Tejota,
Lemur866 was clearly directing his thoughts towards terrorists, not Arabs.
I agree with you that terrorists are an abberation but the cause of that abberation seems fairly clear. It is tied in with a political power struggle, the existence of Israel, and their desire to overthrow secular Arab states. So I’m obviously not understanding your point.
I think that pretty much sums it up for me.
I am of the opinion that our government has a pretty good idea about why these fucks did what they did and how they percieve us and our actions.
A great deal, if you must know.
None, because as far as I know, nobody’s ever mentioned storming Topeka with bombs or ground troops or harassed innocent Kansans due to Phelps’ antics. Nor does Phelps’ yelling and flag-burning - nor even do antichoice bombings and racist lynchings - have worldwide, complex geopolitical implications involving the military might of the most powerful state in the world and several others to boot. That’s a silly argument, and I think you’re aware of it.
Look, we may be misunderstanding the word “motivations” here. I’m using it at the political level: looking at diplomatic considerations, attitudes towards Americans in different regions among different groups, in general just understanding the complex currents of culture and prejudice at play here, just so we know how deep and how strong the river is before we dive in.
I don’t think anyone at all has suggested putting bin Laden on a couch and going “tell me about your mother.” I suppose that makes it my turn to get huffy about strange imputations of irrelevant arguments.
Ah, I got it, Blackclaw. Thanks for the clarification. 
“well-respected poster” may be going by the wayside. I’ve never had people disagree with me so strongly. Then again, I usually post about things like cat food brands, so therein lies the difference.
I wish I’d said it like someone else did, so late in the discussion:
“What is it that makes young people in the middle east think Bin Laden isn’t some psychopath that they wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole?” I’m curious. I think we’d be better off knowing. Even if it doesn’t, alas, change the way the U.S. comports itself in the world. I’d like to think we’d change at least somewhat, but some of you find that so abhorrent that I’ll stop talking about it.
I’m also a glimmery-eyed optimist, one of the other faults I bring to this discussion. I don’t believe, in the end, that hatred of the United States is inevitable. I just don’t think hatred is a given. It may be for the next fifty years, but I can envision a future where we’re not hated. I’d like us to work for it. If that makes me laughably naive, well, there are worse things for me to be. I’m not changing my username to Pollyanna, though. Not even for you, Milo.
What the hell are you dissing Iams for! Whiskas and Purina SUCK!!! EVERYONE SUCKS!!! I HATE YOU FOR YOUR EVIL GAWDDAMNED CATFOOD STANCE!!!
Fenris, a “Hill’s Science Diet” or “Iams” guy
So you’re a pussy, an idiot, and a bigot. What’s wrong with the Nutro brand, asshole?
[sub]sorry for the hijack all. Lightheartedness was just so welcome for a change[/sub]
But I… I feed my pets both Iams and Science Diet!!!
(Runs off weeping.)
My…my local petshop doesn’t carry it!
:: cries ::
**
Lord, yes!
Fenris
Geeze, Cranky!
You made two people cry with that comment!
You’re mean! :eek:
Fenris
The problem is, there are other terrorists in the world besides Bin Laden and the members of his organization. They are the reasons we need to understand the motivation behind last Tuesday’s attack. Because no matter what action is taken against Osama Bin Laden, we need to know: what effect will that action have on other terrorist organizations? Will it deter them? Or will they view Bin Laden as a martyr and try to perform other, equally villianous acts in a twisted quest for glory?
This isn’t questioning who’s at fault for Tuesday’s deaths, and it isn’t an attempt to empathize with sociopaths. It’s an attempt to figure out where the next punch is coming from. Because like it or not whatever we do in Afghanistan will have an effect on future terrorist behaviour, and we need to know what that effect will be, as much as possible.
matt_mcl has it exactly right: the actions that we take now will have repercussions around the world for years. To not try and predict those repercussions as best we can would be foolish. And figuring out why terrorists act as they do is one of the tools at our disposal.
This is not the only battle to be fought. We have to think of the future as well.
I feel I need to understand my cat’s innermost motivations before choosing a cat food. In the meantime, the high protein content and wide availability of Iams will have to do.
I just want to say I respect all the posters in this discussion SO MUCH. Here is a very interesting opinion piece from the NY Times (you have to register to read it, unfortunately, so I’ll quote some of it as well).
