"Stop the war now" - I'd rather die tommorow

[Sisyphus]

Israel is hated because it's perceived as an occupying nation that has no right to be there. The United States is hated because it supports Israel, and generally meddles in the Islamic world. If they have other reasons I'm not aware of them.

 

mooeypoo, you posted as I was typing. I don't think you're completely right about that. I don't think it's really about democracy at all. Even Iran is, after all, at least nominally democratic, and Hamas is an elected government. Not that we should take anything Osama Bin Laden says at face value, but in his last video he did have a point: "You say we attack you because we hate your freedom, but if that was true, then why do we not attack, say, Sweden?"

[ecoli]

Sweden's international presence cannot be compared to the United states (or Britain)

[gcol]

Sweden's international presence cannot be compared to the United states (or Britain)

 

I dont see the logic of that statement. You may not want to make the comparison, but Bin Laden did, and if I wanted to, I would. There may be few points of similarity, therefore the differences ought to be many and significant and worth objective consideration to understand more fully where Bin Laden is coming from. Know your enemy, no matter how distasteful, if you want to defeat him.

[ecoli]

I dont see the logic of that statement. You[/u'] may not want to make the comparison, but Bin Laden did, and if I wanted to, I would. There may be few points of similarity, therefore the differences ought to be many and significant and worth objective consideration to understand more fully where Bin Laden is coming from. Know your enemy, no matter how distasteful, if you want to defeat him.

 

Bin Laden was claiming that he wasn't trying to attack democracy, citing the fact that they didn't attack Sweden as proof. While that may be true, I was just pointing out that countries like the United States and the UK have a much more international presence then Sweden, so obviously the US would be more of a target, regardless of the fact that both are democracies. Bin Laden's statement is meaningless.

[Pangloss]

Here's another good question: Why in the world would you want to change or undermine something that you know is objectively, morally right, just because someone else hates you for doing it?

[Jim]

Here's a good question: Why[/i'] do you think the US and Israel are hated by so many Muslims?

 

The complex answer requires an historical context of more than a few decades. As is illusrated in these excerpt from the NYT's review of B Lewis' "What Went Wrong?," there is a cultural divide within Islamic countries between conservatives and reformers contesting why, exactly, Islam was eclipsed by the forces of modernity.

 

But in the Middle East the difficulties present not just another case of traditional societies having to come to terms with the forces of modernization. The unvarnished truth is that the tensions there are of a different order of magnitude. The region extends over a vast, sprawling area, where a badly damaged though powerful and religiously driven order is locked in confrontation with global trends more penetrating and unsettling than could ever have been imagined when Muslim self-confidence was at its peak some centuries ago. What Lewis is writing about in ''What Went Wrong?'' concerns one of the greatest cultural and political divides in modern history.

 

Sometime around 1760, Britain, then France and America took off to another world, one that was increasingly secular, democratic, industrial and tolerant in ways that left many of the other regions gasping at the combined implications of such changes. Certain societies in parts of Latin America or India or Russia felt they had little choice but to follow suit, although hoping to brake the impacts of Western man. The Middle East, powerful a half-millennium earlier, when Europe was a bundle of inchoate, backward states and unworthy of attention, did not. Yet Europe rose while the Muslim world rested on its laurels -- until it was besieged by Western ships, armaments, iron goods and cheap textiles, to all of which it became harder and harder to respond.

 

The West's cultural messages, especially about democracy, made things even more difficult. Those with power in Muslim societies found it impossible to contemplate the separation of religion and state, or admit to a changed place in society for women or permit the free exchange of ideas, particularly unpleasant ideas, on the lines argued by John Stuart Mill and others. But there is even more to it than that. As Lewis shrewdly points out, the works of Mozart and Shakespeare and Voltaire have traveled around the globe, as for that matter have Stravinsky, jazz and George Orwell. But they all pretty much stop at the frontiers of the Arab world, which has shown little interest in how others think, write, compose; there are few translations of these writers and few performances of these musicians, nor are there great libraries and museums of Western art to match the impressive collections of Muslim culture in the West. (There is no presumption by Lewis here that Western or Slavic or Japanese culture is inherently superior, only that it is disturbing that this troubled part of our planet has never really cared.)

 

It is not that the Muslim world was totally without attempts at reform and renewal in the face of global trends, or that there was no appreciation that its own earlier superiority had vanished. In fact, Lewis is extremely good in detailing Ottoman and Arab and Iranian scholars who, from the 18th century onward, called with growing alarm for change. The sad fact is that for the most part their calls went unheeded.

