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Obama Wins! Men & Race Superior To Women.

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	Hope you don't mind me throwing in a few cents. [quote][b]Bugs:[/b] The war was declared on us over 30 years ago but few wanted to address it. This struggle is far greater than one administration, two or even three. The Islamists certainly don't see it as a fight just against Bush but rather a long term effort to overcome.[/quote] While what you say above is true, except using a blanket term [i]"Islamists"[/i] to describe those who declared war on us, the United States interceded in that area far before then. The US was primarily a friend of the region before WWII. Missionaries brought modern medicine and education to the region in the 1920's and were welcomed openly. We also provided skilled engineers who helped the ME tap into their vast oil reserves. We were getting along quite well with them. But something happened post-WWII as the US came into its own and it rose to being a world superpower and realized that the ME was one of the most strategically important areas of the world. The OSS became the CIA and the US intelligence community was truly born. The Anglo-American Petroleum Treaty of 1944, which effectively divided the Middle East's oil between Britain and the US without much consideration for the "brown-skinned" people who inhabited the region. The creation of the state of Israel in 1947 was also a large factor as well, of course. There are many events in this time period which changed our policy in the ME from one of friendly commerce to one of interventionism. And it got worse with the Truman doctrine of bringing "democracy to the world" and the rise of the Cold War. Our first well-known intervention was in 1953, when the CIA, under Allen Dulles, in conjunction with MI6 was involved in black propaganda campaigns in Iran to ferment the overthrow of their democratically elected president, Mohammed Mosaddeq. Mosaddeq wanted to nationalize Iranian oil, which before this point had primarily been left to the Anglo-Iranian oil company (known as British Petroleum today) to profit on. The Iranians were receiving very little compensation for the oil that was leaving their country, so this nationalistic rise was no surprise. Once Mosaddeq was out of the way, this led to the installation of a dictatorship under the Sha. This oppressive regime would last until 1979 and the Islamic revolution. This was known as Operation Ajax. You might check out the book "[url=http://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/0471265179]All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror[/url]". It is a very interesting an informative read and I highly recommend it. And it goes from there, endless interference in their affairs for a period of over 50 years. Our sale of weapons to and support of Israel, our involvement in the Suez Crisis and the 6 Day War, the funding of the Mujihadeen against the Soviets in the late 70's-early 80's, the countless dictators in Arab nations that we supported and still support, our sale of weapons to Saddam Hussein in the 1980's, our military presence in Saudi Arabia, etc... Whether or not you believe these strategic actions to be right or wrong, and I fully admit that one could argue that without them our nation would not have risen to the power on the world stage that it did, the fact is that decades of oppression, experienced by multiple generations, created the atmosphere which gave rise to the brand of Islamic extremism we have today. So all that being said, the important question is, why did they declare war on us? Islamic extremists are human beings, and human beings have motives for actions they take, and while religion may play a part in the equation, the extremism stems from somewhere else. Any religion will be shaped by the cultural and political environment in which it resides. Take the IRA. Terrorists, right? Killed innocent civilians, yes? While religious tension played a very large part in that conflict, the driving factor was the occupation and oppression of their people over an extended period of time, thus driving their culture, or parts of it, to gradually take on extremist views. Extremist views led to hatred, then to violence. Was the violence right? No, it is morally detestable to attack innocents, but one cannot ignore the motive of the crime if one wishes to understand the criminal, solve the crime, and bring the criminal to justice. Do I blame America or American's for 9/11. No, of course not. But you have to take into account that all actions have reactions, the CIA calls it Blowback, and a flawed foreign policy in that region for the purpose of controlling strategic resources [i](our motive)[/i], has been much to blame for spurring that uprising, that effort to overcome. Terrorism is a tactic used by desperate people, and you cannot wage war on a tactic. There always was terrorism, and there will always be terrorism until humans are able to progress past driving one another to such desperate acts. The GWOT does nothing to help matters, and has only made it worse by driving up recruitment numbers for organizations like Al' Queda as we massacre upwards of a hundred thousand Arabs in a non-proportional response to the acts of a few individuals. Were the people of the United States treated in the same way by an outside force, family members slaughtered for no apparent reason in a multi-generational timeframe, I have no doubt we would react with the same tactics. Our dominant religion, Christianity, would blend with the extremism much as Islam has. People are people no matter where they live, and people don't like being stepped on. You cannot expect to stick your arm in a beehive and not get stung. And you cannot expect to change a situation by doing more of what created the situation in the first place. The extremism is a symptom, and like it or not we helped create it. The solution for that region, IMO, is for us to take on a non-interventionist foreign policy, one of commerce and honest diplomacy that could, over time, heal the rift and quell the extremism. If we must spend our tax dollars overseas, let's stop blowing things up for once and try to help people. We are, or were, a nation revered, and to me, looking back, we have wasted our power to do good in the world and we must take off the blinders. We need to listen to our enemies, don't have to agree with them but simply understand the grievances they have. This would be no easy task, but I see it as the most logical route at this point, because fighting them is only going to make the fight bigger, a perpetual war of attrition that will lead the US into endless debt and eventual decline, which I personally believe we are in the early gestational phases of already. The irony is that the same thing happened to another superpower not long ago. I'm sure you've read all about the decline of the dollar in recent years, going from 98 on the basket index pre 9/11 to it's current level of 71.99. That is a lot of devaluation of our currency in a very short time period, and we are seeing it every time we go shopping or fill up at the gas pump. We will eventually pay very dearly for what we are doing. The same thing happened in the late 70's and into the early 80's as we paid the price for the Vietnam war. Luckily then, we had a large manufacturing base to help us dig out of the hole. I will not even get into the moral implications of our nation's actions. Unilateral pre-emptive war, torture, mass murder of innocent people. Makes me utterly ill to think about it. [quote][b]Bugs:[/b] The radical element currently headed up by UBL has been around for a long time and that is the true enemy that we face.[/quote] And this had what to do with Iraq or the Iraqi people? For that matter, this really doesn't concern Iran either, who primarily subscribe to Shia Islam (approx 90%), whereas Al' Queda is Sunni. [quote]to make it possible for the people of the ME to enjoy the same freedoms that you and I currently do because I believe it's a basic human right denied to too many for too long. It's time we get back to the idea that all human beings deserve to live in free societies with a voice heeded by their governments.[/quote] We could argue this forever and not come to an impasse, so I would ask only one question. Assuming what you say is true and our motive is to bring freedom to the less fortunate, where in the Constitution of the United States is the authority granted to the Federal government to spread democracy around the world? It is not in their mandate. It is not our job to be the "democracy police" of the world, and a people cannot achieve an enlightened society through outside force of arms. If left alone, they would achieve it far quicker. Sorry for the length. Ram Loading...
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