Is the U.S. the cause of it's own problems (read: terrorism)

[GomiBoy]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
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.
[/quote]

The difference is the standings of the attackers and the attackees; when people talk about ‘insurgents’ they talk about bad guys; bad guys are terrorists. When people talk about guerillas they can be talking about Freedom Fighters, aka Good Guys, and thus not terrorists.

From Israel; the place you were saying they would attack.

And I said Israel would use them; that’s the savage attacks to defend themselves, making a ring of glass around Israel if need be. My question is who else would hold a resurgent Islamic power back?

As I said, they simply don’t have the power to recreate the Caliphate. No one needs to nuke anybody.

Without the US in the frame?

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.

Again, without the US in the frame?

An awful lot of the fighters in Iraq may be motivated by US presence, but an awful lot of the fighters in a lot of other places aren’t under the ‘yoke of American conquest’ and still hate us. My premise is that if the US left the rest of the world to their own devices, a whole lot of folks in some parts of the world would make every effort to take the fight to us. Y’know, kind of like they already did a couple years back?

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.

Anyone who takes us on directly looses. Period. The reason why the insurgents are doing so well against us is because they are taking us on indirectly, and that we haven’t the right troops or training to defend against. Which is why you and I will never agree on one thing - that we’re a conquering army. We’d need a lot more cops and a lot fewer paratroopers to be an effective army of occupation.

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.

Again, you’re missing the basic assumption - if the US is out of the frame, who would / could stop Iran from dominating it’s neighbors? Iran is a power in the ME; it’s far less of a power than the US, the UK / EU, Russia, and China, but still a power. Without the US in the frame, Iran’s relative power goes up several levels, and if aligned with other Shi’a extremists in Iraq, as well as others in Pakistan and elsewhere, they start to be a serious threat to regional stability. I don’t think it’s a far leap (with the US out of the picture entirely) to see how an Iran-led regional superpower could emerge relatively quickly and easily.

[FRDE]

It is really very simple, all the USA needs to do is to wander around various States and sign a mutual defence pact.

Just a simple variation of ‘I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to death to defend your right to say it’.

@BuickGNX1987 The bases were:
a) protect the Saudi autocracy from their own people
b) protect Saudi from third parties
c) have a presence in the region

There are different types of policemen, some are liked - and some are hated.

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
And I said Israel would use them; that’s the savage attacks to defend themselves, making a ring of glass around Israel if need be. My question is who else would hold a resurgent Islamic power back?
[/quote]
No one would need to do more than they are doing now; I simply don’t buy the right wing picture of the Islamic hordes descending on everybody. Nor do I think that fear of the United States is restraining anybody.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Without the US in the frame?
[/quote]
Without us in the picture, they’ll have one less source of propaganda, one less thing to give them what little unity they have. You grossly overestimate the potential strength of Islamic extremism, much less it’s actual strength.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Again, without the US in the frame?
[/quote]
In Iraq, especially without the US in the frame; we are a major motivation for the violence in Iraq, not a restraint.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
My premise is that if the US left the rest of the world to their own devices, a whole lot of folks in some parts of the world would make every effort to take the fight to us. Y’know, kind of like they already did a couple years back?
[/quote]
But far fewer than will if we run around conquering and killing and destroying. Are you really claiming that non-Americans are so inhuman that such behavior doesn’t provoke them ?

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Which is why you and I will never agree on one thing - that we’re a conquering army. We’d need a lot more cops and a lot fewer paratroopers to be an effective army of occupation.
[/quote]
We are a conquering army; we’re simply bad at it.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Again, you’re missing the basic assumption - if the US is out of the frame, who would / could stop Iran from dominating it’s neighbors? Iran is a power in the ME; it’s far less of a power than the US, the UK / EU, Russia, and China, but still a power. Without the US in the frame, Iran’s relative power goes up several levels, and if aligned with other Shi’a extremists in Iraq, as well as others in Pakistan and elsewhere, they start to be a serious threat to regional stability. I don’t think it’s a far leap (with the US out of the picture entirely) to see how an Iran-led regional superpower could emerge relatively quickly and easily.
[/QUOTE]
I seriously doubt they or anyone can unite that region for a long, long time, especially by force. And if they don’t do it by force, it’s not our business.

