Disgusted with Trump administration - Part I
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QuakerOatssleeper;1847625 wrote:Sure I'll get right on that. Who wouldn't want Trump as their commander in chief?
MAGA!
Might want to check the morale meter................. before and after. -
Heretic
As par for the course with our actions in the region.queencitybuckeye;1847643 wrote:The toll will be a few hundred killed and 15,000 new terrorists created. -
gut
We can make more bombs.queencitybuckeye;1847643 wrote:The toll will be a few hundred killed and 15,000 new terrorists created. -
QuakerOatsgut;1847649 wrote:We can make more bombs.
Bully -
queencitybuckeye
Why be singularly stupid when we have unlimited funds?gut;1847649 wrote:We can make more bombs. -
Crimson streak
Yeah I doubt this is trump calling on this. I'm sure Mathis pretty much just asked trump for the green light.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk -
gut
Singularly stupid is the belief that doing nothing magically stops terrorists from being created (which is implied every time someone claims an action "just created 15,000 more terrorists").queencitybuckeye;1847654 wrote:Why be singularly stupid when we have unlimited funds?
They're fighting an ideological war - sticking your head in the sand isn't a strategy. -
sleeper
Spicer wouldn't confirm who ordered the attack so we will never know.Crimson streak;1847655 wrote:Yeah I doubt this is trump calling on this. I'm sure Mathis pretty much just asked trump for the green light.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk -
gutsleeper;1847665 wrote:Spicer wouldn't confirm who ordered the attack so we will never know.
I'm not sure how this can even be up for debate
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sleeper
Well it's hard to tell, what does Trump/Spicer mean when he says words?gut;1847674 wrote:I'm not sure how this can even be up for debate
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O-Trap
More or less.queencitybuckeye;1847643 wrote:The toll will be a few hundred killed and 15,000 new terrorists created.
They can bring about more terrorists.gut;1847649 wrote:We can make more bombs.
That's not necessarily the implication by such a statement, though someone might mean it that way if they're completely naive.gut;1847663 wrote:Singularly stupid is the belief that doing nothing magically stops terrorists from being created (which is implied every time someone claims an action "just created 15,000 more terrorists").
It could also mean that we provide a booster shot to the growth of terrorist organizations, expediting their growth at a faster rate than we're killing them (and those around them).
Like playing Whack-A-Mole where each hit causes two moles to pop up in places of the previous one.
It's not, but the problem is that we're driving people who aren't already necessarily sympathetic to the ideology toward it.gut;1847663 wrote:They're fighting an ideological war - sticking your head in the sand isn't a strategy.
There are members of such organizations that aren't true believers, but who see the organization as "the enemy of my enemy." The problem is, while the ideology might be different, the zeal and goal becomes the same, and these are the enemies that we are responsible for creating.
Now, the organizations would, of course, grow anyway, because there will be people who adopt the ideology, but we do, indeed, make it easier on said organizations when we give them an easy enemy that a lot of people can hate for personal reasons.
A good villain makes it REALLY easy to recruit allies. That applies in essentially any realm. Hell, I use it in writing sales copy.
Gee, we couldn't get reliable information out of Spicer? I'm shocked and amazed.sleeper;1847665 wrote:Spicer wouldn't confirm who ordered the attack so we will never know. -
gut
There can't be any other implication. Every time a terrorist is killed, people make the lazy and unfounded statement "but you just created two more"...which is essentially an argument for doing nothing. The only objectively and undeniably true statement is you have another dead terrorist.O-Trap;1847683 wrote: That's not necessarily the implication by such a statement -
O-Trap
I actually explicitly stated what other implication there might be in that very portion of my response. It was right there.gut;1847685 wrote:There can't be any other implication. Every time a terrorist is killed, people make the lazy and unfounded statement "but you just created two more"...which is essentially an argument for doing nothing. The only objectively and undeniably true statement is you have another dead terrorist.
Moreover, it's not an argument for doing nothing. To suggest that it is would be a false dichotomy fallacy, because it assumes that the only two options are to bomb or to do nothing.
And if we're going to stick to objective, undeniably true statements, then we can't ultimately say that every single person bombed has been engaged in terrorist activity. Moreover, we can't state that any would ever be a threat to the US.
But if you don't believe that there is any knowable correlation between military activity and the growth of enemy forces, there are certainly viable reasons for such correlation, making the statement that military aggression by an outside party breeds more terrorism directed toward that party anything but unfounded (if still sometimes lazy).
