He asked for someone besides me minty, nice try though. I am sure you’ll find someway to get me back for calling you a Jingo if you try all day today all day tomorrow and all day the next day when I stop posting in this thread.
Erek
You’re right, Erek. I think it would have been entirely too much for spooje to expect you to explain anything.
Keep trying Minty, you’ll get it eventually. I admire your dedication in the face of such adversity.
Erek
mswas, you can backpeddle all you want, but your little quote says that we created him. Actually it says 'lets not make the same mistakes and **create ** more Bin Ladens. 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
Spooje’d:
(I did it just for you Minty even though I did it in almost all of my posts that weren’t replying to the last thing those people said.)
Alright Spooje, I thought you capable of understanding metaphor. Since it is pretty obvious that I didn’t mean (at least I hope it’s obvious) that there were some American mad scientists working in an Osama bin Laden laboratory trying to create a super terrorist out of radioactive spiders and camel jism. I thought you would understand that I was referring to the environment that US foreign policy creates in the Middle East. Of course you don’t want to admit that you have anything to do with it, but what do you think makes gas so cheap in this country when it’s so expensive everywhere else in the world?
So maybe I am backpedalling but I didn’t mean that we literally created bin Laden, just that we had a hand in the current state of affairs and it’s naive to look at it as though we don’t. We have a hand in his success, whether you want to point at us training him in the 80s and supplying the mujahadeen, or if you want to look at resentments we’ve stirred up by placing troops in Saudi Arabia, or if you want to look at our enduring support of Israel, or if you want to look at all the pressure on Clinton to stop the assault on bin Laden so that we could focus on Monica Lewinsky instead. For whatever reason our hands have been dirty in this from the very beginning. We’ve been in the muck and mire along with bin Laden all along, and we are partially responsible for the Afghanistan that currently exists. I’m not saying we should take total responsibility, we shouldn’t but we should look at what the root causes were.
And when I am worried about creating more bin Laden’s what I am thinking of is stirring up more resentment by hitting more targets of convenience because they are linked to state sponsored terrorism, or by Martyring bin Laden, or by putting a tyrant from the Northern Alliance into power. I mean from what I can tell the Taliban is a more legitimate ruler than anyone from the Northern Alliance could possibly be. I am saying we need to learn from our past mistakes and try and avoid having to take out someone who WAS our ally fifteen years down the road. That’s what I mean by creating more bin Ladens.
Erek
Hmm… MSWAS, are you sure you posted that response in the right thread? I don’t know about everyone else, but as soon as I saw you talking about mad scientists and camel jism, I just started thinking, “I don’t know what this guy’s smoking, but it’s probably killing brain cells by the trillions.”
Are you sure you’re reading in the same language that everyone else is? We’re using “English”. By the content of your posts, I’d reckon that you’re using some obscure dialect of “Stupid”.
Did we put a gun to OPEC’s collective head and force them to sell it to us cheaper? Doesn’t their foreign policy affect us?
Your seem to be saying that the Evil US is putting the iron boot to the poor middle easterners and we shouldn’t be surprised when they rise to bite us.
I’m asking you. What, specifically, did the US do to create such hatred?
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So maybe I am backpedalling but I didn’t mean that we literally created bin Laden, just that we had a hand in the current state of affairs and it’s naive to look at it as though we don’t.
[/quote]
Actually, Mswas, there is a case to be made for some responsibility for this mess to be laid on American foreign policy failures, but you aren’t making it, just indulging in mindless, knee-jerk, “we suck,” America-bashing.
First, we are not responsible for bin Laden because he was not one of the muhajideen; he was another contributor to their cause, same as the US. He’s a university-educated Saudi from a prosperous family with ties to the al-Sa’ud royal family.
We are in part responsible for allowing the Taliban to take power in Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of the Russians, Afghanistan ceased to be of interest to the US as a proxy in the geopolitical conflict between the USSR and the US. We let Afghanistan be torn apart in conflicts between muhajideen warlords because it has long been our policy not to engage in nation-building. We gave tacit approval to the Taliban taking over the country because, at the time, the State Department thought that the Taliban would bring much-needed stability to the Afghans.
