The OP specifically mentioned a handful of people going around to various points and putting bombs at each point. That is by definition not a suicide bomber.
About the sarin attack, and similar things–I guess I didn’t mention this explicitly, but it’s really the whole point–sarin attacks, bomb attacks, etc. (all the flashy things) the whole point is that they are NOT nearly as easy or as effective as people like you seem to think.
And that’s a good thing–because the terrorists tend to be fixated on things that likely won’t work, and thus do far less damage than they could do otherwise.
Did you have a point, Finn? Because a rejection of American materialism and offense at perceived lasciviousness does not quite translate into a hatred of the freedoms of speech, the press, the right to assemble, or other phenomena that we typically associate with freedom. (It might demonstrate a hatred of religious freedom, but that hardly counts as opposition to “freedom.”)
Qutb seems to have been a puritanical crank, but nothing you quoted indicates that he would not have preferred an Egypt in which he was more free to protest or to assemble with like-minded “reformers.”
No tom, I always post without a point. :rolleyes:
Yes, freedom of religion in specific but from that flows freedom of behavior, freedom to ignore Islamic law, freedom from extremist Islamic concepts of “modesty”. The idea that hating religious freedom doesn’t mean they hate freedom is nonsensical. Jihadists do not (necessarily) support dictatorial, autocratic, totalitarian control over people, but they most certainly do practice an ideology which is predicated upon the rejection many of the fundamental freedoms which the west is ostensibly based around.
Yet again, to clarify as you seem to have missed the, ahem, point:
Yes, freedom to observe or not observe as we see fit, to deliberately avoid precepts such as “modesty”, to order our affairs by schemas other than (Jihadist interpretation of) Islamic law was indeed, and still remains, a guiding ideological principle of many Jihadist schools of thought.
By your logic, the Soviet Union had nothing against freedom since its citizens were still free to choose whether to stand in line for hours to get a roll of toilet paper or to get a loaf of bread. See, they had freedom of choice!
Come on Tom, Jihadists, just like American Dominionists, hate the freedoms that we in the west are afforded. Does that mean that they object to the freedom to assemble, for example? No, of course not. But that’s a disingenuous, superficial, flippant gloss of a situation where there are some who will literally kill in order to impose their religious ideology upon others.
P.S. If you think the ability to act and dress as you see fit isn’t freedom, ask women who were forced back into a burning school by Vice and Virtue Police since the women weren’t wearing properly modest dress. Or see what happens to such ‘immodest’ women on the streets of Iran or Saudi Arabia.
You’re pretty worked up on this topic, but I think you are wrong.
It is true that the puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is enjoying themselves. However, defining that as opposition to “freedom” simply rationalizes the sort of silliness in which GWB engaged.
Yes, there are various specific freedoms that that the puritanical would deny their fellow citizens, (or humans), but “freedom” is larger than just those limited activities. Making the issue one of opposition to freedom, itself, is simply a way to demonize such people by associating them with opposition to all freedoms.
It might give you a sense of satisfaction to view them that way, but it precludes an understanding of their actual beliefs so that it is more difficult to oppose them in the realm of ideas. It is rather like the nonsense that directed the Cold War for so many years in which a legitmate opposition to Soviet hegemony was turned into a religious crusade against a “communist world domination” that had already died in the 1930s. If you attack a straw man of a belief system, people on the sidelines will see the error of your logic and be more receptive to the blandishments emanating from your opponent. (Not that anyone on this board will be lured into Salafism, but it is well to keep one’s arguments straight in one’s own mind for when one ventures out of this little Internet enclave.)
Returning to the OP, I have no real knowledge, but I have a theory.
I suspect that if you take the most crazed, America-hating terrorist and sneak him onto the US to plan some spectacular slaughter, he will almost always fail. I suspect they become seduced by America, buy a car and start working as a cab driver. After a few years, they buy a small diner and pretty soon they are too busy to build bombs.
Your mind-reading skills are, perhaps, not your strong suit Tom. You’d know that if you weren’t totally enraged and bonkers over this topic. Eh? Eh?
There is no rationalization involved. Qutb and those of his lineage really were/are violently opposed to many of the freedoms which we in the west take for granted: the freedom to practice or not practice Islam, the freedom to dress as you want, to act as you want, to have laws which are generally based around protecting human life and property and not making people subservient to extremist theological concepts of behavior. It’s most far beyond people simply being angry that someone, somewhere is having a good time; the actions which have been taken to advance Qutb’s theology include but are not limited to murder and violent coercion.
