I have the understanding that America’s Islamic terrorist problems are a result of us having military bases in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, i.e. Mecca. I’m sure there are other things that I haven’t come across, but the two big Islamic terrorist attacks came after the Gulf War, WTC 1993 and 2001. Quite personally, I think the U.S. would solve a lot of these problems by simply stopping trying to be the world’s policeman. It’s cool that we give a lot in the name of humanitarian relief and I believe it is our responsibility to our fellow and less fortunate man to use our excess of wealth to give them relief. I think we cross the line when we try to use force to convince them to do as we wish. A penny for your thoughts.
sorry, left something out from the last post, in reference to WTC attacks in 93 and 01, these came after us establishing bases in saudi arabia during the gulf war. Sorry, been drinking :smack:
Why was the U.S. in Saudi Arabia? Because Iraq had invaded Kuwait.
Seems to me that anyone who uses U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia as a justification for terrorism would have been better off directing their outrage at the Iraqui invasion of their fellow Muslims.
First fo all, there’s the excuse and there’s the rationale. The Excuse is that we have bases in Saudi Arabia. The Reason behind the excuse is that we exist. And even with the excuse, we must ask if the excuse itself is even reasonable on its own terms. Which it is not.
The OKC bombing were the first large-scale terrorists attacks on American soil. It was committed by people pissed at the U.S. government for the actions at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX. I am not sure how killings hundreds of civilians including kids was supposed to address that but I can’t say that about any terrorist attack.
Any arguments that looks at terrorist rational won’t lead anywhere. They all have their reasons. What matters is if they are rational or not and they hardly ever are at least looking from the outside in. Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally (in a weird sort of way) and Islamic terrorists can find 1,001 other reasons to hate us for other reasons. What it boils down to is asking the U.S. to justify all foreign presence which of course is ridiculous.
We cannot take our foreign policy cues from terrorist groups. There are much more effective and sensible channels for that.
Good responses guys (or gals). First off, I have read these message boards for the longest time before signing up because for the most part, the posters have some brilliant things to say. I do not intend to justify terrorists murdering of innocent civilians at all. All I am saying or asking i guess, is do you think these attacks would happen if we were to keep our noses out of their shitty business.
I agree with Shagnasty on this.
On a side note, I think the U.S. needs to demonstrate a little more care when enlisting “help” during a conflict. (i.e., it might not be a really bright idea to hire/work with known terrorist groups to further your cause against terrorism) That is the type of thing that can come back and bite us in the rear later on.
LilShieste
Also, to clear up any misunderstandings, I am not muslim at all. Nor am i sympathathetic to their cause. Since I am a guest, can i edit my posts? This would alleviate my need for these follow up posts.
To a large degree, yes we are. We do things that provide terrorism with recruits and propaganda fodder, we prefer military methods that fail over police/intelligence methods that ( sometimes ) work, we alienate allies and neutrals who might help us, we react the way the terrorists want, which encourages them to try again.
Thanks for the response, Der Trihs, although you happen to be quite the infamous character around here, i believe that your beliefs are based on the facts, rather than some idiot spouting baseless nonsense. I am inpressed with your ability to stand up to a lot of people who feel differently than you. However, lets ignore the Bush Administration nonsense as i will agree with you that they have caused much harm to this nation rather than good. I am interested in politics and the like but i consider myself a neophyte. Has this country, at least in the last 15 years or so, been so blatant as to shrug off the rest of the world’s opinion and do whatever the hell she wants to? All intelligent answers are welcome.
Well, this whole ordeal with Iraq is a pretty good example of what the U.S. thinks about the “world’s opinion”. (e.g., “You’re either with us, or against us.”)
As Der Trihs mentioned, this type of behavior can really feed into people’s general dislike for us, and can definitely be used as “propaganda fodder”.
LilShieste
You can do six degrees and play the blame game on a whole lot of things. I admit there were things we could have done to prevent the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, directly and indirectly, but there are a whole lot of what ifs and possible eventualities involved. There are in any situation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we got bombed at Pearl Harbor in the 40s without trying to be the world’s policeman. I’m not saying we should be, I’m just saying the isolation policy has its faults too.
Personally I think deciding where to place indirect blame for terrorist attacks is insignificant, as terrorism is hardly the biggest threat to Americans at the moment.
As to the OP, though, there are probably more attacks that can be tied to specific actions of our nation, than can be tied to an isolationist policy.
I don’t think the focus of this type of discussion is to “place blame”, necessarily, but rather to learn from past mistakes. And it’s not possible to learn from those mistakes if they’re never evaluated (and admitted to be mistakes).