I realize that I probably presented my opinions badly yesterday. I hate that people read sympathy for terrorists into my posts.
I just want to say: We can go forward with our justice and retaliation in a way that completely alienates the Arab world or we can also do it in a way that includes the Arab world and makes it easier for our allies to support us, as Friedman suggests. I grok JODI’S arguments of yesterday, that understanding the motives of terrorists does not change anything about what they did or the need for justice. I still argue that information and understanding helps us defeat them, in the short-term war of violence and security and in the long term war of public opinion, diplomacy, and world politics. I recognize that many people don’t care about that right now, but I do.
My plea for “understanding” is twofold. Firstly, I need to try to understand the what, the who, the when, the how, the why - for myself, as part of my own healing process. I need to understand what these people want and how they came to want it and what their justifications are. I need to look through history and see where this thinking came from, what made these people join a terrorist movements, what propaganda they grew up with, what propaganda they are spreading to the rest of the world, why 50% of the Muslim world would applaud their actions.
Needing this or wanting this does not make me a “philosopher” or a tepid America-basher or “unconcerned with national security” or any less of a patriot than anyone else.
Secondly, I am in no way arguing that we should “cave in” to terrorists on matters of Israel, women’s rights, national security, or any other demand they make. However I have been a long-term advocate of greater, yes, understanding between the U.S. and the Muslim world as a whole. I think many of actions on both sides in this century have been based on ignorance about religious and political realities. Bin Laden speaks for Islam the way Pat Robertson speaks for Christianity. Moderate Christians and non-Christians laugh at the idea of Pat Robertson speaking for anyone, yet he continues to be a major financial and ideological force in U.S. politics with many supporters. If we don’t understand how he gains his legitimacy among these people, we can bomb him all we want - other people will rise and take his place. That doesn’t mean we don’t bomb the holy living fuck out of him and his crew, but we need the larger understanding so we can be watchful when the next crew appears, so we can help our Arab allies defeat the threat from within their own countries, and so we can conduct diplomacy better in the future.
My cat’s breath smells like cat food.
I just realized that my post could be construed as wanting to bomb Pat Robertson - The rest of my Evil Feminist Agnostic Operatives and I plan to hold off on that one for right now.
Oh, and does anyone else spoil their cats with a small amount of wet food in the morning?
MATT –
I am not advocating willful ignorance, and you are a LIAR to say that I am. If you expect me to believe you have any principles at all, then I suggest you refrain from gross dishonesty.
I find your posts and your posting style offensive in the extreme, for reasons better set forth by FENRIS. Now you admit you make the comments in response to me, but you expect me to somehow divine they are not to me or about me because they are attributed to “some people.” If that is the level of careful hair-splitting you engage in, I respond that some people can go fuck themselves.
BLACLCLAW, CRANKY is not the one unable or unwilling to see my point. She understands it, as does TAMERLANE, who said:
Sure. It’s just the timing I object to, as I have said. To attempt to delve into the motivations of the terrorists right now detracts from the task at hand; can add nothing of any practical worth to what must be done next; and runs the risk of being a justification for this monstrosity. To me, it’s like attempting to figure out what the vicitm could have done to invite attack, in the immediate wake of that attack. People who do so should not be surprised others take them indignantly to task for appearing to imply the victim “deserved” it. If that is not what the speaker intends, and if there is no pressing need for the discussion immediately, then it seems to me the better part of senstivity and valor to postpone it, until the necessary immediate work has been done and until tempers and emotions have cooled. I trust you see this. I’m at a loss to imagine why so many others do not. Truly, I don’t mind that people disagree with me; I’d just like a little acknowledgement that the issue does have two sides and that just because I’m on the other one doesn’t mean I’m “willfully ignorant” or “jingoistic” or anything other than in actual – and valid – disagreement.
MATHGEEK –
I’m going to tease this out, because I don’t think your assumption follows.
How does understanding the motivations of these particular terrorists – the specifics of what their gripe is with the United States – illuminate in any way the “effect” of the action upon other terrorists?
What does the “why” have to do with this? Would they not be more concerned with understanding the mechanics of the operation, in light of its spectacular success, and how they could duplicate it? How does knowing that the specific reason these planes blew up was because bin Laden believes American troops in Saudi Arabia “defiled” it (despite being there by invitation), in any way clue us in as to the potential future actions of, say, the IRA?
I agree with this completely. Of course, it has nothing to do with the motivations of the terrorists.
