I don't think democracy is the big evil that terrorists hate unless you can prove otherwise. Correct me if that was not your implication.
I don't read you here. Please elaborate.
Train and you seem to be suggesting that the terrorists' hate for American values is the sole or the most significant reason for their actions. This is the same misleading rhetoric that Bush and Blair have been spewing in the aftermath of this tragedy (ever since 9/11 actually, but it has intensified now) and this is what I am denouncing.
TastesLikeChicken
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2004
- 16,852
- 59
- 86
I didn't say anything about democracy whatsoever.
We were talking about the values that bin laden hates. Address that relative to the question.
There are miltant Islamic movements in all those countries trying with the aim of chainging the government to fundy Islam.
I'll agree with you.
I also think OBL hates America because it was the US, instead of him and his Afghan muj, that was used to push Saddam out of Kuwait. This is about the bruise to his ego. With his money and connections it was easy for him to exact his revenge on the US (and SA, where AQ attacks provide the biggest insight to what I'm saying)) for the imagined smack in the face.
It's easy to use religion as a tool to do your personal bidding. Many men have done it through the centuries and OBL is but one more.
The American value that provide a person with freedom of choice in all aspects of life is democracy. What else?
All those movements in the countries you mentioned are incomparable to the influence that Washington exerts on the middle east. If you consider a group of rag-tags hidden away in dense forestland, bent on imposing "fundy" Islam upon people, then ok. US foreign policy has significant, GLOBAL consequences. Mafia-style Muslim militias in impoverished nations don't.
Read OBL's "letter to America" and the very first, the FIRST reasons he mentions are:
He then goes on to describe why we are a morally bankrupt and corrupt nation. But in order for you to skip over all of the above and move right into the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll that Osama also hates, you'd have to have your head wedged tightly into a large hole in the ground.
He then goes on to describe why we are a morally bankrupt and corrupt nation. But in order for you to skip over all of the above and move right into the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll that Osama also hates, you'd have to have your head wedged tightly into a large hole in the ground.
MadRat
Lifer
- Oct 14, 1999
- 11,999
- 307
- 126
There is another movie called COOL HAND LUKE (1967) with a famous quote: "What we have here is...failure to communicate.". Luke is played by Paul Newman and he's your atypical American raging against the Establishment. In one part of the movie Luke fights Dragline (played by the brute George Kennedy) and insists on taking a pounding. The pounding continues to the point where Luke is a bloody pulp and the crowd of onlookers disperses due to their disgust of Luke not accepting his defeat. Dragline pleads unsuccessfully with his opponent to submit. The beating continues until Dragline walks away, no longer having the heart to pound Luke anymore.
In one of the next scenes Luke is playing cards with a table full of other prisoners. He pulls a bluff off to win, flipping over a whole hand of nothing just after the last player folds. Dragline chides the loser for folding and says something like "he won with nothing, just like he kept coming at me today with a whole lot of nothing".
You don't have to have anything to win. Winning is possible with nothing if the opponent thinks the nothing really is something. Its all perspective, with the end game a battle more of wills and wits than bombs and bullets. If these people keep coming at the Establishment with their whole lot of nothing then perhaps they'll pull out a Cool Hand Luke win, too. They can only hope. Best if we don't remind them it only works in the movies.
Muslims must be like the upcoming Iranian youth, forward thinking and bright.
But I'm afraid in other parts of the muslim world, the young are brainwashed and will resort to terrorism. The muslims who committed the homicide bombings in London were all very young. They were from Pakistan. One of the homicide bombers was 18 while the other one was 22. This is the problem we have to deal with.
Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it.
These people want to drag the world into the 7th century. Its your choice. Let them drag you, or you can choose to fight them and kill and/or defeat them.
I think the people of America, China, India and other countries which are relevant have chosen the path of moving forward. I'm not quite sure about Europe.
As for the muslim world, its a bit difficult to say really. Iran is a great country in that it has great resources in terms of young vibrant minds, but it is the Islamic leadership of the country that is holding all that potential great talent back. As for the Arab countries, they need to jail their extremist clerics who brainwash their young. That will make things better.