[GomiBoy]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
No one would need to do more than they are doing now; I simply don’t buy the right wing picture of the Islamic hordes descending on everybody. Nor do I think that fear of the United States is restraining anybody.
[/quote]

I’m not right-wing by any stretch, and never said any such thing as you’re claiming I did. We are clearly restraining some people from doing exactly what they want to do, or else Iran would already have the bomb.

Without us in the picture, they’ll have one less source of propaganda, one less thing to give them what little unity they have.

You’re right on this point.

You grossly overestimate the potential strength of Islamic extremism, much less it’s actual strength.

No, I don’t. You’re grossly underestimating the power of religion, especially in this area of the world.

In Iraq, especially without the US in the frame; we are a major motivation for the violence in Iraq, not a restraint.

Agreed. In Iraq. There is quite a bit of the world outside of Iraq, however much you don’t notice it.

But far fewer than will if we run around conquering and killing and destroying.

And out comes the invective and the over-the-top craziness. Surprised it took you this long.

Are you really claiming that non-Americans are so inhuman that such behavior doesn’t provoke them ?

You almost caught me up in your clever web of words. But no, Sherlock, I don’t think non-Americans are inhuman.

We are a conquering army; we’re simply bad at it.

Of course, we’re terrible at everything in your book, but if we had at heart a plan from the beginning to occupy and own Iraq, wouldn’t we have planned a bit better for it?

I seriously doubt they or anyone can unite that region for a long, long time, especially by force. And if they don’t do it by force, it’s not our business.

Of course, people like you will then be saying how inhuman it is and how ‘someone should do something’ just like everywhere else in the world.

Problem with being the world’s policeman is that sometimes the police have to respond to ugly situations as well as good ones.

[FRDE]

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Problem with being the world’s policeman is that sometimes the police have to respond to ugly situations as well as good ones.
[/QUOTE]

The problem with policemen in general is that they are not very smart.

• it is a lousy job, and does not pay that well.

It is also virtually impossible to ‘police’ people you don’t understand.

[DSeid]

I repeat myself from past threads here but I’ve said each time that I know it won’t be the last time I say this:

We are prop in the region of the bigger battle going on - the battle over whether the regional Islamic world joins the modern society of societies, with its pluralism, its tolerance of different worldviews, its open marketplace of ideas, its Coke/McDonalds/Starbucks and Disney and its percieved permissiveness, or if the regional Islamic world seperates itself from the rest of the world and insulates itself in a shell of fundamentalism looking backwards to a mythical era of Caliphatic hegemony.

The best weapon for the various forces that desire an insular future is the visible presence of an infidel, an other, in the midst. American bases are a potent symbol as is a Western (and Jewish no less!) Israel. Conflict with the West and with Israel is something that those insular forces desire to best make the case and to rally the troops against the siren call of Western percieved amorality with its media and jeans.

Terror techniques are used to keep the focus on “the other.” They are used to get us to predictably respond in a manner that keeps a focus on an other (us).

None of which obviates the need to have a military presence in the area, but when we do so without paying attention to the sociologic and cultural war which is in progress we fail, we give the enemies of modernity what they want.

We need to fight terror but we need to fight it smarter.

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
I’m not right-wing by any stretch, and never said any such thing as you’re claiming I did. We are clearly restraining some people from doing exactly what they want to do, or else Iran would already have the bomb.
[/quote]
That has to do with their technical limitations, and they’d probably be less willing to put so much effort into it if we weren’t obviously going to attack them. We are encouraging them to build nukes; they’d be both insane and irresponible not to at least try.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
No, I don’t. You’re grossly underestimating the power of religion, especially in this area of the world.
[/quote]
Of all people, I appreciate the power of religion; that is a major part of what cripples them. A culture constantly being divided by religious infighting and being dragged back to the Dark Ages by religious fanatics, is a culture that is not a serious threat to the world. An irritation, but not a threat; this isn’t the Soviet Union we are faced with.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
And out comes the invective and the over-the-top craziness. Surprised it took you this long.
[/quote]
Oh ? And in what fantasy world are we not conquering, killing, and destroying ?

