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Motivations for Terror

By Noam Chomsky at Feb 16, 2005

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It's certainly necessary to make distinctions, and to try to understand motivations -- not just of Palestinian suicide bombers, and bin Laden, but also of the communities from which they come and who they are addressing. On motivations, grievances, etc., in the case of bin Laden I don't know of anything that goes beyond the standard sources: Jason Burke's al-Qaeda, to mention the best I know. Roughly the same in Scheuer's Imperial Hubris, Randall's Osama, and others, who give more or less similar analyses. Most take bin Laden pretty much at his word. The Pentagon apparently agrees as well. Wolfowitz explained reduction of US military forces in Saudi Arabia as a means to reduce the declared motivation that terror against the US is a reaction to US occupation of SA. In the case of bin Laden it is generally assumed to be the general ideology he has articulated over the years: in his terms, defense of Muslim lands from infidel occupiers and aggressors, overthrow of the corrupt rulers and imposition of his version of purist Islam. I don't have any independent evidence beyond the (largely shared) standard analyses. Grievances are a different matter. Bin Laden-style terrorists apparently perceive themselves as a vanguard, seeking to mobilize others who may dislike and even fear them, but recognize that there is some justice in the cause they profess. As to these grievances, they've been no secret at least since 1958, when Eisenhower raised questions about the "campaign of hatred against us" among the people in the Arab world, and the National Security Council attributed it to their perception that the US supports brutal and corrupt dictators and blocks democracy and development because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region. Later investigations, intensifying after 9-11, found essentially the same results, along with anger about specific policies, particularly US support for the brutal Israeli occupation of the conquered territories and the murderous sanctions that were devastating the civilian population of Iraq. These grievances have only, of course, extended since the invasion. I doubt that you'll find much disagreement about this among specialists and intelligence agencies. Of course, dogmatic ideologists prefer to orate about how they hate our freedoms, want to drive the Jews into the sea, etc. But I don't think serious analysts pay attention to these declarations. How you evaluate the motivations is, of course, up to you.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cacioppo, Jonas at Apr 14, 2005 00:10 AM
...There is no justification for that, however 'justifiable'. It was an evil act of terror that deserves no excuse. Over the past two years, at least 17,000 people were slaughtered (again civilians) many thousands of miles to the east, as a result of an act of aggression by which a tyrannical regime was foricibly toppled. No matter the end, another act of evil. As Chomsky noted, our 'regime change' was not an act of terror, but that of aggression. Nevertheless, an act of murder, a massive and spectacular one at that. But the crucial distinction is that we did not target civilians, whereas Osama bin Laden did. But murder is murder. The motivations that drive people to become murderers are universal. I have little doubt that, if the United States were under occupation by a far greater military power, the acts of our *own* insurgency would not be called terrorist. That line of argument does not legitimize the atrocities these insurgents are perpretrating in Iraq (beheadings, car bombings, suicide attacks), in which the victims are predominantly Iraqi civilians. All I am doing is applying the principle of universalism; as you can see, it results in unacceptable consequences. So, murder never justifies murder. Unless it's our policy.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cacioppo, Jonas at Apr 14, 2005 00:07 AM
The first question that ought to be addressed is, What is a terrorist? The standard definition is one who engages in violence for the pursuit of a 'political objective', notably the targeting of civilians. This is unacceptable because 'terrorist' suddenly becomes much more inclusive. We must remember to distinguish between terrorists and 'freedom fighters', as well. Simply put, a freedom fighter is a terrorist whose aims we agree with, regardless of the methods involved to achieve them. Thus Nelson Mandela is remembered as a great freedom fighter; to call him a terrorist is impossible. One should think of how people are motivated to commit murder, because the two are one and the same (on different scales): both are sometimes justifiable but neither are justified. That may appear to be a contradiction, but it seems that people have always rationalized murder and terror, ascribing them to 'motivations' as the source of resorting to such things, for instance. I believe it's important not to have absolute terms confine the discussion. After all, it is easy to say that murder or terror (or both) is *always* "wrong", but much harder to always believe it. I'd like to say that all violence is wrong, everywhere and by anyone, but this is an unacceptable stance. Take the nearly 3,000 people slaughtered in a brutal act of terrorism on the 11th of September, 2001. ...