Also, allowing a woman outside the house is a good. I think a woman should be able to travel outside of her house by herself. But apparently, many Arabs don't think so.
So basically that is almost half of the population that you have basically sealed off from engaging in any activity which may propel a country forward.
Oh and for the people on this forum:
Stop hating your country and stop hating yourself.
There is a reason why the Muslim world is erupting all over the world. There is a reason why muslims in many parts of the world are killing and terrorizing their non-Islamic neighbors.
But I'm afraid in other parts of the muslim world, the young are brainwashed and will resort to terrorism. The muslims who committed the homicide bombings in London were all very young. They were from Pakistan. One of the homicide bombers was 18 while the other one was 22. This is the problem we have to deal with.
Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it.
These people want to drag the world into the 7th century. Its your choice. Let them drag you, or you can choose to fight them and kill and/or defeat them.
I think the people of America, China, India and other countries which are relevant have chosen the path of moving forward. I'm not quite sure about Europe.
As for the muslim world, its a bit difficult to say really. Iran is a great country in that it has great resources in terms of young vibrant minds, but it is the Islamic leadership of the country that is holding all that potential great talent back. As for the Arab countries, they need to jail their extremist clerics who brainwash their young. That will make things better.
Also, allowing a woman outside the house is a good. I think a woman should be able to travel outside of her house by herself. But apparently, many Arabs don't think so.
So basically that is almost half of the population that you have basically sealed off from engaging in any activity which may propel a country forward.
Oh and for the people on this forum:
Stop hating your country and stop hating yourself.
There is a reason why the Muslim world is erupting all over the world. There is a reason why muslims in many parts of the world are killing and terrorizing their non-Islamic neighbors.
Raildogg, please keep your overly simplistic and child-like comments out of this thread. I rarely ask anyone this, but really, how old are you? Your tone seems too pretentious for me to take you seriously.
shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
- 81
This is exactly correct. OBL and Al Qaeda may indeed hate us for many reasons, but their reason for 9/11 and the rest of the Al Qaeda-based terrorism is to get us out of the Middle East. From their point of view, if we engaged in our evil ways within our own boundaries, they'd think we were swine, but they'd simply ignore us.
This "They hate our way of life" as an explanation of why they attacked us is pablum for the weak minded.
Somehow it doesn't seem right that Muslims can immigrate to other countries, build mosques, and convert other people to their religion but when we have bases in Saudi Arabia as a detterent to Sadam invading Kuwait, that's not okay.
Haven't there actually been terrorists attacks by militant muslims in recent history in thailand?
Bush's war on terror is a colossal failure
HAROON SIDDIQUI
Madrid: 191 dead. Beslan: 330 murdered, half of them children. Riyadh and Jeddah: more than 100 killed. London: about 50 massacred.
Then there's the daily terror of Iraq, where more than 700 people have been killed in the last month alone.
Our leaders respond with revulsion and resolve, as they must, when the tragedy hits closer to home.
They walk the fine line between increasing security and causing panic, between feeling our pain and exploiting it.
Officials who need to be seen to be doing something are, on TV.
Breathless reporters, anchors and "security experts" spout scary scenarios, pontificate about the latest terrorist group about which they know nothing, and recycle such vacuous phrases as the "vertical vs. horizontal command structure" of Al Qaeda and its "metastasizing" cells.
Islam bashers renew their racist demand as to what Muslims are going to do about the horror.
But once we get past all that, and the empty editorials, what are we left with? This:
The war on terror has been a monumental failure. In fact, it has made matters worse.
You could see that in the words of George W. Bush and Tony Blair after the London blasts.
They contrasted the dastardly acts of the terrorists with their own good deeds for Africa and the environment. True but irrelevant. The terrorists are not from Africa and they don't care about gas emissions.
Blair added: "We will not allow violence to change our values and our way of life." And Anne McLellan parrotted: "We will defend our way of life."
This is a Bush-ian formulation: they hate us because we are free. It cleverly obviates any need for self-scrutiny.