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Of course, we’re terrible at everything in your book, but if we had at heart a plan from the beginning to occupy and own Iraq, wouldn’t we have planned a bit better for it?
[/quote]
We did; the Bush Administration threw it out.

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
Problem with being the world’s policeman is that sometimes the police have to respond to ugly situations as well as good ones.
[/QUOTE]
Except America is more like the world’s Mafia enforcer, not policeman; “Nice country you have there. Shame if something happened to it.”

[XT]

Is the U.S. the cause of it’s own problems (read: terrorism)

Certainly…in the same way that a woman who dresses up sexy is responsible for being raped, or that a rich guy is responsible for being mugged, etc etc.

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.

Pretty much correct. Of course, the US was there at the specific request of the Saudi government in response to the very real threat that Saddam would, having aquired Kuait, venture forth to visit those same holy places himself. ObL and AQ was pissed off more because the Saudi’s didn’t take him/them seriously in his offer to defend them from the evils of Iraq than simply because the US was on sacred ground (well, this is an exaggeration of course, but it has a core of truth).

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.

No doubt the terrorists used the presence of American troops in SA as an excuse to directly attack the US…just like that rapist used the fact that the woman was dressed in a sexy way to justify his rape. Perhaps had we not gone into Saudi during the first gulf war we would not have been attacked here at home. I’m unsure, given the alternative, this would necessarily be a good thing for the US…or for Kuait or Saudi or the other nations of the region.

Quite personally, I think the U.S. would solve a lot of these problems by simply stopping trying to be the world’s policeman.

Perhaps it would…but this is a poor example of the US being ‘the worlds policeman’ IMHO. We didn’t assist Kuait out of a sense of justice or fair play. The Saudi’s didn’t invite us in because we coerced them too…nor because they wuv us. We were there because the US has a vital national security interest in the region. We went to war because Kuait is part of that vital national interest. The Saudi’s invited us in because it was in THEIR vital national interest. That it pissed off a bunch of wing nuts was an unhappy side effect.

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.

Again, I think this is a poor example of what you are saying here. Now, if you want to try and mix up events and time, and jump forward to what happened after the US invaded Afghanistan (i.e. you want to talk about Iraq again), then you may have a point. But the events in the first gulf war that TRIGGERED all this? :dubious:

A penny for your thoughts.

Based on the responses tendered thus far (including my own, no doubt ), I think you are over paying.

-XT

[Little_Nemo]

The United States is a country like every other country. We have a foreign policy like every country does. Part of having a foreign policy is when you do something, other countries react, and when other countries do something, you react. Foreign relations are a two way street.

The United States has made policies like declaring an economic embargo against Japan in 1940 or stationing troops in Saudi Arabia in 1991 for reasons that it felt were in its best interest. (In these two particular cases, the reasons were to help other threatened nations not in response to a direct threat against the United States.) And in both of these cases, other powers responded hostilely against the United States - with a declaration of war or the commencement of a terrorist campaign.

Cause is difficult to determine. If you argue the United States caused these responces by their actions, then why can’t you go back and say that Japan and Iraq caused the United States to act by invading China and Kuwait? No doubt, Japan and Iraq would claim that China and Kuwait did something to cause them to invade.

The bottom line is every country has to make its own decisions and should be aware that the decisions it makes will influence the decisions made by other countries.

[ralph124c]

I guess the question is: how MUCH and to what extent, should the USA get involved in the Middle east/muslim world. Saudi Arabia is important, because it contains a LOT of oil-maintaining frienship with the regime in power is important. Iran would like to be the dominat power in the ME-should we allow this? i am not convinced of their peaceful intentions. What about countries at the periphery of the muslim world? like Somalia? I think we have learned that intervening in these places is likely to yield a lot of headaches; so I would say, yes, involvement in these places will cause us problems.

