Thread: Why Terrorism Exists

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

I'm not justifying terrorism, but until Americans rise up and change our policy this nation will never be free from the threat of terrorism.

I second that.

Ron Paul tells the truth, which means he probably won't get very much farther. I'm surprised he's gotten as far as he has.

At least we have the little boy that says the emperor has no clothes on.

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

At least we have the little boy that says the emperor has no clothes on.

Yea, even if he doesn't win maybe some people will get a clue.

It's a refreshing dose of rationality in a party overwhelmed by this.

This one is depressing:

33. Diplomacy and negotiation do not produce peace. Military victory and deterrence produce peace.

Doubleplusgood, isn't it? Our foreign policy is based more on nationalism than conservatism.

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=44733

Yeah. I wish we were hunting Bin Laden, too.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=44733

Lol. So terrorism exists because of Bin Laden?

Originally Posted by R.D.735

Yeah. I wish we were hunting Bin Laden, too.

Invading Pakistan is not such a good idea right now. Obaman didn't realize that when he made the comment that wrecked his campaign.

Originally Posted by Michael

Lol. So terrorism exists because of Bin Laden?

No, he is not responsible for any of it. Neither is his organization. And their excuses for it are theirs and theirs only.

You're right, the video explains who is responsible for it. The people that provoked terrorists taking hostages were those asshole that installed the Shah. Just the same the people that provoked 9/11 were those assholes bombing and occupying countries in order to control oil.

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

You're right, the video explains who is responsible for it. The people that provoked terrorists taking hostages were those asshole that installed the Shah. Just the same the people that provoked 9/11 were those assholes bombing and occupying countries in order to control oil.

In the way that an anger management case redneck on steroids is "provoked" to break both of a guy's arms and leave him unconscious because the guy looked at him.

But more like the way an out of control rapist is "provoked" to shoot a cop when the cop was arresting him in his home for serial rape.

Be sure you read the link. I am wondering why you want to have the same argument twice.

By the way, do you believe that the terrorism is justified? You have yet to condemn the terrorists. You have not even put the first spec of responsiblity on them for the actions they decide to engage in. Where is your passion against what they do? Do you have any?

I may be answering for him, but anyways.

I am going to turn it back around on you.

Do you think that the US has done no wrong or had no role in unrightfully provking and meddling in the affairs of other nations?

You cannot use the Sean Hannity analogy of "Person to Person" when it is nation to nation. It's a lot more complicated than an obvious criminal being prosecuted in a local setting.

Nobody here thinks what the terrorists have done is justified or right at all. The most anyone will go is to point out their motives for what they do and be willing to admit that we made some poor choices, some wrong choices that lead to such an event taking place. The logical step is to look at what we have done in the past that provoked terrorist and look as to how we can prevent it, because most of the time the reason we did it was stupid and really had no interest to our national defense or the interest of the American people.

Your solution for terrorism seems to be fueling the fire for more terrorism. So do you think the US is without blame? Because you seem to, by all the analogies you portray.

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.

There is only one question worth answering:

How many innocent men, women, and children is it worth killing to destroy one terrorist?

Originally Posted by R.D.735

There is only one question worth answering:

How many innocent men, women, and children is it worth killing to destroy one terrorist?

One terrorist? That depends on who the one terrorist is and how many more innocent people he would kill if he were not destroyed/captured. We do not target the innocent, we do use precision weaponry, and we are very careful when it comes to getting just one terrorist. If you are talking about Saddam, Hussein, it was a government we we had to destroy, not just Saddam Hussein. We were destroying his large scale government power and his legacy. We were also changing the nature of the Middle East, and still are. The future of the world is depending on it.

If we did not care about innocent people, the Middle East would be a sheet of glass with American flag decorated oil wells all over it. We could do that in a very short time from the air with no U.S. casualties. We are going through a Hell of a lot of trouble and controversy over the sanctity of innocence.

It depends, does it?

If it is believed that the terrorists would destroy the entire Western world if we do not fight them, is genocide not justifiable as a means of extermination?

If the world is depending on the success of the war, then shouldn't we be willing to sacrifice a large part of the world in order to destroy terrorism? Why don't we use nuclear weapons if the threat is so dire?

If the sanctity of innocence was important at all, why did the war begin in the first place? Surely we knew untold thousands would die.

Terrorism exists, because terror does.

Terror exists, because humans do.

Why it's done, is because of ignorance.

If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. ~ Matthew 15:14

Originally Posted by R.D.735

It depends, does it?

If it is believed that the terrorists would destroy the entire Western world if we do not fight them, is genocide not justifiable as a means of extermination?

If the world is depending on the success of the war, then shouldn't we be willing to sacrifice a large part of the world in order to destroy terrorism? Why don't we use nuclear weapons if the threat is so dire?

If the sanctity of innocence was important at all, why did the war begin in the first place? Surely we knew untold thousands would die.

