A Civilized Look at What Motivates Terrorism

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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the title is properly capitalized, this is the social sciences board, not the rant house. lets pretend the fire is roaring, our huge suede chairs are fluffy, our long, curvy wooden pipes are stuffed with the chemical compound of our choosing (hopefully meth, lets keep it exciting).

we are civilized people, entirely unlike the man-beasts who we will now describe. man-beasts full of anger and hate, and who want foreigners to die simply because those foreigners’ religiously related behavior is stupid and wrong (sound familiar?). their hatred and yours is repugnant, and its existence hurts the world. so lets not be man-beasts, and leave your hatred in the rant house, no matter how justified you think it is. it accomplishes nothing. if you dont care about accomplishing something by participating, then be quiet.

ive never outlined the importance of seriousness like this before, but that thread in the rant house is a ridiculous disaster, thanks to people on both sides. there are about a million tangents, including israel, which should not be discussed here. lets just pretend israel doesnt exist and osama will not attack america in order to stop us from supporting them. just for the sake of argument.

so the main question here is, should america give in to osama’s first demand on his list of grievances, which he released shortly after 911. i wish i could find a link to it, but apparently the constitutional perforations here in america have recently prevented that. i know i saw it before, and i know it made one thing clear: number one thing osama hates the most is US involvement in countries like saudi arabia, pakistan, nicaragua, el salvador, guatemala, columbia, haiti, indonesia, romania, congo, and even our behavior with the native americans.

he doesnt hate our freedom. his list of grievances did, however, include some religion bullshit. many would say that while he may sort of care about american miltary support for clearly evil right wing dictators, his main goal is to promote islam at any cost. he will kill absolutely anybody who doesnt convert to islam, and he will not stop until every american, canadian, nicaraguan and eskimo is converted to the one true religion.

some believe that if we give in to osamas demand for our military withdrawal from the third world, he will continue on his warpath like it didnt matter. he will still blow up buildings like the WTC because he beleives that this will lead to america eventually becoming a muslim theocracy. thats what people believe.

well i think there is more than one reason why somebody might say the religious things that he does. even if he did say that he wont stop until the world is muslim, he might not have actually meant it. the reason why he said that could be because he is a totally crazy retard who has no grip on reality, or it could be because it is the one thing that will motivate suicide bombers to enact the first, and presumably most important item on his list.

he is simply manipulating the muslims in a very sinister way, but its their only hope. is there any reason to believe that this isnt true? is there any reason to believe that he definetely is irrationally religious? is the rest of his royal saud family extremely and crazily religious? didnt he grow up with and learn with them?

so we can agree that the bombers themselves are religious, and that doesnt matter. what matters is whether or not the leaders are religious. how can you prove that they are? and if they arent, what is their motivation?

do they want to fabricate hate and fear for the same reason left wing whackos might accuse bush of doing right now? to subvert civil rights and make domestic exploitation easier?

or do they actually want to achieve the noble mission of freeing their land from american military support (not iraq or afghanistan, the other, much more evil places)?

if you think you know the answer to this question, i want to know why. what is the evidence, the previous examples that support your beliefs. i dont think i should have to say this, but the rant house thread is evidence that i do have to say this.

i want examples from history. not examples of muslims being brutal, or their religion being stupid, that is irrelevant. their culture is a product of their history, it is different in many ways because so is their history. what i am asking is very specific and it is not whether or not they are brutal or whether or not their religion is stupid.

im asking if muslims continue to cause trouble after their demands are met and if they have ever gone to war for purely religious reasons and no economic gain? because you would have to at least give an example or two of this happening in order to believe that osama’s request for our withdrawal is not a sincere offering of peace.

i think youd have to give an example of osama himself failing to keep promises to believe, but lets take it slow. when has a muslim said he wanted a certain injustice to stop or else he will terrorize and then he didnt fulfill his promise? when has it ever happened?

why would you believe that osama is such an unscrupulous character when you have no experience with his reputation for keeping promises? if you dont know anything about the previous promises he has kept or failed to keep, what makes you think he wont keep this one?

is it because he is so brutal and viciously kills civilians without apologizing and has a silly religion that isnt based on reality? i sure hope thats not the only reason… [size=75](because you can describe america exactly like that)[/size]

if you dont answer any of my questions, then what you have written is not a response. it might be respectable, and you might really prove that muslims are often brutal and disgusting, but you wont be proving to this terrorist sympathizer that im wrong unless you answer one of many questions with the appropriate evidence. there are a few, and you know which ones they are. its not hard.

