Why Do We Even Fight Against Terrorism?

Commy

raszputini wrote:

I think folks need to do a better job differentiating between Iraq and Afghanistan. We needed to go to Afghanistan for multiple reasons. The Taliban REALLY is evil and REALLY was training groups for attacks on the US. The Taliban was also probably one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Most press, even Al-Jazeera, supported US intervention in Afghanistan in initially. That's not to say that Arab and Islamic nations don't watch the happenings there with a suspicious eye, we've given them justification for that. Now, our efforts there haven't made everyone happy, but we were very justified in establishing a presence there. We've actually had one there since the 1980s.

What, first the US used the people of Afghanistan to lure the Russians into their version of Vietnam, turning the whole of Afghanistan into a battelfield. Then the US supplied Afghan schools with thousands of textbooks teaching the more militant side of Islam. Then they created a network where foreign fighters could be transported into the country to fight the Russians. They armed and supported the really nasty fundamentalists. And when the Russians were defeated the US left the country alone to pursue its inevitable path toward fundamentalism and repression, and were then surpised when those radical Islamic fundamentalists turned their attention toward the west.

And so the US invaded.

Justified in getting involved with Afghanistan? We should ask the Afghanis how they feel about it.

slightofjeff

Commy wrote:

Justified in getting involved with Afghanistan? We should ask the Afghanis how they feel about it.

Sadly, thanks to their own government's actions, they don't get a say in it.

I mean, seriously, you're president on 9/12/01: What is your response? Say "pretty please ask your boy bin Laden not to bomb us anymore?"

Commy

slightofjeff wrote:

Sadly, thanks to their own government's actions, they don't get a say in it.

I mean, seriously, you're president on 9/12/01: What is your response? Say "pretty please ask your boy bin Laden not to bomb us anymore?"

Well, when a guy robs a bank in the US the cops don't go into his neighborhood with automatic weapons and kill all of his neighbors. They go after the guy that did it.

That was about how they handled the search for Bin Laden. And so here we are now, with thousands dead, millions displaced, and we still haven't even found Osama. Great plan.

Abuskedti

raszputini wrote:

Fighting terrorism is something we SHOULD do. We were doing it long before 9-11. The problem is that the administration has used fear tactics to label basically anyone with different political views as "linked to Al Qaeda". The Neo-Cons have used that as an excuse to buy a lot of oil and military equipment and establish bases to project power from.

We, as a people, need to learn to stop allowing our leaders to sacrifice the values the country was built on in order to "keep us safe". Eroding our civil liberties is a slippery slope that begins with holding someone without charging them that results in imprisoning people people without chargng them. That's not very far way from the Black Maria days.

blah blah blah

its crime... We label things too much and it spawn this fear and hatred. All we need to do is be alert - and pounce when we have evidence. There are sooooomany things more dangerous to our safety....

the War on Terror being one of the things far far more threatening to our security than teorrism.

US criminals kill sooooo many more American than terrorists...

ugh

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Nobody makes a better terrorist...

nobody....

If you want terrorists...dammit...we train the best.

top dollar Jihad baby... #1

Cosmo

If we are going to defend ourselves against terrorist attacks... then, maybe we should focus on the ones we know to be terrorists and stop going after the ones we hope are terrorists.

slightofjeff

Commy wrote:

Well, when a guy robs a bank in the US the cops don't go into his neighborhood with automatic weapons and kill all of his neighbors. They go after the guy that did it.

That was about how they handled the search for Bin Laden. And so here we are now, with thousands dead, millions displaced, and we still haven't even found Osama. Great plan.

Osama was only half the problem. The other half was the Taliban government that housed him, protected him, funded him and OK'ed his actions with a wink and a nod.

Half the problem has now been taken care of.

The other half -- Osama himself -- is, frankly, less important. He might already be dead, for all we know. He certainly hasn't yet discovered the wherewithal to mount another attack.

Sludge Factory

slightofjeff wrote:

And here comes the Blame America First crowd, right on cue ...

Well, you know, sometimes America is at fault. Pointing it out isn't a bad thing. We should be learning from our past mistakes not repeating them.

slightofjeff

Sludge Factory wrote:

Well, you know, sometimes America is at fault. Pointing it out isn't a bad thing. We should be learning from our past mistakes not repeating them.

I just fail to see how palling around with Saudi Arabia warranted 9.11. If Osama is so pissed about it, take it up with Saudi Arabia. It's not like we are there against their will.

Sludge Factory

slightofjeff wrote:

I just fail to see how palling around with Saudi Arabia warranted 9.11. If Osama is so pissed about it, take it up with Saudi Arabia. It's not like we are there against their will.

Just because you fail to see it doesn't mean others, specifically those in the Arab world, don't. You are thinking rationally from a western mindset, not everyone necessarily employs that when making their decisions.

slightofjeff

Sludge Factory wrote:

Just because you fail to see it doesn't mean others, specifically those in the Arab world, don't. You are thinking rationally from a western mindset, not everyone necessarily employs that when making their decisions.

This is good to know.

So when I decide to haul off and burn down a bunch of McDonald's ... just because I hate the color yellow and the letter 'm' ... I can't be arrested.

I mean, if you can't see how dangerous the letter 'm' is, you're just thinking with the wrong mindset and from the wrong perspective. If you could see things from my perspective, you would realize that burning down McDonalds' is a perfectly rational thing to do.

Right?

Sludge Factory

slightofjeff wrote:

This is good to know.

So when I decide to haul off and burn down a bunch of McDonald's ... just because I hate the color yellow and the letter 'm' ... I can't be arrested.