According the State Department in 2001, the US was the target of roughly 63% of the world's international terrorist attacks, despite having no hostile neighboring countries, having no internal conflicts begetting outside alliances, and being on the other side of the globe from the threats they fear the most. If one adopts the notion that we're attacked because of who we are (wealth, freedom, not predominantly Islamic, etc.), I would contend that such a claim is equally lazy, and that defeaters are readily available.
At the time of that State Department claim, we weren't the wealthiest market in the world, and even if we had been, the Qur'an doesn't oppose markets, even supporting private property rights.
Iranian clerics even stated, at the time, that the United States' constitutional system was the ideal to which their own government should aspire, noting that they excluded any efforts to democratize other nations by force. This would indicate that they didn't, contrary to Dubya's statement, hate us for "our freedom."
As for the notion that such terrorists oppose the US because of something cultural, I'd merely refer to a Peter Bergen quote regarding his interview of Bin Laden:
It does seem like someone else thinks (I suppose "thought" might be a better word, given the circumstances) it might be our actions over there that grow the organizations at the rate in which they grow. And I would think he'd be a fairly reliable source for speaking on that issue.In all the tens of thousands of words that bin Laden has uttered on the public record there are some significant omissions: he does not rail against the pernicious effects of Hollywood movies, or against Madonna’s midriff, or against the pornography protected by the U.S. Constitution. Nor does he inveigh against the drug and alcohol culture of the West, or its tolerance for homosexuals. He leaves that kind of material to the Christian fundamentalist Jerry Falwell, who opined that the September 11 attacks were God’s vengeance on Americans for condoning feminism and homosexuality.
If we may judge his silence, bin Laden cares little about such cultural issues. What he condemns the United States for is simple: its policies in the Middle East. Those are, to recap briefly: the continued U.S. military presence in Arabia; U.S. support for Israel; its continued bombing of Iraq; and its support for regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia that bin Laden regards as apostates from Islam.
Bin Laden is at war with the United States, but his is a political war, justified by his own understanding of Islam, directed at the symbols and institutions of American political power. -
gut
No you didn't, you just rephrased the exact statement that you called naive.O-Trap;1847696 wrote:I actually explicitly stated what other implication there might be in that very portion of my response. It was right there.
"Booster shot" is the exact same thing as saying doing something creates more terrorists...and the opposite of that statement - doing nothing - clearly implies less terrorists are created. They are equivalent statements but, yeah, when you say "doing nothing creates less terrorists" the idea pretty clearly sounds stupid. -
O-Trap
If that's what you think I said, then perhaps I was unclear on two points.gut;1847698 wrote:No you didn't, you just rephrased the exact statement that you called naive.
"Booster shot" is the exact same thing as saying doing something creates more terrorists...and the opposite of that statement - doing nothing - clearly implies less terrorists are created. They are equivalent statements but, yeah, when you say "doing nothing creates less terrorists" the idea pretty clearly sounds stupid.
For the first, let's use an analogy to address the idea that our actions creating more terrorists doesn't necessitate belief that inaction would prevent terrorist organization growth:
If a federal program incentivizes having children, it will increase the rate at which children are conceived, because it will add opportunists to the pool of people who would be having kids anyway.
But if the federal program were removed, children would still be conceived. It would just happen at a diminished rate. It wouldn't prevent any and all people from having children, because there are other reasons to have children aside from the program incentives.
What I'm suggesting is similar.
Our military force acts as an incentive for people to join the organizations, and so, it boosts the number of people who do, because it will add non-believers who now share the desire to see the US destroyed to the pool of the true believers who may hate the US because of their belief.
If we refrain from action, there will still be people who join. It would just happen at a diminished rate. It wouldn't prevent any and all people from joining, because there are other reasons for joining aside from ill will toward the US through personal experiences.
For the second point, let's address the binary you seem to be hung up on:
I am drawing a distinction between physical military force (particularly one with an indiscriminate mile-wide blast radius) on the one hand and any other form of intelligence gathering, threat monitoring, and more pinpoint-precise military action on the other.
You seem to be under the impression that the only two options are either military aggression on one hand or doing and knowing nothing on the other hand.