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Here are a few cites you may have been missing.

bbc.co.uk/history/war/sept_1 … p_05.shtml
Osama wants America not only out of Saudi, but out of the Muslim world (EVIL, EVIL, EVIL! How dare he!)

Again, crazy Bin Laden calls for a Fatwa against those who occupy Arabia:
mideastweb.org/osamabinladen2.htm

And here is a good book showing what a nut Bin Laden is. I recommend every pure-blooded american read it:
reviews.aalbc.com/osama_bin_laden.htm

What a nut. He wants us out of the Middle East, and he says so time and time again.
Clearly by ‘out of the middle east’ he means impose a theocracy in America. Praise be Jesus for men like Sean Hannedy and their keen interpretation of these vile words.

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We might as well pretend that 2 + 2 = 5. Of course Israel’s institution and support by Western countries, especially the US, is a HUGE deal to Osama and many other Arabs. And it’s not just because of their religion. Imagine that Mexico declared the Southwest US a homeland for the American Indians that the US drove out of their land in the 1800s. Then Mexico supports this new homeland as it drives out the current American inhabitants of the southwest. Do you think our country would be okay with that?

The relationship between Israel and Islamist terrorism cannot be ignored. If you want terrorism to stop, get the US government to stop supporting Israel. It’d be a great start, even if doesn’t meet all their demands.

Note: I think the US should keep supporting Israel, I’m just saying it’s a tough decision and there are trade-offs involved.

I’m not even going to respond to this. Give yourself a reality check here. Hint: it’s hard for the government to remove a document from the entire Internet, especially since only some of it is under US control.

That makes no sense. Most of those countries aren’t even Muslim. And why would al-Qaeda attack us because we did horrible things to Native Americans (which we did)? That’d be like us going all terrorist on Muslims because Mohammed went on a bloody campaign to subject the Middle East to the boot of Islam.

The answer to both questions is yes. Please see Wahhabism.

Maybe the Saud family does, I don’t know… that wouldn’t explain Osama though. He’s not exploiting anyone. He seems to be a genuine religious/Islamist fanatic. Infidels on the holy soil is a desecration and all that.

I don’t see what “american military support” is doing to corrupt Saudi Arabia or whatever “much more evil places” you’re talking about. Their governments still have control. The US is in Saudi Arabia because the Sauds permit it. The fact that Osama doesn’t like it doesn’t make it evil.

If America getting out of Saudi Arabia would reduce terrorist attacks I think I would be for it. I don’t see what good our having troops there does. But maybe I don’t have enough information. But don’t underestimate the importance of Israel, or the importance of the religious part. I think your insinuation that Osama is cynically exploiting Islam and Muslims for some personal goal is bizarre. This isn’t just about him. It’s about Arab outrage that infidels are on Muslim soil. I know not all Muslims share that outrage but it’s there and it’s strong. And Israel is a big part of it.

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that is a response! i was joking anyway.

i know but we arent all going to agree. like for example you think we should keep supporting them for some crazy wrong reason (:wink: ). and if we start talking about this, we wont be talking about how much their irrational religion affects their main goals, or how legitimate their main goals are. we will just be bitching about israel like we all have done so many more times than was neccesary. nobody mention israel again please, i want to focus.

you can talk about those idiots right here.

he cited those non-muslim countries as examples of america’s tendency towards evil. he was building the case for his fellow muslims that we really are the great satan, that we owe our birth to the destruction of dozens of native civilizations and our military has produced nothing but evil at least 80-90% of the time it leaves our country.

if muslims in pakistan dont know so much about the negative affect of america on their country, they can probably more easily research latin america.

well if the sauds are maybe using religion to exploit their population (as they almost certainly are, as any devout muslim would not allow troops near mecca, right?), then wouldnt osama be able to figure that out?

well he is exploiting/utilizing the suicide bombers who believe his religious declarations. you say that he cares about the fact that the holy soil is being desecrated as though there is no way that he could possibly care about the non-religious effects of american military influence. why do you believe his concern with the american military presence is purely religious, particularly the presence in pakistan, which is not a very sacred place?