LilShieste
OK, I’ll correct you. While it was probably more a matter of The Great Game combined with a bit of self-aggrandizing realpolitik than an example of being the World Cop, the fact is that the U.S. had cut off shipments to Japan of both iron and oil–products without which they could not continue. The reason we cut off their supplies? They had continued to prosecute a war in the Chinese interior after we told them to stop.
You’re wrong. From Wikipedia:
Not that the US should not have done these things, but the US was involved in affairs outside its borders.
Yes and no is the only answer I can give.
Lots of people have reasonable justifications for grudges against us. We support Israel, we overthrew Mossadegh in Iran, we supported Saddam fighting against Iran, we armed the Mujaheddin then dumped them when the Soviet Union fell, we supported the warlords in Somalia again only until the Soviet Union fell then pulled all support.
I can’t fault using terrorist tactics against soldiers as soldiers are a legitimate target. I can’t even really fault actions like using roadside bombs and IEDs in Iraq, the bombing of the USS Cole, the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon or the Khobar Towers bombing - those were all targeting our soldiers. Whether or not it was a just reason for attacking them, I must conceed that soldiers are a legitimate target. All of that said, there is no excuse anywhere for the intentional targeting of civilians. Driving a car bomb into a market, putting a bomb on a civilian airplane, or kidnapping and beheading journalists is not a valid military tactic and there is no excuse, IMO, which justifies these actions.
Where I do have a massive problem is also in saying that the US should just say home. It’s far too late for that; if we just stayed home, a lot of the rest of the world would burn at this point no matter if we were there or not. Israel would be gone in fairly short order, or have to be so incredibly vicious in defending itself it’d be surrounded by a dead zone of destroyed arab nations. And our allies would be next on the list of targets. Many Islamist extremists don’t just want to be left in peace; they want to re-create an Islamic empire across all of the ME and through to Europe, Asia, and the far east. And we can’t allow that.
Shit, I agree with Der Trihs about something.
Anyone see the other three horses of the Apocalypse? Dogs and cats living together yet?
And here I agree with you, except that I wouldn’t call such attacks against soldiers terrorist tactics, but guerilla ones.
I think you overestimate the ability and willingness of the Arab nations to go beyond rhetoric and expendable pawns, given Israel’s widely believed possession of nukes. And no, I don’t believe that Iran would nuke Israel if it had them; those old mullahs got old by being the sort that send other people out to die, not by being suicidal. They won’t risk nuclear retaliation any more than Osama boarded those planes on 9/11.
And we don’t need to do anything about it. No matter what the Islamic extremists may want, they lack anywhere near the power to do any such thing.
Terrorist or guerilla really only shows which side you support. Freedom fighters use guerilla tactics; insurgents use terrorist tactics. Don’t really make much difference other than linguistically, the tactics are the same.
Nuclear retaliation from whom? This is assuming the US takes their ball and goes home, after all. We’d use nukes to defend ourselves, but no one else. Who would then be left to nuke the Islamists for trying to recreate the caliphate? France? England? Russia and China would probably do nothing as long as their oil supply was intact and they were not directly threatened themselves.
As for having enough disposable pawns, I think you’re wrong about that. There sure seem to be enough people willing to throw their lives away for their beliefs in Iraq just now. Are you saying that the Islamists are less devout if the US goes away?
Again, we’re playing ‘what-if’ here and assuming the US has gone home and given up all interest in the world. I think without the US to hold them in check, the extremists have a bit more of a blank check and certainly fewer restraints to their behavior. The US is the only nation on earth right now that can effectively project force in any strength beyond it’s own borders and neighboring countries. No one else on earth can do that. If we’re out of the game, then there’s little to stop countries like Iran or even Saudi from expanding their influence.
No, the difference is who they target. Blowing up a barracks is guerilla tactics; blowing up some random civilian’s home or car or a shopping mall is terrorism.
From Israel; the place you were saying they would attack.
As I said, they simply don’t have the power to recreate the Caliphate. No one needs to nuke anybody.
You assume that disposable pawns are much more than an irritation to a nation-state; they aren’t. And an awful lot of the religious and secular fighters in Iraq are motivated by our conquest, and likely would lose interest if we left.
You assume that we are much of a restraint on them right now; I don’t think we are. If anything, we are encouraging them.
Excepyt the resistance of the rest of the world, who don’t particularly want to be dominated by Iran or Saudi Arabia - neither one of which is likely to be able to dominate much even if they try. The rest of the world isn’t composed of passive lumps, you know. Humanity is perfectly capable of solving problems without America trying to play Superman. Especially since we are so very bad at it.