It is also patently false.
Terrorists, if they are to be believed, are targeting us because of our policies in Muslim lands. Thursday's communiqué made that clear enough.
Terrorists also have already changed our way of life.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo Bay. Secret prisons abroad. "Renditions." Torture. Assassinations. CIA abductions, even on the friendly soil of Italy.
Fear still rules America. Even after waging a war on false pretences, Bush can find refuge from low approval ratings by continuing to link Iraq to 9/11, as he did the other day before ? where else? ? military cadets.
Our own governments are invading our privacy, suspending civil liberties, criminalizing entire communities and repeatedly exhorting us to be "vigilant," thereby risking vigilantism, the anti-thesis of the rule of law.
All this may be excusable if it were making us any safer.
Combine this with the other failed elements of the war on terror, and you can see why we don't feel reassured by even the Churchillian calls of Blair ("We shall prevail and they shall not") and Bush ("We'll find them, we'll bring them to justice.")
Paul Martin and other leaders, cowered into co-operating with Bush, need to start saying that the emperor has no clothes.
Terrorists used to be spawned in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Now they mushroom in Iraq, even Europe.
So much for Wahhabism being the font of terrorism. What shall we do now? Bomb Europe?
Far from being "in its last throes," as Dick Cheney claims, the insurgency in Iraq is getting worse. Iraq is also sliding into civil war and lawlessness.
Condoleezza Rice, helicoptered in and out of the walled American headquarters in Baghdad, urges Arabs to send envoys to Iraq but it is they who are getting slaughtered, as the Egyptian one has just been.
If Iraq is indeed "vital to the future security" of America ? and, by extension, all of us ? as Bush says, he has made it so.
In Afghanistan, where the war was won long ago, the war goes on. Civilians still die under "friendly fire," prompting even the American puppet Hamid Karzai to complain publicly. Raids on civilians continue, alienating even more people.
It's not just the Muslims who are up in arms, as a worldwide poll by the Pew Research Centre shows. China's image is now better than America's. Canadians lead those who think of Americans as violent. The biggest reason cited for the widespread anti-Americanism is Bush and his policies.
There is no easy answer to how we should proceed. But a dose of honesty would be a good start.
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah. It's tough stuff to swallow.
HAROON SIDDIQUI
Madrid: 191 dead. Beslan: 330 murdered, half of them children. Riyadh and Jeddah: more than 100 killed. London: about 50 massacred.
Then there's the daily terror of Iraq, where more than 700 people have been killed in the last month alone.
Our leaders respond with revulsion and resolve, as they must, when the tragedy hits closer to home.
They walk the fine line between increasing security and causing panic, between feeling our pain and exploiting it.
Officials who need to be seen to be doing something are, on TV.
Breathless reporters, anchors and "security experts" spout scary scenarios, pontificate about the latest terrorist group about which they know nothing, and recycle such vacuous phrases as the "vertical vs. horizontal command structure" of Al Qaeda and its "metastasizing" cells.
Islam bashers renew their racist demand as to what Muslims are going to do about the horror.
But once we get past all that, and the empty editorials, what are we left with? This:
The war on terror has been a monumental failure. In fact, it has made matters worse.
You could see that in the words of George W. Bush and Tony Blair after the London blasts.
They contrasted the dastardly acts of the terrorists with their own good deeds for Africa and the environment. True but irrelevant. The terrorists are not from Africa and they don't care about gas emissions.
Blair added: "We will not allow violence to change our values and our way of life." And Anne McLellan parrotted: "We will defend our way of life."
This is a Bush-ian formulation: they hate us because we are free. It cleverly obviates any need for self-scrutiny.
It is also patently false.
Terrorists, if they are to be believed, are targeting us because of our policies in Muslim lands. Thursday's communiqué made that clear enough.
Terrorists also have already changed our way of life.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo Bay. Secret prisons abroad. "Renditions." Torture. Assassinations. CIA abductions, even on the friendly soil of Italy.