bingo. im not really talking about the troops themselves, im talking about the military and economic gifts bestowed upon rulers like the sauds and all those other rulers i mentioned. these gifts are only given to brutal right wing dictators who do everything in their power to undermine the rights of the poor people and get the entire country under the control and exploitation of the rich.

this is what america wants. a brutal dictator who destroys the poor and helps the rich to participate in the global economy in the most efficient way possible. paying your poor people and making sure they are safe is expensive and raises the prices of goods, which america and its owners dont want. so they prop up all of those dictators i mentioned with tons of money, weapons, and cia training. this is well documented and is not a conspiracy theory. if you asked reagan, he would say that yes, this is exactly what we do, or he would say he doesnt know.

am i wrong? is that all a crazy chomsky conspiracy theory? is our intereference in those countries i mentioned not intended to undermine the rights of the poor and help americas economy? has our interference not really hurt those countries poor people so much?

it helps our economy. are you ready to pay a lot more for gas in exchange for security? the government and its owners sure as hell arent.

im not undersestimating israel at all. im just trying to focus this thread and i am 100% sure if anybody else mentions it, this thing will derail and nobody will answer the extremely important few paragraphs i just wrote. so please, forget israel and go write about them in the thread i created in the rant house if its that important.

as for religion, thats an important question that im asking. i think that while the suicide bombers almost certainly all believe the religion completely, the leaders are using their gullibility to motivate them. the leaders dont beleive america will ever be an islamic theocracy or even that all of the innocent americans should die. they are simply using these tools to motivate the intellectual equivalents of kkk trailer trash. would the kkk have been as effective if the people werent totally angry and motivated by fiery, hateful speakers? of course not. every leader knows this: religion is a good way to motivate people to do things they wouldnt do otherwise. like kill themselves.

is there proof that the leaders totally believe the religion and are not simply using it as a motivational tool? has anyone ever gone on a purely religious war in the past? ever?

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I really doubt that Osama will give up, you fail to understand the depths of religious conviction*. Also his morals allow him to be two-faced to cause maximum damage, I’m not saying he is some uber-evil satan but he really seems quite serious in his hatred and desire to get “the West”.

Number 1 reason not to agree is that there is no single terror group to call off. Al-quaeda is a francise more than a cohesive group, as soon as bin-laden went soft there would instantly be 100s of splinter groups trying to pick up the flag, respond to these new groups (ie a firefight anywhere in the world) and america has gone back on its word and shit kicks up again.

*Just think about the evangelical christians in the states, apply the same extremes to a directed and (they believe) justified response to those who threaten their religion. Even football fans will rip each other to pieces for supporting the wrong team, a whole religion of difference is an unfathomable source of rage.

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Don’t you think this sounds a little… out-there? Osama thinks we’re evil because of things we do in other countries, and therefore he’s going to attack us? And then Muslims become outraged because of American misdeeds in Latin America?

I think you’re reading your own shame and outrage about our country’s actions into Osama’s text. In fact, I daresay you’re putting Chomsky into Osama’s mouth!

Go back to Osama’s fatwa cited by Xunzian. If you read it, Osama is clear he wants America to stop interfering with Muslim affairs because we’re not Muslim. He wouldn’t be any happier if it was China or Switzerland. Religion plays a big role. Economics and politics do too, but to deny the religious element is to blind yourself to the obvious.

I don’t see why you take Osama’s interpretation of Islam as The Correct Interpretation. Clearly he’s unhappy with the American troops in the Muslim holy land, and he thinks that they are “dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people”, etc. But it doesn’t follow that his interpretation of the situation is correct, or that Islam demands the expulsion of the Americans. I don’t see why you’re so eager to dismiss the religious zeal of the Sauds. Is it because you want to see them as cynical exploiters of the people for profit through globalization and oppression and all that Chomskian dogma? It’s all too ideological for me. I’d rather look at the facts first and draw my own conclusions.

I don’t mean to say it’s all religious. Obviously Osama also thinks that his people, the Muslim and Arab people, are being attacked and that he must defend them. He says they’re being attacked in the Arabian peninsula (how exactly it’s not clear to me) and in Iraq (which was to protect the Kurds from Saddam and to drive Iraq out of Kuwait) and in Israel.

I don’t know, maybe? I’ve heard this theory presented before but never heard adequate evidence for it. Does Chomsky show that that’s probably what’s going on?

