In the interest of fighting ignorance, please answer the question. What exactly should be done in those cases? Heck, pick one, and say what solution you would advocate in that particular instance?
I am fighting ignorance: I suggest that you avoid lumping all every incident in the world in which one participant might possibly be Muslim into some grand depiction of Islam as “bad” and that the U.S. deal with the local conditions according to their realities, not the perceptions of people who are not paying attention.
Beyond that, I have no need to express my positions when I have stated them elsewhere. If you are so eager to believe that Islam is a monolithic evil in the world, how do you propose dealing with Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and other secular societies in a way that will put down Islam without recruiting more people to the Islamist cause? (That is how we lost Iran: the Shah suppressed even moderate Muslims to an extent that they were willing to support extremists to get rid of the Shah. They are now suffering from that decision, but I hardly see an attack on Islam in any other country avcoiding the same mistake.)
tomndebb, we all think we’re looking to parallels, rather than reasoning from prejudice. Your adversaries see parallels in the many terrorist attacks by Muslims in the last few years.
Although you’d like to judge whether or not an event is foreordained, you are making this judgement after the fact. E.g., after al Qaeda living in Afghanistan attacked the US, you may have looked at our support of Israel as an explanaiton. However, you would tend to ignore our generous financial support of Afghanistan, since it’s hard to explain why people living in that country are biting the hand that feeds them.
Your analysis would be more persuasive if you predicted what would occur in advance, and if your prediction came about. E.g., George Bush was more correct than many of his critics about the likely success of the war in Afghanistan. He thought it was winnable, and it was. Many critics predicted a quagmire, and it wasn’t one.
Nice dodge ball, thanks for playing!
Can’t come up with an answer, huh?
You may have done so. I have never seen any evidence that U.S. support for Israel has any connection with the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Those claims were clearly after-the-fact propaganda statements by bin Laden.
If you want predictions: when Reagan chose to support the Islamist groups of Afghan rebels to the virtual exclusion of other Afghanis, I predicted in the mid 1980s that that decision would come back to haunt us. Those groups later formed the Taliban–a group that I have never suggested we support.
I also never suggested that Afghanistan would become a quagmire–although it may, yet, since it appears that the administration has been ignoring it and pretending that we have no role to play in getting the various internal groups to play nice.
We can, of course, avoid the quagmire by walking away from it as we did in the early 1990s, then come back in ten years to play this game all over again.
That’s a fair response. You may be right, but it sure sounds odd. The Taliban (or their allies al Qaeda) murdred 3000 Americans because Reagan supported them to the virtual exclusion of other Afghan rebels. Extreme ingratitude, to say the least!
I dunno, maybe it’s time we “deal” with them in a way they can’t misunderstand.
The coming invasion of Iraq is a decent starting point.
Egypt? Aren’t they the 2nd largest receipient of US foreign aid? Those fine fellows who air a tv-movie based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for your fine Ramadan holiday viewing pleasure? Those Egyptians? Cut the aid to zero.
Syria is a part of the axis of evil (unspoken, thus far) and if necessary, the US should put the smack down on them, as well.
december said
While I am joining this late, am I missing something by thinking that the Taliban and al Queda aren’t exactly one and the same, even though confused posters might assume that they are?
Are you, december suggesting that the Talaiban are resposible for 9/11? Would Reagan be resposible for that? Am I missing something?
What does one have to do to get those emails from the government that let’s us in on coming attractions? :rolleyes:
I am suggesting that the Taliban are allied with al Qaeda, who are responsible for 9/11. If Reagan’s kindness and support for the Taliban was reciprocated by the 9/11 attack, then it would seem that support and kindness aren’t an effective way to deal with these groups.
The key words being “these groups” (not some vague misunderstood monolith of “Islam” but specific groups in specific places in the world with their own agendas). As to the Taliban, the people who spoke out against arming them (or principally arming them to the exclusion of other groups) noted that they were specifically an Islamist group who were using the U.S. as a source of weapons and that they had no intention of repaying the U.S. with understanding. This is different than saying we should never try to treat people differently or respectfully. They were specifically identified as being hostile to the West and we continued to arm them on the grounds that they were the “most effective” at fighting the Soviets.
We decided to feed the rabid wolf because we thought the attack dog was not vicious enough–and then we were shocked shocked I say to discover that the rabid wolf was, in fact, rabid. That is the result of looking at immediate goals and ignoring the realities of the people with whom one is working. It is the sort of thing that Wolfowitz argues we should do more of, now, because he wants immediate gains in his view of the war on terror. Some people never learn.
The question I’m most curious about, that would clear things up in my mind concerning the Islamic defenders or supporters (not sure what term to use) is, is there any situation or attack for which military response is justified?
More specifically should the US have sat on its hands after 9/11 and said, lets just spend money on helping people in afghanistan and hope that the food drops from airplanes dont’ land in the wrong hands. OR whatever, you get my point.
At what level of death and devastation and what locality (local, national, continental or world) should we fight back with a police force against the organizations that plan to strike again? By locality I mean some people would say we should just respond to problems in our own neighborhood, or maybe nation, or continent or the whole world.