I'm not making a case for either, and I would submit that trying to force everything into only those two boxes is a classic binary fallacy. -
gut
You are rephrasing the same thing, again, in a different way. Your just making variations around the same idea that doing nothing or doing less results in less, which presumably is a favorable outcome. That's an argument that the best way to address a problem is not to address it.O-Trap;1847702 wrote:If that's what you think I said, then perhaps I was unclear on two points.
For the first, let's use an analogy to address the idea that our actions creating more terrorists doesn't necessitate belief that inaction would prevent terrorist organization growth:
If a federal program incentivizes having children, it will increase the rate at which children are conceived, because it will add opportunists to the pool of people who would be having kids anyway.
But if the federal program were removed, children would still be conceived. It would just happen at a diminished rate. It wouldn't prevent any and all people from having children, because there are other reasons to have children aside from the program incentives.
Yes, the choice is binary or equivalent. If you believe bombing creates more terrorists, then you must also believe less bombing creates less terrorists. It's not a binary fallacy, merely illustrating the rather absurd logic when it's phrased in an equivalent way.
Moreover, you've already conceded non-military interventions also create terrorists. So maybe hypothetical terrorist "creation" is not a good basis for decision. Words simply cannot defeat armed militants. Capability is more of a concern than absolute numbers, and that's what correctly drives decision making. -
O-Trap
Okay, at this point, I have to assume you're being intentional about missing the point, because in your very statement here, you group doing nothing with doing less, essentially forcing a spectrum into a dichotomy where one doesn't necessarily have to exist. That's dogmatic at best.gut;1847713 wrote:You are rephrasing the same thing, again, in a different way. Your just making variations around the same idea that doing nothing or doing less results in less, which presumably is a favorable outcome. That's an argument that the best way to address a problem is not to address it.
Supporting the notion that we should be doing less (or, if we go with what you still haven't addressed, something different altogether) isn't equitable to not addressing it. A parent who doesn't beat the shit out of their child might still be using other methods of correction. Even physical ones.
To suggest that the choice is binary is to assume that we have to either bomb or do nothing. Before we keep harping on this, perhaps we should be clearer, so let's try this:gut;1847713 wrote:Yes, the choice is binary or equivalent. If you believe bombing creates more terrorists, then you must also believe less bombing creates less terrorists. It's not a binary fallacy, merely illustrating the rather absurd logic when it's phrased in an equivalent way.
Do you believe that the only two options available for dealing with terrorist organizations are bombing or doing nothing? If so, why?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, and I don't think I've conceded this anywhere, but if I have, please cite it. Perhaps I've been unclear elsewhere, as well.gut;1847713 wrote:Moreover, you've already conceded non-military interventions also create terrorists.
Per the horse's (ie, Bin Laden's) mouth, the fuel for his entire terrorist organization's actions was, in fact, our doing. I'm not sure how that's hypothetical. And I'm not sure how the factual corollaries I cited above are hypothetical, either.gut;1847713 wrote:So maybe hypothetical terrorist "creation" is not a good basis for decision. Words simply cannot defeat armed militants. Capability is more of a concern than absolute numbers, and that's what correctly drives decision making.
Nobody is saying we go to them and ask them to give peace a chance. We really couldn't do that at this point, anyway. It would be hypocritical of us. We have earned no trust in that regard.
And by extension of the logic that assumes capability to be the greatest concern, everyone should be treating the US the way the US is treating this. We do, after all, have some pretty intense capabilities. -
GOONx19
O-Trap;1847683 wrote:More or less.
They can bring about more terrorists.
That's not necessarily the implication by such a statement, though someone might mean it that way if they're completely naive.
It could also mean that we provide a booster shot to the growth of terrorist organizations, expediting their growth at a faster rate than we're killing them (and those around them).
Like playing Whack-A-Mole where each hit causes two moles to pop up in places of the previous one.
It's not, but the problem is that we're driving people who aren't already necessarily sympathetic to the ideology toward it.
There are members of such organizations that aren't true believers, but who see the organization as "the enemy of my enemy." The problem is, while the ideology might be different, the zeal and goal becomes the same, and these are the enemies that we are responsible for creating.
Now, the organizations would, of course, grow anyway, because there will be people who adopt the ideology, but we do, indeed, make it easier on said organizations when we give them an easy enemy that a lot of people can hate for personal reasons.
A good villain makes it REALLY easy to recruit allies. That applies in essentially any realm. Hell, I use it in writing sales copy.
