Well, no, they don’t. Do you honestly think anybody has the ability to dissuade the West from Christianity?
How do you account for those “terrorists” who try to minimise civilian casualties?
Wow, those sure are lame, oversimplified explanations.
I guess you’re suggesting being occupied by Israel is helping things somehow? The territory is a shambles, unemployment is high- what exactly are they supposed to be producing? Do you think the education system over there is functioning? And that industry is just chugging along?
Yes, these people as a group have no practical skills. That’s a reasonable explanation that doesn’t sound prejudiced at all. :rolleyes:
Well ETA, the IRA, Tamil Tigers, etc and Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad etc. are different beasts. The first have well defined goals which could in theory (and in practice with IRA and perhaps Tamil Tigers) be negotiated with and reached some acceptable accommodation. The latter on the other hand are fighting from ignorance, religious fanatism and superstition. We’ll never be able to reach any acceptable accommodation, and should never give them an inch. In any case, they don’t need logic; they’ve got Allah on their side, remember. They’re certain they’ll prevail in the end. Anyway as far as reasoning, I think this is a bit how they think:
- They defeated the Russians in Afghanistan, and believed they caused the downfall of Soviet. An enemy for whom they had much more respect than for any Western nation.
- Compared to the Russians the Americans are morally weak, degenerate and without the heart, will or brutality for a prolonged and dirty war of attrition.
- By targeting Spain and other allies in Iraq they hope to break up the coalition.
They’re vermin that should be merciless exterminated. We have no obligation to try to understand them or their reasons any further than what will help us in our job to eliminate them. If that means burning their dirty rat nests and the whole society and civilization that begat them. That’s what we should do.
- Rune
I seriously think that advocating genocide to counter terrorism is an unacceptable moral position.
I think Bin Laden prematurely ejaculated with a girl when he was young and she laughed at him. 
Just like Hitler was denied entrance into the prestidious art/painting college in his youth and took it quite personally, and maybe never had sex with a woman unless it was a relative. Just like most serious criminals had some sort of history of abuse.
In short, no matter what the west does to appease these assholes, it will never be enough for them. Unless we can get them all into some sort of 12-step program.
I didn’t write anything about killing anyone, though surely a great deal of that’ll be unavoidable. I talked about destroying the cultures or sub-cultures and part of certain civilizations that are bent on our destruction. E.g. Taliban, Saudi Arabian Wahabbism, Pakistani madras schools, etc. If they see nothing wrong in furthering the cause of terrorists who find it acceptable to plant bombs in Spanish trains, I see nothing morally wrong in ripping them up with the roots. Sadly, the only way we’re going to accomplish that is by force, and enough with the critical dialogue already. Of course this has the added benefit of make life better for the millions suffering under their totalitarian throwback society.
- Rune
I would say that the fundamental cause of terrorism in the Middle East is the inability to distingish between those harming you and those who share traits with them. Israelis put up a wall, so some Palestinian kills some other Israelis.
Palestinian killed some Israelis, so Israelis kill some other Palestinians.
Radical Muslims suffer at the hands of Westerners, so they attack other Westerners.
The West retaliates with more military action, causing more radical Muslims to suffer at the hands of Westerners.
Near as I can tell, it’s about power.
Saudi Arabia is ruled by a royal family. That family has power, understands power, and means to keep its power.
Where does power come from? Well, money. And force.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t have much of a military. Their military is largely concerned with keeping their own people in line.
Ouch! They have to keep their own people in line! How to do that? Hey, religion! Yes, we will encourage a strict form of Islamic worship and behavior, and adhere to it very publicly. Yup, that’ll convince the people we’re good. And since we control the media, nobody will ever figure out otherwise.
Unfortunately, there’s the money part. Need money. How to get it? Sell oil, and invest the money in diversification. Unfortunately, this involves getting involved with the Westerners. It also involves having Westerners in the country, since we don’t really know how to run our own petrochemical industry.
…which causes friction. Our strict Islamic regime is not known for its tolerance.
…hey, wait a minute. We can bash the West for its sinfulness. Yeah, we can get our people aimed at the West, and that will get their minds off their own rulers! Worked for Hitler, yes?
…which puts us in the situation of publicly bashing the West, while simultaneously depending on it for a steady cash flow, as well as the skills and expertise to extract our own oil from the ground.
Meanwhile, there’s the Palestinian situation. The Pallies hate the Israelis, and vice versa, and they’ve been merrily killing each other for years. Admittedly, we could simply import the entire Palestinian nation into Saudi Arabia, and put them to work in our own workforce… but then, we’d lose a fascinating show, and worse, take away a major source of distraction for our own people. No, better to leave them there, getting kicked around by the Israelis.
Osama Bin Laden saw the inherent hypocrisy in this situation; it’s one of the reasons he wants the West out of Saudi Arabia. Precisely why is unclear. Perhaps he honestly believes that Allah will just make everything peachy, once the Saudi oil empire collapses for lack of Westerners to run it. Maybe he simply wants to supplant the existing regime.
…but you have to admit: as long as any Middle Eastern wannabe honcho can simply make an anti-American speech and suddenly gain himself a following, we are a damned handy thing for them.
Will getting out of Saudi Arabia change anything?
No. In fact, last I heard, we DID get out of SA; but now Osama’s all bent because we’re in Iraq.
When we get out of Iraq, he’ll be pissed because we’re still supporting Israel.
