You might also add that we traipse around the world like it’s our own personal oil field, taking whatever we like as if it’s our right. And we put tons of our military in just about every country we can. We probably have the largest and most ubiquitous military in the world, by orders of magnitude. You can’t do that without stepping on a few toes, and we shouldn’t be all that shocked when some people react violently to that.
Hypothetical question for the “Hate us for our freedoms” crowd: Let’s just suppose that, say, Lithuania put forces in the US. And let’s say that their military presence overshadowed our own. Then let’s say they were in bed with the House of Bush. The Lithuanians are exploiting our resources and making themselves and the Bush Regime conspicuously rich, while the rest of the country suffers. You and your family live in a Van Down by the River while the Lithuanians are living the life of luxery. At your expense.
You protest. No one hears you. You write an angry letter. No one answers it. You make a phone call. No one picks up. You protest in the street, and get your ass kicked. You try every way you know how to let your displeasure be heard, but it’s clear that no one is listening. If the situation got dire enough, what sort of actions might you eventually resort to to make your displeasure known? Would it be unreasonable that you might become a hero to your people and become a Freedom Fighter?
You might also add that we traipse around the world like it’s our own personal oil field, taking whatever we like as if it’s our right. And we put tons of our military in just about every country we can. We probably have the largest and most ubiquitous military in the world, by orders of magnitude. You can’t do that without stepping on a few toes, and we shouldn’t be all that shocked when some people react violently to that.
Hypothetical question for the “Hate us for our freedoms” crowd: Let’s just suppose that, say, Lithuania put forces in the US. And let’s say that their military presence overshadowed our own. Then let’s say they were in bed with the House of Bush. The Lithuanians are exploiting our resources and making themselves and the Bush Regime conspicuously rich, while the rest of the country suffers. You and your family live in a Van Down by the River while the Lithuanians are living the life of luxery. At your expense.
You protest. No one hears you. You write an angry letter. No one answers it. You make a phone call. No one picks up. You protest in the street, and get your ass kicked. You try every way you know how to let your displeasure be heard, but it’s clear that no one is listening. If the situation got dire enough, what sort of actions might you eventually resort to to make your displeasure known? Would it be unreasonable that you might become a hero to your people and become a Freedom Fighter?
Ohhhh… I see. That’s why Muslims have launched so many attacks on the Vatican, because it is the millenium-old anger at Pope Urban II, Pope Gregory VIII, Pope Innocent III, and all those other Catholics who invaded the Holy Land so long ago. That must be why the Vatican was destroyed on September 11. Oh, wait a second…
So it isn’t our policies, huh? Bin Laden has actually written WHY he hates America. Huh. It seems that he has not accused Americans of invading Palestine in 1095. Rather, he seems quite upset about Israel and Iraq in 1998. Who’da thunk it?
I’m sick of people who think that gun owning NRA members are all drunken, knuckle dragging rednecks with itchy trigger fingers who think that every asshole on earth should be able to own their very own ICBM.
I’m not so much opposed to people not believing in God. I just am tired of people who say definitively God does not exist, and try to prove it with so many illogical arguments, and then make fun of people who DO believe in God for being illogical.
No matter what you believe about God and/or religion, there’s almost certainly someone out there who’s smarter, wiser, more experienced, and who has thought more deeply about it, whose beliefs differ radically from yours. So don’t smugly assume you hold the only reasonable view.
Point of clarification, just in case it’s necessary: that last sentence was not addressed to mswas. The “you” was a generic “you” addressed to whomever it might apply. My post was a response to, and to a large extent an agreement with, mswas’s.
I made no comment on 9/11 at all. My comments were regarding terrorists period, and why they do the things that they do. My comment about ramming planes into buildings was an example intended to illustrate how ridiculous it is to call their reactions to out XYZ, whatever it may be, by being merely “irritated”.
Did you read my post at all? I specifically stated that my knowledge of military strategy is little to none, and that I was speaking strictly of the psychological causes, or rather what they may be, of fanaticism of these sorts of people. Meaning terrorists, not the muslim religion in general.
Ummm. Yeah, which is EXACTLY what I said. What are you arguing here? I wasn’t supporting that terrorists do in fact do that. I was disagreeing with the OP’s contention that if they do, that we then have any obligation at all to change XY or Z.
Again, I stated that I believe that rather that it being “x, y or Z” that causes it, that it is the fact that they are recruited as small children and brain washed into their beliefs. And that the goal of terrorists isn’t making us (or anyone else) stop XYZ, but domination and control.
Um, I agree. And again, you obviously didn’t read my post, because I didn’t say anything either for or against the war period. And again, I specifically stated that my knowledge of military strategy was slim to none. What are you arguing against here?
Here’s one I’m getting tired of: any opinion to the effect that some particular bit of speech is offensive or slanderous is wont to immediately be portrayed as a call for that piece of speech to be banned by the government.
Ah, but you din’t SPECIFY what XYZ was. And I believe that I did include something to the effect of “unless XYZ means our activities in the middle east”. If not, it got lost in my incredibly clumsy mousing and typing inabilities last night and I apologize for not posting a PS to clear that up.
Whatever it was you were proposing, you didn’t do a very good job expressing it, because yes, that is what came across.
Perhaps you should have stated what you really meant instead of trying to be all PC, or whatever you were trying to be by inserting euphamisms and XYZs.
Had you meant our activities in the middle east, you should have been clear and STATED that. Because our behaviour merely as Americans being Americans completely aside from what our leaders and military is doing is, at least according to their behaviour and what they say in their little video love letters to us, a serious issue to them.
Nope, and I did note that you SAID you weren’t saying this, but that it sounded that way (paraphrased).