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By A_khan001, Anwar at Mar 06, 2005 16:10 PM
My last post was addressed to Graeme's comments. R2d20, there are other dangers. The more America becomes involved in things like torture the more likely it becomes that our troops might be subjected to things like that. That is also from a practical standpoint. However in the end the real reason not to do it or to put a complete stop to it is that it's just plain wrong.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By A_khan001, Anwar at Mar 06, 2005 16:02 PM
I agree, though your point is a difficult one to make. People are justifiably angry about incidents like those discussed and your statements may be mistakenly construed to indicate that you are relatively unconcerned about or "unoutraged" by these things. So you appear to almost be defending the indefensible. The 'holier-than-though' habit is can be a difficult one to kick (I know because I have found it easier to criticize someone for a lesser fault than some of mine, than to address my own faults).

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 06, 2005 05:57 AM
"Abu Ghraibs and the Darfurs and Palestine" I was never a real rightwinger, but for about 2 years afters 9/11 I thought that the threat of over-reacting rightwingers was less than the threat from under-reacting leftwingers. One of the things making me rethink this is the reactions, or leackthereof, of many conservatives over the issues of things like Abu Ghraib. At first they treat it with half-hearted denial ("a few bad apples"), but will quickly switch to defending it because it's is against "terrorists" - while denying the obvious truth that most victims were just innocent people rounded up in sweeps after attacks. They also dismiss it as "a fraternity prank" - which is appropriate for some stuff, but completely ignores the deaths that have happened (As if the abuse only consisted of naked pyramids). From a practical standpoint, we cannot afford to have ourselves be seen as torturers if we are serious about reducing anti-american terrorism. Laughing about this stuff only conivinces others that this really is a war against Islam.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By A_khan001, Anwar at Mar 05, 2005 00:24 AM
"elaborating" not "elabotating". Sorry

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By A_khan001, Anwar at Mar 05, 2005 00:22 AM
However, there are religious Muslims out there who fight this sort of thing, probably because they are religious Muslims. Maybe a useful exercise for some would be to investigate that is being done within the Muslim communities against oppression like this since I get the impression that people feel the Muslims are not appaled by these crimes and it's up to the noble (non-Muslim)Americans/Europeans etc. to teach us to be civilized. Having said that note that I am not ascribing such mentalities to the people posting here. I'm merely outling a problem, perhaps elabotating a bit on what Graeme have been saying. R2D20, for what it's worth to you, I commend your opposition to oppression. If we can all be uniformly appaled by crimes we might improve quite a bit. Maybe the oppression of women and things like the Abu Ghraibs and the Darfurs and Palestines will stop. Anwar

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By A_khan001, Anwar at Mar 05, 2005 00:21 AM
"I think perhaps you misunderstand my entire argument. It's not just personal responsibility that I'm talking about; it's the tendency to judge entire cultures based on the actions of a few of their members and the belief that 'we' (as a group) are superior to 'them' that I have a problem with, and which I try to expose and shoot down whenever I find it." Thank you. With the sort of attitude you described (which I've seen among some Muslims, ironically enough) how can we offer any meaningful help to anyone? As for Muslim women's oppression, a healthy, functioning Islamic community combats this. Obviously some Muslim communities have social diseases and disfunction.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 04, 2005 03:50 AM
"Therefore I don't think adopting an attitude of smug superiority is either valid or useful" You are right - I completely agree with you when it comes to some Conservative commentators who do, pretty much, exactly that. However, that is not an excuse to ignore, or refuse to offer, VALID criticisms that come from a desire to help people. By the way, I posted tthe article mostly for it's analysis of the German response to these killings. Immigrant women face a lot more challenges in escaping these situations and it is only right for the home authorities to provide some special help in that matter. The Germans did not do this however, because they thought any program aimed at immigrants would be interpreted as a racist attack on them and not as an attempt to help particularly vulnerable women.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 04, 2005 02:05 AM
"That because a certain level of violence is tolerated or accepted in one society this makes it more evil than other societies which are equally or more violent but where proper moral revulsion is expressed at this violence?" Graeme, I agree with you, in genral, about not pointing fingers and looking at our own faults first. The problem here, is that I don't consider violence against women in America to be any more or any less of my "fault" than violence against women anywhere else - so I don't feel I am morally obligated to spend more time speaking out against it here. I support locking up the bastards. I suipport women who kill in self-defence. There are women who are close enough to me that I could not rule out killing an abusive Bf myself. What more am I supposed to do, here in America, to "qualify" me to speak out against violence against Muslim women? As an individual of limited means, I reject the notion that I am disqualified to speak out against DV elsewhere simply because people get away with it here. I do what I can to STOP them from getting away wwith it - but I am only one man and I am not perfect.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 03, 2005 07:21 AM
Graeme, What is your point? That because women are killed in the U.S therefore American society is as oppressive to women as the cultures where extreme forms of female persecutions such as honour killings do not only happen but DEEMED ACCEPTIBLE? I don't think even you believe in that. Killing is extreme but if if such extreme acts are condoned it does not take a lot of imagination to vizualized the day to day abuses these women must have suffered. BTW, "the whore acts like a German" is not only sexist, it is also racist. Multicultralism goes both ways, the majority community does not have to put up with this crap in the name of "tolerance".