I mean, if you can't see how dangerous the letter 'm' is, you're just thinking with the wrong mindset and from the wrong perspective. If you could see things from my perspective, you would realize that burning down McDonalds' is a perfectly rational thing to do.

Right?

That's completely off the topic of what I"m getting at. My point was Osama clearly was unhappy about our occupation of Muslim holy land. The religious belief of muslims view an occupation of their holy land by outside forces as sort of an infringement on their beliefs. Instead of focusing his attention on the Saudi Arabia government which is, in his view, clearly bought out by US interests, he focused on what he thought was the root of the problem. I'm not saying that it's right as I don't advocate violence, but it is what it is and to ignore the stated reasons is to profess your ignorance.

You are just simplifying things. I guess my main point is we shouldn't be over their "palling" around with Saudi Arabia to begin with. Sure we can trade with them and such, but there is no need for us to occupy their territory and to buy the support of their leader.

Your attempt to simplify things is absurd and laughable. Of course you can be arrested just like Osama should be arrested for his transgressions.

You know, there is a such thing as America still being at fault even if it is pointed out by other criminal acts against America. I'm not saying 9/11 was deserved...something like that is never deserved. What I'm saying is, for us to meddle in the affairs of others and expect to have no blowback is plain ignorance.

slightofjeff

Sludge Factory wrote:

You know, there is a such thing as America still being at fault even if it is pointed out by other criminal acts against America. I'm not saying 9/11 was deserved...something like that is never deserved. What I'm saying is, for us to meddle in the affairs of others and expect to have no blowback is plain ignorance.

But see, here's the thing. We're not "meddling" in the affairs of Saudi Arabia. We are there by invitation (if we are still there at all. I was under the impression we've left those bases). We weren't "meddling" in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Again, we were there by invitation -- doing a job Osama volunteered for, btw.

In fact, the only real instance of "meddling" in the middle east would be Iraq -- and we weren't in Iraq on 9.11.

If Osama attacked the WTC because he's part of some crazy religion that doesn't like white people setting foot on specific grains of sand ... well, fuck him. Just because his religion tells him that's wrong doesn't make it right. And no amount of "you're okay, I'm okay" psychobabble will make it right.

I swear, if I suddenly decided God didn't want, I don't know, women in France ... and so I went around bombing things there ... you'd think I was crazy. You wouldn't say, "Well, it's just his religious viewpoint. Those women shouldn't have been there in the first place. They should expect some blowback for having vaginas."

Some people are just sick. Their ideologies are whacked. And there's no use making excuses for them.

fuck

slightofjeff wrote:

In fact, the only real instance of "meddling" in the middle east would be Iraq -- and we weren't in Iraq on 9.11.

what?!

Sludge Factory

slightofjeff wrote:

But see, here's the thing. We're not "meddling" in the affairs of Saudi Arabia. We are there by invitation (if we are still there at all. I was under the impression we've left those bases).

I didn't realize invitations were bought with foreign aid that is passed off as help for the people but really only gets swallowed by the corrupt leaders. Now that I know this I suppose clearly we are definitely in the right. I mean, all those people who see us buying off their leaders are just disillusioned and definitely don't know that we know what is good for them.

slightofjeff wrote:

In fact, the only real instance of "meddling" in the middle east would be Iraq -- and we weren't in Iraq on 9.11.

Oh, I guess it was some OTHER United States of America that employed the CIA to make a change in the leadership of Iran back in 1953. My bad, I didn't realize there were two.

slightofjeff

Sludge Factory wrote:

Oh, I guess it was some OTHER United States of America that employed the CIA to make a change in the leadership of Iran back in 1953. My bad, I didn't realize there were two.

Did you say 1953? Damn, Osama can hold a grudge. I did enjoy his ingenious plan of waiting around until Dwight D. Eisenhower dropped dead of old age. That will show HIM to mess around in Iran. Fiendishly clever, that one.

slightofjeff

_outlaw wrote:

what?!

We all know your opinion on, well, everything.

America = bad.

So easy, even a caveman could understand it.

fuck

slightofjeff wrote:

We all know your opinion on, well, everything.

America = bad.

So easy, even a caveman could understand it.

you really have an artificial take on history.

Sludge Factory

_outlaw wrote:

you really have an artificial take on history.

That is becoming clearer and clearer to me the more this guy tries to back his position. First it's like, "We NEVER meddled in the affairs of middle eastern countries except for Iraq...oh yeah, and if it happened over 50 years ago, that doesn't really even count because since my attention span is short everybody else must have a short one too. Oh yeah, and I'll ignore the fact that it's been an ongoing thing."

NewJPage

slightofjeff wrote:

Did you say 1953? Damn, Osama can hold a grudge. I did enjoy his ingenious plan of waiting around until Dwight D. Eisenhower dropped dead of old age. That will show HIM to mess around in Iran. Fiendishly clever, that one.

that is very much the root of our problems there now, aside from the british divisions of the nations decades earlier...

all this talk of democracy in the middle east...well, iran had one...we overthrew him, installed the shah, who was our bitch, eventually people got real pissed, took back their government (1979), and created the fundamentalist government they have now. that is sort of a big deal...not to mention we armed iraq and iran both in their war against eachother, have military bases a stone's throw away from mecca and medina, and have basically been plain old dicks for a long time to those people. i don't understand this justification crap that goes on...we fucked up. learn from it. don't do it again.

oh, and i almost forgot the whole israel thing, which is the biggest clusterfuck i have ever seen.