*Jodi, you’ve made quite a few very well constructed posts illustrating exactly why and how some people could tend to doubt the sincerity with which some other people denounce terrorism. If your valiant efforts to point that out didn’t in themselves constitute such an expression of doubt, then I apologize. But when you keep arguing a point over and over don’t be surprised to learn you’re identified with that point.
Milo, bite me. 
Where the FUCK did I even come CLOSE to saying anything even remotely like that?
You know what? I’m glad we’re in the pit.
FUCK THE FUCK OFF, dropzone.
And don’t you DARE, EVER put words in my mouth again.
Ever.
Thank you.
Awww, come on! 
I don’t know that Olen is specifically a “youth.” Actually, I have no idea how old he is.
Ack! I disagree even still. Motivations of terrorists are completely irrelevant. The message they transmit is of importance to the people who may become terrorists. The messages transmitted during terrorist training could be important to. Ultimately, what goes on inside a terrorist’s mind is of no tactical value, unless the Industrial Light and Magic folks can simulate Allah on a moment’s notice anywhere in the world, of course (if that indeed is the motivation, which I actually doubt in some ways-- just one of many possible examples)
Of all the people we need to understand, the terrorist has no tactical value.
Jodi: Yep, that’s pretty much where I’m at right now . In fact I shouldn’t have engaged this time, either. I had sorta promised myself I wouldn’t, but apparently I’m a liar.
Erislover: My sincere apologies - It was less your post as a whole ( which you’re right I don’t entirely disagree with, except maybe in degree ) than a few trigger words that inspired a kneejerk restatement of my own position. I think I was just looking for an excuse to do so. Regardless, I didn’t mean to come off as attacking.
Shayna: Wahhabism is just part of the equation and not, I’m convinced, the most important one. Saudi nationals ( and Saudi Arabia is the heartland of the Wahhabi creed, it was the ibn Saud family that were the first significant converts ) were not particularly known as being prone to terrorism from the 1920’s ( after the Saudi family conquered western Arabia from the Hashemites ) through the 1990’s. They’re still not really known for that today ( bin Laden and some of his cohorts excepted ). I think health, wealth, education, and a more cosmopolitan outlook and environment is a big component of that.
Nor is every ( or many, or hardly any outside of bin Laden’s oaganization) middle-eastern terrorists Wahhabi. But this is probably not the place for this discussion 
.
- Tamerlane
XENO, if I can manage to recognize and acknowledge repeatedly that your position may not be what it at first appears to be, then you can damn well recognize and acknowledge that mine similarly may be more complicated than it first appears. Discovering you have difficulty doing this does in fact surprise me, though perhaps it should not.
Oh, just one more.
Jodi: Since my name was mentioned, I should say that I have a lot of sympathy for wring and xenophon’s ( among others ) position, which is why I’m fence-sitting a bit here. Their’s is not quite mine, but it’s not so very distant, really. Actually, with a few exceptions on either end, I think most people here aren’t that far apart.
- Tamerlane
Sorry, but it the logical conclusion to draw. If they are so dangerous we have no option but to kill them. If it is the official theology of the Gulf States then we have to kill everybody there, for they have been tainted by its vitriol.
Okay, I took that farther than you are comfortable with. But Wahhabism is not the SOLE cause of Islamic terrorism, any more than the problems Israel and the Palestinians are having is. As I said before, without a reason that these people feel drives them to commit mass murder they’ll sit on their asses watching the “Star Trek” premiere like everybody else. Being insanely violent is hard work. First you need to be insane. To us, Wahhabism provides with attitudes that we would consider insane. But you also need the second factor, external reinforcement, to keep it at fever pitch or else you turn into just another crank on the internet. The perceived injustices against the Palestinians provides that. By removing the reinforcement their insanity collapses into mere crankiness. Uncle Ahmed may keep grumbling but his nephews will start rolling their eye at him and go back to their cushy programming jobs in Tel Aviv.
I do believe I may have started a new saying! 
Jodi, my objection to your position (that appeals for understanding can be interpreted as sympathy for the terrorists) is that if you don’t believe it you should stop lending credence to it by expressing it so well. Good lawyers, I think, tend to forget that argument is not an obligation outside of the courtroom. If one is a gifted argument-maker (as you are) one can bring less astute people around to a mistaken point of view quite easily.
You’ve been a much more effective spokesperson for the “sympathy for the devil” interpretation than I think you realize, even though your intention was merely to explain it.
And no, I’m not telling you to stop expressing your viewpoint, I’m asking you to realize that when you explain another person’s viewpoint frequently and vehemently you will be interpreted as supporting that viewpoint to some degree. (Otherwise why keep hammering it?)
dropzone, my point wasn’t clear. I don’t think Chomsky speaks for every liberal or Falwell speaks for every conservative. However, if someone heard me railing against sin, they might jump to the conclusion that I agreed with Falwell. Similarly, when people hear liberals use Chomsky catch-phrases, they might think those people agree with Chomsky.
You and I probably agree that people would be wrong to jump to such conclusions. Unfortunately, I think many people do reason that way. And I think that bit of human nature helps explain the problem which was the source of xeno’s OP rant.
In other words, as long as we’re in the market for understanding, I’m trying to understand those posters who are critical of xeno.
I don’t need to provide an example, because you just did so. Thanks.
