"the war on terror" represents a massive misunderstanding of Islamic culture and history

[JacobJ]

First of all, I am vastly uneducated about this issue. I have very little understanding of Middle East history, culture, religion, and values. However, I assert that the vast majority of Americans share a similar lack of understanding. We just don't understand.

Robert Mcnmarra, the architect of the Vietnam war, said we lost the Vietman war becuase we did not understand Vietnam history. Vietnam had a history of being occupied, and it created a dynamic that made them percieve our occupation as very negative no matter what our intentions were.

How do the Iraqi's percieve our occupation? How does the rest of the Muslim world? After 9/11, 75% OF the people of Indonesia supported the United States. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. Right now, less than 10% of Indonesians support the US. (I was relayed these numbers in a speech by nobel laureate Bobby Mueller.) Right now, the majority of Pakistani's support Osama Bin Laden and are sympathetic to the Taliban. Paksistan has over thirty nuclear warheads. Its president has been nearly assasinated multiple times.

Muslims in the Middle East don't like us because they believe our invasion in Iraq is an assault against the muslim world itself. Their perceptions are much different than our perceptions. A majority of Saudis believe that if Kerry is elected he will bomb Riad within months. It is an absurd thought, but they believe it!

What is the war on terror? Who is fighting and why? Right now, the middle east is in turmoil. It is sorting out how to organize itself. Will it become more secular, or less? When we say we want to invade Iraq in order to give them democracy, what we are really doing is saying we want them to make a choice between democracy or complete chaos. The problem is, it is not up to us to decide what choices they should make. It should be up to them. Furthermore, what we think we are doing is vastly different than what they think we are doing. How is "terrorism" different than our policy of preemptive wars? Thousands and thousands of civilans have been killed because of US military action. Are we better because our morals are better? It doesn't matter! It is not our morals that is being judged, it is our actions.

People in the Middle East see our invasion of Iraq, they see multitudes of civilians being killed, they see us torturing people. They see us supporting Israel in oppressing the Palestinians. They see us supporting corrupt regimes in places like saudi arabia. We might see these things differently, but that does not make them better. Our actions have caused multitudes of unnecessary deaths. We might find them justifiable, but the people that would attack us do not see them as justifiable. The middle east has a history of being invaded and opressed by Christians, why would they see this time as being any different? The only way the war in Iraq could be successful is by convincing millions and millions of people that our intentions are not evil. That is a nearly impossible task. That is why the first George Bush did not occupy Iraq. The Iraq war is a war that is nearly impossible to win.

 

[ReiAyanami]

following 9/11 al qaida was seen as an ostracized, fledgling group. since then, our ignoring them and instead choosing to send our resources to iraq has made them a global brand, making them mainstream.

nor does it help that bush's imcompetence gave them $500 million and 700,000 lbs explosives in the last year alone

US --> 9/11
indonesia --> bali
spain -->madrid
iraq --> iraq
russia --> school & 2 planes

 

[glenn1]

Muslim's don't hate us for our values, they hate us for what we do.

As an American in reply to the muslims of the world: I don't give a f#ck why you hate us. It's utterly immaterial to me. You had generations and untold wealth to create a bit better lives for yourselves and instead you turned the focus of your lives into fetishing death and demonizing Jews. The U.S. couldn't possibly screw things up more in your world than you have yourselves, so your whining about us occupying Iraq doesn't move me in the slightest. Even as bad as we're screwing things up over there it's still serving as a disinfectant compared to what you've done to yourselves.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
following 9/11 al qaida was seen as an ostracized, fledgling group. since then, our ignoring them and instead choosing to send our resources to iraq has made them a global brand, making them mainstream.

It is true. Osama Bin Laden has become the leader of a popular movement. If we begin to understand the perceptions of people in the middle east, I don't think it will be very difficult to understand why he is so popular. This a very worrying situation, one that I think the reelection of George W. Bush would make worse, and the election of John Keryy will not make any better.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: glenn1

Muslim's don't hate us for our values, they hate us for what we do.