[Honesty]

[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
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.
[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes:

The Islamophobia in the world is just downright nauseating.

You know what I’ve always envied about white people? I can’t quite explain it, but it’s that effortless way they use rhetoric to justify continued violence and mistreatment toward those whose skin is just a shade darker. It’s that unsaid - but not unfelt - implication that Arabs are less than human. Indeed, America has sent innocent Arabs to get tortured in other countries in order to sidestep our own Constitution. We cage Arabs like zoo animals in Guantanamo for years without discerning whether these individuals are guilty or innocent. We have a public that encourages airlines throw out Arabs who happen to be wear a turban or pray too loudly. We were outraged to learn that the United Arab Emirates, who aided American operations in Iraq and Afgahnistan, would manage American sea ports. Our outrage was solely based on the fact that this service would be provided by Arabs. What I find fascinating about this is that the American people accept this bigotry. Without question.

In any case, I reject the “Islamic extremism” argument. It seems just like a clever way to throw the baby out with the bath water. The phrase “Islamic extremism” has always been a synonym for “Anyone who practices Islam”.

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.

Two things (1) Israel can easily attentuate the crisis by engaging with their neighbors to come up with a plan to give Jerusalum back to the Palestinians. (2) Israel has already killed and injured thouands of innocent Arab civilians in the course of just a few years. The cluster bombs Israel illegally sprayed over large swaths of Lebanese soil will kill, maim, and injure innocent Arab civilians for decades to come. No remorse. No shame. The world’s silence was/is deafening. It’s almost as if they are cattle.

• Honesty

[Honesty]

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I guess the question is: how MUCH and to what extent, should the USA get involved in the Middle east/muslim world.
[/QUOTE]

As little as possible? Unless it’s a war or a major humanitarian crisis, there should be a soft cap on how much American money can be poured into other countries ( Middle East or not). Did you know we invest more into the Middle East than we do to the NSF or NIH combined? Both the NSF and NIH fund 90-95% of the basic science research in the United States. These institutions haven’t seen a significant increase in funding since the Clinton administration. Is there any wonder why progress toward alternative energy has been nearly glacial?

• Honesty

[RedFury]

[QUOTE=Honesty]
As little as possible? Unless it’s a war or a major humanitarian crisis, there should be a soft cap on how much American money can be poured into other countries ( Middle East or not). Did you know we invest more into the Middle East than we do to the NSF or NIH combined? Both the NSF and NIH fund 90-95% of the basic science research in the United States.
[/QUOTE]

Meanwhile:

The War in Iraq Costs $415,688,947,733

See the cost in your community

Or compare to the cost of:

PRE-SCHOOL
KIDS’ HEALTH
COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS
PUBLIC HOUSING
PUBLIC EDUCATION

[Wee_Bairn]

Hopefully we all agree the “they hate our feedom” myth is bs, otherwise, as someone said (Olbermann, Maher, not sure), why aren’t they attacking Amsterdam?

[spazattak]

Boiling down ‘why’ radical Muslims hate the US/Western Democracy into ‘because they set up a base in Saudi Arabia’ is ignoring decades of history. Here’s a good place to start for that history. In short: It’s not that simple, and there’s a lot more ammo there to generate and feed this hate than most people realize.

From the CATO article:

Conclusion

Perspective

It is easy to miss the forest for the trees. The forest in this case is a vast system set up to enable some Americans to manage events–the lives of others, that is–in the Middle East. Each of the U.S. policies and actions, in Iran and in the Arab-Israeli dispute, has been aimed at bringing about certain results, desired by U.S. policymakers, by regulating the behavior of others, sometimes through the application of force (directly or by proxy) and at other times through the application of money. The question never asked is, quo warranto? Who anointed the United States? The Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines command all the awe that presidential names and upper-case letters can evoke, but did those presidents have the consent of the people at whom those doctrines were directed? At best, they satisfied themselves with the proxy consent of autocratic rulers. That is a peculiar attitude for leaders of a democratic country.

