Subject:
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Re: From Reason: "It's all bad news - Chaos in occupied Iraq"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 25 May 2004 17:04:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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1408 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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The motivation of the terrorists is not our concern. We can’t stop
sick minds from thinking evil. Do you even know what the terrorists
want???? Do you? What do they want, Scott? Even if America pulls every
single American back to the US and never steps foot outside of her borders,
do you think that would make them happy? This isn’t about poverty or
suffering of the poor or any other social issue you want to envoke. It is
about religious fanaticism-- psychotic, inhuman, and irrational. There is no
“dealing” with that.
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On what basis do you declare these people to be psychotic, inhuman and
irrational? Is it because they go to extraordinary lengths to force others to
accept their extremist religious doctrines? Is it because they kill innocent
civilians in the name of a greater cause? Is it because they act pre-emptively
against foreign entities whom they deem to be threats?
The motivation of terrorists has to be our concern; if it is not, then we
are embracing Dubya’s mad notion of an unwinnable (by definition) war on terror.
It is far too convenient to dismiss the views of one’s enemy as insane or
inhuman. That way, you spare yourself the trouble of considering whether any of
those views have validity. Instead of writing them off, why not consider their
root? Might it have something to do with the US’s overbearing and hair-trigger
military presence in most of the world? Might it relate to the US’s fanatical
support of every aggressive, anti-Palestinian policy that Israel creates? Might
it simply have something to do with the US’s rampant cultural colonialism?
The United States has no moral authority to condemn any nation or entity for
employing extreme tactics to force that entity’s agenda, even if that agenda
directly opposes that of the US. We have shed more innocent blood in
Afghanistan and Iraq than al Qaeda has shed in the entire world. We have no
right to pretend that we are somehow above reproach or fit to judge.
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Try to get this through your thick skull: they want everybody (not just the
US) either to become one of them or die. That’s it.
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Dubya has stated outright that countries must join the US or will be considered
enemies. Would you like me to provide examples?
The point is that you’re condemning terrorists for seeking to force the world to
accept their doctrine, but you praise Dubya for his steadfast insistence that
the world accept his doctrine. The fact that you agree with one and disagree
with the other is significant; Conservatives generally seem to have little
problem with hegemonic, micromanaging regimes when those regimes coincide with
the Conservatives’ agenda.
Have you examined anything by Anne Coulter, Mike Savage, Sean Hannity, or Rush
Limbaugh since the advent of Dubya’s war on terror? They advocate violent
aggression against Arabs simply because they’re Arabs. Do you condemn those
media-saturating, extremist Right-wing demagogues as soundly as you condemn a
few nearly anonymous Muslims?
Dave!
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