Any misfortune that is not necessary should be avoided. But some misfortune is worth the avoidance of much greater misfortune. If you can kill one innocent person and save a thousand, and you don't do it, you have allowed an extra 999 innocent deaths.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

We do not target the innocent, we do use precision weaponry, and we are very careful when it comes to getting just one terrorist.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=15730707

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

If you are talking about Saddam, Hussein, it was a government we we had to destroy, not just Saddam Hussein.

But we destroyed a whole country. I'm pretty sure more people are miserable in Iraq now than when our ex-friend Saddam was in power.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

We were destroying his large scale government power and his legacy. We were also changing the nature of the Middle East, and still are. The future of the world is depending on it.

There are other ways to do it that don't involve bombing people and sending Americans to get killed (for oil). Such as: get out and stay out of their countries, ignore them, develop alternative sources of energy, let them come to us when they need help, which they will.

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

If we did not care about innocent people, the Middle East would be a sheet of glass with American flag decorated oil wells all over it.

People in this day and age wouldn't stand for that (I hope). We need the lies and illusions for people to be able to tolerate what is going on now; and the policiticians couldn't justify doing what you are talking about. If they could, who knows; that might be what would have happened. It could still happen.


Oh yea, don't interpret this to mean that I have sympathy for terrorists or anything, because I don't. But "terrorists" are what countries call the opposite side in a conflict when they are much weaker and all they can do is throw rocks, blow themselves up, etc. I don't know why they call every single person fighting against us in Iraq a "terrorist"--it seems like they are the just other side in this war. The word has become meaningless.

[QUOTE]One terrorist? That depends on who the one terrorist is and how many more innocent people he would kill if he were not destroyed/captured. We do not target the innocent, we do use precision weaponry, and we are very careful when it comes to getting just one terrorist. If you are talking about Saddam, Hussein, it was a government we we had to destroy, not just Saddam Hussein. We were destroying his large scale government power and his legacy. We were also changing the nature of the Middle East, and still are. The future of the world is depending on it. [QUOTE]

Hardly the fate of the world is at stake, it seems your government randomly picked out a country that was totalarian and made an excuse that was a lie and then invaded.

The USA does not use priecision weaponry as often as you say.

Airstrikes in cities,blowing up houses and artillery fire inside towns.

The US has killed many civilans with many so called "prescion weapons"

The world does not depend on you people if anything the american government is fucking the world over and making the world a more unstable place as a result that is fact.

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 terms of foreign policy it looks like to me the US hasnt changed much...remember the attemped coup in Venezuela largely beleived to have had American backers involved.

UM is right about if we didnt care about innocents then all of Iraq would just be demolished and we would own it by using air strikes. Deception plays a part in every war of course, but if the government just wanted to take over iraq without thinking of innocents.... back when we started this war politicians would have had no problem selling that we needed to carpet bomb the country and that only the kurds are our allies. Back then it would have been easy to say that all Iraqis hate us because everyone believed that the whole middle east was out to get us. Of course now we all know this isnt true in Iraq, but I use as evidence that most people now believe all Iranians hate us thanks to the media and politicians.

Now people have one of two positions regardless if they were pro war to start with...one: if we didnt care about innocents we would just leave and let them kill eachother in a civil war, these are the people who are pro staying there until a government is stable.

two: we dont care about innocents because we are staying there and killing innocents while fighting terrorists, these are the people against us staying until a stable government is formed.

Seems like no matter what the US does now it will still be the bad guy. Im on the side of staying until a stable government and military is in place and then gtfo of there

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

If we did not care about innocent people, the Middle East would be a sheet of glass with American flag decorated oil wells all over it. We could do that in a very short time from the air with no U.S. casualties.

No. We couldn't. Why couldn't we? Because every nation on the planet would turn against us; the American people at large would turn against our government; foreign relations would take a severe hit (both in terms of economically and the possibility of any allied forces, in future military campaigns), and our government, in the eyes of the entire world, would be the same "terrorist organization" that we have just labeled the Iranian Republican Guard. Don't assume that our not carpet-bombing Iraq has only to do with benevolence. There is much more to it than that.

Originally Posted by moonbeam

But we destroyed a whole country. I'm pretty sure more people are miserable in Iraq now than when our ex-friend Saddam was in power.

Not only did we destroy a whole country, but we are creating future terrorists; have all but destroyed our public image by not only initiating this premature war (and by this premature war, I mean the one against Iraq and not the people that actually attacked us); and also, by breaking so many congressional and constitutional laws in the process that even the American peoples' trust in government is waning even more than ever, we are destroying ourselves with this war (such as circumventing a napalm ban by using white phosphorous on the battlefield, among other tactics).

Our government has created the illusion that "terrorism" (which is a method, not an ideology) can be stamped out with a military of any size, and that is simply not true.
What happens when we leave? What happens ten years down the road, when the philosophy of radical Islam has had a chance to regain steam? They will start growing in numbers again. They will begin further undermining our national security measures (which are a joke, anyway. Border fence, anyone?) Do we start all over?