As an American in reply to the muslims of the world: I don't give a f#ck why you hate us. It's utterly immaterial to me. You had generations and untold wealth to create a bit better lives for yourselves and instead you turned the focus of your lives into fetishing death and demonizing Jews. The U.S. couldn't possibly screw things up more in your world than you have yourselves, so your whining about us occupying Iraq doesn't move me in the slightest. Even as bad as we're screwing things up over there it's still serving as a disinfectant compared to what you've done to yourselves.

Wow...so the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of thousands of cilvilians in that war is not the fault of the united states? Wow. It is one thing to not care what their values are, it is a completely different thing to blame their situation on them and them alone. The United States has a massive presence in their history. We provide billions of dollars in support to corrupt regimes. We have provided massive amounts of military weapons and even troops to corrupt regimes. Your "reply" is based on completely falsehoods.

Furthermore, you say you don't care about their values, and then you place value judgements upon them. Your argument destroys itself. It simply is not logical.

 

[Kadarin]

The Islamic world hates us not for what we do, but for what we are: not Islamic.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
The Islamic world hates us not for what we do, but for what we are: not Islamic.

That may be true for a certain amount of Muslims, but it is not true for a large amount of them. In fact, it makes me rather angry that you would make such an assertion. Statements like that perpetuate the downward spiral of misunderstanding and war that we are in.

 

[Tripleshot]

Originally posted by: JacobJ

Originally posted by: glenn1

Muslim's don't hate us for our values, they hate us for what we do.

As an American in reply to the muslims of the world: I don't give a f#ck why you hate us. It's utterly immaterial to me. You had generations and untold wealth to create a bit better lives for yourselves and instead you turned the focus of your lives into fetishing death and demonizing Jews. The U.S. couldn't possibly screw things up more in your world than you have yourselves, so your whining about us occupying Iraq doesn't move me in the slightest. Even as bad as we're screwing things up over there it's still serving as a disinfectant compared to what you've done to yourselves.

Wow...so the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of thousands of cilvilians in that war is not the fault of the united states? Wow. It is one thing to not care what their values are, it is a completely different thing to blame their situation on them and them alone. The United States has a massive presence in their history. We provide billions of dollars in support to corrupt regimes. We have provided massive amounts of military weapons and even troops to corrupt regimes. Your "reply" is based on completely falsehoods.

Furthermore, you say you don't care about their values, and then you place value judgements upon them. Your argument destroys itself. It simply is not logical.

OK, Spock, get back to your spaceship. Glenn1 and I share that feeling. If they wanted my "understanding" they didn't have to get my attention by bringing down the twin towers on 9/11. All compassion went out the window the day I saw chanting men women and children all over ther muslum world celebrating that event as the best thing that happened to them. Now I could care less what they think.:disgust:

 

[faiznne]

Originally posted by: Tripleshot

OK, Spock, get back to your spaceship. Glenn1 and I share that feeling. If they wanted my "understanding" they didn't have to get my attention by bringing down the twin towers on 9/11. All compassion went out the window the day I saw chanting men women and children all over ther muslum world celebrating that event as the best thing that happened to them. Now I could care less what they think.:disgust:

Oh really? What about the 5 Israeli Jews who were filming the 9/11 attacks and high-fiving each other while dancing around on a rooftop? Now the same Israelis are suing the U.S. Government for arresting them.

Israelis arrested on 9/11 sue U.S.
By Yuval Yoaz
Wed., September 15, 2004

Four Israelis arrested in New York on September 11, 2001, a short while after the attacks on the World Trade Center, filed a multi-million-dollar suit in the United States on Monday against the American Department of Justice.

It's all over Yahoo and Google: http://search.yahoo.com/search...-iy&fl=0&x=wrt

 

[glenn1]

Oh really? What about the 5 Israeli Jews who were filming the 9/11 attacks and high-fiving each other while dancing around on a rooftop? Now the same Israelis are suing the U.S. Government for arresting them.

What do your 5 Israeli Jews have to do with a thread claiming "the war on terror represents a massive misunderstanding of Islamic culture and history"? Not a damn thing.

 

[faiznne]

Both Muslims and Israelis were celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Read the quote from Tripleshot and then read my response. So good for decorum, just toss that out the window, will ya?

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: Tripleshot

Originally posted by: JacobJ

Originally posted by: glenn1

Muslim's don't hate us for our values, they hate us for what we do.