Gee, we couldn't get reliable information out of Spicer? I'm shocked and amazed.O-Trap;1847696 wrote:I actually explicitly stated what other implication there might be in that very portion of my response. It was right there.
Moreover, it's not an argument for doing nothing. To suggest that it is would be a false dichotomy fallacy, because it assumes that the only two options are to bomb or to do nothing.
And if we're going to stick to objective, undeniably true statements, then we can't ultimately say that every single person bombed has been engaged in terrorist activity. Moreover, we can't state that any would ever be a threat to the US.
But if you don't believe that there is any knowable correlation between military activity and the growth of enemy forces, there are certainly viable reasons for such correlation, making the statement that military aggression by an outside party breeds more terrorism directed toward that party anything but unfounded (if still sometimes lazy).
According the State Department in 2001, the US was the target of roughly 63% of the world's international terrorist attacks, despite having no hostile neighboring countries, having no internal conflicts begetting outside alliances, and being on the other side of the globe from the threats they fear the most. If one adopts the notion that we're attacked because of who we are (wealth, freedom, not predominantly Islamic, etc.), I would contend that such a claim is equally lazy, and that defeaters are readily available.
At the time of that State Department claim, we weren't the wealthiest market in the world, and even if we had been, the Qur'an doesn't oppose markets, even supporting private property rights.
Iranian clerics even stated, at the time, that the United States' constitutional system was the ideal to which their own government should aspire, noting that they excluded any efforts to democratize other nations by force. This would indicate that they didn't, contrary to Dubya's statement, hate us for "our freedom."
As for the notion that such terrorists oppose the US because of something cultural, I'd merely refer to a Peter Bergen quote regarding his interview of Bin Laden:
It does seem like someone else thinks (I suppose "thought" might be a better word, given the circumstances) it might be our actions over there that grow the organizations at the rate in which they grow. And I would think he'd be a fairly reliable source for speaking on that issue.O-Trap;1847702 wrote:If that's what you think I said, then perhaps I was unclear on two points.
For the first, let's use an analogy to address the idea that our actions creating more terrorists doesn't necessitate belief that inaction would prevent terrorist organization growth:
If a federal program incentivizes having children, it will increase the rate at which children are conceived, because it will add opportunists to the pool of people who would be having kids anyway.
But if the federal program were removed, children would still be conceived. It would just happen at a diminished rate. It wouldn't prevent any and all people from having children, because there are other reasons to have children aside from the program incentives.
What I'm suggesting is similar.
Our military force acts as an incentive for people to join the organizations, and so, it boosts the number of people who do, because it will add non-believers who now share the desire to see the US destroyed to the pool of the true believers who may hate the US because of their belief.
If we refrain from action, there will still be people who join. It would just happen at a diminished rate. It wouldn't prevent any and all people from joining, because there are other reasons for joining aside from ill will toward the US through personal experiences.
For the second point, let's address the binary you seem to be hung up on:
I am drawing a distinction between physical military force (particularly one with an indiscriminate mile-wide blast radius) on the one hand and any other form of intelligence gathering, threat monitoring, and more pinpoint-precise military action on the other.
You seem to be under the impression that the only two options are either military aggression on one hand or doing and knowing nothing on the other hand.
I'm not making a case for either, and I would submit that trying to force everything into only those two boxes is a classic binary fallacy.
Sorry, O-Trap. I'm sure these are great posts but you've got to be shitting me. There is no reason for anything on this site to be this long. Surely you could have made these points with 10,000 fewer words.O-Trap;1847727 wrote:Okay, at this point, I have to assume you're being intentional about missing the point, because in your very statement here, you group doing nothing with doing less, essentially forcing a spectrum into a dichotomy where one doesn't necessarily have to exist. That's dogmatic at best.
Supporting the notion that we should be doing less (or, if we go with what you still haven't addressed, something different altogether) isn't equitable to not addressing it. A parent who doesn't beat the shit out of their child might still be using other methods of correction. Even physical ones.
To suggest that the choice is binary is to assume that we have to either bomb or do nothing. Before we keep harping on this, perhaps we should be clearer, so let's try this:
Do you believe that the only two options available for dealing with terrorist organizations are bombing or doing nothing? If so, why?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, and I don't think I've conceded this anywhere, but if I have, please cite it. Perhaps I've been unclear elsewhere, as well.