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 23:05 PM
To our earlier topic "The Whore lived like a German" http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,344374,00.html "In the past four months, six Muslim women living in Berlin have been brutally murdered by family members. Their crime? Trying to break free and live Western lifestyles. Within their communities, the killers are revered as heroes for preserving their family dignity. "

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 22:51 PM
"They will wait as long as they have to, but sooner or later they will probably force the Americans out too." They are going to have to SERIOUSLY up their effectiveness to do this. Less than 200 causalies in 4 years is not going to FORCE a US withdrawl. That being said, I think you are onto something in that I think they will wait until the US leaves and then make a serious bid for revolution. I just hope the average Afghani is sick enough of war to accept this new gov't and not try and overthrow it - without enough popular support the militants are doomed. I think 30 years of war have made the average Afghan tired of it and willing to accept an imperfect peace rather than a continued war, but we will see.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 22:46 PM
"The Russians had a whole proxy communist state for allies. As for the Northern Alliance, they had 'held out' for years, yes, but only just barely." But Graeme, The soviet proxies were unmotivated and didn't want to fight, most were non-communist conscripts pulled out of their homes. They lost because they didn't have the stomach to fight against their brothers for a cause they didn't beleive in. the Northern Alliance was losing because of Material disparities between them and the Taliban. They did not sympathise with the Taliban, nor were they conscripts who would have rathe been farming. They lacked equipment only - NOT motivation or fighting Spirit. This why the Soviet-backed Afghanis fought terribly regardless of the piles of equipment they got, but the NA fought well once they got their hands on the basic necessities.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 22:41 PM
Don't get me wrong - I agree with you in the main. This is just one area I think there is aconsiderable misinformation about.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 22:36 PM
In Afghanistan, in particular, Air Power is more important than in other theatres, like Vietnam. Unlike Vietnam, Afghan is not heavily forested/foliated, and in the flatter areas visibility is no problem. In the mountains it's main advantage is it's height. The rebels always took the high ground, which often made shooting back problematic because it is much easier to find cover against shots from below than from above, and the effective range is reduced when shooting against the pull of gravity (in some cases, the guns on the soviet tanks could simply NOT be elevated to a steep enough angle to engage the rebels in the heights, eliminating much of the heavy support they thought they had). Air power, with it's ability to look DOWN into the gullys and such thatt he rebels used for cover, was critical in turning a wicked ambush into a crushing defeat for the rebels. Eventually, before the Stingers, the Muja's often just refuse to ambush convoys escorted by helicopters or planes - previous experiences had taught them that they lost more than they gained in those cases.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 22:27 PM
" No, but air superiority alone means little in a ground war. " This is a frequent truism. Air Power ALONE doesn't win a war, but it acts like a "force multiplier" and allows a small ground force to fight as effectively as a much larger one would without it. I started re-reading the book by the Russian General Staff last night. Agains and Again it stresses that the Mujahideen was more scared of the soviet airforce, particularly Mi-24 helicopter gunships, than anything else. Of course, that had a lot to do with soviet tactics - they often resorts to whoesale destruction of villages to deny aid to the rebels.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 05:34 AM
"More American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in 2004 than in 2003, more in 2003 than in 2002, and more in 2002 than in 2001. The situation is far from stable. If Afghanistan is a 'success' story, I'd hate to see a failure." When it comes to predicting victory/defeat casualties are less important an indicator than incidents of hostile fire. So far there have only been 193 Coaltition deaths (158 American) in Afghanistan (as of 2/22/2005 and according to CNN). With numbers this low a non-combat helicopter crash, one particularly large bombing, or any single event that kills 20+ people, could make it look like violence in increasing even when the actual number of attacks are dropping. Afghanistan is as much of a success as could reasonably be hoped for. The Afghanis are a warrior people and everyone ackowledged this during the war, but now that it's peace they expect the Afghanis to act like the French? Old ways do not die that easily.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 05:21 AM