 

Among the many reasons for such a failure discussed in this remarkably succinct account, one especially stands out. It is that the reformers split into two diametrically opposed camps: the Western-oriented movements, which sought adaptation, imitation and accommodation with modernity, though within a moderately Muslim order of things; and the conservatives, who angrily claimed that the reason for the decline was traitorous forces within their own societies, those who had strayed from the true path of the prophet. These forces, the conservatives argued, were even more sinful and deserved more punishment than the infidels themselves. It is not difficult, in reading these earlier denunciations of Arab liberals, to recall bin Laden's recent ferocious speeches against the Saudi leadership and others in the Middle East for defiling the true faith.

 

. . .

 

What, then, is to be done? At the end of the day, Lewis argues, the answer lies within the Muslim world itself. Either its societies, especially those in the Middle East, will continue in ''a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression,'' with all that implies for a horrible and troubled future; or ''they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences and join their talents, energies and resources in a common creative endeavor'' to the benefit of themselves and the rest of our planet. Perhaps the outside world can help a bit, though probably not much. ''For the time being, the choice is their own.'' With this final sentence, and all that precedes it, Lewis has done us all -- Muslim and non-Muslim alike -- a remarkable service.

[Sisyphus]

Bin Laden was claiming that he wasn't trying to attack democracy, citing the fact that they didn't attack Sweden as proof. While that may be true, I was just pointing out that countries like the United States and the UK have a much more international presence then Sweden, so obviously the US would be more of a target, regardless of the fact that both are democracies. Bin Laden's statement is meaningless.

 

But Sweden is much more socially liberal than the U.S. or the U.K., and just as democratic. The fact that the targeting of nations is based on international issues and not, say, "freedom," is precisely the point. They terrorize their own people and would love a strict Islamic theocracy, but as for us infidels, I think they'd rather just have nothing to do with us.

[Bettina]

Israel is hated because it's perceived as an occupying nation that has no right to be there. The United States is hated because it supports Israel' date=' and generally meddles in the Islamic world. If they have other reasons I'm not aware of them.

 

mooeypoo, you posted as I was typing. I don't think you're completely right about that. I don't think it's really about democracy at all. Even Iran is, after all, at least nominally democratic, and Hamas is an elected government. Not that we should take anything Osama Bin Laden says at face value, but in his last video he did have a point: "You say we attack you because we hate your freedom, but if that was true, then why do we not attack, say, Sweden?"[/quote']

 

I didn't think Iran was democratic. Its leader is just a puppet of the religious mullahs who really run things. The people may have voted in the president but who voted in the Mullahs?

 

Just wondering...

 

Bee

[Sisyphus]

I did say nominally. The more relevant examples would be Hamas and Hezbollah.

[bascule]

Bin Laden was claiming that he wasn't trying to attack democracy, citing the fact that they didn't attack Sweden as proof.

 

When it comes right down to it, the 9/11 attack was really the brainchild of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who did it because he hated America for backing Israel militarily, financially, and diplomatically. Bin Laden was really just the financier/manager.

[Jim]

When it comes right down to it, the 9/11 attack was really the brainchild of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who did it because he hated America for backing Israel militarily, financially, and diplomatically. Bin Laden was really just the financier/manager.

 

I think it is a mistake to focus only on recent history. Muslims are faced with the relative failure of their once dominant culture when measured against the West in terms of scientific progress, military success, cultural influence and the generation of wealth. Many Muslims look internally for the cause of these failures but others can not grant that our relative success has to do with cultural advantages such as separation of church and state, traditions of dissent and the empowerment and education of the 50% of the population who happen to be women. These conservative elements simply cannot accept that their own values have diminished their culture. How much more satisfying to blame the west at every turn.

 

Although, no doubt, these tensions are heightened by having a successful western, non-Islamic, democracy in the Middle East, I seriously doubt the threat would evaporate even if we abandoned Israel. The seeds of these tensions predate the existence of Israel by a few hundred years.

[ecoli]

I think it is a mistake to focus only on recent history. Muslims are faced with the relative failure of their once dominant culture when measured against the West in terms of scientific progress' date=' military success, cultural influence and the generation of wealth. Many Muslims look internally for the cause of these failures but others can not grant that our relative success has to do with cultural advantages such as separation of church and state, traditions of dissent and the empowerment and education of the 50% of the population who happen to be women. These conservative elements simply cannot accept that their own values have diminished their culture. How much more satisfying to blame the west at every turn.