[Pabitel]

Short answer, yes.

Long answer. It has as much to do with the last 15 years as it does with the preceding 85. We, both the USA and the west in general have been screwing around and screwing up in that part of the world for well over a century. Certainly by WWI we were making mistakes in that part of the world. We have financed and then ostracized the same regime depending on who they were fighting. We financed both Saddam and Bin Laden until they became useful as enemies. There are various other examples of the same thing dating back decades with other countries and other leaders. Arafat went through about 5 or 6 incarnations. We painted him as peace maker and criminal depending on what was in it for us.

These “strategic” decisions were made, largely on what was good for us in each moment as opposed to having an extended strategy to create a stable middle east. In fact an unstable Middle East was often of more short term use to us and in those times we didn’t shy away from upsetting the apple cart.

As a result there is virtually no one between Libya and India that we haven’t screwed over at one point or another. There are a very large number of people in that part of the world that have very good reason to at least distrust and often loath the good old USA. It is largely our fault but it has little to do with troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia or support of Israel. Those are merely the current focus. It is the result of a century of bungling relations in that part of the world in the name of defeating the Kaiser or ending Nazism or containing the Red Menace or wiping out global terrorism or whatever. We have used the entire middle east as our puppets and proxies in all of these and now are reaping the harvest of peoples fed up with our continuing Hubris.

[guppy]

If you take sides in a conflict you shouldn’t be suprised if you now have a new enemy.

[tomndebb]

[QUOTE=Honesty]

[Quote=GomiBoy]
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.
[/quote]

:rolleyes:

The Islamophobia in the world is just downright nauseating.
[/QUOTE]
You do realize, I hope, that by misreading one word, you have gone out and created a huge straw man against whom to tilt?

Your position is not really that far from that of GomiBoy and you are attacking a position he never made.

Note that his specific point that you quoted used the phrase “Islamist extremists” while your entire tirade was against somehow equating Islamic people with people of dark skins and then waging war against them.

There is very definitely an Islamist movement that is inherently extreme and there are a number of persons within that Islamist movement who argue quite forcefully for the restoration of the Caliphate–that period during which an enormous section of the Middle Eastern/North African world was dominated by a single religious ruler, the Caliph.

I have a problem with posters on this board mindlessly arguing that any person who recognizes Mohammed as The Prophet is openly or secretly wishing to destroy civilization so that they can impose their brand of theocracy on the whole world. However, it is similarly delusional to pretend that there are no Muslims who hold those beliefs–regardless how light or dark their skins. It is bad enough having to deal with the simplistic people who hate all Muslims without having to deal with simplistic people who refuse to acknowledge that some Muslims have provided genuine fodder for the nightmares of the xenophobes on the other side of the discussion.

[Kimstu]

@Honesty

In any case, I reject the “Islamic extremism” argument. It seems just like a clever way to throw the baby out with the bath water. The phrase “Islamic extremism” has always been a synonym for “Anyone who practices Islam”.

Oh, for Og’s sake. Some of us just recently busted our asses for eight pages trying to convince the anti-Islam brigade that there’s a genuine difference between Islamic extremism (or Islamism) and Islam per se. If even some people on our own (non-anti-Islam) side aren’t grasping that that difference exists, this particular ignorance fight is really going to be a long hard slog.

Yes, there are some people who use “Islam” and “Islamic extremism” synonymously as an excuse to tar all Muslims with the terrorist brush. But that doesn’t mean that Islamic extremism doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t pose genuine threats to the security of non-Muslims and non-extremist Muslims alike.

[Little_Nemo]

On the Islamic expansion issue, consider the objective evidence from a Muslim’s point of view. The last time a Muslim country invaded a Christian country was 1683. For the last three hundred years, it’s been Christian countries invading Muslim countries.