Per the horse's (ie, Bin Laden's) mouth, the fuel for his entire terrorist organization's actions was, in fact, our doing. I'm not sure how that's hypothetical. And I'm not sure how the factual corollaries I cited above are hypothetical, either.
Nobody is saying we go to them and ask them to give peace a chance. We really couldn't do that at this point, anyway. It would be hypocritical of us. We have earned no trust in that regard.
And by extension of the logic that assumes capability to be the greatest concern, everyone should be treating the US the way the US is treating this. We do, after all, have some pretty intense capabilities. -
like_that
lol I like o-trap but I gotta agree. You have to save the long posts for the mic drops.GOONx19;1847730 wrote:Sorry, O-Trap. I'm sure these are great posts but you've got to be shitting me. There is no reason for anything on this site to be this long. Surely you could have made these points with 10,000 fewer words. -
gut
Now who's splitting hairs?O-Trap;1847727 wrote:Okay, at this point, I have to assume you're being intentional about missing the point, because in your very statement here, you group doing nothing with doing less, essentially forcing a spectrum into a dichotomy where one doesn't necessarily have to exist. That's dogmatic at best.
To suggest that the choice is binary is to assume that we have to either bomb or do nothing.
C'mon, targeted bombing is just a form of military intervention. You're going to try to argue now about what forms of military intervention create more terrorists? If we kill less terrorists, we'll have less terrorists - that's really the [equivalent] argument being made, isn't it? But no one ever says it that way because then its painfully obvious how silly it is.
I never claimed it's the only two choices, I'm saying if you believe more military intervention create more terrorists, then you HAVE to believe the fewest amount of terrorists is in a state of complete non-military intervention. You didn't say maybe it creates more, or that it might result in less, you said it leads to an increase. Would you disagree that people who claim every action create more terrorists are expressing a belief in a relationship which is strictly increasing? -
gut
You keep repeating this, but that's hardly undisputed fact. Bin Laden also said his war was fundamentally religious. It's a rejection of the western culture and values and its influence. There's not a tangible demand, per se, in that ideology. Saying his sole motivation or basis is these three demands is incomplete at best. Don't mistake justification with cause.O-Trap;1847727 wrote: Per the horse's (ie, Bin Laden's) mouth, the fuel for his entire terrorist organization's actions was, in fact, our doing. I'm not sure how that's hypothetical. And I'm not sure how the factual corollaries I cited above are hypothetical, either.
It's also been pretty clear that other organizations, if not Al Qaeda (which formed in 1988, 2 years before the Gulf War), will cite grievances with US economic and foreign policy in areas where we don't have direct involvement. Or in countries that are not allies or partners of the US. I'm highly skeptical of beliefs that if we weren't militarily involved that they run out of propaganda and recruitment dries up. -
majorspark
Of course our actions over there supporting regimes that keep radical nut jobs like Bin Laden out of power in Saudi Arabia and Egypt focuses their anger upon us. Also preventing them from driving the Jews into the sea doesn't conjure up any peaceful feelings either.O-Trap;1847696 wrote:It does seem like someone else thinks (I suppose "thought" might be a better word, given the circumstances) it might be our actions over there that grow the organizations at the rate in which they grow. And I would think he'd be a fairly reliable source for speaking on that issue.
You only have to look at history in the last couple of thousand years and you find the people of Bin Laden's ilk. They held control of all of Arabia with the Jews driven from Israel they assumed control of the eastern Mediterranean coast as well. Also Northern Africa eventually pushing deep into Southeastern Europe.
After WWI Western European powers reasserted control of these areas. The cobbling together of nation states with hostile factions and setting in place iron fisted rulers to hold it all together. The Balfour declaration reestablishing a Jewish homeland. The USA was not at the time heavily involved in all this at least not militarily. The horrors of WWII and its aftermath changed our mindset.
The world is governed by the aggressive use of force. The US "empire" as history will characterize it as such, emerged post WWII as a force for good. Flawed but not evil. I have disagreements with our use of force within the framework of the Constitution and have expressed them. The idea that the absence of aggressive US involvement in the region will diminish the production of radicals is folly. -
O-Trap
I tried, man. I really did. Sometimes, I go overboard trying to be clear, because in the back of my mind is that nagging notion that written word allows for more misunderstanding than face-to-face conversation, which is how I prefer to have these discussions.GOONx19;1847730 wrote:Sorry, O-Trap. I'm sure these are great posts but you've got to be shitting me. There is no reason for anything on this site to be this long. Surely you could have made these points with 10,000 fewer words.