 

Although, no doubt, these tensions are heightened by having a successful western, non-Islamic, democracy in the Middle East, I seriously doubt the threat would evaporate even if we abandoned Israel. The seeds of these tensions predate the existence of Israel by a few hundred years.[/quote']

 

You took the words out of my mouth. Israel may be the excuse and rallying cry, but it isn't the cause.

[Pangloss]

The good news is that the Security Council unanimously passed a measure on Friday that Lebanon and Israel have agreed with. The agreement will put Lebanese and UN forces in the area with strong rules of engagement to prevent rocket attacks, and Israel will pull out of the country.

 

Of course, Hezbollah can end the agreement at any time by launching more rocket attacks. All we can do is hope they learned their lesson and try to seek peaceful means, mindful of what happened to their countrymen when they chose violence instead.

 

We have an old saying in this country that I think Hezbollah could stand to learn from: Don't sh*t where you eat.

[gcol]

All we can do is hope they learned their lesson and try to seek peaceful means.

 

Indeed, but if I were hezbollah, the lesson learned is that a well trained, motivated force equipped with modern weapons using hit and run tactics over well prepared ground and using civilians as camouflage has fought a powerful conventional army to a standstill. Not just to a standstill, but by their own objective has actually won by not being defeated.

 

Put it another way.... Israel besieged a fortress with no visible fortifications or defensive lines. With no identifiable targets, modern weapons are largely impotent. As the exocet redefined naval warfare, the Mujahedeen and Vietcong have shown the way for Hezbullah. The old school blitzkrieg and nuke-em Westpoint brigade must learn new tricks, and fast.

[Jim]

Indeed' date=' but if I were hezbollah, the lesson learned is that a well trained, motivated force equipped with modern weapons using hit and run tactics over well prepared ground and using civilians as camouflage has fought a powerful conventional army to a standstill. Not just to a standstill, but by their own objective has actually won by not being defeated.

 

Put it another way.... Israel besieged a fortress with no visible fortifications or defensive lines. With no identifiable targets, modern weapons are largely impotent. As the exocet redefined naval warfare, the Mujahedeen and Vietcong have shown the way for Hezbullah. The old school blitzkrieg and nuke-em Westpoint brigade must learn new tricks, and fast.[/quote']

 

Before concluding that modern arms wielded by a western army are impotent, I'd want to know some facts. How many rockets were destroyed? How many Hezbollah terrorists were killed? Has pressure been put on the international community and Lebanon not to let Hezbollah lob rockets at Israel at their leisure? Will this event persuade the world that Iran must be defanged?

 

Western media and elites are very capable of creating an artificial reality which simply defines away victory won on the ground. The Tet offensive leaps to mind as an example.

 

Half of any battle is how you define victory and, sure, if you define victory as requiring the complete eradictation of Hezbollah, Israel lost (assuming, optimistically, that the war is now concluded). I doubt seriously Israel ever had any such objective. Isreal's objective was to degrade Hezbollah and give Lebanon and the international community an incentive to enforce resolution 1559. If Israel met those objectives, they won.

[bascule]

You took the words out of my mouth. Israel may be the excuse and rallying cry, but it isn't the cause.

 

All that aside: concept wins. We can spend countless time and resources securing ourselves against every possible scenario we can forsee, but can we really defend against human creativity? It is impossible to anticipate every possible terrorist attack, and no matter how much we try, the truly destructive and pathological individual will find a way to hurt us.

 

In the end, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed saw a vulnerability, he came up with a concept to exploit it, and he found the resources (via Bin Laden) to make the attack happen. It really doesn't matter what his motives were, he masterminded an attack which required minimal resources to exert maximum damage against the most powerful country in the world.

[abskebabs]

They represent the western world. Another way of thinking so radically different.

 

Notice that there are no true democracies in the muslim states. Why is that?

Notice that there is no true freedom of speech or thought or religion in muslim states. Why do you think that happens?

~moo

This seems a little naive and contrary to the facts to me. Both countries(Lebanon and Palestine) which have been invaded by Israel in the past few weeks are both democratic. I think what would be more correct is to say that it has far less trouble NOWADAYS with secular states such as Egypt or Jordan(Syria is an exception). I think currently it matters little if the states are totalitarian or democratic.

 

I guess I just wanted to point out the broad sweeping generalisation you mentioned is not true.

 

Also, despite it becoming common practice nowadays to collate all terrorist groups(at least the islamic ones anyway) into one group, I don't think it is very helpful. Hamas and Al Qaeda have largely different roots,aims and ideologies and share no links. Hamas had even rejected support from Al Qaeda upon election.

