Oh, so you are on the side of the United States. I gathered. Why do you present this as something different from others?
Is there no difference between being on the side of the US and approving of the actions particular members of its government are advocating now?
Well, if we actually were recommending the analysis as something special, I wouldn’t blame you (or anyone) for being mystified at our obliviousness. However, that’s not an accurate portrayal of the situation. What I’m doing (and wring, and others) is attacking two areas of dangerous thought put forth by posters on the SDMB and advocated by a few public officials (although thankfully not so far by any of the key individuals).
The first thing we’re arguing against is the implied assumption that our actions in response to the 9-11 attacks can and should be undertaken without regard to other nations. This is a dangerous assumption on several counts, and not just politically and militarily dangerous; if acted on, it places us in peril of losing our moral standing. (And yes, such a moral standing does exist between nations.)
The second and much more dangerous thing is the idea that it’s sometimes appropriate in international affairs to avoid consideration of human motivations among enemies and potential enemies. (See Scylla’s thread in GD.) When pressed, those advocating such ignorance admit that it is “of course” necessary to understand the social, economic, political and religious forces at work in the Middle East, and the US role in the area, but then they reiterate their position that the terrorists’ motivations are immaterial, and challenge their opponents to show exactly how such knowledge could be useful. (I’ve responded to that request in the thread I linked to above.)
I took some time off from this message board last night and did some thinking about why this bothers me so much, and I realized my disgust with the pro-ignorance argument is in part because such attitudes have never, to my knowledge, EVER been associated with reason, morality or social competence. We only “tune out” understanding when we wish to demonize opponents, or depersonalize people we intend to victimize in some way.
Here’s an awful truth: the terrorists were human beings who acted in inhuman ways. They were not demons. They were people drawn out of population which has reason to dislike American policies, and from which zealots can be created. And while we now know who the direct perpetrators were, we don’t know who all of their compatriots are, and therefore when we demonize the particular Islamic militants engaged in terrorism without being able to specify individuals, we are demonizing the entire group of people from which their recruitment is drawn, our protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Show me please exactly where I’ve asserted that US actions are the direct cause of terrorism, as I don’t recall saying that. I have asserted that foreign policies always have unintended consequences, and that one such consequence of US and European policies has been a climate in certain areas in which terroristic actions can be fomented. If you disagree with that assertion, then show how it is not valid by demonstrating that anger at US actions does not produce a population of disaffected and powerless young men from which the terrorists can recruit new members into their program. But I suspect that in order to do that you’ll need to address the terrorists’ motivations, which is a pity since you don’t care about them.
erl, please take me at my word that I absolutely do not begrudge your inability to find anything useful in knowing what makes terrorists tick. In return, please don’t be so arrogant as to assign your own limitations to others. I do find it useful to understand how terrorists think. I do think it is proper to use such knowledge in considering possible actions against them. I do believe that it matters why these humans turned into monsters, if only so we can find the right stake to pound into their miserable hearts.
And BTW, please stop telling us to reread your posts to search for the tepid qualifiers about understanding cultural conditions, etc. You’ve chosen as a position the willful ignorance of specific pieces of information. Either defend that position or abandon it, but please don’t waffle.
december: “So, xeno, although your suggestion of greater understanding is perfectly reasonable, that phrase appears to have been hijacked. It’s being used as code for hating America and working against its interests. I believe that’s one reason why you’re getting a strong negative reaction.”
So then I can expect you to react strongly and negatively to the idea of entertaining children with clowns, right? I mean, John Wayne Gacy was a clown, for Cecil’s sake!
My, what an obscene suggestion! No wonder you find our use of the word “understanding” so inflamatory. :rolleyes:
Does anybody actually pay attention to that bozo? Shit, he’s been irrelevant to THIS liberal for decades. My favorite Chomskyism was used on a Nova about animal communication. It started with Chomsky:
and ended with a sentence created by the chimp Washoe describing a picture of a baby she found at the bottom of her drinking cup:
Just because a word is used by some nut case with tenure doesn’t mean that everybody who uses it means it the same way. It would benefit all of us if the people you speak of would stop jumping to ridiculous conclusions like that,
matt_mcl
No, I do not intend to present such a harsh dichotomy. Allow me to slightly elaborate.
~I cannot understand how such an act as the WTC/Pentagon attack can be justified rationally.
