I may be opening myself to some accusations of wooshing but…You’re taking the piss, right erislover? Seriously. You’re kidding. I hope.
Alex B
Nope, not pissing in the breeze there. I emphatically do not support constructionist history. The actors, shall we say, do not know all the other actors’ intent, and so act blindly with partial information. They may act toward a likely goal, but in the end the law of unintended consequences rules the day. The kay players are largely, IMO, reacting to these unintended consequences causing futher unintended consequences. It isn’t a mess per se, but it surely isn’t consciously created.
Arguing with Olentzero can be trying at times. His arguments always devolve into the evils of capitalism crap. In the pro-Palestinian thread he refuses to acknowledge an Israeli right to land – basically his argument has been just short of “ship the Jews back to Europe” because I feel in his mind the Jews represent the capitalist evils of the world and the Palestinians represent the glorious proletariat. He justifies Palestinian celebration over the deaths of thousands of innocents as understandable, given that the US is the “schoolyard bully.” He goes on to divine that the Palestinians weren’t really celebrating the deaths of thousands of innocents, but rather the vulnerability of America. That they don’t hate Americans, they just were celebrating the deaths of thousands of them. Sound circular? Read the thread.
But, I will say two things.
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We need his type around here – the more crazy their views, the better. He is like the anti-Wildest Bill. He is the resident crazy Bolshevik around here. It lends diversity.
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He is at least totally constant in his views, and debates well without resorting to personal attacks and the like. He will also concede a point if absolutely cornered.
No, that’s not the correct interpretation. The “conscious decision” was “US intervention in the Middle East”, not the creation of Osama bin Laden, etc. He also has a point that the beneficiaries of US intervention is probably a minority in the U.S. and the Middle East (it was probably also the right thing to do).
I mean, at a “but-for” level, Olentzero’s absolutely right. If the U.S. didn’t support Israel, didn’t have troops in Saudi Arabia, didn’t install the Shah, etc., etc. and had simply ignored the Middle East entirely, it is doubtful some people over there would be pissed. If we had intervened on the side of the Arab countries in opposition to Israel, it is even less likely we would have the enemies we do (though we would have different ones now).
Of course if you support one side in a conflict, the opposing side will be upset at you. The real question is whether we did the right thing intervening as we did. IMO, we made some major missteps in the Mid-East in the past fifty years, but overall we did the right thing there.
Sua
A few things:
First of all, this is not the stupidest thing I’ve read; surrounding this conflict, I think Lucky’s thread about how hot bin Laden is takes the cake. In general SD history, it’s gottta be JDT’s circumcision conspiracy.
However, I can understand your ire, Scylla.
Twenty years ago, bin Laden was our friend. It wasn’t until we infidels sullied his sacred Saudi sand that he decided to hate us with a vengeance and destroy what America stands for, during the Gulf War, and we’ve done nothing to please him since. So obviously, YES, our policies in the Middle East have raised his anger, have caused him to retatliate.
But what else is there? Become isolationist? Could we have done anything to please this man? According to his fatwa, he hates Americans because we do not worship his Allah, thus spreading impurity and decadance throughout the world. Had we never interfered with this man or with the Middle East, I think he would have acted similarly.
Overall, I see him as as religious zealot who is having a pissy fit because he can’t control the entire world. Nothing we could have done, AFAICS, short of electing him president, would have made him happy. Certain actions might have delayed this catastrophe, but I think we’re underestimating him if we claim that he wouldn’t have hated us if we hadn’t interfered with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait’s conflict. Clearly, the wost possible thing we can do is underestimate this man.
Foolish, yes. I doubt that it’s the stupidest thing posted this week. But I grant you Scylla, it brought down the intellectual tone of your thread. A little bit.
This thread blows me away in the amount of stupidity and rhetoric, in which Zenster claims that the WTC is all Bush’s fault for providing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. With such assinine statements as “No amount of laving will ever wash the blood from the hands of George Bush Junior” and “George Bush Junior bought all of the hijacker’s plane tickets for them with this money” and “Shrub and his gang have blood on their hands” how could it not take the prize here?