I'm really making an effort to see where that would be. Intelligence gathering, raids ... even long range firearms ... would allow for less collateral damage.gut;1847737 wrote:Now who's splitting hairs?
It's no secret that I'm generally opposed to intervention like this anyway, but I'm really not trying to discuss it from that perspective anyway. I'm just noting that we have the most advanced military by far, so it seems disingenuous at face value to suggest that we're painted into a corner where our only two options are complete absence and attacks involving a blast radius.
Of course it sounds silly. It's oversimplified.gut;1847737 wrote:C'mon, targeted bombing is just a form of military intervention. You're going to try to argue now about what forms of military intervention create more terrorists? If we kill less terrorists, we'll have less terrorists - that's really the [equivalent] argument being made, isn't it? But no one ever says it that way because then its painfully obvious how silly it is.
I can do the exact same thing by phrasing it this way:
If there are people who you think wish you were dead, but who aren't harming you, and you kill them, there will be more people who wish you were dead.
Acting as the aggressor makes you the aggressor in any sane person's mind.
In the context of non-defensive military action (which is the tone of the term "intervention," I would argue), I would agree. If one were to mark the point on a graph where all defensive actions are taken, and no offensive actions are taken, I think you'd have the low point of a parabola, but if we're talking strictly about non-defensive military action, then yes.gut;1847737 wrote:I never claimed it's the only two choices, I'm saying if you believe more military intervention create more terrorists, then you HAVE to believe the fewest amount of terrorists is in a state of complete non-military intervention.
I did repeat that, yes. But the stats are what "say" it.gut;1847737 wrote:You didn't say maybe it creates more, or that it might result in less, you said it leads to an increase.
I can cite a swath of peer-reviewed studies, if that would help.
Generally, yes. However, I did not say that every "action" creates more terrorists. I was actually more specific by saying all bombing creates more terrorists, though I suppose you've shown an area in which I could have been clearer. All bombings when acting as the aggressor create more terrorists ... or at least supporters and members of organizations that we deem terrorist organizations.gut;1847737 wrote:Would you disagree that people who claim every action create more terrorists are expressing a belief in a relationship which is strictly increasing?
The two are not mutually exclusive. There is a good deal of importance placed on specific areas of land within many religious ideologies. It's hardly difficult to see a connection between a religious ideology that places importance on a particular piece of real estate and hostility toward a nation whose government is perceived as denying access or supporting those who do.gut;1847740 wrote:You keep repeating this, but that's hardly undisputed fact. Bin Laden also said his war was fundamentally religious.
This is an easy thing to assume, but what reason do we have to think it? Is there some source of this? UBL saying his war was fundamentally religious doesn't automatically make it about culture at all.gut;1847740 wrote:It's a rejection of the western culture and values and its influence.
Moreover, "western" is more than just American. What is it that we have so exclusively that causes no other country to fall into the crosshairs with us?
Lavish excess? Radical Muslims don't have a problem with that. Have you seen or been to Dubai or Abu Dhabi?
Debauchery? We really don't have anything on a good portion of Europe in promiscuity, acceptance of homosexuality, or drug use, and they're "Western" every bit as much as we are.
Pure geography? Canada and Mexico would be far easier targets and might serve as better footholds against the US.
You've no good way of asserting that what he says is the reason is a lie. Moreover, you'd need to come up with some sort of motive. If he hates Western culture and kills based on that, I can't imagine him caring what westerners think his motives are. I can't see a reason for him to care enough to lie.gut;1847740 wrote:There's not a tangible demand, per se, in that ideology. Saying his sole motivation or basis is these three demands is incomplete at best. Don't mistake justification with cause.
I can't assert additional motives without pure conjecture. Can you? If so, how?
Al Qaeda is a fantastic example of a terrorist group that formed as a result of foreign aggression ... which is my point in this whole discussion, so I appreciate you bringing its origins up.gut;1847740 wrote:It's also been pretty clear that other organizations, if not Al Qaeda (which formed in 1988, 2 years before the Gulf War), will cite grievances with US economic and foreign policy in areas where we don't have direct involvement. Or in countries that are not allies or partners of the US. I'm highly skeptical of beliefs that if we weren't militarily involved that they run out of propaganda and recruitment dries up.