This really pisses me off, and I am going to carefully explain why. YOU started this thread by saying, in part:
This is correct insofar as the “puzzlement” is concerned, in that it accurately reflects that you have been unable to convince many posters that it is either necessary or timely to “learn from mistaken foreign policies” or “base (our) actions on sensitivity and understanding,” a postion that I found and continue to find – not to mince words – utterly ridiculous. It is incorrect insofar as “contempt” is concerned – you were subjected to no greater degree of “contempt” for your position than anyone else was, including me. (You want to see contempt for another’s position? Take a look at MATT’s first post as a masterpiece of condescension and misstatement in the thread I’ve already linked to above.) You have received no more of this than anyone else. But you then go on to state:
This is, from first to last, utter bullshit and adds nothing to the debate, since it irresponsibly mischaracterizes those who disagree with you as having called you “despicable;” as people who are “unable to see any shades of gray;” and as holding the position that “we don’t have to understand nothin’,” which is, again, bullshit. You have set up a shadow to accuse you of all sorts of things, so you can then piously refuse to be bowed by it. It’s crap. The vast majority of people conversing with you on this subject have done nothing of the kind. And now, you in effect request that I shut up not because I have called you on the horseshit your OP is – or not until now, at any rate – but becuase I have merely stated that yours is an easy position to misunderstand.
I don’t think so. If you’re going to continue to whine about how you’ve been misunderstood, I will continue to point out how easy your position is to misunderstand.
Nothing anyone posts here is “an obligation.” Since I have in virtually every post where I have pointed out the fineness of the line we are discussing also pointed out that I do not misapprehend it, I take no credit nor any blame for anyone who might do so themselves.
Utter and complete bullshit. I have stated my position repeatedly and, I think, cogently. If you insist on misinterpreting it (and willfully so) in order to more easily attack it, then that is your decision, and your problem. I have never been an apologist for the “blame the victim” rationale – I have merely said that it is an easy mischaracterization to make, which, IMO, is one of several reasons why such questions as “what has the U.S. done wrong in the past to piss these people off?” should not be discussed in the immediate wake of the attacks. If you can’t tell the difference between these two positions, that again strikes me as your problem.
Again, utter bullshit. I may explain another’s viewpoint until the end of time, and if I am careful to repeatedly state that it is not my own – as I have been – then any one who insists on interpreting my position as supporting a viewpoint I have been careful only to explain, and not to support, is WILLFULLY and INTENTIONALLY MISREPRESENTING what I have said. In light of my repeated explanations of what I really do believe, anyone purposely misconstruing my position is invited to fuck right off.
You appear to me to be all for communication so long as that only includes you mischaracterizing what others have said. That you would yourself do so, and intentionally, infuriates me.
Whatever.
Guess what? It’s possible to call for “understanding,” and to believe that “America is wrong,” and to believe that the terrorists were murderous fanatics with no excuse for killing thousands of people from more than 50 countries.
Look, there are a lot of great things I can say about the United States. I think, for example, it’s really awesome that we all know that the CIA funded bin Laden. But on several foreign policy issues, including in the Middle East, I think the US has been wrong. I thought that before September 11 and I still think it.
The odd thing is that we could have had debates over Middle East policy prior to this event and posters would probably have aligned much the way they are now. The difference is that now the leftwing posters are being accused of things like treason, or lack of patriotism, or insensitivity to the deaths of thousands, or pro-terrorism (in the sense of defending their acts). Yet I cannot think of a single SDSM poster who wants to overthrow the US government, or who claims to HATE the United States, or who shrugs off the deaths of thousands, or who celebrates the acts of the terrorists.
It’s almost as though those of you who have defended and do defend Middle East policies feel as though we’re suggesting that you are responsible. I for one am not saying that. Nor am I making simplistic causal relationships between US wrongs and terrorist activities. And I don’t see anyone doing that.
I’d also like to add that Noam Chomsky is not a nut. He’s a brilliant man who has taken some very courageous and unpopular positions. If you want to see some really vitriolic criticism of Chomsky on this issue, you can check out Christopher Hitchens’s last two columns in The Nation. It may be the case–Hitchens certainly thinks so–that Chomsky is making simplistic causal arguments. I myself haven’t ready anything by Chomsky yet. But even if that’s so, it only means that he’s mistaken: not seditious, not anti-American, not insensitive, and not pro-terrorist.
Well, dammit, I do! I want to overthrow the government, and take over, and rule the WORLD!!! MAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
Ah ** Mandelstam ** … you are like a soothing bath…a cold compress for my forehead… a gentle massage of my temples… verbal aromatherapy… ahhhh
I trust the “wink” meant you were joking and not suggesting that I was “blaming” the US, although there is plenty of blame to go around and we have not always been the knights in shining armor we like to think we are. There is a vast difference between “blaming” the US, seeing the actual perpetrators of the deed as innocents forced to do it by the transgressions of an evil empire, and my state of not being all that surprised considering our past behavior and that of our friends. Sociopaths will look for justification for their actions and we, in their eyes, have provided it.
A while back Jodi wrote:
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." (emphasis added)"
Maybe part of the problem here is that you have defined xeno’s position as “examining the victim’s actionsto see what prompted the attack”. Whereas, I’m pretty sure that xeno’s position is to examine what prompted the attack and to notice that part of it had to do with hostility towards the US government.
The unfortunate people who worked in and around the World Trade Center were not attacked because of their actions; they were attacked because they happened to work in a building that symbolizes American financial power. Their actions were irrelevant: some of them undoubtedly were Muslims, hundreds weren’t Americans at all, many were probably critics of US policy. However from the terrorist view–however fanatical and monstrous–there is no question that the attack was politically motivated: a direct assault on US financial and military power. So what would be helpful to examine is the role of the US as the world’s single superower, and, especially the policies in the Middle East and elsewhere that have tended to foment vehement anti-American sentiment. Changing these policies can be part of a multi-pronged strategy to wage an effective “war” against terrorism.
Even if you disagree with the latter statement, I hope you can see that there is not a very fine line–but, rather, a thick brick wall about a mile wide–between examining the US government policies that contribute to anti-American hostility and “blaming” innocent New Yorkers for their own deaths.
Thank you, Mandelstam.