As an American in reply to the muslims of the world: I don't give a f#ck why you hate us. It's utterly immaterial to me. You had generations and untold wealth to create a bit better lives for yourselves and instead you turned the focus of your lives into fetishing death and demonizing Jews. The U.S. couldn't possibly screw things up more in your world than you have yourselves, so your whining about us occupying Iraq doesn't move me in the slightest. Even as bad as we're screwing things up over there it's still serving as a disinfectant compared to what you've done to yourselves.

Wow...so the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of thousands of cilvilians in that war is not the fault of the united states? Wow. It is one thing to not care what their values are, it is a completely different thing to blame their situation on them and them alone. The United States has a massive presence in their history. We provide billions of dollars in support to corrupt regimes. We have provided massive amounts of military weapons and even troops to corrupt regimes. Your "reply" is based on completely falsehoods.

Furthermore, you say you don't care about their values, and then you place value judgements upon them. Your argument destroys itself. It simply is not logical.

OK, Spock, get back to your spaceship. Glenn1 and I share that feeling. If they wanted my "understanding" they didn't have to get my attention by bringing down the twin towers on 9/11. All compassion went out the window the day I saw chanting men women and children all over ther muslum world celebrating that event as the best thing that happened to them. Now I could care less what they think.:disgust:

Oh boy....while their were many images on TV of muslims "celebrating" that event, it is simply not true that the majority of them supported it. Even Hamas denounced the attacks. 75% of the population in the most populous country muslim world supported the United States after the attacks. Yes, they did get our attention by attacking us...but at the time it was a small minority who were supporting such actions. The percentage of people who support "terrorism" was very small, but it is growing because of the actions of the united states.

The bottom line is, if we want to "win" the war on terror, we have to understand what it is really about. We can't ignore the reality of the situation if we want to be successful at preventing terrorism. The prevalance of sentiments such as yours and Glenn1's serve to perpetuate the downward spiral of misunderstanding and war that we are in. Your statement suggested that the entire muslim world supported 9-11. You are wrong. You are simply wrong. However, it is ironic because the type of reaction you are having is very similar to the type of reaction many Muslim's are having to our invasion of Iraq, and our "war on terror." This is a sad situation, and I don't see it improving anytime soon.

If we are really going to have peace, we need to understand the historical and cultural context in which we are fighting. The majority of Americans don't understand that context, and I find it highly unlikely that George W. Bush understands that context either. Maybe John Kerry does, but even then he probably won't be able to reverse the trend of misunderstanding and war taht we are engaged in.

 

[glenn1]

The bottom line is, if we want to "win" the war on terror, we have to understand what it is really about.

Most Americans do understand, you seem to be the slow one. The war on terror will be won when we kill enough of them and make terrorism a losing political proposition. It's your problem that you feel it's necessary to understand what their grievances are, not ours. All the rest of us intuitively understand that the "grievances" are completely irreleavant. Hopefully someday you'll be intellectually mature enough to understand as well the basic truth of the situation, there is no grievance or "reason" that ever justifies terrorist acts, period.

 

[jpeyton]

The OP hit the nail right on the head and so many of you flag-waiving American's completely ignored the logic presented.

Look at ReiAyanami's post; the entire world has been a victim of al-Qaeda. US support worldwide (including in the Islamic community) was unexpectedly high after 9/11 because people regardless of their religious background recognized the barbarism of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

We had the entire world on our side in the hunt to eliminate terror.

Then we screwed the pooch by gambling EVERYTHING (our money, our soldiers, our credibility, etc.) in the Bush administrations crusade against Iraq. The entire war was a blunder by anyone's standards.

This, to me, makes sense. Half of our own country has a hard time believing the lies of our sitting President; the number is much higher elsewhere.

Take care of the problem November 2nd.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: glenn1

The bottom line is, if we want to "win" the war on terror, we have to understand what it is really about.

Most Americans do understand, you seem to be the slow one. The war on terror will be won when we kill enough of them and make terrorism a losing political proposition. It's your problem that you feel it's necessary to understand what their grievances are, not ours. All the rest of us intuitively understand that the "grievances" are completely irreleavant. Hopefully someday you'll be intellectually mature enough to understand as well the basic truth of the situation, there is no grievance or "reason" that ever justifies terrorist acts, period.

