We may have to agree to disagree on whether terrorism is really an issue that needs serious attention (via the 3 steps that outlined earlier in this thread):deva wrote:I have been thinking about your posts and you keep asking for solutions to a problem, yet we do not have any agreement that the problem exists as you suggest.robtronik wrote:In this current manifestation of terrorism and islamism, however, we are being told that our way of life is intolerant and therefore needs to be exterminated. Plenty of quotes directly from them to prove this as fact. SO, I have no problems with extremists who want to be extreme in their bedroom, its when they decide another person needs to die because they hold a different belief than they do and don't pray to the same god...
rob.
My answer is that I do not believe there is a huge problem with 'islamism'. I believe the US military industrial complex liked having the great enemy in the Soviet Union and so they have manufactured the new one. Taking something real, but relatively small, and blowing it out of proportion.
Yes, intolerant Islamic fundamentalism is an issue in the world, but so is intolerant christian fundamentalism. There are people in our own government here in the U.S. who say they welcome nuclear anihilation because it will bring on the rapture! Talk about imposing your ideology on the whole world!
Okay, here is a quote from yesterday from the Iranian President - Ahmadinejad said, "Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not in any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He described Iranians as people of peace and civilization. He said that Iran does not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the problem there peacefully, through elections:
"Weapons research is in no way part of Iran's program. Even with regard to the Zionist regime, our path to a solution is elections."
Then June 5th another non-report in the US media
http://www.juancole.com/2006/06/khamene ... am-no.html
http://www.juancole.com/
"Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei's pledge of no first strike against any country by Iran with any kind of weapon, and his condemnation of nuclear bombs as un-Islamic and impossible for Iran to possess or use, was completely ignored by the Western press and is never referred to. Indeed, after all that talk of peace and no first strike and no nukes, Khamenei at the very end said that if Iran were attacked, it would defend itself. Karl Vicks of the Washington Post at the time ignored all the rest of the speech and made the headline, 'Khamenei threatens reprisals against US." In other words, on Iran, the US public is being spoonfed agitprop, not news."
Iran has not attacked another country in over a century.
So I think your assessment of 'Islamism' and it being a significant threat are an incorrect assessment and you are asking what to do about terrorism in that context.
We have discussed these things, and obviously disagree, but it is only in this context that terrorism and what to do about it comes into discussion.
According to the current US definition of terrorism, the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act. An arizona activist named Rod Coronado is being sorta labeled a terrorist because he disabled a federally set mountain lion trap as an act of conscience. Okay, arrest him, whatever, but a terrorist? I say sorta because the FBI strongly implies it but does not say it directly. It is part of a federal campaign to label dissidents in the same broad brush with terrorists as threats to national security. It is scary knowing I am clearly in the crosshairs of the FBI for my political organizing.
I believe the US government is the biggest threat right now, because I believe it is not acting in good faith and is routinely lying to the people of the country and the world and is moving towards fascism.
Here is quoted from another article
http://shelter.inkom.hr/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=47
The scenario is not so far-fetched. Here's what Daniel Ellsberg had to say in a recent interview :
The highly respected US whistleblower, former RAND strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam conflict and became famous after leaking the Pentagon Papers, has already warned of his fears that in the event of "another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of the President's policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
Ellsberg is not alone. Former Reagan Treasury official Paul Craig Roberts has written about the "brown shirting " of the conservative movement, In another essay, Roberts wrote:
In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.
(If you think Roberts is over-reaching, then spend a few minutes reading through the comments on some of the most popular right-wing weblogs: http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com or http://www.freerepublic.com. See what people advocate be done--by the government and by them--to people like you.)
end quote
1- the 9/11 attacks, the pre 9/11 attacks, the attacks in London (the bus), in russia, in spain, in india, the broken up plots in the U.K. and in the U.S. This doesn't even include the people getting blown up regularly in Iraq which are suffering from foriegn fighters intent on creating a civil war between factions there.
2 - the ongoing and very public rhetoric of Hamas and Hezb. and their prior as well as current history of acting as terrorists... I could go on, but its all generally known how much is going on now.
What isn't so recognized is the islamist positions that are fodder for radicals in europe (certainly in the middle east) and to a much lesser extent, here in the U.S. This where you must hear the words from the islamist leadership from their own mouths. Go to memri.org and regular news outlets for more of that.
I can't remember a more public display (albeit in the various dialects of arabic) of intent EVER. And this is the ideology that is spurring people to kill themselves in the name of their cause. This is fact and cannot be ignored or swept under the table. Its a global phenomenom and its only gaining in popularity amongst groups dedicated to islamist (i.e. like communist) platform.
So if we say there are 6 billion people on the planet, then comparitively speaking, they are an infinitely small part of the population. But when states like Iran (and potential states like the formerly run Talibani Afghan state) openly call for the destruction of their neighbor, then defy, lie, avoid, and cheat their way into nuclear capability and then say it is for peace... when SURPRISE, a recent announcement by senior Iranian official this weekend states that they will develop nuclear weapons
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/754957.html
we have to question just how peaceful a nation that supplies support to Hamas and Hezb. as well as syria they really are. Plus recent statements about holocaust denial and all that.... well, I don't have to paint a further picture for you. Let's just say that if Iran gains the bomb, its not going to be for deterrance only.
Lot's of people say that if we have the bomb, so should Iran. Its their right, etc. I would counter by saying that we've had a half a century of nuclear stewardship and proven that we aren't wackos with nuclear deployment. We've proven that despite the fact that we can use it (and have against the Japanese to end the pacific war in WWII), we don't.
If someone wants to allow Iran the keys to the nuclear kingdom, then don't be surprised when they overtly begin to strong arm the region to its hegemony and then applies massive amounts of pressure on Isreal because they want it wiped off the map.. etc. And who knows, maybe the 12th Imam is scheduled to appear and they are ready to pull the trigger. All I'm saying is that it is a big gamble and this is why global pressure is put on Iran at this time to conform.
no one trusts them.
BTW, I knew you were going to use those examples (boston tea party, etc.) for justifying terrorism because they are supposedly morally equivalent to flying planes into towers or beheading people in front of cameras or blowing themselves up in a bus full of people going to work.
But that just does not hold. Throwing tea overboard to protest taxes or freeing a lion has no morally equivalency to killing tens to thousands of people at a time who are not enemy combatants in any form whatsoever. It's important to call out this as what it correctly is: terrorism.
and we should all universally accept that it is wrong - unless you are okay with being kidnapped and having your head cut off because you think that its within their right to protest in the manner they do.
I know I don't accept that as a valid form of protest - or even fighting.
Besides, your examples obsfucate the real question and the solution needed: We don't deserve to die by the hands of those that wish us dead (i.e. end up on the wrong plane on 9/11), so what do we do?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see you trying to deflect the need to answer the question by trying create moral equivalents and justifications for what is clearly wrong and should stop.
rob.
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