And even if it is, do you think that Osama is really a closet leftist crusading against mistreatment of the poor and globalization? He certainly has never indicated such to my knowledge.

I agree with you that Osama’s campaign against America is at least as political as it is religious in nature. He has indicated such himself. What he has not indicated is that America is on a crusade to keep right-wing, poor-oppressing dictators in power and therefore the Americans must be fought. I think you’d like to see him as some kind of evidence that Chomsky is right, but you’re just putting Chomsky into his mouth, or speculating that what he’s REALLY motivated by is the stuff articulated in Chomsky. It’s all just too far out for me. Where’s the evidence?

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wait a second atrebates. what about religious conviction do i fail to understand? what past examples that are similar to this one have i failed to take account of when calculating my understanding?

i dont see the connection between evangelicals and terrorists. evangelicals are not being persecuted, what they want to accomplish wont create anything good for people who dont believe the religion, and there is no big power in their face trying to stop them. theyre just jerks, unlike terrorists. and what they are fighting for isnt even important enough for them to sacrifice their lives.

as far as i know (quote and prove me wrong if im wrong), nobody has ever gone to war simply to convert another country or kill non-believers. it has never ever happened in history. surely, people felt religiously about the wars that they were going on, but thats not because the war was started with the primary objective of converting the enemy. the war was started by rich people for economic reasons, stealing land, resources, retribution whatever.

those leaders then used religion as a tool to motivate the poor people. religion was never actually an objective at all, it was a recruitment and motivational tool.

this is my thesis, i think its right because it makes rational sense, whereas we can all agree that a purely religious war does not. so what id like to see in order for me to not think that im right is evidence that people like muslims really have gone into war for the sole or even just the main reason being to convert or kill infidels.

i dont think its ever happened, i think in order for you to truly believe its happening now, you ought to know about previous examples of it happening. i find it hard to believe that in the history of religion, this is the first time that both the leaders and people believe that it is a worthy cause for war.

i find it hard to believe that osama, a person who grew up in one of those families that used religion very much to manipulate the poor, didnt learn somewhere along the way that the religion isnt actually true, since his family obviously does know that its not true (i think so, somebody disagree?). i find it very easy to believe that he is simply utilizing the religious techniques that he learned to utilize from his family.

bingo. justifiable firefights like afghanistan have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the terrorism that has happened in america. there are surely many who are annoyed by americas 70-80% unjustifiable war in iraq, but i really dont think too many are suicidally angry at our decision to defend ourselves from a legitimately threatening power like osama and afghanistan. more importantly, if they didnt agree with osama, they definetely wouldnt care (and no they do not all mindlessly agree with whoever is muslim). i think if we gave in to osamas number one demand, no muslim would hate us. some might get so pissed about our support of israel that theyd start up the terror again, but nobody has ever attacked us solely for that reason before, so maybe not. ill explain soon thats irrelevant anyway, justifiable military retribution is not the kind of thing that makes them angry.

the kind of thing that really makes them want to kill themselves is going on in pakistan and has been going on in latin america. a right wing ruler is given weapons and trading priveleges in exchange for creating a country that is most beneficial to the west. this includes subjugating poor people in every way possible and preventing, at any horrible cost, the rise of a left wing rebellion that will help the poor and hurt americas economy.

i believe that this is the main, and pretty much only, reason for the hatred of america by poor people in third world countries. am i wrong?

so if we stop this, and osama then stops terrorism, i think that terrorism will end entirely unless it is focused purely on israel. even if someone did pick up where osama left off and decided to go after america for supporting israel, and then we went and blew up a bunch of stuff in retaliation, we would not be doing the same thing as what has pissed off osama and this current wave of terrorism.

i think it is actually possible to start up more terrorism as you say, because israels invasion of lebanon surely motivated many. but William Jefferson Clinton’s beautiful amazing military really gets rid of a lot of the civilian casualties that were the source of lebanese rage. if we can justify our actions like we can with afghanistan, kill a small amount of civilians (not too much more than they killed of us) and we actually do bring happiness to the country, i dont think muslims will even be upset.

i am sure that that last sentence does not apply to iraq, and if it ever was going to apply within a reasonable timeframe, it would have become clear by now. it has become clear that the war was not justified and not enough has been done to ensure the happiness of the iraqis. if not to you, then at least to the people who live there and who face the possibility of that tragedy happening in their neighborhood.

the main point im trying to make in this thread however, is that the terrorism behind 911 has absolutely NOTHING to do with afghanistan or even iraq-type military operations. the evil actions of the US are more subtle and are absolutely not in the mainstream news. the relationship between awful right wing leaders and the us is openly true and osama has specifically said that this is the number one grievance.

we have no evidence that terrorists will attack america in retaliation for something like iraq, we have no reason to believe that another iraq will ever be neccesary or possible, and we have no reason to fear anger from a justifiable and proportional retribution like afghanistan (maybe proportional death count doesnt even matter).

the leaders of the muslims do not want to turn america muslim. such a thing has never happened in history (right?). has anybody ever gone to war for purely religious motives and not economic ones? have terrorists ever continued to wage war when their primary objectives were completed? these are the questions that you have to answer with the right evidence to convince me the terrorists are more evil than the owners of the US.

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but what he hasn’t said, to my knowledge, is that the grievance is because the US is supporting those leaders in their attempts to oppress the poor and suppress a left-wing revolution. whereas you seem to think that’s what it’s all about. where do you get that from?

I don’t know much about the bin Laden family, but I do know that sometimes kids go the opposite way of their parents and siblings. My parents and siblings are devout Catholics. I’m a complete atheist. I’m sure that there are some that go the other way too.

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unfortunately i cant find the link, because i cant figure out what to write in google, but osama actually wrote the list of grievances himself. he gave us a big list, in outline format, of what he hopes to accomplish. i think roman numeral two was hating israel, and three was spreading islam.

number one was ending american support for evil right wing rulers. i did find plenty of people on google who talk about how he is totally focused on getting america out of pakistan and saudi arabia, and he doesnt really care that much, in person, when being interviewed, about spreading islam, and certainly doesnt say, in interviews, ‘convert or die’.

absolutely. osama is against evil right wing rulers who subvert the poor for the sake of profits that go to america, unlike his family.

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I’m still totally not convinced it’s the fact that they’re “right-wing” that bothers him. I think the problem is just what he has said it is, that non-Muslims are interfering with Muslim affairs on Muslim land and going against what he sees as Muslim interests. I’ve never seen him portray himself as champion of the downtrodden poor. He’s the champion of Islam, and more importantly the Arab and Muslim people. Spreading Islam is less important than protecting the Muslims already there. Doesn’t this make more sense of what we know than speculating about his socialist or proletarian leanings, for which there is no evidence?

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well i think if the leaders of saudi arabia and pakistan were nice to all of the citizens and never bowed to america and its request for pro-rich, pro-efficiency, anti-socialist policies, osama would never have been upset. if saudi arabia was a great land and the royal family did everything in its power to help the people, osama never would have left them and would realize that american troops near mecca dont really matter.

the reason why he left the family is because something was wrong. either the only problem he had with saudi arabia was the fact that american troops were near mecca and muhomed forbids this, or he cared about something more than that.

the fact that the first thing on his list was that he wanted american influence out of both saudi arabia AND pakistan is proof that its not just troops near mecca, but the more general negative effects of american influence that bother him (or maybe some other religious problem). the other examples he cited were simply reinforcing his argument that american influence on the poor is almost always bad.

he probably wouldnt care about latin america and non-muslim poor if it werent for pakistan and saudi arabia being negatively affected in the real, non-religious world. but that doesnt mean that his concerns and demands arent worth listening to and acting on.

what do you think are the “muslim interests” that he is interested besides these? the secular culture of the west is absoultely not infiltrating saudi arabia or pakistan, very much the opposite, if im not mistaken. i dont see any other problems there besides the usual inequality, wealth domination and brutally violent leadership that always goes hand in hand with american largesse.

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That’s your argument, not his. Stop putting words into his mouth. All we can tell is that he doesn’t like American troops being in the Muslim world. He doesn’t explain exactly why (just vague references to Americans ‘looting, humiliating the people’ etc) and I think if he had some big socialist grievance he would be more explicit about it.

I see your viewpoint as one possible way to interpret Osama’s fight against the US, but you haven’t built a case at all. It’s pure speculation. Not even Osama’s own words support it.

wikipedians at least seem to have understood one of Osama’s major grievances as American troops on Saudi soil. The fact, then, that he also wants them out of Pakistan is not difficult to understand. He doesn’t want the infidels influencing the Muslim world anywhere, with special emphasis on holy ground like Saudi Arabia.

You may think it’s obvious that religion is a big lie so Osama should see it the same way, but could it be there is a bit of imperialist arrogance in that inference? :wink:’

Islam is a political religion, especially in Osama’s mind. The Muslim world should not depend on infidels to protect it or fight wars on its land, like the Gulf War. It could be as simple as that.

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Try to take an argument class so you do not refute yourself.

I didn’t bother reading the rest of you post. #-o

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According to many posters we should change our foreign policy because it upset bin Laden. LOL, it will never happen. We are pressuring the Middle-East to reform, and they are much to ire of bin Laden. That is, they are opening the doors to women and democracy. bin Laden decries both big time.

What amazes me is that so many posters rationalize this man’s policies. Look at what he and the Taliban did in Afghanistan. I mean, this country had the highest illiteracy and poverty rate in the world. Do you really want the Middle-East to become even more medieval than it already is?

We will end-up with a huge chunk of uneducated, poverty stricken, religious zealots who will believe their political and religious leaders who will continue blaming the Great Satan for all their woes, when they cannot help those disenfranchised. Then they will probably begin launching more attacks. Regardless of what we do, regardless of what any group does to appease these zealots, there will be no pleasing them.

Amazing, this guy murders 3,000 U.S. civilians, and condones massacring Shia and so many on this thread rationalize his behavior and blame the US. bin Laden is responsible for his misdeeds, not me, not the USA.

LOL, just look at France. They bend over backwards, are not involved in the war, and had huge problems with the recent riots. Remember, that all French unemployed lived in the same conditions, but only the Muslims rioted. Hence, a recent shift to the right.

Chirac is even alluding to using Nukes if attacked.

Hum, Canada just elected conservatives.

Why all the caches of armaments found in France and Germany. They are not part of US foreign policy and argued against the war.

Think about it all.

These guys do not just want us out of the Middle-East, they want to control the world. They have made this claim. They will use demographics and our democratic laws to crush us.

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you’re right aspacia – Osama’s support for the Taliban regime alone shows that he is far from a socialist revolutionary. Now if we could only icepick some facts into that web of speculation inside Future Man’s head…

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Ah, I see your point (and I totally agree that religion is a control tool) but it is a more effective tool than you suggest, you imply some believe but the dominant religious and political figures don’t, I disagree - over time others will believe till those in control DO believe; then religious convictions do have an effect on political leanings.

My point in comparison is that evangelicals do some frankly amazing things for religion (including pro-life extremism to some extent, although you will lay into me here saying that religion isn’t the primary motivator), terrorists are the same - extreme things for religion.

Crusades were to get pilgrims access to Jerusalem, the israel area sure isn’t an economic goldmine (crusdaers never went for the trade routes so far as I am aware).

If you could explain why there will not be splinter groups of ‘genuine religious believers’ (as I’ll call them) then I’d be more in agrement.

I want to say here I don’t totally disagree with you, theres more than religous fundis out there, I just disagree on your Osama stance

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It’s not like Bin Laden cares whether the dictators are right wing, he cares that they are secular. Remember that in Islam (and most religions) that there is almost no distinction between head of state and head of church.

What the US is doing in the Muslim world is analogous to installing John Kerry as the Pope. Sure, he’s a Catholic, but he is a pragmatic politician first. This move would piss a lot of Catholics off, just for starters. If John Kerry then went on to abuse his powers as Pope to keep himself super-rich while violently oppressing his populace, then you have a situation that is rife for terrorism because it will be dually motivated. 1) they want to install a proper leader 2) they want a piece of the pie.

I have no doubt that a large motivation for Bin Laden is his religion, but a big motivation for Bush is his religion. If Muslim forces were garrisoned near the Vatican, that would piss a lot of people off.

What Bin Laden wants is a return to the Golden Age of Islam. He wants a unified Muslim culture, he wants women to be vieled, and all that. Basically, he wants a return to the Middle Ages. This is both politcally and religiously motivated. However, it is not stupid. Those were the times when the Muslim world was the envy of the world. They were the most highly civilized, cleanest, and one of the greatest civilizations of the world at that point. Compare that to now when they are downtrodden and beaten down. Their leaders are often little more than pawns for greater powers, all focused on controlling their oil resources. His desires make sense.

If the US/West were to withdraw from the Mid-East, he would attempt to recreate this golden age since they would be able to. He doesn’t care about the US as an institution, he cares about what we are doing in the Mid-East. He doesn’t hate our freedom, he hates that we deny Muslims the freedom to make their own choices.

I am in no way sympathetic to his world view, but I do understand his logic. What are his motivations for attacking the US if we withdraw? Sure, he’s got to deal with Israel (but he has to deal with a variety of Muslim leaders as well). But out-of-sight, out-of-mind. He isn’t crazy.

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Xunzian,

According to the extremists, land that was once Islamic must always remain Islamic. Hence, several claim that they have a right to rule Cordoba, and much of Spain. This is true regarding many areas where Islam expanded. Hence, this is why we have the Pakistan Indian split from the Ottoman expansion.

Most Muslims are not idiots, it is just a few, but those few are causing the world major headaches in the West. I mean talk about sensitive. The liberal West lampoons most religions, but now several northern European media sources (Denmark if memory serves) are receiving death threats because they lampoon Mohammed.

If you choose to live in the West accept our ways, or leave.

Bush is probably more motivated by greed than religion.

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well i dont know but id guess that the muslim world knew that saddam ought to have been stopped in kuwait and they should have known that only one country is going to be able to do it the quickest and safest. saudi arabia and pakistan, however, dont need our defense or our money and weapons going into the hands of some of their least favorite leaders of all time. i dont think they are worried about the pride that they would feel by fighting saddam themselves, i think they are worried about the US supporting saddam (which we once did) and similar but slightly less brutal leaders.

i know he brought up the examples in latin america in his 911 grievance list. i dont think he is concerned about socialism as much as he is in the fact that america messed up socialists and is also messing up muslim countries. the fact that all of the latin american incidents were based on socialism doesnt really matter because it was americas influence that simply made things worse for most of the residents. thats the reason why he would bring those things up: american influence=bad; not america=not socialist.

he probably doesnt neccesarily want saudi arabia or pakistan to become socialist because he hasnt mentioned that, but that doesnt mean that latin american examples of america destroying socialist countries arent examples of why muslims should get america out of their countries.

how do they not!? im refering to the list of grievances that he gave the US after 911, he said “this is why i did this: number 1: america must leave pakistan and saudi arabia because they mess up countries like in latin america” that was number one. im willing to accept that this thing that i havent been able to find again is some kind of fake, i have no idea why such a fake would exist but ok fine.

what does osama say when he is interviewed by journalists as opposed to releasing an audio tape to his followers? he always says get america out of pakistan and saudi arabia, never all infidels must die or be converted. the CIA released a report that i referred to somewhere in one of these two threads that said this is his goal.

nobody has EVER started a war for religious reasons or continued a war for purely religious reasons once the economic reasons were achieved, right? if so, that is a HUGE piece of evidence. because all of us here know that it makes no sense at all for osama to try to kill or convert america with these methods, i think the burden of proof is on you to prove that he really means what he says.

uh so youve assumed that osama’s first thing on his list is israel, even though ive been saying that its american influence out of muslim countries? read the posts, and try not to assume that i am about as stupid as a person can be, it really doesnt help the discussion.

the japanese once faced annihilation at the hands of a foreign power. those pussy bitch douche bags gave in to the demands of their enemy simply because they didnt want to die. they were willing to admit that the only way to be secure was to do what the scary foreign power wanted, even though that meant not destroying and exploiting the surrounding area as much anymore.

its called war, how the hell do you think it ends? with the US destroying literally every single person who could ever become a terrorist? good luck, hopefully by year 50 of this stupid war, all the smart people will have left you here to be dirty bombed.

im not sure of the answer to this question, thats why im asking it: did osama’s presence cause afghanistan to turn into what it was, or was the fact that afghanistan was the way it was the reason why osama then chose to be there? did osama’s presence cause it or did it cause osamas presence?

no, i think when america leaves saudi arabia and pakistan, they will start suicide bombing the corrupt leaders of those countries until their REAL demands are met: happiness for the downtrodden soon-to-be suicide bombers.