~~I cannot find that irrational acts are the result of explicit causality
You are welcome to criticize the US. I will join you, except if that criticism is meant to show an explicit causal link to terrorism.
I have read some internet-archived State department papers on the history of terrorism. I have read "informed" opinions from journalists who have covered terrorism. The most likely *reason* that terrorism came about was [drumroll please] that America *a superpower* entered the picture.
Conventional warfare between technologically equal forces does not require terrorism. Conventional warfare between a technological giant (a superpower) and an inferior force can cause terrorism: *it is the only tactic which can gain attention*. It is one of the few tools with which to fight back.
America is not to blame for being a superpower. America is not to blame for terrorism. America *is* to blame for people harboring, knowingly and deliberately or by avoiding the idea as an unfortunate necessity, terrorists. this is the result of our foriegn policy. For this we can rightfully be blamed. We did not act swiftly enough and with enough foresight to allow organized terrorism to fade.
*This attack is demonstrative of that fact.* It is also demonstrative of other facts: homeland complacency, for example. This is *also* not a target for blame. How about "underestimating terrorist factions"? Sure, guilty. Recepticle for blame? Nope.
So, please continue to criticize the government. But please do not ask me to "see the terrorist side of it." That is a world of fear, violence, absolute authority, zero concessions, radical isolationism... in short, *nothing that I can possibly understand the reasoning behind.*
So: demonstrate how those positions are achieved through reason or focus the desire to understand on a more suitable target.
What do you think, **matt**? Am I really being an idiot here? (after all, it is the pit ;))Please don’t get huffy, xeno. You asked a reasonable question, and I was impressed with your sincerity. I attempted to offer a reasonable answer, not because I like it, and not because I feel that way, but because I think there may be some truth in it.
BTW if you want a better analogy, I * would* react strongly to the motto, “ARBEIT MACHT DAS LEBEN SÜSS.”
[em added ~~ erl]
xen, direct causality need not be applied; explicite causality is just as appropriate. Explicit causality, to me, would be that a conscious or deliberate decision on the part of US policy makers resulted in terrorism. It doesn’t amtter whether we intended it or not. I don’t intend to get into an accident; I am no less responsible for the event when I rear end someone. Do you see what I am saying? Showing explicit causality assigns blame through responsibility.
It isn’t that I don’t think you may have a point; it is posible you and others who assert this do have a point. My trouble is with seeing the development of it. I don’t hold my country in such high regards that I cannot admit when it does something wrong, but when attempting to find culpability the stakes are higher and the demonstration should thus be more explicit. Can you appreciate that frustration?
Hi! Allow me to introduce you to myself. I have many problems with the US government. Allow me to introduce you to Olentzero, who also has several beefs with the US government. I think you’ev met Guinastasia before, haven’t you? She holds Chile over our heads in drive-by postings for as long as I can remember.
I can assure you I am not a terrorist. I have much faith that none of the other posters are either. I have almost the same amount of faith that none of us are an effective pool from which to recruit terrorists.
Nope.
I believe it matters too! But to do that we must get inside the members of the population who are not terrorists but are in some ways sympathetic to the terrorist’s cause.
We need to understand the message and those who would be sympathetic to that message. The terrorists motivations themselves are useless in this.
Now, should we capture a terrorist and want to put him under permanent psychiatrc evaluation, be my guest. Right now speculation on terrorists’ motives are not worthy of effort.
I am NOT waffling. We have three factions here; terrorists, terrorist sympathizers, and non-terrorists. I cannot understand terrorists and find that their motivations are not based on reason. If they are not based on reason, there is no way to determine how to mentally stop a terrorist. Thus, their motivations are useless.
The third party, the non-terrorists, are just as horrified as I am. I can understand their horror.
The final group (in mention, not in order) is composed of those who would sympathize with the terrorists on some level, and tolerate their existence as a possible fortunate. It is of supreme importance to listen to and understand these people. How is this waffling?
dropzone, I congraulate you on your good judgment. However, the cited article alleges that lots of others are following his lead.
Also, if you read some of the threads here, you’ll find posters whose call for “understanding” really represents an “America is wrong” position.
[hijack]
Hey! During the Quality Scare of the late 80s and the big Teamwork boondoggle of the 90s, when everybody it seems was posting feel-good slogans and posters I used translations of those old Nazi ones in an ironical manner. Sometimes I wouldn’t bother translating them; my favorite was “Arbeit macht frei,” from the front gate at Auschwitz. Nobody noticed, there being no functional difference between them and the ones put out by Franklin-Covey.
