We don't need to 'understand the issues that led' to Tuesday's atrocities

The BBQ Pit
1

Note: The “they” I’ll be referring to represents only the fanatical Taliban/Hamas(sp) types. I’m not referring to Muslims or Arabs in general.

I keep hearing, over and over, that the events of Tuesday “didn’t happen in a vacuum” and we need to “understand what drove them to this” or we need to “understand America’s role in this” if we’re to try to prevent another occurance.

I don’t agree at all. While there’s a certain fascination in looking at the pathology of a psychotic mindset, “understanding America’s role” is useless for me unless I’m willing to consider the possiblity of change at their behest.

And I don’t want to, nor will I support, change in the way they (the Taliban-esque extremists) want us to:

We are moving towards true equality for women. They treat women as chattel.

We are trying to achieve a free and open diverse society. They (the Taliban) are one of the most oppressive governments on earth.
We support Israel for a number of reasons (Israel’s an ally, Israel’s a democracy, etc). They don’t believe Jews have the right to exist, let alone have a state of their own.

We’re trying to move towards a brighter, better future. They’re trying to drag us back to a primitive, barbaric, theocratic nightmare existance.

We’re not perfect, but they’re fucking evil.

So, fuck 'em. Understanding won’t help. Learning about their motives/goals/etc. won’t help. We’ve got an unbridgable gap and one philosophy or the other will lose. I want it to be them. So please, spare me the condescending “we need to understand” speeches. I understand. I just don’t care.

Fenris

2

Fenris, I love every inch of you, even that hairy ass of yours.

But I don’t agree.

I’d like to expunge the evil people in the world. I hope we get a lot of them. But I think we can also revisit our role in world affairs. I don’t like living in a country that is loathed. It’d be one thing if we were loathed for stupid reasons. But our government is hypocritical and boorish when it comes to the Middle East–we’re hated because our government is full of shit. No fucking way does that explain or excuse what these ratfuckers did, but I’d be a happier person if we took a higher ground in the future. So investigating the past 60 years or so is a start.

I’m not very good at expressing this (obviously).

But yours was a good rant, I’ll not argue with that.

3

Not understanding what led to the atrocity of 11 Sep allows the United States to think it can go into the Middle East and pound whoever it perceives as enemies, and that will take care of the matter once and for all.

It won’t. It will just provoke more responses from those who survived. Retaliation is only the latest serve in a tennis game of destruction.

And nobody is condescending to anyone about “needing to understand”. As an anti-war adherent, I feel strongly enough about the subject to put my views on the boards; while I may strongly disagree with the opposite view it doesn’t mean I don’t respect the poster.

You ought to care, Fenris. This war won’t leave any of us unaffected.

4

Given Tuesday’s events, I am just amazed that anyone could think our government and its military would have any other priority other than protecting our national security, through whatever force, however necessary, immediately.

Do you think it would have been asinine to talk about the feelings and motivations of the Japanese following Pearl Harbor? Or to point the finger at ourselves, for whatever wrong we might have done those good and honorable people for them to regrettably feel that had to destroy a significant portion of our Pacific fleet?

Of course it would have been asinine.

The question then becomes, why do some of you feel it isn’t after an act of atrocity about 10 times worse than Pearl Harbor? And involving civilians instead of the military? And at a time of peace instead of a time of war?

I’m proud to live in a country so free, that even people like yourselves are allowed to think what you think, even if it is to knee-jerk America bash. (As if we could have done anything, anywhere that made this monstrous act understandable or justifiable.)

But I believe those great American essayists The Beastie Boys put it best when they said, “Check Your Head.”

5

The only reason not to care about root causes would be if we don’t care about future consequences. If, however, we want to end state-sponsored terrorism, then we’d damn well better understand the forces and actions which give rise to terrorism, or we’re bound to see an unending succession of bin Ladens and Talibans.

The phrase “We don’t need to understand” has been the rallying cry for sustained ignorance used by arrogant ideologues throughout history. Let’s not be them.

6

I don;t understand why both ideas can’t coexist.