Except this is not the subject under discussion. No one is saying that we should not take a hard look at the future results of our own actions – not our motivations, but our actions. We are saying that at this point in time the specifics of why the terrorists did this are largely irrelevant. It doesn’t change that the attack took place. It does not justify or mitigate the attack. It doesn’t change our likely response to the attack. That is why at this point, explanations of motivations are largely irrelevant.
And as I have also said repeatedly, I don’t care if people wish to delve into the workings of these terrorists’ minds and try to understand why they did it. There are always people who believe that we have an obligation to try to “understand” criminals, and who refuse to see that “understanding” them, while having long-term value, doesn’t mean anything in the context of determining who committed the crime and how he or she should be punished. I simply refuse to be told that I must care about such things right now, when there is IMO more important work to be done and more constructive things to devote my energy to.
MAGDALENE, I am glad you “grok” my argument, and I appreciate your plea for tolerance and greater understanding between people. I hope you understand that nothing I have posted is in anyway inconsistent with that goal.
Holy kitty uppers, this thread has been an intersting read. As someone else pointed out, I think we all really are pretty close on this issue. Many of our differences may lie with our interpretations of “understanding” and whether or not we associate empathy, guilt, forgiveness, acquiesence, etc. in any degree with that word.
By understanding the terrorists motivations, I:
will never forgive them for what they did or reason with their explanation,
will try and take action that would circumvent any other “impressionables” from embracing the same tenets and hatred toward us.
I heard on the radio on the way in this morning about the declared jihad and listened to the insistance from a young Afghan that this was because America has been looking for an excuse to attack Muslims around the world. I understand that he doesn’t know why we fought and died in Yugoslavia. I understand that he doesn’t know that 5,000,000 Muslims live and worship in the US in peace, protected by our laws, with the same rights as a Buddhist or Christian.
If you’re determined to find offense where there is none, and assume that comments are in specific reference to you and only to you when I’ve explicitly stated that they aren’t, there’s very little I can do to stop you, but it strikes me as a very ulcerogenic way to go through life.
I suppose I would have to have an iota of respect for you or your opinions in order to care how anything I say “strikes” you. As must be clear by this point, I do not.
Can’t we all just get a thong?
C’mon girls, y’all first…
damn!
It’s not just the nature of their “gripe”, but what they were trying to achieve. Other posters have suggested that perhaps the hijackers were hoping to provoke a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. If that were true, and if the hijackers had reason to believe that other terrorists would react violently to such an invasion, don’t you think that would be good to know?
It doesn’t, because the IRA probably couldn’t care less about Saudi Arabia. But there are undoubtably people in the world who share Osama Bin Laden’s views and his lack of respect for human life, and who aren’t part of the Taliban or Osama Bin Laden’s organization. And I want to know how they will react to whatever reprisals are taken against Bin Laden. Again, will they be deterred, or will they view him as a martyr and try to imitate him? And one clue would be the views of Osama Bin Laden himself: is he adversely affected by the strength of U.S. resolve, or is he ready to die a martyr’s death? Or in other words, did he underestimate the strength and violence of our response, or is he anticipating and counting on our anger to fuel his own vision of himself as a noble figure?
You’ve said repeatedly that such questions shouldn’t change our response, but even if that’s true we shouldn’t deny ourselves the chance to better anticipate attacks in the future.
Not the ones involved in Tuesday’s attack, no, but it has everything to do with the motivations of people who might try to follow in their footsteps. The motivations of one will hopefully give us a clue as to the motivations of the other.
I have to disagree, with the last sentance at any rate. Ideally it would have been better to know more about how Osama Bin Laden ticks long ago, so that we could have seen how far he was willing to go. Obviously we missed that chance, but that’s all the more reason to catch up on our homework now. It doesn’t prevent us from taking action against Bin Laden in any way, but it does help prepare us to live in the world that Tuesday’s events forced us to acknowledge.
Yes, Bin Laden is crazy. No, he cannot be reasoned with.
BUT…WHY do some people follow him? Because he gets them young and manipulates them to think as he does. WHY is he able to do that?
Think about it.
Remember-we are not changing our foreign policy because of terrorists, we should change it because it was wrong, and because we cannot support conditions that encourage a terrorist mindset.
No one is saying we have to ignore Israel. But why do we have to ignore one to help the other?
Nothing is black and white. It’s all shades of grey.