quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo you didn't let me finish. i accidentaly hit submit.

Considering the fact that there was no double post I almost believe you.

whatever

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Unfortunatley, that's all that some of the minds on here are capable of dispensing. Apartment 314 must be a haven for idiocy.

oh cmon now... i was just trying to make light of the horrible story up above...

btw, thanks for looking me up i'm happy to see i've sparked someone's interest from a far away, someone i've never even met.

>JM<

quote:

Originally posted by JM oh cmon now... i was just trying to make light of the horrible story up above... btw, thanks for looking me up i'm happy to see i've sparked someone's interest from a far away, someone i've never even met. >JM<

What do you find "horrible" about the article other than the insights that go against your bigoted way of thinking?

Yeah, well... I wanted to be sure the people that I've been quarrelling with on here are who they say they are. I guess that's the conspiracy theorist in me coming out.

I don't take anything at face value.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Yeah, well... I wanted to be sure the people that I've been quarrelling with on here are who they say they are. I guess that's the conspiracy theorist in me coming out.

that's me alright. just 1 person posting, living in a small little apt next to UW in NE Seattle....(hopefully for not too much longer)

have you checked out the King and the Hardcore Trancer yet?

they must at least be friends, if not brothers, or better yet - the same person.

>JM<

quote:

Originally posted by JM that's me alright. just 1 person posting, living in a small little apt next to UW in NE Seattle....(hopefully for not too much longer) have you checked out the King and the Hardcore Trancer yet? they must at least be friends, if not brothers, or better yet - the same person. >JM<

(206) 3xx-3xxx

Now tell me that I don't do my homework.

You're harmless, I know.

/subject

Negative.

You are responsible for the effect that your "experiences" have on you. If Osama bin Laden became a terrorist as a result of his experiences, then he also became a terrorist as a result of the way he chose to interpret, interact with, and respond to his experiences.

The diffusion of personal responsibility onto factors which may have contributed to them choosing to make a harmful decision simply has no merit.

Certainly, no matter what his environment he still could have chosen that he didn't think terrorism was a good idea. He didn't. You can argue that his experiences made him more likely or more inclined to choose the path of terrorism, but if you do then you better back it up with some valid empirical evidence. Otherwise, this article and the argument contained therein are nothing more than unsubstantiated, unsupported hot air.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo we didn't invent Abu Nidal. we ignored them. we didn't invent Yasser Arrafat. we gave him the benefit of the doubt. we didn't invent the Ayahtollah. we appeased him. we didn't invent Wahabiism. we didn't understand it.

Your point?

quote:

we didn't teach Bin Laden how to kill massively. thats a lie.

Quite untrue. We DID teach bin Laden and his men HOW to fight with much greater efficiency. How he chose to utilize that knowledge, however, is not our fault. Nevertheless, we gave him the knowledge and the tools.

quote:

Bin Laden was pissed at the Saudis for the American bases AND wanted Saddam dead for making a move in Kuwait? thats called a conflict of interest. which is his F**king problem.

How? Explain. The passage in question:

quote:

Osama bin Laden learned a few other things before he became the monster under our collective bed. When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein began to make his move against Kuwait, bin Laden was outraged. Hussein was a despised name on the lips of bin Laden and his followers; here was an unbelieving heretic who spoke the words of Allah, a self-styled Socialist who pretended piety, a ruthless dictator who killed every Islamic fundamentalist he could get his hands on. Osama bin Laden went to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, home of the holiest sites of Islam. The royal family was not to be found anywhere on bin Laden's list of friends at the time. A shrewd observer of local politics, bin Laden knew that the Saudi government enjoyed having the Palestinians living in squalor, bereft of homeland and hope, because it distracted the fundamentalists within Saudi Arabia from focusing on the inequities within their own country. With the crooking of a single oil-rich finger, the Saudi royals could solve the Palestinian problem. Their refusal to do so fed bin Laden's rage, for in his mind, they were aiding and abetting what he saw as an intolerable Israeli apartheid. Bin Laden asked Fahd to help him resurrect the army that fought with him against the Soviets so that he could fight Saddam Hussein. Here again is an irony of the times: As in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden was spoiling for a fight against an enemy of the United States - for his own purposes, to be sure, but it is difficult to avoid a shake of the head when considering all of the recent rhetoric about a Saddam/Osama alliance. Fahd turned bin Laden down, and allowed the American military to set up bases in Saudi Arabia for use in what became known as Operation Desert Storm. According to the version of Islam practiced by bin Laden, it is rank heresy to allow soldiers from an infidel army to occupy the land of Mecca and Medina. Bin Laden learned from this that regimes in the Middle East which claim fealty to Islam, but which in fact act at the behest of the Unites States, were not to be trusted. The royal family of Saudi Arabia joined the list of bin Laden's enemies, along with the United States, Saddam Hussein, and Israel.

is not some revisionist history. Even the most ardent Conservative neocons agree with this outline of events. This particular aspect is not a partisan historical bias, it is more or less pretty accurate.

quote:

Bin Laden has a beef with the world. as evidenced in his Al Queda doctrine and Fatwa's. Americas is his easiest and most trophied prize in that beef.