I’m as strong a supporter as there is that the perpetrators of this must be hunted down and killed like dogs, and I am personally of the opinion that the West should take steps to begin fighting a long-term war against all international terrorists. We should start killing them all.

But examining our own actions is always good, too. It doesn’t change the fact that Osama bin Laden and his odious henchmen should all be killed. But maybe we should examine our own actions. NATO’s tactics in the Kosovo war, for instance - hmm, maybe we should not have adopted a tactic we knew would kill hundreds of civilians but few soldiers. Why did we bomb so many civilian targets, on purpose? That’s a valid thing to examine at the same time we’re stringing up Osama bin Laden like the pig he is.

7

I agree with FENRIS. The problem with linking the events of the past week to a need to “understand” our policy in the Middle East is that the clear subtext of such linking is that problems with the latter somehow justify or excuse the former. They don’t. Nothing does.

If we do one thing differently regarding our foreign policy because of this, then the terrorists have won. They have succeeded in doing through terror that which they have not succeeded in doing through diplomacy – pursuading the U.S. that it needs to act differently regarding its own interests and the interests of its allies, and to act in some way that it does not deem to be in its best interests, or the best interests of its allies.

IMO this is PRECISELY the time to maintain the status quo in foreign policy, agree with it or not. To change our stance in the wake of this atrocity sends a clear message that such tactics are in fact effective. That in turn puts us all at greater risk of reoccurrence the next time some fanatical group disagrees with national policy.

I realize that retaliating (in a just and proportionate manner) puts the U.S. at risk to itself be retailiated against. But it seems to me there is no choice. This is not the sort of act that can be or should be tolerated. We must protect our citizens and our homeland, and allowing this act to go unpunished out of fright of retaliation is not the way to do it. If these people did not want to incur the wrath of the U.S., they should not have killed 5000 of its citizens. I fully realize I am talking about potential escalation cumulating in a full-out war. Let it come.

If people want to discuss the shortcomings in American Middle Eastern policy, fine. But IMO it should not in any way be linked to this atrocity committed upon civilians, because such acts cannot be justified or excused by any policy or provocation on the part of the U.S.

8

Bull. I understand perfectly. I’m saying that since I’m not willing to support what they want, it does no good.

To use an overstated analogy, if they were attacking us because our women were free to wear whatever clothing they liked, how would that help us? Sure it’s vaguely interesting, but since we have no intention of forcing our women to swath themselves from head to toe, the conflict will happen anyway!

In the same vein, the U.S. will continue to support Israel, we won’t embrace their peculiar brand of fundamentalism, we won’t accede to any of their wishes. So why bother?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ever rexamine our actions or study our history, but we shouldn’t do it in the futile hopes that these psychotic extremists will somehow change their ways if we do. And we absolutely must not change our actions any time soon, lest we teach these monsters the lesson that if they kill enough of our people, we’ll listen to them.

On preview, I just read Jodi’s post. Dammit, Jodi, you keep saying what I’m fumbling to say!

Fenris

9

If we don’t want World War Three, fighting a foe that we don’t understand and can’t isolate, then we’d damn well better try to “understand” what led to Tuesday’s attack.

I have no sympathy or pity for the terrorists or those who support them.

But for heaven’s sake, let’s look at our policies toward the Middle East in this century and try to understand why our enemies and allies feel the way they do…Sadaam Hussein, Khadafi, and Bin Laden all try to manipulate the Arab world in roughly the same way - isn’t it about time someone tried to figure it out in a meaningful way?

We’ve played the states in that region of the world off each other for decades for our own political and economic goals, during the Cold War and beyond. Americans, by virtue of our power and geographic isolation, by virtue of our wealth and entertainment culture, can afford to have short memories. “The Iran-Iraq War, in which we supported Iraq against Iran and basically gave Sadaam Hussein the means and might to attack Kuwait? That is SO 1984. You mean they haven’t gotten over it yet?” No, they haven’t.

We repeatedly bomb civilians in Iraq and impose harsh economic sanctions on its citizens in the hopes that the people will rise against their leader. Why do we assume that the people of Iraq have the same agenda and information that we do? All we’ve given them is a defined target to blame and hate for their suffering, and an example of American injustice that extremists in the region can use to fuel their hatred.