[budullewraagh]

Sorry guys, but it's completely ridiculous to say things like "uh, they hate us because they hate our freedom."

 

Really, do you honestly think that anyone is going to buy the argument that freedom is terrible and that they must honor God by killing everything representative of democracy, freedom, and the like?

 

The Real Reasons:

 

-Poverty

 

Young, poor Muslim men from a number of nations are likely to embrace groups such as Al Qaida and Islamic Jihad in order to find stability and acceptance- think of it as similar to how troubled youths around here join street gangs. They may not even believe in the cause that they fight for but they are members of radical groups in order to survive. During their stay they may radically change their beliefs through the propaganda that comes with their education.

 

 

-Israel/Palestine/Lebanon

 

Muslims really hate it when the US <a http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6061EFB395D0C7B8EDDAE0894DA484D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fB%2fBoycotts">sanctions</a> terrorist actions by the Israeli army (if you really doubt this I can PM you dozens of links). Nations like Syria and Iran help Palestine enough to show that they are supportive, but little enough to not have any significant impact- they know that radical Islam thrives on exploitation of the Palestinians' plight. Now they are able to exploit problems in Lebanon. Israel isn't exactly <a href="http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/24/isrlpa13798.htm">helping</a> themselves and I am very <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/world/middleeast/11military.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin">skeptical</a> of their intentions (refer to the last link: don't they always blame civilian casualties on Hezbollah using civilians as "shields?" If they actually cared about civilians wouldn't they choose something aside from cluster bombs?) <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/02/qana.inquiries/index.html">Yes, I believe so</a>). They know they cannot rid Lebanon of Hezbollah- in 1982 they were able to make it to Beirut in 2 days. Now they've spent a month gaining a few hundred yards. So, what do they have to gain? Hardly anything. What do they have to lose? Well, they can certainly <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745185.html">lose</a> political power and <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34254">extremize</a> a population against them.

 

 

What you have to realize is that most Muslims are moderates, like you and I. You have to ask yourself the question: "What would it take to make me become a crazy radical militant?" If you really think that some group of people far away having a different lifestyle is enough, you may want to seek psychiatric evaluation.

[Jim]

Sorry guys' date=' but it's completely ridiculous to say things like "uh, they hate us because they hate our freedom."

[/quote']

 

 

Sorry, Budullewraagh, but no one said any such thing.

 

If you really think that some group of people far away having a different lifestyle is enough, you may want to seek psychiatric evaluation.

 

I'm not even aware of anyone in the public discourse who said any such thing either.

 

You might try dealing with the arguments people actually make. It is more challenging, I'll admit, but you also will find it ultimately more satisfying.

[Sisyphus]

Sorry' date=' Budullewraagh, but no one said any such thing.

 

 

 

I'm not even aware of anyone in the public discourse who said any such thing either.

 

You might try dealing with the arguments people actually make. It is more challenging, I'll admit, but you also will find it ultimately more satisfying.[/quote']

 

Well, mooeypoo basically said that, and George Bush said that lots of times right after 9/11. He's in the public discourse, isn't he?

[Pangloss]

I don't really have a problem with what you're saying, Bud, I'm sure that's part of the answer too. But all that says is that they're "Drama Queens with Guns". Everyone has their own set of reasons for their own set of failures -- why should they be treated any different?

 

People should be given a helping hand (NOT a free ride) out of poverty because it's right to do that, not because they're pointing a gun at someone else.

[ecoli]

Well, mooeypoo basically said that,

 

Sort of... she never claimed that was the only reason. Obviously these feelings come from somewhere (whether it's poverty, religion, whatever). But, once you start using these things as excuses to kill and terrorize innocent people, my sympathy disappears. You can take responsibility for fixing your problems in non-violent ways, which is more effective than violence because it attracts public sympathy.

[mooeypoo]

This definately isn't the only reason, but it is a major one. And they do hate our freedom, and our societies. That's one of their main points.

 

When bin laden tried to show us that he doesnt hate "our freedom", and said "we don't attack sweden", he is only speaking half the truth for a few major reasons:

 

1. The fight, for public relation reasons (which they take advantage of all the time and quite brutally), has to have a reason for the world; that way, if they claim their reason is 'occupied territories', the world is sympathetic. If you check history, you will see that it has nothing to do with that. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt before the peace agreement with Israel, wanted to wipe Israel off the map. If you listen to the brainwashed people, you will see that they talk about the entirety of infidels - governed by israel and america.

