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Originally posted by George Smiley I've actually just thought of something... It seems irrelevant who is right or wrong, as you say that Iraq gave them an excuse, I say Iraq was the reason. So either way, if we stop such (unneccessary) actions in the future, they will have neither the excuse or the reason right? So the threat to my country would be reduced right?

The threat to yours, maybe (still doubtful, as your country's already done enough by now in their eyes). I don't recall what the U.S. did to them that was so awful that caused 9/11, though, so I'd still be inclined to believe that the attacks would continue regardless if we were in Iraq or not. You could consider support for Israel to be the rationale, but it's not like we are the only country that supports them (though I'd claim we are the most powerful and vocal of their supporters).

Personally, I think that they find our western values to be a threat to their dying theocractic regimes. Muslims are moving to European and American countries and aren't required by law to behave like the extremist leaders think that they should. In the end, that's a threat to their control over people, which I believe religion is a tool to maintain.

___________________
"Go back to bed america your government is in control
Here's American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it,
Watch these picturary retards bang their fuckin' skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom,
Here you go America you are free to do as we tell you
We want your soul
Your cash, your house, your phone, your cash, your house, your life" -Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul

If you can't think of any more reasons as to why they attacked the USA then the wool has well and truly been pulled over your eyes mate!!!

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley If you can't think of any more reasons as to why they attacked the USA then the wool has well and truly been pulled over your eyes mate!!!

Yes, I'm aware, we're the big evil empire. Just remember that your government in the UK and all the European nations are our allies in a loose sense of the word, so you'll be next.

I think we do some shitty things, but sometimes I wish our government would actually behave like these people profess that we already do, just to show them what it could be like. Cut all funding to everyone who doesn't kiss our asses. Let little kids die in the street from poverty, rather than giving aid. We'd be a lot stronger of a nation and a lot of others would be a lot weaker if we did. THAT would be evil in my eyes. Instead, we seem to waste a lot of money and effort trying to appease people.

Just out of curiousity, what do you consider to reasons why they attacked us besides the support of Israel?

___________________
"Go back to bed america your government is in control
Here's American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it,
Watch these picturary retards bang their fuckin' skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom,
Here you go America you are free to do as we tell you
We want your soul
Your cash, your house, your phone, your cash, your house, your life" -Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Alex (ISR) Those people AKA terorists are not looking for vengeance or fight back.. they just want to force you to beliave in Islam..

Excuse me, but what this whole war on terror is doing? Isnt it forcing its formula of 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' on these countries?

Isnt Bush on a Jihadic mission to spread its way governance on other countries, what it calls is 'freedom'.

Dont you want them to believe in your system?

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Originally posted by Dj O'Callaghan What's happened in Iraq cannot be changed. Weather you agree with it or not. I agree in some ways it would sway some moderate muslims into becoming more extreme in their views. It's been a hot bed waiting to happen for years George, face it quite a lot of Muslims hate us regardless of if you supported the Iraq war or not they wouldn't care about killing you they'd feel no remorse or guilt about it because your a westerner. Times are changing the younger generation of muslims in the UK are becoming more religious, their naive and gulliable this is what is leading them to become vulnerable to brainwashing radicals who slip underneath the radar due to relaxed immagration laws. As a whole the muslim community is becoming more segregated and isolated from the rest of British society.

To sum up:

Things are not looking good; situation has only detoriated and it keeps getting worst with every passing day. This whole 'war on terror' is not working at all.

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quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley I've actually just thought of something... It seems irrelevant who is right or wrong, as you say that Iraq gave them an excuse, I say Iraq was the reason. So either way, if we stop such (unneccessary) actions in the future, they will have neither the excuse or the reason right? So the threat to my country would be reduced right?

There's a fundamental difference between reason and excuse, as you surely know. You eleminate the cause (=reason) you don't have the effect. And excuse, however, can be interchanged freely, since the root of the problem was not removed. It's nothing but a cover whereas a reason is causal for the outcome. Both the terrorists' rhetoric as well as the chronology of their massacres contradict your "reason" theory: Besides their constant references to recent political events, such as the Iraq/Afghan wars, they keep propagating their almost fascist idelogy of Islam world domination which inherently objects Western culture regardless of its concrete interventions in the Middle East. A perfect example would be the global mobilization of furious violent Muslims as a "reaction" for the Danish cartoons. Were those cartoons really the *reason* for such disappropiate anger or doesn't the fact that the ralleys and protests were perfectly orchestrated by Islamist leaders MONTHS after the actual publishing hint more towards and *excuse*?
Let's further examine the Terrorist "special" relationship with the Jewish people. Yes, Jewish, not Israeli: Only in the post 9-11 era have Islamists hit Synagoges in Istanbul, Jewish restaurants/clubs in Casablanca, another synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia and a Nigerian hotel crowded by Israeli/Jewish torusits. If you follow your "reason" theory you'd have to think of an "excuse" as to why Terrorists were apparently too lazy to distinguish between Israeli politics and people of the Jewish fate. Hearing Hamas and Hizballah leaders calling the Jews "the sons of pigs and apes" it feels like those murders are mainly motivated by idelology and perverted religios interpretations than a mere "political response".
Sept. 11th itself was a time in which Bush and the Us was about to return to a highly isolationist foreign policy. It followed years of ambitious effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Clinton, years of ignorance of the rise of the Taliban and ongoing Hussein madness. Rarely before have the U.S. been so non-interferring in a negative sense - yet this massacre as a response with a "reason"? Could it be that the world-wide search for possible "reasons" was the very sparkle for further attacks which tried to test the limits more and more? After all, if we do all the job of "reason-finding" why not use this very nature of ours and keep operating under this disguise with the side-effect of gaining more and more supporters? We managed to find the vaguest links between a bombing in Bali(Indonesia!) and the Australian Iraq policy. We did our best to show up direct connections between Madrid's train bombings and those few hundred Spanish soldiers that were deployed in Iraq. With such creativity we'll even find the "reason" for a bombing of Luxemburg or Johannesburg or whatever little village somewhere in Peru.
The real challenge is not as you say, to stand "above emotions" and investigate the reasons. The real challenge is to stop for a moment and think outside the box of rational explanations - a fundamentally irrational ideology such as Islamism will simply not give you those answers.