And for the record, (from the linked thread) I hope Stoid is still choking on it, but out of regret for siding with these idiotic statements!
Point taken erislover. When you denied that ‘man creates history’ however I think you overstated it somewhat. No doubt most consequences of our actions are unforeseen. However, if your action happens to be supporting an extremist terrorist group, then the unforeseen consequences are much more likely to be tragic.
Of course the CIA didn’t expect OBL to turn on them, but if you will insist on playing with dynamite one day it will blow up in your face.
Alex B
I guess that makes you my secret admirer.
FTR: My exact words were: “I’m so glad someone else brought this up, I’ve been choking on it for days”. Which means that I’d been hearing it, reading it, and I had made the decision ** not ** to bring it up, for 2 reasons: 1)* I didn’t have the facts * 2) * I really don’t feel compelled to be giving Bush shit right now, especially around here. *
Which means I did not “side” with any of Zenster’s statements. It means exactly what I said…I’d been hearing about it, I’m glad someone else brought it up. Now that it has been brought up, more complete information has been offered, as we can always be assured will be the case around here. And now I feel the warm glow of enlightenment.
Let’s not let our little crushes drive us to embroider the facts, ok?
Peace,
Stoid
I have read some insipient posts on this board, Jack Dean Tyler and Rosie Wolf to name a couple. I agree with Scylla in the majority of his OP. This board does indeed fight ignorance, unfortunately it is an unending quest.
Do you really feel this is the case?
If someone hits your car as you are driving, are you to blame because you knew you were going to get into an accident if you drove?
Assigning blame from unintended consequnces is a dangerous affair. Sometimes a case can be made that is rather clear, and then years later we find DNA evidence to let murderers out of life sentences, you know?
No government deliberately takes an action to damage its own economy and kill its innocent civilians; the history we have witnessed here was simply not a conscious effort. I honestly don’t even believe the terrorists planned on the buildings collapsing, though I suppose they might not have minded, really.
The President of Pakistan has to try and explain to approximately 66% of his population why he has decided to cooperate with the US over supporting the Taliban when these 66% are Taliban sympathizers. He doesn’t intend to start a civil war, and neither do we. We expect to get bin Laden; Pakistan expects to receive the lift of trade restrictions. But when a civil war happens the hindsight squad will rear their heads and exclaim, “You knew this was going to happen! You did it on purpose!” And I will continue to roll my eyes 
Ooo, see what happens when I assume?!! I appologize Stoid, I’m so used to you siding with anything anti-Bush, I just figured… I didn’t think it was possible for you not to give Bush shit, I’m impressed.
I’m certainly no admirer of your political views, but you did make me both laugh and feel guilty in the same post, so you can’t be so bad.
Looks like the left-wing godless version of the Falwell & Robertson show. I suppose somebody had to say it. Catastrophe brings out the nut jobs.
See, I knew you had a crush on me. 
erislover,
Of course I don’t think the CIA even considered that OBL would turn on them: my criticism of them is not that that they caused the attack in any intentional sense, but precisely the opposite - that they acted irresponsibly. Supplying and supporting terrorist groups is not a clever or responsible act at the best of times. If you train people how to kill what can you expect but that they will kill? The fact that it was American civilians this time is irrelevant: the crime would have been just as horrific if it was Russians, Israelis or Afghans. The CIA have behaved abominably for decades, supporting whatever movement they (narrowly) perceive as coinciding with US and/or Agency interests. They are partly responsible for terrible crimes all around the world: their blame for the WTC attack is almost on a level with their blame for right-wing coups in South America or the fascistic militarism of the Israeli government.
Whether or not any terrorist group attacked the US or not, it is still wrong to support them, as the US were the Taliban until a few months ago, this time because they appreciated their efforts against opium growers.
Crying ‘I didn’t think that would happen!’ is not always a valid excuse. There is an enormous gap between something being an accident and something being unintentional, in the sense that it was not the agent’s main objective. Getting involved in a car crash can be a complete accident, or it can be the result of reckless driving. I think in this case the CIA were definitely reckless.