 

Moreover, it was - througout history - the arab nations who initiated an attack on Israel. In 1948, there WERE NO occupied territories. In fact, jewish settlements were 'given' to Arabs, so if you go with that, it should've been the jews who yell about occupation. The jews however were happy with their new land. It was the arab nations - all four of them - that initiated a full scale attack the day after the declaration of independance.

 

2. Fundamentalist Muslims are against capitalism and the 'free way of thinking'. Their belief - and they state it themselves - claim that the western world is cheap, lacking values and wants to take over the world with its capitalistic propaganda. They use the fact that McDonalds and Coka Cola are visible in the middle east aswell, as a sign of "western takeover". It is words they say themselves.

 

3. The word mister Bin Laden neglected to add (and a word we tended to forget adding ourselves, in the back of our minds), is YET. They don't fight sweden - YET. they have "bigger fish to fry". They did attack Spain, didn't they? They did attack England, who had nothing to do with 'occupied territories'. Right now, America is the "BIGGEST Threat" to fundamentalist islam. That's why they chose it FOR NOW. When they're "done" with them, they'll go after the rest of the non muslim states. They say it themselves.

 

 

They do hate our freedom. It represents everything they claim to be against.

 

Those societies (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia..) kill and mame their women if daring to "shame" their families by either walking with no face-hood, or thinking about a shorter blouse, or speaking online to people (not necessarily men, by the way..). You are surprised they are so against the western way, that promotes bathing suits, freedom of thought (god forbit a person becoming an atheist in muslims countries, he might aswell just kill himself instead, and save the trouble), freedom of speech (show me a country that has that? Even Jordan - the most 'western' of them all, has very very limited one), the quest to get women into equal positions as men (you already know what they think about THAT ONE), and so on. The western civilization is "everywhere", specifically since the invention and penetration of the internet and world satellite TV. The young generation in Iran, for instance, started to get quite influenced, and a few years ago almost performed a student revolution.

The leaders of that attempted revolution (which only intended to affect social matters, not the type of government, or throw out the existing leaders) are either rotting in Irani prison (extremely not nice) or dead. The muslim fundamentalists are TERRIFIED from the influences of the western world on their closed-minded brain-washed fundamentalist nation.

 

They are EXTREMELY against our freedom.

 

They just use the other subjects as a means to emphesize their determination, and get world sympathy.

 

 

~moo

[Jim]

Well, mooeypoo basically said that, and George Bush said that lots of times right after 9/11. He's in the public discourse, isn't he?

 

Sorry, but it's a vast over simplification of Mooey's position to say this problem is all about an absence of freedom. In any event, I am certainly not aware of anyone, Bush included, who has said that they "really think that some group of people far away having a different lifestyle is enough" to make a "crazy radical militant." Bull's statement that such ridiculous people "may want to seek psychiatric evaluation" is pretty good evidence that he is making a gross oversimplification of an opposing POV. He makes other good points but the beginning and conclusion of his post over simplify.

 

I posted from the leading Western academic on the history of the Middle East explaining in detail why there is tension between the West and Islam. I remember asking in one thread if any one had an opposing academic source on these issues and got no response.

 

I think Bernard Lewis makes an incredibly persuasive case that the plate tectonics of this conflict were set grinding into motion long ago when Islamic culture began to believe that it was in decline on many fronts. This shift has everything to do with the history of a vast area of the globe and nothing to do with a mere “different lifestyle.”

 

FWIW, I do not think it is any indication of moral failure that Muslims have difficulty in dealing with their relative military, scientific and economic decline. Half of my waking days are spent dealing with conflicts which have erupted after a business deal goes sour. We are dealing with deep seated human behavior which can cause sincere good people to go postal rather than engage in much needed introspection. With sincere religious beliefs mixed into this sense of decline it is a very dangerous mix.

[Sisyphus]

All I'm saying is that there has been plenty of public debate which emphasized the notion that "the terrorists hate us because they hate our freedom," whether or not it is explicitly said that this is the only reason. I distinctly remember more than one Bush speach to that effect, and (believe it or not) I do listen to conservative talk radio sometimes, and that's the only reason they ever mention at all.

 

However, I think it's quite fair to say that that is silly. mooeypoo, all those things you mention, about how they see our capitalism and our secularism as decadent and immoral - yes, yes they do. That's why they do all they can to establish oppressive, Taliban-like theocracies in the Islamic world. But there's a big difference between that and going outside the Islamic world to attack others. They attack us not because we're a free society, but because they see us as meddling in their society. They'd rather be insulated in their own little medieval world, not having to deal with infidels like us at all. Sweden has nothing to do with them, and hence, they couldn't care less how many Swedes doom themselves to eternal torment.