There is a great deal more going on here with bin Laden, Q5. This simplistic explanation of our enemy will get us nowhere in our fight against him and world terrorism. My reasoning behind posting such an article was to demonstrate a little better understanding of our enemy, and a greater detail as to why he hates us the way he does.

I'd love nothing more than to accept the simplistic Conservative talking point explanation as to why bin Laden wants to destroy us: simply because he hates our freedom and democracy. My God I wish it was that simple. But it gets us nowhere to dumb down the rationale to these oversimplistic talking points when there is a much greater urgency to understand exactly why bin Laden and his terrorist allies are spreading so easily and quickly throughout the world.

Remember one of the primary maxim's of the Art of War: Know Thy Enemy.

quote:

Guess what Opus! Articles that sensationalize Osama are not gonna get Kerry elected. your motives are flawed just like your party

Not everything I post is a means to the end of getting Kerry elected. In fact, I seriously hope you don't believe that is my motive for posting here all these years. I do partake in constructive events that hopefully help contribute to his election: give donations to his and the DNC campaign, attend his campaign meetings with my local chapter, and so forth. Posting messages in a tranceaddict forum in hopes to getting someone elected is, well, jesus don't you think that would be kinda silly?

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Your point?

refering to the crux of the entire article. which states

quote:

He becomes truly scary when the realization comes that he is a creation of the last fifty years of American foreign and economic policy,

its as misleading as saying Israel's 6 day war was a product of 50 years of American foriegn policy. sure, there are minor connections but absurd to claim he is a product of. i take serious offence to a statement like that.

what is Araffat a product of?
where does Wahabiism come from?

address those questions and don't sit there and glorify someone who wants to kill my family because we had a airbase in Saudi Arabia.

quote:

Quite untrue. We DID teach bin Laden and his men HOW to fight with much greater efficiency. How he chose to utilize that knowledge, however, is not our fault. Nevertheless, we gave him the knowledge and the tools.

dude, the article cleary states

quote:

we taught Bin Laden how to kill massively

we gave him battle field tacticts against Russian armor and stinger missles. we did not teach that man to how to blow up embassies. that article bcame unreadable after that.


Maybe its just me, but i don't need an atricle like this to define for me Bin Laden's justification. i'm reasonably familiar with his motivations and means. but maybe others do.
Bin Laden waging war with the Saudi Royals is beside the point for me.
Bin Laden pissed we set up camp on the Arabian penninsula to stage against Saddam. i agree its not revisionist. but it is history and it pisses me off that thousands have paid with their lives for his psychotic reasoning. this article only enforces that reasoning. it should piss others off as well as educate.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo refering to the crux of the entire article. which states its as misleading as saying Israel's 6 day war was a product of 50 years of American foriegn policy.

A false comparison.

My history of Israel may be a little shoddy, but I highly doubt we had any direct involvement, at least as much involvement with their country prior to the 6 day war, in comparison to our DIRECT involvement as a result of our Cold War foreign policy with countries like Iran, Iraq, old Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, etc.

quote:

sure, there are minor connections but absurd to claim he is a product of.

"Minor connections"?!?

You have any understanding of our historical involvement with Iran and Iraq? Are you seriously trying to dumb down our involvement and foreign policy with these countries?

It's irrelevant whether you want to acknowledge our involvement with these countries in the old Cold War days. Our involvement is there nonetheless.

quote:

i take serious offence to a statement like that.

Try not to so goddamn often, will you? Not everything is meant to be a partisan attack towards you.

quote:

what is Araffat a product of? where does Wahabiism come from? address those questions and don't sit there and glorify someone who wants to kill my family because we had a airbase in Saudi Arabia.

What I am attempting to demonstrate is that our presence in Saudi Arabia is merely a part of the problem these terrorists, as well as the majority of the Middle East sentiment, are AGAINST us.

I think you're really misunderstanding my point here. In no way am I attempting to justify terrorism. You must be absolutely foolish and narrow-minded to even begin to have such a thought. But if, by chance, you do seem to hold that thought, let me break some news to you:

Democrats want to fucking eradicate terrorism too.

In fact, one could easily make the argument that a Democratic President may want to be more forceful in eradicating bin Laden and world terrorism in general. Considering our Republican President chose to DIVERT our forces and intelligence from hunting down bin Laden in order to fight a war in Iraq THAT WAS NOT CONNECTED to 9/11 in any manner, I think one may make that argument worthwhile, but I digress.