The was never any credible threat of OUR losing Air superiority. No one was supplying them with good missles and the ones they had received were long since rusted, lost, or used during the civil war. Furthermore, unlike the Russians, we had a ready made group of allies who had ALSO held out against the Taliban for years - the Peshawar valley is even better than average defensive terrain, even for Afghanistan. In addition, it was also well known that most of the "Taliban Army" was actually non-Taliban troops supplied by warlords who were only working for the Taliban because the situation made it proditable - it was only a matter of time and effort to peel them away. The "snowball" we saw in Afghanistan should not have taken anyone by suprise. Like many tribal societies it has never been a land of "total war". Wars in such societies have almost always been decided more by shifting alliances than by raw bloodshed. Most people see how the wind is blowing and join the side that is winning. Any reverse inflicted on this side usually means a defection of followers, which only hastens it's collapse.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 05:12 AM
"Ahmed Shah Massoud held out ... in the Panjshir valley for years" Massoud was impressive, I won't deny that. However the simple fact is this: The Russians had effectively beaten the Mujahideen before America began supplying them with Stinger Missles. It was only the loss of air supremacy that doomed the Russians. That is all. When they had it they won, but when the Afghans began being able to reliably shoot down their airplanes and gunships they lost. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0971170924/103-8057349-0847061?v=glance http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/070061186X/qid=1109728732/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-8057349-0847061 The first is written by a former department head of the Pakistan ISI and a main player in arming, training, and supplying the Mujahideen. The second was written by the Soviet General Staff and was published only after the fall of the USSR. These books go into real detail about the tactics used by the Mujahideen, and their strengths and weaknesses as guerrilla fighters. Read either or both books and you will understand why the denial of air dominance to the Russians was the only thing that kept the Mujahideen alive.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 02, 2005 04:54 AM
"the Afghanistan presided over by Hamid Karzai is essentially the protectorate of Kabul." This is the traditional model of Afghan government. The terrain alone makes effective central control impossible and the country has a tradition "democracy" in the sence that the power of the king in Kabul always rested on the support of enough tribes.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Mar 01, 2005 20:56 PM
The more I think about this, the more I think it boils down to how people thought the war was going to unfold. Obviously, those who believed that it would be a Soviet-style debacle were "justified" in thinking it would kill millions, because it probably would have. Maybe the reason I dismissed the concern was I, as well as many others, did not see that kind of war as being likely. The Taliban had such a terrible positions, militarily and politically, that it seemed far fetched to assume there would be a massive popular upsurge to defend them. Maybe we just got lucky. Hindisght is 20/20 and I can't completely dismiss the concerns of those who saw a longer war in the cards, but it turns out that the "short war" proponents were a LOT closers to reality than the long war people.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 28, 2005 05:33 AM
"And, furthermore, we DO really know that "millions" of Afghans did not die. The population of Afghanistan is best estimated at around 20 million - even after taking into account the underreporting frm census data." r4d20 So let's say the pre war estimates were exaggerated and were off by a few factors.But this is still a large number. What is the maximal death toll we should consider "accpetible costs"(not that we bear the costs btw). 100,000? maybe 50,000, 20,000? I think we lose our humanity the moment we quibble about this kind of calculations. It is like some people nitpicking maybe be 6 million Jews didn't get killed, maybe it was "only" one million or half a million, as if that makes the Holocaust more accpetible in any way.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 28, 2005 05:22 AM
"Actually determining which evidence is credible and which is not is often a daunting task. Bush may have twisted facts around, but plenty of leaders have made similar mistakes while being honest. They simply credited the wrong sources of information."r4d20 I can't think of any leader being 'honest'. It is true that NGOs may have their iown agenda, but I would trust organizations like Medecins Sans Frontieres any day rather than politicians trying to sell a war.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 28, 2005 05:12 AM
In emergency situations such as the Sudan I think basic human decency would require something to be done to at least stop the massacres, whether it fits the technical definition of genocide or not. I think troops needed to be deployed if this is the only way to stop the killing. But the powers and the African countries all have their own agendas, it is hard to know what kind of bargains must happen behind the scene in order to reach a consensus to intervene. Even UN "peace keeping troops" can be used as a cover for some nafarious design. Just look at the mess in Hatti.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 28, 2005 04:49 AM
Are the predictions that a million of Afghani might die exaggerations, given the data at the time? I don't know. But it is moot because I don't think the Bush admin cared even if they had determined these predictions were credible. I doubt that they even tried to substantiate or refute them. You have to understand the mindset of these people. I am talking about policy makers in general and not just officials in the Bush administration. When Madelene Albright was told the sanctions led to half a million Iraqi deaths her reaction was not asking the questioner "where do you get the figures from?" Instead she said "It was worth it"(or something to the effect), which means she basically accepted the premise of the questioner. She just didn't care.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 28, 2005 04:48 AM
The Bush admin actually lied to go to war KNOWINGLY. For example, their own investigator told Bush that the rumour about Saddam buying uranium from Nigeria was baseless. Yet Bush told Americans days later he had "solid evidence" that Saddam was buying uranuim from Nigeria in order to build the nuke. Collin Powell's performance on the UN was such a blatant con job that I would be very surprised if it turned out he (and his boss) didn't know.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 03:09 AM
"This means seeking the advice of NGOs, people on the ground, the Red Cross, various foreign governments, your own experts, intelligence, academics, the media, the military, etc." Every one of these agencies has their own agenda. Some NGOs are so politicised that they simply cannot be trusted to give objective data. The same is true of some intelligence estimates. Actually determining which evidence is credible and which is not is often a daunting task. Bush may have twisted facts around, but plenty of leaders have made similar mistakes while being honest. They simply credited the wrong sources of information.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 03:03 AM
"Another example is the 7.5 million Afghans thought to be put at risk of dying by the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. " I just noticed how you said "put at risk" of dying. That is a VERY vague statement. I am put as risk of dying everyday by doing a number of things - driving while talking on a cell phone, operating power saws, etc. I'm not trying to be difficult, but the sheer immensity of the estimate, and the degree to which it seems to have mispredicted the actual effects of the invasion, seem to me to indicate that the criteria used to determine who was "put at risk of death" was overbroad and covered a lot of people who were NOT at risk by any meaningful definition of the term. Without knowing EXACTLY how they defined the term, such a claim is meaningless. And it is intellectually irresponsible for a person in any position of authority to repeat the claim without investigating it.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 02:58 AM
"And the US never contested it. They simply ignored it. Which means of course that they were willing to let nearly 8 million people starve to death in their attempt to catch bin Laden" So the fact that I do not contest the theory that the world sits on the back of a turtle must mean I accept it? The very act of contesting a claim gives the claim some legitimacy. Some claims are ignored because they are so farfetched that they do not merit the time to refute them. I am interested in exactly where these predictions of "millions" of dead Afghans were made and who made them, because I never thought the suggestion was credible at all. And, furthermore, we DO really know that "millions" of Afghans did not die. The population of Afghanistan is best estimated at around 20 million - even after taking into account the underreporting frm census data. The death of 7.5 million of them would be IMPOSSIBLE not to notice. The death of even 1 million would be 5% of the country - a death toll impossible to hide. The evidence for such a high death toll is simply not there.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 02:51 AM
"There is no reason not to act on the best and most solid information available to you. " You are right, but you didn't say "the best and most solid information", you said "all reasonable evidence", which I see as two different things. I agree with "the best evidence" or "a perponderance of evidence" but not "all reasonable evidence". P.S. I do not support the selective twisting of evidence, that Bush engaged in, at all. But I must assume that there will almost always be "reasonable" objections of any given intervention - so we must be able to sometimes ignore some "reasonable evidence" in order to act on the best evidence, even in the face of some counter-evidence.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 02:39 AM
"I can't imagine there would any be rulers out there thinking "gee, I know, I'll start a campaing of genocide against my own people, despite the fact that there aren't any pre-existing cleavages within my society that I can manipulate to make that likely, so the West will cave in and give me enough money so that I can actually afford to feed my people (the ones I didn't kill, that is)!"" But there are ALWAYS pre-existing conditions that can often be used ot incite violence. And I disgaree, the twentieth century has seen no shortages of dictators willing to kill off millions for some gain in territory or internal power. Saddam, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hiter, the Hutu Militia leaders, the Sduanese rulers... the list goes on. Frankly, I don't see it as farfetched at all.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 01:46 AM