Upset with Libya? We just drop a few bombs and it all goes away.

We trained and funded rebels against the Soviet Union, and in part contributed to the rise of the Taliban. Where do you think those “50,000 Afghan war veterans at Bin Laden’s disposal” come from?

I guess how you look at it depends on how you define “security.” Many Americans would feel more secure if we bombed the shit out of someone right now. But if we bomb the wrong people for the wrong reasons, the perpetrators of last Tuesday’s act remain alive and free to pursue their ends and there is one more example of America’s hamfisted way of dealing with the Middle East on the table for the mullahs to get angry about.

A friend of mine recently compared foreign nations’ relationships to the U.S. to dating a really self-centered man. “Wait, you’re breaking up with me? I did something wrong? Oh, but that was YEARS ago…you can’t still be mad about that! But I have really good intentions! How can you hate me? I’m such a nice guy!”

I want the organization that bombed us last Tuesday wiped out of existence. I want the return of innocence and national security without stepping all over our constitution. I want to stop checking the lists from the WTC an the Pentagon for people I know, and I want to fly to see my boyfriend in New York without fear.

But I also want the U.S. to take a long, comprehensive look at its foreign policy, admit where we screwed up, and start working toward peace and stability in the region.

10

We can look at our actions in the Middle-East, revise them as needed. But no changes that we make are going to satisfy those who seek our destruction.

Our enemies want the total destruction of Israel, and while we may disgree with many of Israel’s policies (for me the key disagreement is the expansionist settlements) we are simply not going to stand idly by while Israel’s enemies kill every man, woman, and child of that nation. Since its creation the US has taken a stand against those who seek Israel’s destruction and that is all it has taken for us to be marked as targets.

Our enemies seek the disruption and overthrow of all secular governments in the Middle-East. Many of their points of grievence do not actually lie with us, but with their own governments. There is no real religious cause that US troops in Eastern Saudi Arabia should be an affront to Muslims. It is simply an excuse to spew hatred. If that cause went away another would be found. The support of Israel would be enough. Attacking the US is an attempt to plunge the world into complete instability. It is their feverent belief that from the ashes will arrive a radical movement that will gain power and force its unyielding beliefs upon those unfortunate enough to live within their grasp.

We are simply an easy scrapegoat, a catalyst to their desires. They hate us simply because we exist. They hate us because until September 11th, our major concerns in the world was not questions of religious fevor, but whether we could afford a new car with the economy in it’s slight downtrend. While they brood away at world they see is unjust, we worried about the new Fall TV lineup.

So blame us for our complacency. Blame us for thinking that the world really was a good place. But don’t pretend that the hate against us is justified.

11

I disagree. Pounding your enemies into nonexistance is a pretty foolproof methodology, and one tested again and again by history.

12

Since when in the fuck is evaluating and attempting to understand the past, and others motivations = to “America bashing?”

Oh, I’m sorry, it’s apparently since now, I didnt’ get the memo.

I understand and accept that there may be some folks who lie beyond reason (Jeff Dahmer springs to mind). But to state unequivocably beforehand “I don’t care why they/he did what he did” is a prelude to further tragedy.

I agree that the Taliban is a horrific group, scarey that they could have been in power. Ever.

But if we sit back and refuse to analyze how they got there, how can we protect our future?

And, by the way, ‘Understanding’ is not a synonym for “agreeing with” or “justification”. If I understand that beating a child will often result in the child becoming an anti social monster (no, not always, but it does happen), then I have knowledge which I can use in the future. If I refuse to look at what went into the problem , how in the fuck can I avoid recreating the same sitautions?

(Fenris you know I love you, and I agree the Taliban are the shits, but I find it difficult to understand a stance that says ‘information is useless’. )

13

Jodi and Fenris, who the FUCK said we need to understand the causes of terrorism so we can “give the terrorists what they want”?! Point the cretinous dickwad out to me so I can ridicule his ass, ok?

Is anyone so fucking foolish as to think our only two options are status quo or capitulation?

