OK, I know you were pissed. Still are! In fact I can sympathize with some of your cause. The muslims, like many other ethnicities have been kicked around by white Europeans for centuries. You still call us crusaders.
But here we are 2 years after your most successful attack and I want to know, how has this violence made the lives of muslims around the world better? Have you moved any closer to your goals through your successes on 9/11/01? If your goal is simply revenge or infliction of pain and suffereing, when will you feel sated?
Surely we as Americans have been subjected to increased scrutiny by our government. Many decry the Patriot act as a serious erosion of our civil liberties. That probably makes you smile a bit.
But lets talk about you. Certainly your objective is not to make Americans a bit more inconvenienced. How has YOUR cause been furthered? Is the average muslim better off for your actions?
For debate: What is the endgame of the terrorist/muslim extremists? How has the use of terror moved them toward that objective? Is terror a short sighted resolution to bloodlust or part of a bigger plan to move the pan-islamic community forward?
I can’t imagine a real terrorist will answer your quesitons, but one thing I feel pretty sure about…they won’t be happy until we are all dead and burried.
Does Osama Bin Laden (or whatever he’s calling himself these days) even have a final goal in mind? Since his rhetoric has generally called for things like US disengagement from the Middle East, that’s a stage towards his goal, but he doesn’t seem to be motivated by the idea of establishing any particular sort of Arab/Muslim state, just to perpetrate acts of terrorism and look cool.
refusal, I thought bin Laden’s primary goal was the establishment of his own particular brand of theocracy in Saudi Arabia? Or am I completely clueless, as per usual?
I dont think Al Qaeda aims for higher standards of life or “prosperity” per se. Its more to do with separating the muslims from the west… creating a rift. That he has done very well… with the help of shrub of course.
He was aiming at weakening the despots and monarch of the middle east… which kind of worked too.
Are there any terrorists around to answer this poster?
If not - as everyone can only find normal - then what is the goal of this OP?
Maybe I should give OBL or someone else who can answer this a call to inform them that there is something extremely interesting and original posted on a US website named SDMB… Or what are you trying to provoke or obtain here?
Salaam. A
Muslims are not an ethnicity. Islam is a religion. Possibly, you’re conflating Arab w/ Muslim?
Well, ObL said he wanted the Am gov to crack down on Am freedoms and to engage in heavy handed tactics w/ the ME. He’s gotten both of those. He wanted the US out of SA. He’s getting that one too.
Now I know why I always fight with myself. It’s my Arab half being constantly angry with my white half… And my Muslim half being oppressed by the legacy of my Catholic mother who must have had ancestors who were part of one or an other crusade.
Not to ignore the fact that this episode in our common history indeed still influences the interactions between and on both sides.
Yet to see in those events a cause of terrorism is a bit far stretched and simplified.
Just dawned on me that the same way that Osama isnt trying to improve the Arab/Muslim lot… neither is Bush trying to improve the western situation. Both have their own agendas. To think Osama even wants to improve muslim life is as navie as thinking Bush isnt getting his neo-con and defense industry going.
Urgh, the term Arab is an ethnicity not a race. Arabs are part of the Caucasian race. IIRC Muslims are guilty of alot of crimes and opression.
Aren’t Muslims in the past guilty of their own ‘crusades?’ Like the rapid expansion of their empire in the Middle ages and the battle of Agincourt, is a perfect example of what they had on their minds.
All you need to do is just look at Somalia. The end result of his actions(training Somalis to do Black Hawk down) was a continuation of a civil war for 10 years and loads of people killed in it.(Since the UN and US gave up trying to feed people who would fight to the death for their right to starve.) He didn’t seem to care about Somalia once he couldn’t use it for an advertising campaign for his product.(If any one asks why I say OBL has actually killed more muslims in the past 20 years than the US and Isreal combined this is the reason BTW.)
It does? Maybe for muslims and/or arabs but I think most Americans sleep through their history classes and wouldn’t know about this history if you asked them (broadly speaking and no fair comparing SDMBers to ‘average’ Americans as I think this board has a somewhat higher education level than ‘average’ Americans).
At some point shouldn’t these things be left in the past? If we thumb through history books we can find places where muslim and/or arab armies stomped (or tried stomping) on a few people just as the crusaders did (if perhaps for different reasons). I’m not saying any of this is ok or something to be proud of but isn’t it well past time to call this water over the dam and get on with the present or, put another way, far past time to let this grudge go?
The U.S. has wanted out of Saudi Arabia for years. The House of Saud cannot stand as it is now constituted. They’ve got 30,000 princes getting all kinds of frebies and stipends and such. In another generation there will be 60,000 princes. They wealth of the oil is flowing out of the country as fast as it flows in. Nobody wants to be left holding the bag when the party ends in Saudi Arabia.
OBL may have wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia, but it’s hard to understand how someone as close to the problem as him could miss the fact that the curtain is fast closing on the House of Saud. I’m not sure their successor will be an improvement from out POV, or even less stupid and spendthrift than the Sauds. They’ll just be stupid and spendthriftish in different ways.
It wasn’t Osama Bin Laden’s intention to any way improve the situation of fellow Muslims, but to make Americans feel as miserable as they do. I think nothing is more frustrating to them than the glib cheerfullness of Americans, our complete lack of interest in what’s going on around the world and our conviction that no matter what, we’re always in the right.
I think 9/11 was at least partially an attempt to make Americans wake up to the anger some of our policies causes around the world.