But since you think I'm "glorifying" our enemy, I want you to be specific with your argument as to exactly how I am "glorifying" our enemy, in my sole purpose to define and understand our enemy better in hopes to fully eradicate not just him, but to reverse the thought processes being engrained in his followers worldwide. Please explain how this is "glorification".

quote:

dude, the article cleary states we gave him battle field tacticts against Russian armor and stinger missles. we did not teach that man to how to blow up embassies.

Wait, let's take a little closer look at what I stated.

First:

quote:

We DID teach bin Laden and his men HOW to fight with much greater efficiency

and let's compare what you stated first:

quote:

we gave him battle field tacticts against Russian armor and stinger missles.

Essentially the same thought, right. So good so far. Next I stated:

quote:

How he chose to utilize that knowledge, however, is not our fault. Nevertheless, we gave him the knowledge and the tools.

Meaning, what he CHOSE to do with that knowledge, i.e. resort to terrorist activity (like blowing up embassies), is not our doing. That was his choice to do so, and we had nothing to do with that aspect here.

Now, doesn't that kinda resemble what you stated here next?:

quote:

we did not teach that man to how to blow up embassies.

So believe it or not, Q5, I'm agreeing with you. This was not a point of argument, and I believe you are once again misconstruing what I stated. You have a propensity to do this from time to time. I think you have a tendency to think that everything I or another progressive writes about here is an automatic point of disagreement with your views. Sometimes, that is simply not the case. So relax, will you?

quote:

that article bcame unreadable after that.

What, you want less words and more pictures?

quote:

Maybe its just me, but i don't need an atricle like this to define for me Bin Laden's justification. i'm reasonably familiar with his motivations and means. but maybe others do. Bin Laden waging war with the Saudi Royals is beside the point for me. Bin Laden pissed we set up camp on the Arabian penninsula to stage against Saddam. i agree its not revisionist. but it is history and it pisses me off that thousands have paid with their lives for his psychotic reasoning. this article only enforces that reasoning. it should piss others off as well as educate.

Again, I think you miss the point here, and I think you're attempting to reconstruct Pitt's argument (as well as my own). No one, not even the most hardcore liberals, believes that there is justification for killing thousands of innocent Americans. In fact, well gee, didn't Pitt state that?:

quote:

Osama bin Laden is a damned murderer of innocents, with thousands of notches in his belt. His actions are indefensible by any measure.

By God he did! But then his point, and my own, follows:

quote:

Yet to dismiss him as something other than the creation of his experiences, to categorize him as some unique freak whose motivations are beyond comprehension, is to deny the most important dilemma that faces our world. Monsters are not born. They are made.

IOW, that simple-minded thinking about our enemy will not eradicate the REAL underlying problem of terrorism spreading rapidly across the world with tens of thousands of new recruits joining every year.

If you truly believe that simply eliminating or jailing up terrorists one by one is going to eventually solve the world terrorism problem, then I contend you are being extrememly shortsighted. As I've stated before, correctly KNOWING how our enemy thinks is a viable and useful tool to defeating them.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 A false comparison.

its just meant to be a comparison of two misleading statements, not a referendum of Israeli history.

i'm not saying that, you personally, are glorifying the enemy. the aricle, as harmless as it may seem, justifies Bin ladens psychosis through misleading statements like.

quote:

He becomes truly scary when the realization comes that he is a creation of the last fifty years of American foreign and economic policy, Today, the United States faces this group and its leader, armed with their well-learned and America-taught lessons: How to kill massively and how to annihilate a superpower. We created Osama bin Laden. We taught him to kill, we showed him how to destroy a superpower, and we gave him a face-first lesson in American interventionism in his back yard. Whatever predispositions towards violence and murder existed in him when he was born became honed, refined and perfected as he watched our government storm the policies, rulers and innocent people of the Middle East like so many rabbits. We have created millions more like him

^^ to me the first two paragraphs are almost lies. they are that misleading. followed by the rest of the article which is more/less a history lesson. concluding with the third paragraph summarizing by saying that we created Osama.

i mean, you said it yourself, "its not that simple". of course its never that simple. but the ARTICLE, which i have continually refered to, not you, wants to make you believe it is that simple.

[/QUOTE]

quote:

Originally posted by Arbiter Negative. You are responsible for the effect that your "experiences" have on you. If Osama bin Laden became a terrorist as a result of his experiences, then he also became a terrorist as a result of the way he chose to interpret, interact with, and respond to his experiences. The diffusion of personal responsibility onto factors which may have contributed to them choosing to make a harmful decision simply has no merit. Certainly, no matter what his environment he still could have chosen that he didn't think terrorism was a good idea. He didn't. You can argue that his experiences made him more likely or more inclined to choose the path of terrorism, but if you do then you better back it up with some valid empirical evidence. Otherwise, this article and the argument contained therein are nothing more than unsubstantiated, unsupported hot air.

I forgot that most people don't know the history behind bin Laden and his many years of service for the CIA, who more likely than not tried to perform some wet work on his ass when they realized that he was building a force of Jihaders.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1