What standard then do you claim that any regime is opposed to the freedoms we take for granted? None of them deny people all freedoms, including North Korea. Is the Hermit Kingdom, then, not opposed to freedom? No, it’s not the simplistic bumper sticker that Bush traded in, but Jihadists most certainly do hate the fact that the rest of the world is not subservient to their extremist views of Islam. And they’ve shown the willingness to back up that view with lethal force. There’s no strawman involved. Your argument is a little bit like saying that of course homophobes don’t hate normal gay activities, because after all homosexuals eat breakfast and homophobes don’t hate breakfast.
It makes no sense for you to claim that, sure, Qutb and his ideological descendants were/are violently opposed to freedom of religion, freedom of dress, freedom of behavior and so on, but that they didn’t/don’t hate us because of the freedoms we enjoy. No, just like the North Koreans, there are some freedoms which Jihadists don’t hate. But that doesn’t mean that either group isn’t virulently opposed to freedom.
Well, that kind of misses the point, which is that lots of other people have those freedoms but aren’t targeted by Islamic extremists. They hate us because we have lots of money and we have an interventionist foreign policy.
In keeping with the tone so far, I suppose I should start my post with a supercilious insult toward my fellow posters. [edit: Paul, I exclude you from my own snark, for reasons that I imagine are clear]
FinnAgain appears right in a sense: the dude profiled in Smithsonian is pretty clearly calling for some nasty worldwide Sharia shit in which we all have to follow a particular set of religious edicts. If you’re calling for a system under which people can’t choose which systems to follow, it’s not a stretch at all to say you hate freedom: you’re calling for the opposite of freedom, after all. (The whole business about his disgust with curvy ladies seems a bit of a side-issue here, however smirkily funny it may be).
In the context of the thread, however, I think RNATB is also onto something. While there are people who think worldwide Sharia law is a utopian goal, my understanding is that few people are motivated to terrorism primarily by that utopian goal. Rather, the folks who we need to worry about are the ones motivated by a desire to get the “West” (exemplified by US corporations and militaries) out of the “Islamic” world. The reason why they attack us isn’t because they hate our freedoms; if it were, then places like Sweden, with greater sexual freedom than the US, would be attacked more often. They attack us because we’re influential in an area of the world they consider rightfully theirs.
To answer the OP, they don’t exist. It’s basically a fantasy, exaggerated to the point of myth, to replace the Soviet Union as the "root of all evil’.
The capabilities of the Soviet Union were exaggerated in a similar way during the cold war.
The people that run this country are inspired by the likes of Leo Strauss, who believed that a liberal society,such as the United States, needed simple powerful myths to inspire and unite the people.
Or, of course, you could point out that you’re not going to do so and pat yourself on the back for it. That’s also a popular option. Qutb, however, wasn’t just “some dude”, he’s the ideological father of modern Jihadism. Qutb was not a flash in the pan. What’s more, talking about modern Islamic fundamentalism without Qutb is a bit like talking about the development of physics without mentioning Newton.
Modern history includes sufficient examples of extremists acting violently in opposition to, for instance, freedom of speech (the “Cartoon Riots”, Theo Van Gogh’s murder, and so on). If Sweden is your thing: well…
The point is that RNATB’s absurd declaration that there were zero Islamic extremists, at all, who are motivated by hatred of our western freedoms should be recognized as the bombast it is and such hyperbolic nonsense should not be used as the coin of discussion. Or, of course, we can all just shout political slogans back and forth and decide, hey, fuck nuance.
Brilliant factual rebuttal, that sure makes up for you not reading the thread or my cite. Once you read the thread, you can respond to the fact that mandating official religious observances, standards of behavior and dress (etc…) has quite a lot to do with an opposition to personal freedom and is not simply confined to modernity. Or, as Dopers so often do when caught in an embarrassing error, you can pretend that I didn’t read my own cite. Personally, I’d advise you to read the thread instead.
Just a thought.
I was born in Iran, and I can assure you that they very much do exist, though they’re more complex and cosmopolitan than often portrayed. If they didn’t I’d be living in Tehran, not here. Thankfully, they don’t represent most of us.
And who were Leo Strauss’ disciples?
I somehow don’t see George W. Bush as being a huge fan of him.
Can you name some names and show this connection to Strauss?
Of course I’m not saying there are no terrorists at all. I’m saying the threat has been greatly exaggerated, otherwise you’d be seeing the type of things the OP was talking about.
Some may say they are saving it for some spectacular 9/11 style attack, but I disagree with that. It’d be far easier to send random people into malls and shoot or blow them up.
I don’t know if you are serious in the second part of your post. I never mentioned George W. Bush for a reason. It has always been a small group within these administrations, dating back to Reagan.
Keep in mind that the kind of people who use rhetoric like “they hate us for our freedom” generally do think that most or all of you think like that, and would most likely assume that you do as well. Which is one reason why they tend to be the sort who have no problem committing pretty much any level of atrocity and destruction because “they hate us all anyway”.