The more people we kill, the more terrorists will be created. We killed millions and millions of people in Vietnam. Was that war successful? HELL NO!

You seem to be advocating death.

That is very scary.

Your argument is on the path to advocating geonocide.

Terrorism is bad. Nothing justifies it. Does that mean we should kill everyone from the region where terrorists came from? Where do we draw the line? How are they fighting back? Why are they fighting back? Do they percieve our actions as terrorism?

This is not about killing. Killing makes people angry. Very angry. You seem to be angry because Americans were killed. The more Americans killed in terrorist attacks, the more we will be angry -- the more I will be angry.

The more muslims we kill, the more muslims will be angry. Does that make sense to you?

The more angry they are, the more they want to kill us.

The more angry we are, the more we want to kill them.

We will never "kill enough of them." The only way to do that would be to kill all of them. That is geonocide. That is pure evil.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: glenn1

The bottom line is, if we want to "win" the war on terror, we have to understand what it is really about.

Most Americans do understand, you seem to be the slow one. The war on terror will be won when we kill enough of them and make terrorism a losing political proposition. It's your problem that you feel it's necessary to understand what their grievances are, not ours. All the rest of us intuitively understand that the "grievances" are completely irreleavant. Hopefully someday you'll be intellectually mature enough to understand as well the basic truth of the situation, there is no grievance or "reason" that ever justifies terrorist acts, period.

First, how do you know that the majority of muslim support al-queda, how do you know that? did you count them one by one? There are 1.2 billion muslim, did you creat a statistic to solve your answer?

What do you mean exactly by "won when we kill enough of them", KILL WHO?

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: glenn1

Muslim's don't hate us for our values, they hate us for what we do.

As an American in reply to the muslims of the world: I don't give a f#ck why you hate us. It's utterly immaterial to me. You had generations and untold wealth to create a bit better lives for yourselves and instead you turned the focus of your lives into fetishing death and demonizing Jews. The U.S. couldn't possibly screw things up more in your world than you have yourselves, so your whining about us occupying Iraq doesn't move me in the slightest. Even as bad as we're screwing things up over there it's still serving as a disinfectant compared to what you've done to yourselves.

The problem is what you say is untrue according to CIA guys like Scheuer and Clarke. . The terrorists are the poorest of the poor in general. All Living under autocratic regimes who keep them poor while the leaders live lifestyle that would make our billionaires green with envy. They keep them inline with radical islam and blaming USA and israel for thier woes instead of directing thier attention to the obvious source of tyranny, thier leaders. And to make matter worse thier leaders actually fund these operations visa vi "charities" and we look the other way. Pakistan and Saudi arabia.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: glenn1

The bottom line is, if we want to "win" the war on terror, we have to understand what it is really about.

Most Americans do understand, you seem to be the slow one. The war on terror will be won when we kill enough of them and make terrorism a losing political proposition. It's your problem that you feel it's necessary to understand what their grievances are, not ours. All the rest of us intuitively understand that the "grievances" are completely irreleavant. Hopefully someday you'll be intellectually mature enough to understand as well the basic truth of the situation, there is no grievance or "reason" that ever justifies terrorist acts, period.

They have nthing to live for now. In fact they relish death. Lots' of killing doing it that way. Actually impossible to kill that many politically.

 

[glenn1]

You seem to be advocating death.

That is very scary.

Your argument is on the path to advocating geonocide.

Wow, you seem to be catching on more quickly as the thread goes along. You're right, I am advocating death for terrorists. I want terrorism dead and I don't care how many terrorists we need to kill in the process of doing it. The deaths of terrorists are a secondary concern to me, the main thing I want to kill is the concept of terrorism as a viable political strategy. We brought slavery to an end not because we killed all the slaveowners, but rather because the concept was discredited as a disgrace to humanity. I want the same fate to befall terrorism.

You on the other hand think that the solution is reaching an accomodation with terrorists, hoping you'll give in to enough of their demands that they'll stop blowing stuff up. You can choose that path of surrender if you wish do, but don't dare volunteer the rest of us for it.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: glenn1

You seem to be advocating death.

That is very scary.

Your argument is on the path to advocating geonocide.