I think the answer to this question is what some of the people worried about Islam are worried about.
I don’t exactly get your point. I support the effort to smash al Qaida. I supported the effort to go into Afghanistan in order to smash al Qaida. (I questioned some of the specific actions and choices that were made, and I still do, but I support the effort.)
What I oppose is attacking all Muslims because bin Laden is a fanatic Muslim. I oppose pretending that the entire Islamic world is merely a teeming mass of hatred for Europe and North America simply because pretending that is easier than expending the effort to discover which people or groups are genuine threats. I oppose pretending that the Egyptian and Syrian opposition to Israel is based on Muslim beliefs because pretending that will cause us to ignore their real complaints. Even if their complaints are specious, we will be more effective combatting their actual claims than we will chasing the red herring of monolithic Islam.
Fair enough. Egyptian and Syrian opposition to Israel is not based on Muslim beliefs.
So what is it based on?
In the case of (some) Egyptian opposition to Israel, anti-Semitism seems to play a part. What other reasons are there for Egyptian and Syrian opposition to Israel? What are their real complaints, specious or otherwise?
A perception that Israel is populated largely by European immigrants who, with the aid of colonial powers, stole land from the Arab inhabitants, exacerbated by a virulent strain of anti-Jewish sentiment that was imported or enhanced in the 1920s with ideas taken almost directly from Mein Kampf.
(In addition, Syria really wants back the Golan Heights.)
So, it is, apparently, based largely on anti-Jewish sentiment, with a tad of colonial resentment thrown in for good measure.
If that’s what it is, why support their side (such as it is) at all?
You have exactly reversed it. It is largely anger at perceived Israeli land grabbing, tinged with anti-Jewish sentiments.
What sort of “support” do you perceive for “their side”? I recall suggesting we use our aid as a carrot and stick to encourage Egypt toward more representative government. I have made no offers of “support” for Syria, at all.
Neither Syria nor Egypt have gone to war with Israel in 29 years. Despite Israel holding Syrian land, a good case can be made that Syria has actually decreased (not eliminated) the attacks launched from Lebanon on Israel since it took over the effective control of Lebanon following Israel’s destruction of Lebanese infrastructure (largely due to the efforts of Sharon when he was in charge of the military). Syria and Israel are sufficiently peaceful that there have been periodic talks regarding ways to return the Golan Heights without jeopardizing Israeli security. If Israel can negotiate with them, why should we be talking about waging war?
Similarly, Syria’s support for international terrorists has fallen substantially since the days when they tricked Reagan into attacking Libya for their sins. And since the younger al-Asad has assumed power, I do not recall any terrorist acts that could be traced to Syria.
Egypt has had a formal truce with Israel since the late 1970s.
Are you suggesting that we go to war against them simply because they don’t like Israel? Even Israel (even Sharon!) is not following that course.
Without challenging Israel’s right to exist in any way, any objective evaluation of the establishment of Israel has to acknowledge that some of the complaints about how the land was acquired have some truth to them–and the Israeli handling of the West Bank following the 1967 war, refusing to incorporate the people as Israelis while refusing to retreat from the land, even after Jordan renounced its claims to the land, has certainly been a significant factor in the current situation. Similarly, Arafat may be as big a terrorist as Sharon and may be even more corrupt, but Israel’s constant breaking off of negotiations regarding a Palestinian state at every violent act appears to be more an excuse to avoid the issue rather than a principled response. This has the effect of angering their neighbors who share ethnic ties to the Palestinians. Unless we are planning to destroy all the non-Israeli humans in the Middle East, the best hope for that region is long-term negotiation between the Israelis and their neighbors.
quote:
Originally posted by ralph124c
I would feel better if moderate muslims would repudiate the hateful behavior exemplified by Al-Queda. I didn’t hear a singlre voice of protest regarding the events in Kenya, from the imams of the muslim world.
You cannot have it both ways…you either condemn evil or (at least tacitly) condone it.
I have been doing some heavy reading on many Islamic message boards and I can tell you the ‘majority’ of the muslims on these boards feel that all bad things happening in their religion is because of the west. Its the blame game they are involved in.
The responses I have gotten from muslims in regards to the killings in Nigeria is that it was triggered intentionally by the editor and muslims have a right to enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil. They took the passge in the newspaper as a slander of the prophet and it was thier duty to defend the prophets name.
Saying it was ‘triggered’ basically relinquishes them of any guilt and puts the blame of the killings on not the actions of the killers, but on ‘one’ person’ who made a comment on paper.
Check out Ummah.com/forum for starters if you want to see how some of these muslims think.
Another is Shiachat.com/forum
I would also like to add that the majority of Ummah.com/forum participants supported the Taliban as well as Osama in all his actions.
So I say get out and go talk to some muslims from around the world on islamic messageboards because its what they think that makes islam, since its people we deal with, not some book.
If some of you think that the majority do not support Osama and his actions, then you would be dead wrong. Muslims in America do not count to most muslims in the Middle East especially since they are living in the Great Satan. As many muslims have told me, they have a right to attack us and those muslims in the US know they should not be living here supporting a kaffir government so if they get killed in future attacks it will be their own fault.