective is OK.
Gotcha.
Someone call this guy a whambulance.
Lets hope they don’t get a close look at your juvenile record. It makes me think of the days of my youth. I just despise those batons the police use with the handgrips on them, that swinging action, the speed they build up when they snap around, it’s enough to make you cry on the spot. I own a couple of asps. The sound they make when you fully extend one ? Oh hell, it’s the sound of that moment just before you fall asleep. Good times, Good times.
You know thats what I love about the law. You know the blindfolded lady with scales? 