[/hijack]
You guys keep saying this and we keep asking for cites yet nobody gets cited except curious george. Do you really have a case or are you just paranoid? Do you always read the worst into whatever anybody else says?
Thanks, dropzone. THAT was the slogan I meant to quote.
As for Chomsky, I have a deal for you: If you stop assuming Noam Chomsky speaks for every liberal then I’ll stop assuming Jerry Falwell speaks for every conservative. There are nuts out there, some of whom have followers, some of whom get lots of press because, on slow news days, they are good for a laugh.
Let’s follow your auto accident analogy. (We’ll call it the AAA for brevity.) ( 
) If I take your advice regarding the US response to terrorism and apply it to your AAA, I must come to the conclusion that I should not modify my driving even if I keep getting T-boned at stop lights by other drivers. After all, those accidents weren’t my fault, and if I start proceeding more cautiously through intersections other people might think they were my fault.
Sure. Can you see why it’s frustrating to me when you keep linking my argument to some other poster’s assertion of US culpability?
Hasty generalization. Sorry, try again. I do not accept you, Olent and Guin as a representative sample of disaffected youth.
But in order to understand how sympathy with the message can turn a potential terrorist into an actual terrorist, we need to understand the translation from sympathizer into perpetrator. And guess where that leads us?*****
Just because you find no reasonable basis for terrorism does not mean no such basis exists. Also, even if knowledge of the terrorists’ motivations is useless in determining how to stop those terrorists this does not make knowledge of those motivations useless.
*****BTW, I’m aware that a large portion of the global intelligence community more than adequately understands that process and recognizes the importance of that understanding. I’m not arguing with those people. (Mainly because they wouldn’t be saying how unimportant terrorist motivations are.)
Interesting article here, alledging that “the culture and conditions that create” these terrorists, stems from Saudi Arabia and go all the way back to the 18th century founder of totalitarian Islamism, Ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703–92).
In short, this shit’s been going on for centuries and “understanding” any role the U.S. has in the Middle East is completely and utterly fruitless, as they are completely unrelated.
That doesn’t mean that these extremists don’t hate Americans, the U.S., or what we stand for. But WE are NOT the cause of their extremism and no amount of figuring out why they hate us will ever, ever change the basic tenets of the version of Islam that they practice. Period.
Jeg elsker dig, Thomas
And, of course, the Israeli government, seen by these same people as our proxies in the Middle East, has not given the supporters of modern Totalitarian Islam any ammunition to use in recruiting followers. If a plant is not watered it will not grow, and without new followers that form of Islam would have died out with its originators. By continuing to oppress the Palestinians the Fascist government of Israel continues to water worldwide terrorism. By our own “tepid” gainsaying of that oppression in the interest of anti-Soviet, then anti-terrorist, gameplaying we have opened ourselves to terrorist activities. They are not attacking The American Way of Life, as the president says. If they were they’d be attacking Canada, too, which has a way of life similar to our own. No, they are attacking America. We cannot assume we are innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of a gang war. We are a target and we need to know why in order to fight back. “Know thine enemy” is an ancient military maxim. I see no reason to abandon it now.
Ok, dropzone. The U.S. is to blame. Israel is to blame. Blame, blame, blame, blame, blame.
I’ll say it one more time: The RADICAL, EXTREMIST Islamic sect known as the Wahhabis are hell-bent on terror and have been for centuries and target many people and countries besides the United States.
Did you even BOTHER to read the article I linked to, or did you just come in here and knee-jerk? Here. Here is why they are so fucking violent, and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH the United States or Israel…
It is about their interpretation of their religion. It is not about oppression or occupation or foreign policy. If you’re so bent on figuring out why, then accept the truth when you’re given the reason why and stop laying blame where it doesn’t belong.
Shayna, you are over-simplifying.
Shayna, you are over-simplifying. In fact, you have over-simplified so much that you have made a good argument for turning the Gulf States into a nuclear wasteland. It is the “official religion” of the Gulf States. It has been for centuries. People obviously are incapable of change or thinking for themselves, so the only option is to kill them all. Perhaps rethinking your own knee jerking would be advised.