what do you think the germans thought in 1946 when it turned out they were the bad guys? do you think any of them were willing to blame their own government and perhaps even themselves? were they all blaming the countries that beat them, and refusing to acknowledge that their aggression was wrong?

we are at war, the administration has no problem saying that. what makes you think this is any different from a regular old war? the fact that the bad guys are using religion to motivate their soldiers? or the fact that they truly will try to convert america or kill everyone in it? if you can prove that they honestly will continue to kill americans until we convert after we leave SA and pak and create a purely positive influence on the world instead of almost purely negative, then ok, yeah genocide em all. but i dont buy it.

why thats amazing! its as if people who would normally be more docile were somehow motivated by their religion to be a little more warlike. maybe, if a muslim leader ever thought to take advantage of this, he could get people to religiously do all kinds of things, like give up their own freedom and even their lives to do what the rulers say. i agree aspacia. good point.

i didnt say that we should do everything that the muslims want. i said we should do those things that will result in greater human happiness around the world. mainly, leaving pakistan and saudi arabia. this seems like it will soften up their jihad into this demographic one you are talking about. they will have a ton of kids and vote for theocracy the friendly way. what is the problem with that? sure i dont like it either, but trying to kill terrorists will not affect their plan to out breed us, so it is completely irrelevant.

im talking about the explosive way of installing theocracy, not the democratic one. there is no plan to continue exploding us until we voluntarily surrender and put a theocracy in charge. it is impossible for osama to be so stupid that he thinks we will surrender without losing at least a hundred million people, and he isnt capable of doing that.

it shows he needed a base of operations to enact phase one: get america out. another extremely important part of phase one is the utilization of suicide bombers. the only way to get suicide bombers is to utilize religion. if he starts a war against the taliban, he will not be able to use religion to motivate his bombs, or at least not as easily.

i dont know, i dont think any leaders of that kind of power have believed in their religion for a hundred years. the only people who truly believe religion as much as they say they do are stupid, uneducated or both. i think its difficult for such an idiot to get into power. i do, however, take this for granted and dont have the evidence to prove it.

you say that the belief that others have will influence the rulers. who are the others? the peasants for whom the leaders have no respect? other leaders? i dont see what effect the beliefs of anybody is going to have on a rich ruler who is capable of learning that miracles arent real, the koran has been contradicted and the world is not a religious place. i mean all you need to stop being religious is the internet and a few hours. i find it hard to believe that in this day and age, a ruler can be just as ignorant as his peasants.

its very easy for me to believe that the rulers are merely using religion as a tool as they absoultely always have. thats what religion has ALWAYS been, a tool to manipulate the peasants. right?

im pretty sure the crusades were primarily motivated by the fact that europe was constantly warring with itself and needed to be distracted and unified. add to that the fact that it mostly the non-first-born-sons of the rich people who went to acquire wealth for themselves (since they would inherit little, but can still afford the neccesary armor), and i find it impossible to believe that the crusades were primarily motivated for the pilgrims. not that they are a perfect example, but the knights templar told the pope that they were forming in order to protect pilgrims, there were 9 guys at the time and they just sat around in the temple and excavated it the whole time.

well it just seems like once america is out of pakistan and saudi arabia, there will be a much smaller number of terrorists, and few if any of their leaders will have the intelligence and education of someone who doesnt stupidly believe the islam that the peasants currently believe.

besides, if one of these splinter groups goes after us, and we send them some bombs, the anger that the whole muslim community will feel as a result will not be as much as the anger currently created by our occupation of SA and pak.

by accept our ways, do you mean the greed that ive been saying is what we should stop using in our relations with SA and pakistan? i dont think anybody should accept our greedy ways, least of all the muslims in those countries who feel the negative effects of that greed.

if by accept our ways, you mean secular rule and not stoning women for adultery, i really dont think that anybody is considering the possibility of not accepting these ways in america except for the completely uneducated, manipulated, robotically religious suicide bombers. what is important to know or find out is if the leaders, the ones who control the robots, are willing to let america be as long as it doesnt interfere like it does in SA and pakistan. i dont see why they wouldnt, no evidence that they wouldnt. even though ive been asking for it since i started this whole thing.

prove the leaders are truly religious and will continue to attack america once our influence in pakistan and SA and similar situations (not iraq and afghanistan) is ended. if you cant, i cant hate them, no matter how much i want to.