Alex B
As long as I don’t get inducted into the Gang of Four here…
Alex B has done an excellent job of stating my position. The US went into the Middle East with a clear goal, and they formed alliances with governments and other figures there in order to achieve that goal. Did they see bin Laden as a man who could possibly carry out an attack on New York and Washington? Of course not. But they did see him as a man who would be effective in fighting the Russians, and that’s all they cared about. They consciously supplied bin Laden with the arms and money and skills to fight the Russians, and thus consciously created a powerful terrorist. The CIA obviously couldn’t have had foreknowledge that bin Laden would get it into his head to attack the US in such a drastic manner, but it is directly responsible for creating a man powerful enough to do so. (This of course leaves aside the question of direct evidence - does the US have it? If so, why are they so loath to present it to the Taliban?)
I’m not arguing that bin Laden wouldn’t have been ill-disposed towards the US from a religious point of view if the Middle East had been more or less left alone. Fundamentalist Islam has a world view that I only barely comprehend from some short reading years ago.
It’s the United States’ policy of direct intervention in the Middle East that pushed him and others like him into action. To paint a very simplistic illustration - a rowdy teenager is busy teasing the living hell out of a dog who had a vicious nature to begin with. At some point the dog’s lead breaks and he rushes the first thing he sees - which may not be his actual tormentor. Who is responsible for the injuries sustained? Certainly not the victim. Is it the dog, for being vicious to begin with, or the teenager who tormented him?
On to a few other details…
Gomez said:
This is not the first time Scylla and I have butted heads, and if you’ll compare the dates and times of the posts in both that thread and his “Nuclear Solution” thread, you’ll see that he showed up in the Pit around the time emotions were running high in GD. We all have breaking points. And if you really think that was the worst example of behavior fueled by an inflamed temper - mine or anyone else’s - you haven’t looked carefully enough.
pantom - if being a ‘nut job’ means thinking the US would be doing the rest of the world a great favor by not throwing every single last bomb it has against its enemy of the week simply to send the message that it is not to be fucked with, then I bear the label proudly.
And, finally, edwino.
Not even close. While I don’t feel Israel has a right to land at the expense of the Palestinians, I make no connection between Judaism and capitalist oppression. As a matter of fact, I would really like you to show me where I’ve openly made such an assertion on these boards. Oh wait, you said “I feel in his mind”, meaning you presume to know what I think without me actually saying it. Well, next time you manage to get into my brain, would you be so kind as to see what kind of childhood memories you can uncover? The reminiscences of my grandfather are fading kinda faster than I’d like and I’d really love to have them back. Thanks.
Olentzero:
I’m having a tough time reconciling these two consecutive statements:
If you admittedly only “barely comprehend” their mindsets how can you speak for their motivations?
Also, we covered the “CIA training Bin Laden to be a terrorist” thing quite fully in the other thread. After failing to cite supporting evidence, you seemed to defer to the general conclusion that we did not create a terrorist. We created a soldier, and that the tactics of conventional warfare and those of terror are very different.
I’m disapointed that you’re still touting this falsehood.
Finally, the logic doesn’t follow. It does not seem reasonable to think that Bin Laden would be pissed at us **because ** we helped him fight a mutual enemy, which seems to be what you’re arguing.
Because US actions in the Middle East are apparently pissing off more than the fundamentalists.
Inflicting damage on your enemy and dispiriting him enough so that he will no longer fight. Soldiering and terror are two sides of the same coin.
I’m still searching around for the evidence I’ve seen regarding bin Laden actually being trained by the CIA; I have not completely given up on the argument yet.
No, he would be pissed at the US because of the continuation of their foreign policy in the Middle East. Is it not possible that he hated both the United States and Russia? He found an opportunity to have one side of the conflict enrich him in his fight with the other - and once that one was gone he could turn his attention to the remaining obect of his disaffection.
Cute.
I suppose every member of the military and police are potential terrorists too and we’re stupid in training them; after all, we give them guns, training, and send them to combat our ideological and political foe.