However, you should assign more blame to Pakistan, because the Taliban were their creation, a militiant group the Pakistani government thought it could control as a buffer against India.
You should also blame the Saudis. The fiercely puritanical clerics have been given free rein to denounce Israel and the US to vent anger that would otherwise be directed at the corrupt and out-of-touch royal family. In addition, until 9/11, the Saudis were strong financial backers of the Taliban.
Umm, we’re there by request of the Saudis to save them from being attacked by Saddam Hussein. We’re also serving our own interests by protecting our chief oil supplier, but the important point is that the Saudi royals want us there.
And what are we supposed to do, wash our hands of Israel? They are our only real friends in the Middle East, a Western-style democracy that embraces the same values as the US. It would be utterly wrong to abandon Israel.
That’s asinine. You’d be smarter to blame underfunded anti-terrorism plans.
From your posts, it seems to me that you haven’t bothered to inform yourself by reading any books or magazines beside the Nation. Here’s a reading list for you:
An Unexpected Light, by Jason Elliot. It’s a firsthand account of travel by a British journalist traveling in Afghanistan just before the consolidation of rule by the Taliban. It also touches on Afghan history and traditional Islamic culture.
Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong. An excellent account of the origins of Islam; the last chapter is a precis of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree, by Thomas Friedman. A fascinating exploration of multinational globalism succeeding the di-polar Cold War, the book also tlaks about fundamentalism as a reaction to Western culture threatening local mores without the support of Western democracy.
Come back and post when you know what you’re talking about and are capable of doing more than spout tired, anti-American, hippie claptrap.
Well, first of all I never said the “Evil US” but if you are content to put words in my mouth go for it.
Alright, I’m gonna stop right here. I am not making my point apparently. I don’t think the US sucks, I am not even trying to imply that, and I THOUGHT I made the point that what I was trying to say is we need to look at our foreign policy, if people are getting the America bashing idea from me then fuck it, I’m not being clear even though I have stated FLAT OUT that I don’t think it is our responsibility entirely, so fuck it. I can’t make my point very well, or people are ignoring my point, or whatever, so fuck it, I am stepping out of this thread because I am going to be misunderstood whether I like it or not (though at least half of you have understood my point exactly and reacted accordingly.) However the ones that post continuously in this thread do not understand me, I’ll chalk that up to me being unclear and give the credit for any clarity in my posts to SOME people being able to understand things better than most, rather than me being able to post well.
Though, as I would like to point out ONE MORE TIME “I DO NOT THINK THE US IS TO BLAME IN THIS, I DON’T SUPPORT THE TALIBAN, I THINK BIN LADEN SHOULD BE TAKEN OUT, and I DON’T THINK THE WAR ON TERRORISM SHOULD BE OPEN ENDED.”, there I hope that was clear enough for all of you.
gobear: Thank you for your post, I’m sorry if it seems that I am just being anti-american, I did not intend that. First, I didn’t offer any solutions about what we should do in the middle east, just gripes that there are against us.
I am a firm supporter of Israel, I have family in Israel, I don’t think we should abandon Israel at all, in fact I am pissed off at the Bush Administration’s handling of Israel in the last month, and I am not saying we should take our military out of Saudi Arabia, I am just saying that we shouldn’t be going in there guns blazing as we are, and that we need to change our foreign policy to allow for the generation of fundamentalist factions as a result of our foreign policy, I am not saying we should STOP having involvement in the Middle East. Just that we should change how we view it, and not act like it’s so shocking when terrorists hate us because of our policy. We’ll always have enemies, but understanding your enemy’s motivation is a pretty good idea.
My point got muddled in this. So I reiterate, I am not anti-american, I am not against middle east foreign policy, I just think it needs to be changed to reflect anti-american sentiment and we need to accept that there is a reason FOR that anti-american sentiment.
Erek
I realize I am coming in a bit late on this, but Jodi I think everyone posting on this thread including mswas agrees with point (b).
My question is how you are going to do (a) without truly understanding why people are willing to do this.
Heh, thanks again Neurotik, my point was lost in trying to defend myself. You seem to have a knack for summing up my points pretty quickly.