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"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

And what is your solution to the war on terror?

As a pessismist I cant see one. The dilemma is perfectly illustrated in the current Lebanon war: Not responding or a diplomatic settlement with concessions is seen as a sign of weakness further motivating future attacks. Responding, however, mostly hits innocent which again leads to a radicalization of society. Unfortunately it's not (anymore) even a simple domestic problem of the Muslim world which fights corruption, poverty and lack of education - it seems as though the "disease" of Islamis was indeed developed there but is nowadays spread through the world into the midst of Europe and the US. Be it middle class neighbourhoods in Leeds or the Technical University of Hamburg. The cells and their leading idelogists have freed themselves form their Arabic/Pakistani/Iranian homebases both operatively and ideologically. Perhaps succesful modernist counter-movements within Muslim societies could trigger a chain reaction. I think a peacefull revolution against the Mullah regime in Iran would be a great signal and a major defeat to Islamist ideology.

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"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

Open your eyes just a little bit!

Iran is only the current enemy! Who gave a shit about Iran 3 years ago?!

I'm not even aware, outside of Lebanon (and encrouching into Iraq), of Iran even exporting any of their beliefs (especially in the West?)

Stop being swayed by what ever country America tells us we should be hating at the moment and ask yourself why America is not telling us to hate Pakistan or Saudi Arabia (which are the TRUE exporters of radical Islamist ideology). Reason? Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are our "friends" (ie they have something America wants)

Still, if you can't see a solution why even bother to debate it? My motivation is that my opinions might actually help erradicate this threat. Your opinion then, would merely to inform us of this threat (which we are all well aware of in the first place).

I've always said of the Israel/Palestine conflict - what if Israel allowed a Palestinian state (a proper one, not some two bit scrap of land with no economic vaibility) and they continued to be attacked anyway? Well then no-one would have any arguments against Israeli action would they? But at least we would have given it a chance to work. Same with my views on the war on terror. At least give it a chance, then we'll know our actions are justified...until then, I just don't think our actions are justified and only serve to increase the threat to our countries...

(PS, Beeston is NOT middle class, and I live in the other area of Leeds where the terrorists made their bombs, and altho I wish it was, that ain't middle class either!!!)

quote:

Originally posted by LazFX Agree totally, you beat me to the posting so I deleted mine. But I am sure some on here will blame the UK, US, Bush and others rather than to blame these animals that do this in a name of some God? All that will become of this is more loss of liberties on both sides of the pond. Lets see how this will play out..

You nailed it my friend.

Here are the only things that can be blamed on the US government in particular:

-Dismantling core liberties and freedoms in the name of fighting terror.

-Using the threat of terror to score cheap political points by inciting fear into the rabble

-The sheer hypocrisy of decrying how ass backwards these radical Islamists are and then doing things like delaying Plan B approval for OTC sales when over 40 countries sell it over the counter, and merging fundamentalist christianity with the state among other things.

Fundamentalism is fundamentalism after all, and is at the core of the problem we face today.


Other than these issues, which I do of course take great issue with, I don't see how you can blame Western governments for what these people are trying to do. In fact I'd have to give the British government and Canadian government credit for stopping two large terrorist plots.

Obviously the Iraqi invasion has made the situation worse by starting a civil war and leading to greater instability in that region, but these terrorists would have been trying to blow up civilians on airliners, in buildings, in trains and subways regardless of whether Iraq was invaded or not. They've been at it since at least the early 80s when radical fundamentalist Islam began to sweep the Muslim world.

They have shown a craven attitude towards human life, and have even struck in non-Western countries such as India very recently.

So personally I consider the mind prison of inflexible dogma to be at the root of this crisis, and that always has been the root cause.

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quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley Open your eyes just a little bit! Iran is only the current enemy! Who gave a shit about Iran 3 years ago?! I'm not even aware, outside of Lebanon (and encrouching into Iraq), of Iran even exporting any of their beliefs (especially in the West?) Stop being swayed by what ever country America tells us we should be hating at the moment and ask yourself why America is not telling us to hate Pakistan or Saudi Arabia (which are the TRUE exporters of radical Islamist ideology). Reason? Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are our "friends" (ie they have something America wants)

You are kidding about Iran and no one giving a shit about them until 3 years ago, right??

Did you miss that part of history class when they dicussed Khomeini taking over for the Shah that ushered in this wave of Muslim-based rule? We've been having problems with them for over 25 years, not just the last 3. They took 60-some hostages from the US embassy in 1979. Hell, as a result, we started funding Iraq in their war against Iran in the 80s (though the whole Iran-Contra scandal threw that a little askew, talk about a major blight on American foreign policy)

The main escalation with the tension with Iran as of late came when Ahmadinejad came to power and started talking about getting nukes and wiping Israel off the face of the planet, but they've been far from even a neutral for over 25 years.

___________________
"Go back to bed america your government is in control
Here's American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it,
Watch these picturary retards bang their fuckin' skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom,
Here you go America you are free to do as we tell you
We want your soul
Your cash, your house, your phone, your cash, your house, your life" -Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul