Islam is a Religion of Peace (TM)! [somewhat graphic]

[MKSheppard]

The EU, Ourselves and Japan could have created a superfund and built high ways, wells, hospitals, infrastructure and defeated the terrorirst by forcing them to fight against the betterment of the people.

Actually, all that's been built. In the UAE, there's a fucking six lane highway
into the DESERT that's there just so the UAE citizens can tool around in their BMWs and mercedes.

[Stravo]

The EU, Ourselves and Japan could have created a superfund and built high ways, wells, hospitals, infrastructure and defeated the terrorirst by forcing them to fight against the betterment of the people.

Actually, all that's been built. In the UAE, there's a fucking six lane highway
into the DESERT that's there just so the UAE citizens can tool around in their BMWs and mercedes.

Last time I checked we weren't exactly worried about the UAE as a source for terrorsim. We're talkng about making the Middle East something more habitable. When you no longer have shitholes its hard to recruit terrorists. Some people see a shithole and want to bomb it out of existence, others see the chance at making people's lives better. America used to be about that.

[MKSheppard]

Also, the terrorists in Iraq are targeting oil pipelines,
the electric infrastructure, along with the local police.

They already are fighting against the "betterment of their
people".

Your average islamic fundie is not killing people because they're poor.

They are killing people because they look at all the things
held dear by SDN and would rather die than have their
civilization become like that.

Therefore, we must help them along in their desire to die,
prerferably them first.

[The Cleric]

You'll notice the difference is that such actions are condemmed by the rest of the Christian community, while the vast majority of muslims are not in protest of the indiscriminate violence.

Kind of hard not to feel some sympathy for these terrorist groups when you have them attacking a decidedly unsympathetic Israel and their main ally is a country that came in, bombed a nation into submission on a contrived charge that once proven false has been conveninelty ignored, toppled a government that at least had a standard of living for its people and replaced it with a puppet government that still has feudal warlords fighting in cities and killing more Iraqi civilians daily.

Iraq went from a totalatrain regime that was stable to a mangled mess of tiny principlalities all struggling for power and reawakened the desire to have an Islamic fundamentalist government. So we got rid of a reasonably stable secular government to be replaced by a nation that cannot govern itself, has become a magnet for foreign fighters and mullahs that can command militias that even the US will turn a blind eye to - anyone can explian to me why Iraq the nation can be swarmed and defeated in less than a weak but Najaf has been as far as I can tell surrounded for months and the militas allowed to run rampant?


We lied about our reasons for war, ignored the evidence to the contrary about WMD's then casually say we have liberated a counrty only to see standards of living plunge.

You tell me why we should be looked on with ANY sympathy by your average Arab?

Hey, way to take a statment and run a different direction!!
Muslims all over the place tolerate these actions. The only American's I mentioned were the one's that protest act's of violence comitted by religious groups.

[MKSheppard]

When you no longer have shitholes its hard to recruit terrorists

Yet the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were not exactly poor bastards.

[Spice Runner]

Is your average Christian coming out against the fundie preachers advocating abolishing the seperation of church and state and bombings of Abortion clinics? And what exactly do we expect them to do? Are we giving them a hat to hang on as an alternative?

Muslims need to get out of this groupthink. The line of thought that all muslims suffer and must seek revenge because people in Iraq who are also muslim are suffering should be dropped.

[Stravo]

When you no longer have shitholes its hard to recruit terrorists

Yet the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were not exactly poor bastards.

Really? The unemployment rate in the Kingdom is hovering around 40% and the good times of the 80's have long been recognized as having passed. The Kingdom is in serious economic doldrums right now where many companies are being forced by the government to hire Saudis first instead of Foreigners and the companies are resisting.

Couple this with the phenomenon of the Madastras (sp?) where kids are indoctrinated by these fundies and you have a breeding ground as well. Angry young men in any society is usually a bad thing.

[The Cleric]

When you no longer have shitholes its hard to recruit terrorists

Yet the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were not exactly poor bastards.

Really? The unemployment rate in the Kingdom is hovering around 40% and the good times of the 80's have long been recognized as having passed. The Kingdom is in serious economic doldrums right now where many companies are being forced by the government to hire Saudis first instead of Foreigners and the companies are resisting.

Couple this with the phenomenon of the Madastras (sp?) where kids are indoctrinated by these fundies and you have a breeding ground as well. Angry young men in any society is usually a bad thing.

Stravo, Shep was referring to the individuals that hijacked the planes. They didn't come from dirt-poor families. The Palestine bombers do, but the volume that they're putting out makes it neccessary.

[Stravo]

Stravo, Shep was referring to the individuals that hijacked the planes. They didn't come from dirt-poor families. The Palestine bombers do, but the volume that they're putting out makes it neccessary.

The Saudi KINGDOM is also experiencing an economic depression and as I also added the religious schools are as much to blame for this as economic factors (though it does come into play since these schools are free of charge)

[The Cleric]

Stravo, Shep was referring to the individuals that hijacked the planes. They didn't come from dirt-poor families. The Palestine bombers do, but the volume that they're putting out makes it neccessary.

The Saudi KINGDOM is also experiencing an economic depression and as I also added the religious schools are as much to blame for this as economic factors (though it does come into play since these schools are free of charge)

Yes, I understand that. What you don't seem to grasp is Shep's statement regarding the specific hijackers. He made no claim concerning the rest of the Muslim world.

[Joe]

Besides, who do you think is bankrolling all this shit? Dirt poor Arabs who can barely put food on the table?

[Stravo]

Besides, who do you think is bankrolling all this shit? Dirt poor Arabs who can barely put food on the table?

If you don't have the poor Arabs that have nothing to lose then they can funnel all the money they want into these groups they simply won't have enough people to carry out these attacks. It's easier and more humane to fix these shitholes and try to make them better than try and track down all this money and make it stop.

[Joe]

If you don't have the poor Arabs that have nothing to lose then they can funnel all the money they want into these groups they simply won't have enough people to carry out these attacks. It's easier and more humane to fix these shitholes and try to make them better than try and track down all this money and make it stop.

And that misses my point, which is that despite having great material wealth the supporters of terrorism are still willing to bankroll it. And manpower isn't a problem - there are plenty of well-off Saudi brats, as 9/11 showed, willing to take their belief in the I-explode-for-Allah religion to its logical end. The worst terrorists, from Mohammad Atta to Ramzi Yousef to Osama bin Laden, tend to be fairly well-educated and not from poor families by any means.

I also noticed you said this:

Some people see a shithole and want to bomb it out of existence, others see the chance at making people's lives better. America used to be about that.

And I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. To go about "fixing" these shitholes, well, you kind of have to invade them first and drop lots of bombs and kill lots of people and sacrifice a number of your troops and spend a lot of money, because they aren't going to fix themselves.

[Stravo]

And I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. To go about "fixing" these shitholes, well, you kind of have to invade them first and drop lots of bombs and kill lots of people and sacrifice a number of your troops and spend a lot of money, because they aren't going to fix themselves.

There are plenty of places that the US has helped build up in our long history that we did not have to invade or bomb, hell all the peace corps missions in Africa and the various construction projects in Central and South America can be used as models where we go in, provide money and expertise while the locals provide the working stiffs (hence putting a dent in those unempolyed in the area) and you start seeing people's lives improve, running clean water and accessible roads and power infrastructure goes a long way to helping people live better lives.

Win these people with our quality of life not how efficiently we can blow up what little they have. And just as we did with the Soviets, you build up the neighbors and soon the calls for reform will come from within so that many dictatorships that won;t allow us in will have people clammering to have the new roads, electrical power and clean water.

This is also a long term solution. Why is bombing and killing acceptable as long term solutions but actually building something and making people's lives better not as acceptable? We won the Cold war not through force of arms as much as through force of culture and money. We can do the same here. Its simply takes a long time. The Arabs were simple nomads a century ago, now we need to bring them up a little further.

[MKSheppard]

It's easier and more humane to fix these shitholes and try to make them better than try and track down all this money and make it stop.

Or just kill them in vast quantities that they stop fighting. Look at Japan
in 1937 and Japan in 1950 to see the difference.

[Joe]

snip

Entirely different situation. In Africa, the governments of the countries permit our presence and are not hostile to us. How about Iran, Syria, and every other Islamic shithole in the world stop giving money to people who want to kill us on their own, and stop stomping all over the basic human rights of those unfortunate enough to be their subjects, and then we give them aid. How about Saudi Arabia stops sending billions of dollars a year out to sponsor "Islamic activities"? You shouldn't reward a petulant child, you should command him to behave and give him incentives to do so.

The only way things are going to get better in the Middle East is for their governments to go and be replaced by humane governments that don't blame every one of their failures on the Zionist entity and its puppet in Washington.