If we stop supporting Israel, he’ll be pissed because Israel didn’t immediately fall apart, and therefore, we must still, somehow, be supporting Israel…
Osama’s riding the tiger. Far as I can see, his entire power base is based on hating us and everything we stand for, and therefore, he HAS to keep attacking, lest his followers get bored, or get the idea that Osama’s soft on Westerners. He has to keep attacking, no matter WHAT we do.
And we can’t give in to what he wants, period. Once you pay danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane…
I think you summed it up quite nicely. However…
All because he has a small penis, prematurely ejaculated, and the western woman he was screwing laughed at him. Or he couldn’t get it up and she laughed. Or maybe it was because some woman rejected him because he looks freaky. Trust me, there’s a woman behind all this. Ask Freud.
Rjungb that is a perfect answer to the person holding the sign with the only word “WHY?” in the 9-11 (a.k.a. the attack on NYC and DC) trubute website.
Kudos
Many Saudis believe the Royal family is a corrupt group of oppressors, with human rights abuses that are comparable to Saddam Hussein’s abuses in Iraq – arbitrary arrests, torture, unfair trials and harsh punishments such as flogging and beheading are common, and well-documented by non-Saudi groups. There’s also a massive unemployment problem in SA, which adds to the frustration.
However, most Saudis also feel the Royal Family isn’t going to go away soon, parimarily because the corrupt government is being kept in power by the West – with the United States being the biggest supporter. There’s a widespred belief that, the US is the only thing keeping the Royal Family from being overthrown.
So if you’re a disgruntled, unemployed young man in Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden tells you that he wants to attack the United States as payback for its corruption of the Middle East, it’s not a hard sell. Is it any wonder that most of the 9/11 attackers were Saudi nationals?
An excellent point made.
But it boils down to the same thing: “All you angry young men, just give me your money and your allegiance, and the angriest of you, go kill me some Americans. Meanwhile, I will work on expanding my power base…”
It’s generally best not to assume that your opponent is stupid or incompetant. Don’t assume that terrorism is utterly without purpose, or inevitably counterproductive.
At a basic level, I can see terrorism as a way for a poorly-supplied and underdog side to strike back at its opponents, even if it’s an indirect strike. Frustration probably helpa lot.
But Terrorism can have practical spects. I’m indebted to reporter/essayist Gwynne Dyer for pointing this out in a column. In those cases where the terrorists are in among a population under the control of a military power or a government they oppose, terrorism can make that government “crack down” on the whole population, making things worse for the general populace, and moving them all that much closer to rebellion against the ruling power. In the absence of terrorism and oppression, most people just try to get along, and don’t care about politics one way or the other. In other words, terrorists make things worse for everyone in order to make everyone their allies against the ruling power.
I’m not condoning terrorism, of course. But it’s clear to me that it can still be employed against, say, the US in Iraq in precisely this way and for exactly this reason.
There are other reasons for terrorism, as well – it hurts travel and business, as pointed out above, and it hurts morale.
I can’t understand the Madrid bombings – they don’t fall under the heading of the “oppressed populace”. And if the perpetrators don’t announce themselvs, what cause are they advancing?
Well, it’ll be better for the survivors, if there are any. Exactly how many bombs do you drop to get rid of hate? I hate to get all philosophical about it, but I’m not sure how killing people who hate you is going to convince people not to hate you. It’ll probably just make them think they should be more efficient in trying to kill you.
I suspect you do not get the message because you are not the intended recipient.
Somewhere on my hard drive (or was) a neat article pointing out that these sort of public displays are an attempt to be a big man in terrorist circles. I suspect that might be right.
Attacks are not made to change things, they are made to show off.
I just heard on the radio this morning that the terrorist attacks came just before the Spanish elections, which the US-invasion-supporting Conservatives just lost. Now I understand the Spanish bombings. There’s another use for terrorism. I’m surprised that none of the news reports I heard mentioned that (or else they did, and I missed it.) Evidently there were indications that al Qaeda was behind this (aside from some implications of the involvement of a couple of al Qaeda people) , but nobody’s pointed out what those are.
Sorry, but unfortunately terrorism IS an effective tactic. Why do you think the US pulled their troops out of Saudi Arabia? Hell, I think one of the major reasons we went to war in Iraq was to get rid of Saddam so we wouldn’t have to worry about SA’s northern border and we could create a new launching point for further ME operations allowing us to remove our troops from SA.
Also, look at the situation in Spain. One terrorist attack and they cry “Pull out of Iraq!” That’s a great way to show terrorists that they are clearly on to something.
Moving this to Great Debates.
Of course, the people opposed going into Iraq in the first place, but aside from that minor quibble… :rolleyes:
What I don’t understand are the terrorist attacks that are vague to the point where we don’t know who did them, or if we do, why. At least 9/11 came with those Osama tapes, in which he gave us some measure of what he wanted and why. It would just make much more sense if more terrorist attacks came with some form of ultimatum and clearer cause-consequence models so that they could influence policy in a less nebulous manner (i.e. if all of the C people don’t get out of the A territory by March 20, we will hit you with another wave of attacks). I’m not saying I support this method of achieving aims, but at least it would make more sense than random bombings that no one takes credit for.
Also, what’s the deal with hitting people that have nothing to do with whoever you have a problem with? I realize it’s easier to bomb random people than to assassinate the leaders who are issuing the policies you don’t like, but it’s no excuse. Heck, some of the people they’re bombing indiscriminately may even be opposed to those leaders. It would just make so much more sense if terrorists targeted attacks a little better, as they can make their message much more clear. I really don’t get any message when some random 6-year old girl dies in one of your attacks other than that you’re a monster that needs to be vanquished with all possible haste.