What happens if we stay? Does anyone really think that the American military force overseas can outlast a force that takes merely the word-of-mouth spreading of radical-Islamic principles and IED's that can be put-together in minutes, at little to no cost? I believe that would be a ridiculous assertion. Whenever this military campaign stops, there will still be enough radical Islamists, world-wide, to continue their campaign against us, and they will. There will be other bin Laden's, Al Ziwahiri's, etc. (and, heaven forbid, other 9/11's) We are fighting against an ideology (radical islam, not terrorism), and ideologies - especially those that are religion-based - spread faster than any military can defend against. Remember, we live in a world where hate-speak reaches the masses at broadband speed. Is this not common sense to the people that are sending thousands and thousands of people over there to die fighting for a region that will, in all probability, never be what we consider stable? We're already seeing that the Iraqi forces aren't even pulling their weight. We are sending our men over there and only asking that the Iraqi's meet benchmarks that we set, so that we know they are working towards stability. They've only met, what, maybe 20% of what had been projected for this period?

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Hardly the fate of the world is at stake, it seems your government randomly picked out a country that was totalarian and made an excuse that was a lie and then invaded.

Nah. It wasn't just any totalitarian country at random. It was the one where we had the most to gain by protecting American interests. The totalitarianism excuse (I believe) is more of a front, than anything else. Otherwise, we would have been sending scores of troops into Africa to stop the genocide. But, as we all know, that entire situation was all but ignored by the Administration, accept as a use for sound-bites from press conferencess saying how "deplorable" it was.

Originally Posted by tdkyo

Deception plays a part in every war of course, but if the government just wanted to take over iraq without thinking of innocents.... back when we started this war politicians would have had no problem selling that we needed to carpet bomb the country and that only the kurds are our allies. Back then it would have been easy to say that all Iraqis hate us because everyone believed that the whole middle east was out to get us. Of course now we all know this isnt true in Iraq, but I use as evidence that most people now believe all Iranians hate us thanks to the media and politicians.

I don't really believe that that many people believed all of Iraq was out to get us, or that that many people believe, now, that all Iranians hate us. Definitely not enough so that the government could sell a carpet-bombing campaign to us. I see where you're coming from, though.

I heard today that the Blackwater operants who allegedly badly botched an operation and killed many innocents were just given immunity from prosecution. This before most of the facts of the case were even unearthed. Looks like this organization that has absolutely no oversight and answers to no laws now has the right to do whatever they please, including killing whomever they like without fear of prosecution. The Iraqi government that we are claiming to help is certainly not happy about this.

What happens when we decide it's ok for private sector vigilantes to operate like this at home?

Edit: News link

The main problem with the idea that it is better to kill 999 innocents to save 1000 that would have otherwise died is this: how is it possible to quantify how many people a terrorist will kill? How is it possible to say 1000 would have died instead of, say, 50?

It is also important to realize that, when reasoning this way, a suicide bomber can only really be guilty of a single murder, since killing himself makes up for killing all but one of his victims.

Finally, as has been pointed out before, killing 999 innocents to save 1000 creates 999 x N new terrorists, where N is proportional to the number of people who can be moved to action by the murder of a loved one.

Those terrorists would kill many times over the number of people the original terrorist would have killed, and would justify the killing of even more innocent people, and the cycle continues. In order for this method of rationing lives to work, a great many people must be expected to watch their families die by the hands of a foreign army and to not seek revenge. The sectarian violence works in the same way.

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.

I am not simply talking about pissing off terrorists. The terrorists aren't simply pissed off because they have nothing better to do. Usually their reactions are a retaliation to our killing of innocent people. That is why I keep stressing that you cannot compare our relationship with terrorism and the middle east with a criminal/police anology in a neighborood setting, it simple isnt the same and to think of it in that matter is an oversimplification.

We have done countless things in the middle east that are unjustifiable and evil. We not meaning you and I but our nation, and it usually happens behind the peoples back or without the people's say.

You also seem (seem) to think that what we have done in the past is forgotten, it isn't. We like to forget, but extreme radicals do not.

And to answer your final question, every post I have made is radically and passionately against terrorism. It just isn't the hyped up emotional faux patriotism that the "Have you forgotten 9/11" right agenda pushes. No I haven't forgotten 9/11 and no I do not side with terrorists I hate them just as much as you do. Where I differ from you is that I try to approach the situation objectively and logically and I see a better solution to end terrorism and to bring those that did wrong to justice rather than the method you approve of, which I see as increasing terrorism and the extreme hatred that leads to it. If I know and believe the things I do then I would be a fool to think a war in Iraq and a possible war in Iran would do anything to end terrorism or make the US a safer place. Not to mention the financial ruin we are headed for and a draft if the latter takes place. You passion against "Islamofacism" is blind and ignorant, and I mean that with all sincerity.

Sanctions, bombings, terrorism, building up one nation against another, overthrowing democratic leaders, turning on our allies, stealing people's oil, building bases in their countries are NOT justifiable. These are forms of justice they are forms of nationalism and control and they harm innocent people. Terrorists are extreme but you are missing the motive factor, which we are guilty off. It doesn't justify what they do, not in the least, but what we do isn't justified either and if stopped it as we rightfully should do so, the terrorism would end, and I am certain of that.