"all reasonable evidence 'our' intervention would actually do more good than harm" The world is a complex place. Small causes can have big effects and events can unfold in very unpredictable ways. Furthermore, information about the internal condititions in other countries is often spotty, misleading, or incorrect. This guideline is impractical - ther will always be evidence that intervention can work, and evidence that intervention won't work. If we waited until ALL the evidence pointed to one conclusion we would never act at all.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 01:33 AM
"if we caused the problem, we should fix it" LOL. This was exactly the same logic that motivated my support for the Invasion of Iraq (before I fully grasped the idiocy and zealotry of the Bush Admin). WE helped make Saddam into the Monster he became, and WE let them Iraqis down in 1991, therefore it was incumbent upon us to make good and fix the mess we created. And yet much of the anti-Invasion rhetoric told us that because we helped create saddam it was WRONG for us to do anything to stop him. My politics have changed in the last two years, but I still feel that the argument that "we created him and therefore have no right to stop him now" is simply irresponsbile. There were much better reasons to argue against the Invasion.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 01:26 AM
I believe we could do more to help Darfur, but that is because I am willing to support punative measures against Sudan for failing to stop the violence. I find the calls for "doing something" to be hypocritical, however, when they comes from people who then go on to denounce any and all methods we could possibly use to pressure the Sudanese to comply. I have NO FAITH than the American government can do anything in Sudan that wouldn't result in protest marches and denunciations to our motives and our policies. Negotiations must be both carrot and stick. A "Negotiation" that is all stick is not a negotiation - it is extortion. Similarly, "negotiation" that is all carrot is not negotiation - it is bribery at best, paying tribute at worst. I REFUSE to pay people to stop committing genocide. I REFUSE to set a precendent that would simply encourage unscrupulous rulers to oppress their own people and then promise to stop in return for massive aid packages. Hell no.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 28, 2005 01:18 AM
"Typically though 'we' play a role almost everywhere, either through commission (Iraq) or omission (Darfur)" This is a perfect example of the "damned if you do - damned if you don't" scenario that America always faces. When American does intervene we are told that we are meddling in internal affairs which are none of our business. When we don't intervene we are lambasted for not doing more to help people. What can we do? Invasion? We all know leftists will switch their tune the moment American Soldiers land in Sudan. Sanctions? Like Iraq? How many dead children will it take before WE becomes the bad guys and the Sudanese rulers become "freedom fighters"?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 27, 2005 20:32 PM
(cont') Chomsky's argument, if I understand him correctly, confuses two different things. Namely, whether "we" are responsible for a situation and whether we can do something about a situation. I think sometimes we can do something about a bad situation even though we are not directly responsible for it.But the first step is to acknowledge that something horrible is happening(which I don't think Chomsky would disagree) Criticizing "others" does not always have to be motivated by self righteousness.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 27, 2005 20:31 PM
(cont') Simple exampes. What do you tell a woman seeking refugee status in Canada because of widespread female abuse in her country? And how should Canadians understand the situation? I don't think the answer that "domestic abuse happen in all cultures including ours" is very helpful.More seriously, such response would no doubt be used as a justification to deny her claim. This is not a hypothetical situation because Canada does accept refugee claims based on gender persecutions(though I don't know about the exact guidelines). What do you tell a gay man from some very homophobic cultures such as the ME or South America who is seeking asylum here because of homophobic persecutions? While it is true that gay bashings occur here as well but again arguments that can be construed as downplaying the very real qualitative differences between the scale of oppression is unhelpful. It is easy to come by other examples and scenarios.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 27, 2005 20:26 PM
"I just think there are still many areas we need to work on, and comparing our record to other countries is not always particularly useful. It would be a bit like saying minorities are treated well in the US because it's not as bad as Apartheid South Africa there. " It depends on the context. If the subject of discussion is Apartheid South Africa then, by saying "we are very bad too" would appear to be justifying Apartheid. I understand where you're coming from(the Chomsky doctrine) and I agree with your basic philosophy, but to a point. We live in a connected world. Sometimes it is necessary to discuss and understand the nature of persecutions and oppressions happen else where even though "we" don't play a direct role.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 27, 2005 04:25 AM