I’m very much NOT a dude, thank you very much.
Ummm, Huh? I was merely disagreeing with some of your ideas, I don’t have the slightest animosity toward you at all. Sorry, I hope you don’t think that I was angry or something? Not at all, see that’s the problem with dang type. It always looks harsh and colder than intended.
Again, I didn’t make any comments on the military aspect of it. Other than using an example from 9/11.
And FTR, I agreed with your comment about understanding what causes their behaviour. I think that is an essential part of any human interaction.
Sorry, I snipped the part of your reply having to do with war and what we should do militarily. Again, I made NO claims regarding military knowledge, nor did I comment on anything other than the human psychology and behaviour of terrorists.
And I see that others have been thinking the same thing, that I made some sort of statement regarding the military aspect. Where pray tell?
If you all got that out of my post, I have no idea how. But let me make it perfectly clear if it wasn’t already that I did not comment on the war either for or against, nor did I make ANY statements on any connections between this and 9/11.
You all are jumping the gun here. Too ready to get on your soapboxes for or against.
NOoooo. And I very much did NOT say that in my post. What I did say was that they were recruited as children, (and no kiwi, sorry I didn’t make it clear, but I meant by the recruiting and training camps, not their parents wanting them to share their religion).
Being taken away from your parents when you are young and being sent to terrorist camp where you learn to hate and kill is a wee bit different than going to Sunday School with mom and dad no?
Be real you two.
And also, of COURSE by “these people” I did NOT mean muslims, as I stated SEVERAL times throughout my post. I was speaking of the terrorists and fringe lunies.
So to answer your question, No I do NOT think that people just wake up some day and decide to be evil. And I stated so in my post.
And for the last time, NOWHERE in any of my posts did I state an opinion for or against the war, or for or against our military leaders’ behaviour in the middle east.
Stating an opinion on terrorists, their behaviour and psychology does NOT then equal an opinion stated on the war.
Cite for me (or duffer, for that matter) saying we don’t need to understand our enemies?
Well, I suppose you’d know. I’ve seen more wallowing self-righteously in ignorance going on here at the Dope than any other place I’ve experienced it in my life. However, I have learned something from this: i.e., that I was right when I first observed that there is little difference in human behavior, whether it’s coming from the right or the left. Both are smart; both are stupid; both are tolerant; both are intolerant; both favor censorship; both are bigoted; both believe they alone are right and the other side are idiots; etc. etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
You are hardly the last word on ignorance, as your own posts so aptly demonstrate.
Bullshit. You can’t pacify every society on the planet, if for no other reason than by pacifying one you’re alienating another. Yet, according to you, any society not so pacified can feel justified in attacking us and we – innocent bystanders though we may be – deserve it because our government didn’t do enough to placate them.
Personally, I would rather you did, too. When do you plan to start?
ObL et al have quite explicitly stated their reasons for attacking America, and none of them have anything to do with the Western lifestyle.
They’re pissed at the things we do, including supporting Israel, stationing troops in Saudi, supporting tyrannical and/or apostate Muslim governments, jiggering the world oil market, etc. Many of these reasons are bad and wrong, and many are worth listening to, but none of them have anything to do with being offended by democracy, teh gheys, low rise jeans, or hip hop.
Sure, they’re offended by the trappings of Western secularism and pop culture, but that’s not why they want to attack us. They’ve said so.
Until conservatives get that notion through their heads, we won’t make any progress with these motherfuckers.
Charmingly put…now I know I’m up against one of the left’s finer minds.
The fact of the matter is, Muslim extremists hate Western ways; Western beliefs; Western lifestyles; Western women; Western prosperity; Western lifestyles; and yes…Western freedoms. The 9/11 planes were full of theses types of people.
As I said – and which simple common-sense will support – their entire way of life is threatened by the Western way of life which is finding support and adoption all over the world (and under its own power, too, not because it is forced upon the societies and people that so eagerly adopt it).
As fond as you apparently are of taking the word of OBL and his henchmen, I am speaking of things in a big-picture sense, in which Muslims all over the world are attacking Western ways, cultures and countries. But be that as it may, I’m in no way convinced that OBL and his ilk would be satisfied even if there were no white-skinned person to be found anywhere in the Middle East. In such an unlikely event, he (and once again, his ilk) would still not be satisfied. They would still be offended at all the godless infidels around the world and would begin taking steps to try crush them and subject them to Muslim theocracies, where they could force their beliefs on everyone else just like they have done already whenever they manage to take control of this country or that.
Until you liberals get down off your gullible high-horses and stop taking things at face value (and stop blaming the U.S…which is hard, I know, given that the U.S. is always wrong :rolleyes: ) we won’t make any progress against these motherfuckers.
Thank goodness we have Starving Artist to stand as a personification of the misrepresentations we’re discussing. It’s always nice to have visual aids.
No one here is on a “high horse.” It’s a genuine attempt at explaining why it’s felt that there is a better alternative to current methods. Considering the total lack of result in running the terrorists for 9/11 responsible to ground as of this date (NO, goddammit, Saddam does NOT count, as he HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11!) and the total lack of giving a damn on the part of the current administration, it seems fairly apparent that a different course of action is called for. Bombing the fuck out of people isn’t doing anything but costing us money. I thought Republicans were against that?
'Scuse, moi??? Tens of thousands of them have been annihilated, Bin Laden has been reduced to a miserable, impotent cave-dweller, most of his henchmen have been either killed or captured, and taking Hussein out of power removes a very likely synergistic ally and helpmate of the terrorists (and overall bad guy and souce of unrest throughout the Middle East). Not a bad day’s work, IMO.