Originally Posted by
Universal Mind
We have definitely royally pissed off terrorists. There is no question about it. But they were already royally pissed at us. Cops royally piss off gang leaders when they take control of the gang's neighborhood. Gang members might lash out against the cops, whom they already hated in the first place, and the innocents in the neighborhood and say it is because the cops were on their "turf" and "provoked" them. That does not mean the cops did anything unjustifiable, it does not mean that the cops did not do what had to be done, and it does not mean that the cops should have left the gang alone to do whatever evil it felt like doing.
The same is the case with the United States. No matter how much you can connect our actions to increased anger of terrorists, the truth is that our actions are justified. Our actions are necessary, overall. Just like with cops, sometimes moves we make turn out to be mistakes. Allying with the Hussein regime against Iran was definitely a mistake, for example. But we are dealing with gangs that seek to die to kill you in the name of Allah and Paradise. Yes, you. Literally you. That is a fact. They want to end your life. Even complete U.S. isolationism would never change that. They believe that "infidels" are to be killed because that is in fact what a literal interpretation of the Koran says. You can read some of the threads in the Religion forum for verification of that. Islamofascists are a rotten disease on this planet. The world is going to have to deal with them. There is no way around it. People who have their beliefs, mentalities, and lacks of conscience will not go into some love one another state of Utopia just because they don't have Western presence in their "holy land". It does not work that way.
You asked if the U.S. has done anything "wrong". In terms of mistakes, absolutely. In terms of high level acts of clear evil, yes also, but not in our Middle East policies of the last few decades. The specific ways the leaders handled the Vietnam situation looks pretty bad and possibly atrociously evil in certain areas, but the fighting of the Cold War itself was very necessary. As for Islamofascism, we are dealing with an insanely dangerous and extremely difficult puzzle. Mistakes will be made, but the overall goal is profoundly justifiable. We are not dealing with an easy situation.
The U.S. did all kinds of horrible things in the area of foreign policy before the industrial revolution. The allowance of the African slave trade and the taking over of land purely for U.S. expansion are at the tip top of the list. The U.S. was much more of a primitive savage country back then. In recent years, and even at this very moment, we are involved in a war on drugs that seems to very possibly have corruption written all over it, domestically and internationally. It will probably some day be seen as a holocaust. I still question how sinister the government's intentions in it are, but it does a poor job in a smell test. When Pablo Escobar got so rich off the illegal (and therefore highly expensive) cocaine trade, he got so powerful he practically took over Columbia. Legalizing cocaine in the United States would have crippled Escobar in a hurry, just like it would have crippled everybody of his kind. Yet we continued the war instead. That is an area where the U.S. is doing what I think is terrible and very counterproductive, but the overall intentions might possibly be good, though I doubt it is entirely true. I say that because I believe that the war on drugs is an awful idea. But I honestly believe that the war on terror is necessary.
Jaasum, do you ever speak with as much passion against Islamofascists as you do against the United States? I know you mentioned that you don't agree with what they do. But do you ever get into majorly passionate condemnation of them for entire paragraphs or long posts? I ask the same of everybody else who has been recurringly condemning U.S. policy concerning the Middle East. Just how passsionately against the fundamentalist Muslim terrorists' actions are you? I have not seen strong passion yet.