AGAIN: “We don’t need to understand” is a bullshit statement, antithetical to either moral or effective action, and to the alleged purpose of this message board. If we fail to change our policies to meet changing realities, then we’ve doomed ourselves.

On preview, what magdalene said.

14

Tell that to the Romans.

15

Saying that we don’t need to understand goes against fighting ignorance, does it not?

That does not mean we excuse what happened. Instead, we try to get to the root of the problem, to prevent this from happening in the future.

16

Whom have we pounded into nonexistence?

Britain was our enemy in 1776 and 1812 - nope, they’re still there.

Mexico was our enemy in the 1840s - nope, still there. Smaller, since the US seized a buncha territory, but still there.

The Confederacy was an enemy in the 1860s - OK, that one I’ll give you, at least on a geopolitical level.

Spain was our enemy in 1898 - nope, still there. Minus Cuba and Guam, but still there.

Germany and Austria-Hungary were our enemies in 1916 - well, no more Kaiser, and several new countries, but Austria and Hungary and still there.

Germany and Japan were our enemies in 1941 - different governments, but still there.

North Vietnam was our enemy in the 1960s and 1970s.

Cuba has been our “enemy” since 1959.

The Soviet Union was our enemy before and after World War II. Yeah, they’re no longer there, but maybe only Fukuyama possibly believes we pounded them into nonexistence.

Did I miss anyone?

17

Ditto,wring. But…some info is useless. It doesn’t help to know that they hate us if we’re not willing to even consider changing the way they want. I know what those monsters want and I don’t agree with any of it. How have I benefitted? In addition, I don’t care about the motives of madmen. They’ve removed themselves from the arena of rational discourse.
Xeno: The terrorists want us to (in part) change our policy towards the Middle East. The minute we do, we’re giving the terrorists what they want. QED.
And, really, by the terrorist’s actions on Tuesday, they’ve eliminated any possiblity of discussion. They’re rabid dogs to be hunted down and executed. One does not discuss ethics vis-a-vis global politics with madmen.

Fenris

18

Fenris:

I agree 100%. Actually, it has been happening for years on our own soil, and it’s one of my biggest pet-peeves.

Ever notice how, after someone goes on a murdering spree or commits evil (Columbine, Susan Smith, et al.), the media (and everyone, it seems) sez:

**“Why?”

Why did this happen?

“We are looking for answers.”

“We need to understand why this happened.” **

I don’t care why someone commits evil, e.g. I don’t care if they were sexually abused, I don’t care if they had an alcoholic father, I don’t care if they came from a “dysfunctional household,” I don’t care if they had a learning disability, I DON’T CARE, so spare me the details. I’m only concerned with enacting swift justice. That’s it.

While I’m at it, a word about what happened last week: This is different, as we are not seeking “justice” in this situation. War is war, and the bombing of the WTC was an act of war. Did we “seek justice” from the Japanese after PH? No. We saw it as a declaration of war, and we responded accordingly.

19

Iraq did not us US arms to invade Kuwait. If you have any evidence of the US intentionally bombing civilians in Iraq, please present it. The vast amount of hardship caused by the economic sanctions is actually a result of Saddam Hussein witholding food and medicine to his own population to maximize his propaganda, which apparently is working quite well.

http://www.fair.org/articles/crossette.html

20

Fenris & Jodi, you’re two of my favorite posters here, bright as hell and absolutely oozing with common sense, but I’ve got to disagree here. Maybe it’s just a difference in semantics but I don’t equate “understanding their reasons” with sucumbing to their pressure.

If I’ve got an enemy that I’ve got to do battle with, I want to know everything I can about him. I want to know what makes him tick, what inflames his passions and why he has a beef with me. The side that knows the most about their enemy should have the advantage in conflict.

The court of public opinion worldwide is going to have a major influence on whether or not we have access to some countries soil to stage our counterattack and upon whether or not that counterattack generates even more resentment toward us. If we understand why they did what they did, maybe we can work to circumvent that in the future and even to educate their population as to what the truth really is. The Taliban has such an opressive hold on information from the outside world that the average Afghan has access to. Hopefully if they’re presented with more of the facts their fervor will be somewhat diminished.

Now, how we’ll do that I’ve got no friggin clue.