Well I was gonna post an article about Iranian fears that the bombing of Afghanistan is creating more support for the Taliban, but I can’t load http://www.worldnews.com.
Erek
Neurotik:
OK; how do you do (a)? Eradicating and disrupting the highly organized worldwide terrorism network would seem effective. And their motivations are important to that effort only to a limited extent.
As for dealing with America-hating in the region longer term, virtually all of the anti-American sentiment is either non-specific, or involves America making changes it isn’t willing to make , i.e., get out of Saudi Arabia; stop supporting Israel. I would add “quit using your military against ‘innocent Afghani citizens’ (read: the Taliban and al-Quaeda).” Except that would be disingenuous, because this hatred of America existed long before we took military action in Afghanistan.
Economically, we have; they don’t. It makes us bad. We have an effective military, and we sometimes use it. It makes us bad.
Shit, the number of people on this board who agree with that viewpoint is easily in the double digits.
I disagree here. I agree that eradicating and disrupting the organized terrorism network is an absolute must. And you are right, we don’t need to know their motivations to do that.
However, that’s not really an effective strategy in the long term. It’s too easy to start a new network and each time they do they will learn a bit more about how to hide things better. It will be an endless game of catch up.
Well, again, you are correct. I am not advocating doing things like abandoning Israel or retretating from Saudi Arabia. But there might be things we can do to counteract the resentment people feel towards us. Greater economic aid to certain areas. Helping to start education programs and build infrastructure, similar to the Marshall plan. It’s obviously too expensive to do everywhere, but picking out a few key locations (especially among our Islamic allies) to start might help. Of course, certain areas you’ll have to get rid of certain presences like the Taliban. I say go for it. Just make sure you counterbalance getting rid of the Taliban with something constructive in the area. Otherwise you just end up with more chaos. And be careful in the future of who we topple and who we support. Supporting oppressive regimes who agree with our views has gotten us into scrapes before (Vietnam, Iran).
I don’t think that thigns are the US fault and we have no right to retaliate. That sort of thinking offends me to no end. I’m just saying make sure we think carefully about the response and future actions, because there tend to be negative repurcussions when we don’t. By just bombing Afghanistan with nothing else then we risk giving terrorists the ammo they need to recruit more troops.
Yeah, I’d like to point out that halting any reaction or abandoning Israel or moving out of Saudi Arabia are not the only option for keeping a cool head.
We were told this was going to be a new kind of war. When I heard new kind of war, I thought it meant “not reducing Afghanistan to rubble”, but I was wrong. Now while I am not necessarily against the bombing of Afghanistan, I do think there is an argument that it is counter productive. I was hoping that we’d move toward political assassinations, because fuck this, political assassinations are a whole lot better than dropping a single bomb on a single civilian.
Erek
A couple obvious problems with that.
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There’s way too many of them.
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We’re not exactly sure where they the key players are.
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Some of our Special/Ops troops would have a little trouble blending in the folks over there.
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Political assainations are frowned upon by the world community. I’m not sure why.
I don’t think that Usama bin Laden has a point.
But that doesn’t mean that mswas doesn’t have a point.
There does seem to be some jingoism in America these days, which is only understandable after what happened. And I have seen some signs of it on this message board, although I think most people are dutifully fighting ignorance as is their mission…
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Bombing doesn’t change that. In fact it has gained more people to support the Taliban than it has killed. The air defenses are down, so why are we still bombing?
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And how does bombing help us find them?
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I don’t know the solution to that one, but I am pretty sure bombing isn’t it.
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Yeah me neither, Sanctions are worse. I think sanctions for more than a year should be illegal under the Geneva convention. If we aren’t gonna take Saddam and Castro out, why do we keep sanctions on them? It doesn’t hurt THEM? Just their people. Actually I’ve heard that Iraq has built it’s army back up to strength despite the sanctions. So what exactly are they accomplishing?
Erek
I don’t have a cite for the Iraq army thing, can anyone help me out with that? I read so many articles that they all blur together and I couldn’t hope to find something I read in passing. If I am wrong on this would someone please let me know on that as well?
Erek