"holding ourselves up to our own standards is much better than comparing ourselves to the worst in the world and saying, "well at least we're not that bad."" I think we need a little of both. We don't want to be satisfied merely with being a little bit better than the second best, but we also can't get too self-critical just because we don't all live up to our own standards. All men are hypocrites to some degree. As for myself, the very things I often strive to be are the things I need to work on, not the things I am already good at. Obviously I fall short of my own expectations sometimes, but if I spent all my time busting myself up for my failures I would never make any progress. Sometimes it is important to look around and recognise the progress you have made rather than the distance you still need to go.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 26, 2005 07:34 AM
Going back to r4d20's point. I think the erosion of the kinship structure(the demise of extended families) has a lot to do with women liberation. Rapid urbanization may be the key.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 26, 2005 07:15 AM
Your argument conveys the impression that after all is said and done, women in the West are in fact no better off than their counterparts in some cultures where the treatment of women can only be described as medieval. If we accept this argument, the only possible logical conclusion is that all the feminist struggles have been a colossal waste of time. We basically dismiss all the real achievements that feminist struggles have gain in the last several decades. This is at least my impression. My apologies if that is not the case.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 26, 2005 07:14 AM
"I suppose you mean to include me in this category, if so please explain why. I am in no way trying to deny this(feminist) achievement (which is remarkable, as you say)." I think it is obvious that in some cultures women are much more oppressed than in the West, for all our imperfections. I get the impression that some leftists are trying *very* hard to deny there is a difference by saying that , well, women here are treated badly too etc. Now I am not denying that we still need to work hard to achieve real gender equality and as you pointed out, violence against women is still a very serious problem. But then it takes a colossal leap to argue that somehow there is no qualitative difference between the status of women here and in some of the ME countries where someting like honour killing is still socially acceptible.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 26, 2005 06:48 AM
In China, women have been involved in the militia and made up an integral part of the workforce, in agriculture since time immemorial and more recently, in industry. But still sexism is rampant, though not nearly as bad as in the ME. I think Iranian women did particpate in combat during the war with Iraq as militia, right? Your general point that cultures responds to selective pressure is well made. But the actual process seems to be far from simple.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 26, 2005 06:47 AM
"Western Society started to change as a result of two things. 1) industrial revolution (in a factory a women can often be just as good as a man), and 2) the two world wars (which created a need for women workers and uncorked the bottle - so to speak)." r4d20 In many "traditional societies" actually the women do all the important work while the men were bums. But women tend to be most oppressed in these societies. Somalia being one contemporary example. According to anthropologists, in many traditional societies women worked in agriculture while men's job were hunting and fishing. Since farming provided a much more stable food source you would expect women to have all the power. But exactly the opposite was true. That seems very paradoxical.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 26, 2005 06:13 AM
Cultures, like species, evolve when their is a need to - a "seclection pressure" as it is called. Western nations have better womans-rights because we NEEDED to give women more rights in order to win two wars against Germany (who, by the way, kept millions of women at home and millions of men off the lines to work in the factories, and lost BOTH wars partially because of this). The pressures of industrialized war made us need the men at the front and the women in the factories. The Middle East has not seen circumstances comparable to the cauldron of the World Wars since the invasion of the Mongols, and as a result have not had to change their culture to respond to the demands of necessity. They ARE making progress, but a crisis always makes for faster progress. But, then again, I tend to think that wars and conflict really ARE the main movers and shapers in human hisotry - nothing motivates change more than the threat of death. People who disagree with me may have other takes on this issue.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 26, 2005 06:07 AM
Pretty much ALL cultures are, to some degree, male dominated - excepting some rare, stone age tribes that are mainly of interest to Anthropologists. The more "traditional" the society, the more male dominated. Western Society started to change as a result of two things. 1) industrial revolution (in a factory a women can often be just as good as a man), and 2) the two world wars (which created a need for women workers and uncorked the bottle - so to speak).