And here’s the proof:
My point – and my only point in this thread – is that I don’t think that people espousing XENO’s position can act surprised to find that some people characterize their reaction as “tepid” (if not worse) because of the extreme fineness of the line between “examining the victim’s actions to see what prompted the attack” and “blaming the victim for the attack.” If you aren’t careful in how you present your point, or if the people whom you are addressing aren’t careful in parsing out what you’re saying, your reaction might very well appear to be . . . well, tepid. If not worse. This is my only point in this thread, and it is a very narrow one.
To which WRING responds:
We pretty clearly are arguing across each other, because you do not want to address yourself to the point I raised. You want to talk about something else. Which is fine, of course, but the subject you want to talk about is not what I was talking about. My thoughts on the subject you appear to want to discuss (the propriety of examining the motivations of the terrorists) have already been posted in the thread on that topic here and in five pages of argument no one changed his or her mind, so I am not inclined to rehash the issue again.
XENO at least sees the impropriety of “blaming the victim,” but that is not the point either, since IMO the propriety of it was never my point – it’s not proper. My point (again) is that something that is not “BTV” can very easily look like it, which may explain why your reaction is construed as “tepid.” XENO then says:
Is that what you are talking about? Because your OP did not appear to be complaining about the reactions of people who actually understand your position, but rather about the reactions of people who don’t. What is your complaint with those of us that get it? Have we ever said your response was tepid? If so, where? Cite, please.
My ENTIRE POINT is that your position might appear tepid to people who don’t fully understand it precisely because they don’t fully understand it. To which you now say, in essence “that’s irrelevant to people who do understand it.” If that’s not talking past each other, I don’t know what is.
Let me parse this out:
You complain that some people appear to be accusing you of being “tepid” in your reaction.
I post and say, in effect: to those that do not fully understand the fine distinction in that reaction (between blaming the victim and examining the victim’s actions to understand the motive of the attacker), your position might well appear to be “tepid.”
You now respond that my point is irrelevant to those of us who do understand that fine distinction, and your reaction, which it obviously is, but
The clear implication at this point is that you are asserting that people who do take your point are nevertheless calling your reaction tepid. To which I say again: Cite please. Because at this point you are talking about me, and TAMERLANE, and BRICKER, and SPIRITUS MUNDI, and a bunch of other people who, while legitimately disagreeing with your position, have NEVER denigrated it. And I’d like to see where anyone who understands the distinction I’m talking about has ever done so.
If, on the other hand, we are talking about people who do not understand that fine distinction, then explaining why they might wrongly consider your reaction “tepid” is far from a “quibble.” It is, in fact, one possible explanation for the very behavior you complain about in your OP.
At this point, I don’t know what your argument or complaint is. That your position is being misconstrued by those who don’t understand it? (I’ve posted at least one theory as to why.) That your position is being misconstrued by those who do understand it? (I’d like to see a cite.) That you just want to repost your position here, feeling it wasn’t clearly set forth elsewhere? (No skin off my nose.)
But my final reaction to what I’ve read here is that if I can’t get people to see, much less acknowledge the legitimacy of, much less actually agree with, something as minor and tangential as the point I was trying to make, I see no reason to believe we will ever be able to productively discuss any of the larger issues that actually merit discussion. Because at the end of the day, we are just talking past each other.
There have been a zillion threads on essentially the exact same topic, and not one person has changed his or her mind, though a lot of people’s feelings have been hurt and a lot of people have been firmly convinced that their position has been misconstrued or misunderstood. I, for one, am done with it. I’ll respond to new threads on new topics, but I trust my position on the topic of motivation and blame was sufficiently clearly set forth in the linked thread. To revisit it repeatedly when it’s clear no one is even listening to anyone else is just so much mental masturbation. And while that can be lots of fun, I frankly don’t have the time.
Hey, Jodi, I had already hijacked this thread into a fight with Shayna and you come in with your reasoned attempt to say we are ALL talking past each other? Especially after I said the same thing YESTERDAY? Them’s fighting words, mister! 
Here’s an interesting commentary by Michael Kelly at MSNBC.com.
I don’t agree with all of Kelly’s points, but I agree with more than a few. I think he is addressing that group that is saying, “Peace no matter what;” not the people that have concerns about the effectiveness of a war in eradicating the terrorist threat.
I don’t think we’ve had any posters here espousing that view. None that were bold enough to say it, anyway.
Any “whatever you do; just don’t retaliate”-ers out there?
As of shortly before 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, we lost the ability to decide whether we would be at peace, IMO.