Actually, it’s just murder either way.
Dropzone,
Now, after re-reading my post and checking it in the light of your comments, I see that it sounds quite anti-American. I have to make myself clear that I am not anti-American per se.
I just can’t accept the views and actions of the Neo-Conservative guys that have been governing the country for most of the last 20 years! I smell a fascist tendency, and I can’t accept that whether it shows its head in the USA or anywhere else in the world.
As to why the terrorists are doing it in the Middle East and not in the USA… I hope you don’t really want an answer…
And I very sincerely hope the Istanbul bombings are the last of their kind ever!
The terrorists are not attacking the U.S. and its allies solely because we don’t practice Islam, or because they hate freedom, or because they don’t like McDonald’s. Although these may explain the motivations of some extreme Islamic fundamentalists, it doesn’t explain the huge increase in attacks in recent years.
I think they are attacking us because our actions in the last couple of decades in the Middle East make us look like an enemy to them. Supporting oppressive governments, giving arms to dictators like Saddam Hussein to use against the Iranians and Kurds, encouraging an uprising against Saddam after the first Gulf War and then turning our backs on them, our alliance with Israel throughout the Palestinian conflict, ten years of sanctions in Iraq causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, and now a pre-emptive invasion and occupation. Mind you, I’m not saying there aren’t rational arguments to be made for at least some of these actions, but the average Muslim is not going to hear them, much less care if it was their husband killed in a bombing attack or their child who died of malnutrition under the sanctions. We have paid very little attention to how we look to the populations of most Middle Eastern countries, and I think now we’re paying the price.
The people who have been mobilized into suicide bombings are lashing out at us in the only way they can. Most of these occur over there simply because they’re much easier to carry out in familiar territory, not because they don’t want to hit us here. The infiltration required to carry out a successful attack here is much harder than simply driving a car full of explosives into an embassy. But they will hit us here when they can.
I think the only way to win this thing is to battle the actual terrorists with police work and intelligence, and avoid harming civilians as much as possible. We need to get the UN into Iraq as soon as humanly possible. Lastly, we need to work with the different governments as much as possible to improve the quality of life for the average citizen.
“We need to get the UN into Iraq as soon as humanly possible.”
I though they were already there and got bombed out. Make no mistake, a war isn’t a pretty thing. We can bleat all we want about “saving innocent lives” (and I hope we do) or “only targeting the real terrorists” (and I hope we are). But war is a motherfucker. Innocent people die. So make a choice. Do we want to give up and say to Osama, “OK, you win…now you get to do whatever you want to do.” Or do we turn his ass into grass? And by that, I mean his supporters, too.
- PW
I know that when the targets were just US targets it was a lot easier to ignore what al Qaeda actually says their goals are. As much as the radical left admires the Islamists for the courage of their convictions – the radical left will be exterminated by al Qaeda right after those of us that supported the war. Take out the US and the UK first. Everyone else falls next.
Alarmist? Yes. Realist? Usually.
Domino player? Definitely.
At the risk of sounding flip, maybe the suicide bombers have gotten to the point where they’re keeping up with the Joneses and fighting a status war with each other.
“By Allah! Ali Wazoo took out 25 when he drove his van into the Istanbul Safeway! I can get a higher body count than that!”
It’s gotten out of control. The only bright spot in the future is if this gets to the point of diminishing returns. More murdering fanatic suicide bombers die than up-and-coming brainwashed fanatics can take their place.
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ISRAEL. A lot of Middle Eastern types are pissed at Israel, for a variety of reasons, ranging from “Israel abuses Palestineans” to “Israel has no right to exist on OUR land.” Israel’s neighbors have tried several times to scrape it off the Middle East, and have failed, every time. They can’t understand this, and so they blame the U.S. for supporting Israel. After all, we’re the folks who put men on the moon. We got super technology. We’re downright magical, if you live in a mud hut and ride a donkey to work. Plainly, our support is the only thing keeping Israel standing, and if we can be terrorized into ceasing our support of Israel, all them evil wicked Jews will just shrivel up and blow away.
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SHITTY FOREIGN POLICY. Yes, we do have an extremely bad habit of supporting dictators, then kicking them in the ass when they quit taking orders. Yes, we have no clue about how to deal with foreign leaders who aren’t much like us. Yes, we cannot be bothered to learn Eastern diplomacy, manners, language, and ways of thinking, and we expect them to adapt to our ways because we’re powerful and it would be convenient for us. And yes, we do tend to be kinda VISIBLE over there, because we want their oil.
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SECULARISM. Not only are we the most powerful nation on the planet, we are a secular society. We don’t give a shit who or what you worship, or not. We broadcast “Baywatch” in such a way that any goof with a satellite dish can pick it up. To us, “Baywatch” is cheesecake. To a Fundie Muslim, it’s porn! No wonder they call us the Great Satan! We’re tempting the hell out of each new generation of Fundie Muslims! And more than a few fall for it, too. We think it’s okay to watch Pam Anderson’s boobies, we let our women run around without veils and hang out with men, we don’t do slavery, we don’t kill heretics… man, talk about SIN!
ATTENTION. It has already been said in this thread that blowing up large numbers of people gets media attention. When you have media attention, your voice gets heard.
KEEPING THE NEIGHBORS IN LINE. Hell, the reasons for the attacks in Turkey seem obvious to me: “Either you are with us, or you’re against us.” In short, the Fundie Muslims are delivering the same message to the Muslim world that G.W. Bush delivered everywhere else a while back.
As to what they want, that seems pretty obvious, too. They want us out of the Middle East, and then they want to start dictating our foreign policy. And, lacking the power for a stand-up fight, they choose terrorism as the cheap alternative. Makes perfect sense, really. I mean, these people, from what I see, are USED to killing each other to keep each other in line. Nothing new. Ever read the Saudi Arabian code of laws? And don’t even get me started on Saddam Hussein or the Iranian mullahs. What’s the big difference between sending in the troops to shoot rebels, and sending in a suicide bomber to punish “collaborators?”
The mindset seems pretty similar to me.
IMO the bombs in Turkey were aimed mostly at polarizing the Turks themselves – Turkey is a secular democracy trying to join the EU and be a part of the liberal western world – destabilising that and fermenting Islamic fundamentalism there must be high on Al Q’s list of nasty things to do.
Terrorist groups have always aimed to polarize populations – to give people a choice of extremes and exclude the moderate middle. I reckon the bombing of the synagogues was down to this; the brainwashed zealots who blew themselves up may have had genuine anti-Jewish hatred, but I bet their masters were making much more cynical calculations. From what I understand, Israel isn’t that large a piece of the big picture for Al Q – apart from as a propaganda tool.
Why terrorism? Because it works (in a crude way) if you’ve got a small group trying to achieve big goals (and Al Q has pretty big goals – world domination, that sort of thing) terrorism gets you noticed quick – what else would have got us all talking about Bin Laden and his merry men? – all you need is a complete disregard for human life.
live must really suck for the lower ranks to be blowing themselves up for whatever reasons…
This post illustrates another necessary part of solving this problem – we’ve got to stop equating Saddam and Osama so that people around the world don’t think we’re a bunch of morons who can’t keep our enemies straight.