Fear still rules America. Even after waging a war on false pretences, Bush can find refuge from low approval ratings by continuing to link Iraq to 9/11, as he did the other day before ? where else? ? military cadets.
Our own governments are invading our privacy, suspending civil liberties, criminalizing entire communities and repeatedly exhorting us to be "vigilant," thereby risking vigilantism, the anti-thesis of the rule of law.
All this may be excusable if it were making us any safer.
Combine this with the other failed elements of the war on terror, and you can see why we don't feel reassured by even the Churchillian calls of Blair ("We shall prevail and they shall not") and Bush ("We'll find them, we'll bring them to justice.")
Paul Martin and other leaders, cowered into co-operating with Bush, need to start saying that the emperor has no clothes.
Terrorists used to be spawned in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Now they mushroom in Iraq, even Europe.
So much for Wahhabism being the font of terrorism. What shall we do now? Bomb Europe?
Far from being "in its last throes," as Dick Cheney claims, the insurgency in Iraq is getting worse. Iraq is also sliding into civil war and lawlessness.
Condoleezza Rice, helicoptered in and out of the walled American headquarters in Baghdad, urges Arabs to send envoys to Iraq but it is they who are getting slaughtered, as the Egyptian one has just been.
If Iraq is indeed "vital to the future security" of America ? and, by extension, all of us ? as Bush says, he has made it so.
In Afghanistan, where the war was won long ago, the war goes on. Civilians still die under "friendly fire," prompting even the American puppet Hamid Karzai to complain publicly. Raids on civilians continue, alienating even more people.
It's not just the Muslims who are up in arms, as a worldwide poll by the Pew Research Centre shows. China's image is now better than America's. Canadians lead those who think of Americans as violent. The biggest reason cited for the widespread anti-Americanism is Bush and his policies.
There is no easy answer to how we should proceed. But a dose of honesty would be a good start.
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah. It's tough stuff to swallow.
I think you can link Bali, Spain, London and Iraq with what Bush has done but wouldn't the Beslan massacre have happened without Bush?
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,268
- 126
I can't believe the american audience to be so naive to swallow the "they hate out lifestyle" mantra. Really. After 9/11 I almost coulnd't sleep thinking about the guy who told GWB to say these things. I mean they are paid to come up with good speeches.. is this "struggle of civilizations" really the best thing to advice the president to say. In my experience anybody with at least an high-school degree wouldn't believe it, and consider it funny. I was asking this to almost all the staff of reuters in New York... almost everybody gave me the same answer: "well... you know.. it's easy to understand... most people wouldn't understand the real situation... so...."
Still, Bush won again the elections, so I guess that guy made a good job.
BTW: no, they don't hate our/yours lifestyle. Otherwise they wouldn't imigrate, usually with terrific efforts and suffering...
Still, Bush won again the elections, so I guess that guy made a good job.
BTW: no, they don't hate our/yours lifestyle. Otherwise they wouldn't imigrate, usually with terrific efforts and suffering...
Agreed. But that doesn't tell me you've read the whole article. j/k
Beslan happened mostly due to Putin's unjustified, heavy-handed policies. However, it seems that he hasn't learned anything from it. Following Bush's steps in the "war on terror" will only led to more "Beslans".
TastesLikeChicken
Lifer
- Sep 12, 2004
- 16,852
- 59
- 86
Odd how this discussion has morphed from "They hate our values" to the "Hating our values is the reason they attacked us."
That's shifting the goalposts and is not what was being discussed. OBL has outlined reasons for the attacks and reasons why he despises the US. He does hate our values. Is that solely why he attacked? Of course not. There are other reasons too, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he hates our values.
Let me spell it out. Ego. A spoiled rich little $hit throwing a temper-tantrum and crying because his family disowned him and he couldn't be the one to protect the Saudi oil from the evil Iraq instead of the Americans.
Which is meaningless since our values is not why he attacked us. We could go around and around in circles all day I suppose.
Thanks for saying it, everyone pay attention because THESE are the real reason. OBL hates "The West" not "The world" - and mainly because of 1, E, and G.
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