[Stravo]

The only way things are going to get better in the Middle East is for their governments to go and be replaced by humane governments that don't blame every one of their failures on the Zionist entity and its puppet in Washington.

The problem you have there is that with the current environemnt as it is, the people will invaribaly choose a Fundamentalist formof government if given a choice to change their government. Look at Iraq. We are trying to head off what is most decidedly a move towards that form of government after deposing a mostly secular regime. Secularism is not generally accepted in much of the Middle East and as with all religions, it flourishes where there is not much economic hope. Fundamentalism is found in breeding ground like poor or rural areas.

Here in the US there is not a fundie boom in areas like NYC, LA, Chicago. because there is education and economic oppurtunites here and we need to find a way to translate that to the ME or things will never change.

Coercion will not work. You cannot force a people to give up what they believe, you would have thought we would have learned that from history. Our main strength in this war on terror is not our guns or missiles, its our pervasive culture, our econmic might and oppurtunity.

[Joe]

So your argument is that we should go through the whole nation-building thing in the ME in spite of the fact that there are still governments there in place that wish us harm and actively facilitate terrorism? That will simply turn shithole Islamic backwaters into technologically advanced Islamic backwaters.

Saudi Arabia is a perfect example of this; we've had an economic relationship with them for much of the last 100 years that has benefited them enormously, and they still hate our fucking guts.

[MKSheppard]

Coercion will not work. You cannot force a people to give up what they believe, you would have thought we would have learned that from history.

I didn't know that Japan was still a militarist's dream, and not a pacifist
country.

[SirNitram]

Coercion will not work. You cannot force a people to give up what they believe, you would have thought we would have learned that from history.

I didn't know that Japan was still a militarist's dream, and not a pacifist
country.

I didn't know Japan was fighting a terrorist war in the 30's-40's. Every historical document in the world must be wrong.

[MKSheppard]

I didn't know Japan was fighting a terrorist war in the 30's-40's. Every historical document in the world must be wrong.

Hmm. I guess you've not heard of the race between two officers of the IJA
on how many chinese they could kill in a single day....

[SirNitram]

I didn't know Japan was fighting a terrorist war in the 30's-40's. Every historical document in the world must be wrong.

Hmm. I guess you've not heard of the race between two officers of the IJA
on how many chinese they could kill in a single day....

Very good. They committed atrocities. Aren't you special for remembering that? Have a cookie.

Now show some similarities in how they were organized, you flaming retard. One fought a conventional war, with infrastructure, industry, and easily identifiable targets.

[MKSheppard]

THe Jappos of 1940 were just as bad as the Islamists, they ruthlessly invaded scores of countries, oppressed and killed one fuckload of people,
and pretty much were total racist militarist warmongering bastards.

Then they lost over a million men, and saw their major urban areas
reduced to ash and ruin, and their country occupied by the USA.

Now, they're weird peaceniks who have a fondness for tentacle rape.

You CAN change a culture by force, contrary to claims otherwise.

It won't be pretty, however.

[SirNitram]

THe Jappos of 1940 were just as bad as the Islamists, they ruthlessly invaded scores of countries, oppressed and killed one fuckload of people,
and pretty much were total racist militarist warmongering bastards.

Whoops, no meaningful comparison to the methods, which are at the core of this. I'm sure you'll claim victory, but it's pretty obvious to everyone around that it's a farcical comparison.

Then they lost over a million men, and saw their major urban areas
reduced to ash and ruin, and their country occupied by the USA.

Now, they're weird peaceniks who have a fondness for tentacle rape.

You CAN change a culture by force, contrary to claims otherwise.

It won't be pretty, however.

Well, given that your 'NUKE THEM ALL' plan will be approved a little while after the Repealing of the Electoral College, I won't worry.

[SecondStorm]

On the other hand, in Mother Russia, the majority of Chechen rebel
groups have a tactit understanding with the Russians that they will
only attack military targets, and not civilian targets. I wonder why...

There's a lot we could learn from the Russians in terms of dealing with
Islamic terrorism. Especially the solution to kidnappings.

And ofc you realize why that is.

They do to the chechnyans what the chechnyans do to the Russian soldiers they capture.
Eye for an eye. And it works.

But what does that makes the Russian soldiers that does those things ?
Morally bankrupt arseholes call them effective soldiers or even heroes. Others call them war criminals.