Al Qaeda did, indeed, start before Desert Storm, but it was still founded and grown because of foreign military aggression, namely Soviet military intervention within Afghan borders during the Soviet-Afghan War. Not that I think this is lost on you, but I would highlight the fact that Al Qaeda started with a different world power as its primary target, and since we were still on the tail end of the Cold War, we were more than happy to fund the terrorist organization to fight the Soviets.
Seems to be a pretty good object lesson, don't you think?
Certainly, I agree that there are organizations that still vilify the US based on non-military reasons (support of Israel for example, which they see as military by extension, even though it isn't active aggression).
As for actual growth in terrorist organizations that oppose the US without the US being an ally to a local foe, I'd be curious how many were such prior to US involvement in the Middle East, and my guess would be that the numbers are pretty small. The US has been adequately, and not without merit, painted as a bully. And just as many Christians in the US identified and sympathized with Saeed Abedini when he was held hostage in Iran, plenty of Muslims will identify with fellow Muslims in foreign countries where the US is engaged in military intervention, where they believe those brothers' and sisters' lives are, subsequently, at risk.
I'm not suggesting that terrorist groups would dry up, and we'd all join hands and sing Free at Last together. I would STRONGLY suggest, however, that if we weren't so involved over there, we wouldn't be the exclusive, or even primary (in some cases), target of their attacks. Leave the nations in the region to their own conflicts among themselves. In some cases, those conflicts are, after all, older than the US itself. -
O-Trap
I mentioned it above, but I'll point out the irony of it again: Bin Laden is an object lesson on what you create with military intervention and regime manipulation. You talk about us keeping Bin Laden out of power, but we damn near funded the very creation of Al Qaeda and GAVE him his power during the Soviet-Afghan War.majorspark;1847747 wrote:Of course our actions over there supporting regimes that keep radical nut jobs like Bin Laden out of power in Saudi Arabia and Egypt focuses their anger upon us. Also preventing them from driving the Jews into the sea doesn't conjure up any peaceful feelings either.
Bin Laden would have had no enemy to fight (which is what you use to gain supporters in the first place) if the Soviets hadn't been moving into Afghanistan. And he wouldn't have been able to fund the organization's growth so well if it weren't for Operation Cyclone, in which the CIA gave the harmless radical Islamist group a fuck-ton of money to fight the Soviets.
As for the Israelis (ethnically speaking, there are more Jews in NYC than there are in Israel), let them fight their own war. Israel has arguably the most robust defense system in the Middle East. They're old enough to wear their big boy pants. Let them wear them.
Again, "the Jews" were driven from the land we consider Israel (which has drastically different borders than any reference to an ancient nation state bearing the same name) during the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Since "the diaspora" of that time, the majority of those with Jewish heritage have lived outside modern-day Israel.majorspark;1847747 wrote:You only have to look at history in the last couple of thousand years and you find the people of Bin Laden's ilk. They held control of all of Arabia with the Jews driven from Israel they assumed control of the eastern Mediterranean coast as well. Also Northern Africa eventually pushing deep into Southeastern Europe.
As for viewing Bin Laden as a "conqueror," that's an odd comparison, since virtually every conqueror going back to antiquity used a model of expansion from an already-secured region. They don't attack all over the place without a neighboring foothold, like jihadist popcorn.
Yet another excellent object lesson in how aggression initiates this kind of violence. The people living in what is now Israel prior to 1949 hadn't taken anything. You might make the case that their ancestors had, but they themselves had done nothing of the sort. So it's hardly surprising that they objected to it.majorspark;1847747 wrote:After WWI Western European powers reasserted control of these areas.
The logic for that is akin to the logic used to support reparation for black people in the US, paid for by white people who had never abused, neglected, or enslaved anybody.
Look at the fluctuation of attacks as it correlates to US presence in the Middle East over the years. It's not folly. It's supported. What is further supported is that what radical growth does exist will be less focused on the US as the target.majorspark;1847747 wrote: The idea that the absence of aggressive US involvement in the region will diminish the production of radicals is folly. -
majorspark
It would increase. The propaganda would be that of retreat and joining victory to establish a caliphate. It's worthy to note two great historical world empires Egyptian and Persian for most of their history did not adhere to the ideology they cling to today. Maybe converting is the best way to dry up recruitment.gut;1847740 wrote:I'm highly skeptical of beliefs that if we weren't militarily involved that they run out of propaganda and recruitment dries up.