Wow, you seem to be catching on more quickly as the thread goes along. You're right, I am advocating death for terrorists. I want terrorism dead as a And I don't care how many terrorists we need to kill in the process of doing it. The deaths of terrorists are a secondary concern to me, the main thing I want to kill is the concept of terrorism as a viable political strategy. We brought slavery to an end not because we killed all the slaveowners, but rather because the concept was discredited as a disgrace to humanity. I want the same fate to befall terrorism.

You on the other hand think that the solution is reaching an accomodation with terrorists, hoping you'll give in to enough of their demands that they'll stop blowing stuff up. You can choose that path of surrender if you wish do, but don't dare volunteer the rest of us for it.

I do not support accomodation of terrorists. What I support, and what I believe we all support, is the elimination of terrorism.

We will never be successful at eliminating terrorism if we ignore the culture that produces it.

In order to eliminate terrorism, we have to understand the culture that creates it. We need to understand why people are attacking us, and deal with that "why." Even if we kill all the terrorists that exist right now, there would be more that would be created.

We cannot stop the creation of terrorists by killing people.

Let me repeat that. We cannot stop the creation of terrorists by killing people. We cannot stop terrorism by killing people. Getting rid of the current terrorists is important. It is also important to understand why the terrorists are gaining popular support, so that we can prevent the creation of more terrorists.

We percieve terrorism as a disgrace to humanity.

Do the majority of people that support Osama Bin Laden even percieve him as a terrorist? I personally do not know. I suspect that you don't know.

Furthermore, how do we know who is a terrorist and who is not? The bush administration seems to call foreign fighters in Iraq terrorists. Are they?

The point of this thread is that in order to solve the broader issues that created what we call "the war on terror" we need to understand the culture and history of the Middle East. We need to understand the people we are "fighting."

Most Americans do not seem to understand the Middle East, or Islam.

We can elimate terrorism by either killing everyone who might be a terrorist, or by understanding what is causing it and working to solve that issue.

Personally, I think we should try and kill people that we know are terrorists, while at the same time working to understand and solve the broader issues that create terrorism.

I am not saying we should reach an accomodation with terrorists. I am saying we should understand why terrorists exist in the first place. That is the first step. Once we gain a better understanding of that, we will have more options than simply killing people.

We cannot win without understanding. George W. Bush's policies reflect a misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq and the Middle East.

 

[Vic]

Excellent post, OP. Unfortunately, I feel the need to warn you (perhaps too late) that free-thinking is not well-tolerated on these forums.

 

[JacobJ]

Originally posted by: Vic
Excellent post, OP. Unfortunately, I feel the need to warn you (perhaps too late) that free-thinking is not well-tolerated on these forums.

Thanks. My discourse with Glenn1 is helping me understand my position better...which is good.

 

[Tab]

This the most infulential thread I've read only to be uttely destroyed by trolls.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: JacobJ

Originally posted by: Vic
Excellent post, OP. Unfortunately, I feel the need to warn you (perhaps too late) that free-thinking is not well-tolerated on these forums.

Thanks. My discourse with Glenn1 is helping me understand my position better...which is good.

Of course it is. Only a fool's understanding comes from listening to one side of the issue/argument.

With glenn1, his issue IMO is that he thinks we are fighting Nazi Germany, i.e. a nation-state enemy whose borders, people, and holdings are easily defined and easily attacked. Unfortunately, that is not the case. So he has coalesced his emnity into Muslim Arabs, failing to notice that even they aren't truly the enemy. Our enemy is really just another form of international political criminal.
But our army can't fight criminals, it wasn't created for that purpose. So we will continue to pre-emptively attack nation-states in our quest to subdue this small, elusive enemy (best fought by our intelligence services), until other threatened nation-states will rise up in opposition against us, and then we will really have war, probably throughout the whole world. Which IMO is what the terrorists really wanted when they planned 9/11.

 

[glenn1]

We can elimate terrorism by either killing everyone who might be a terrorist, or by understanding what is causing it and working to solve that issue.

Okay, indulge your wet dream. Go ahead and discuss the "reasons" for terrorism and how we're going to "solve" them. After all, it's always SO VERY enlightening when someone patronizes those responsible for terrorism as being completely at the mercy of forces ourside of their control and have no free will and cites all those "causes" to excuse away their behavior when they commit their evil acts.