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 26, 2005 05:41 AM
"I agree, in fact I had initially written "Arab world" but since we were talking about Muslims in general I changed it. " I find it hard to talk about this for the reaons you are alluding too. We speak of "Arabs" and "Muslims", but these words conjure up images of Race and Religion. If I were to say "Arabs tend to be like this" you would think I was saying there was something genetic about their behavior, which is not what I would ever mean. IF I say "Muslims are like this" then you would think I was saying that the religion must CAUSE them to be like that, which is also not what I would ever mean.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 26, 2005 05:35 AM
"All the statistics we have (again, for whatever they are worth) indicate that the murder rate is far *higher* in, say, the US than anywhere in the ME (where it is also illegal, by the way)" I had to laugh at this, not because you are wonrg, but because of the way you put it. "Murder" is, by definition, a socially unjustified, illegal, killing. Therefore, comapring "murder rates" would leave out all the killings done by the Rulers (like Saddam), or any killings that are not considered "murder" by the country in question - like honor killings or tribal "revenge" killings (killing members of another tribe in retaliation for the killing of a member of this tribe).

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 25, 2005 23:26 PM
"My contention was with R2D2's claim that because some behaviour is prohibited culturally and thus needs to be hidden means that it 'has got to make it happen less than a culture where it is accepted.'" I take your point about Underage Drinking. However, I could argue that UD is a "victimless" (aka. Consenual) crime, where all parties consent to it, whereas Domestic Violence is not - the woman, I assume in most cases, does object to being beaten. I find it hard to believe that DV could occur as frequently in a place where it is not accepted as it does when it is accepted. But, I do not have hard numbers and you have pointed out that this is not always true, so I'll accept I could be wrong.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cmzimmermann, Cmzimmermann at Feb 24, 2005 22:16 PM
No, this was not the point that I was trying to make. The comparison was not of the content but rather of the structure of the argument used. (I was not precise enough here, for which I take responsibility). I was pointing to the rationale of prohibited behaviour. My contention was with R2D2's claim that because some behaviour is prohibited culturally and thus needs to be hidden means that it 'has got to make it happen less than a culture where it is accepted.' This is simply not true. I gave an example in which certain behavior, because it is prohibited (although this is certainly not the only reason), runs rampant. My only point is that often times taboos can have the tendency to ignite the fire so to speak. In no way, am I justifying 'beating up your wife' or violence in any form for that matter. Please excuse my imprecision. CMZ

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 21:48 PM
And one more thing. At least a case can be made against the arguments for prohibitions against drugs or alcohol.But I fail to see what reasonable argument can be put forth to justify beating up your wife.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 21:43 PM
Feminist struggles has achieved quite a lot in the West for the last couples of decades even though there is still a long way to go . I find it curious that some leftists are trying so hard to deny that very real and remarkable achievement!

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 21:33 PM
"I question this logic. A prime counter-example would be 'underage' drinking." This is an inappropiate comparison. Drinking is not necessarily a bad thing with moderation. As long as people are not drinking excessively, widespread drinking is not as harmful as a smaller number of people going on "binge". But how does this analogy hold with domestic abuse? Are you saying it is "healthier" if wife abuse is the accepted norm provided you only do it "moderately"??!! I think there is a qualitative difference between a society with a high murder rate(where murder is illegal)and a society in which homicide is just an everyday sport.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cmzimmermann, Cmzimmermann at Feb 24, 2005 19:55 PM
'Obviously DV goes on everywhere to some degree, but having a culture where it is taboo, and ususaly needs to be hidden, has got to make it happen less than a culture where it is accepted.' I question this logic. A prime counter-example would be 'underage' drinking. Cultures in which alcohol is introduced earlier in children's lives typically have a 'healthier' relationship to driniking, e.g. in Europe, unlike in the US where binge drinking is rampant.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 24, 2005 19:47 PM
"There are certainly cultural differences between the West and the Muslim world, no question about it" Graeme, Most of my comments are aimed at the heart of Middle East specifically. Muslim culture developed quite differently in those areas where there was more religious and cultural diversity - like in Indonesia and Malaysia. Even in Afghanistan and Central Asia, until the Soviet invasion ruined everything, Islam was traditionally interpreted in a much more tolerant fashion, due to it's position in the middle of the Spice Road and the resulting exposure to so many different groups of people. In the "heart" of the Middle East, however, in places like Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, it is much more homogeneous - almost all are muslims and almost all are arab. It's no suprise that the most intolerant branch of Islam, Wahabism, comes from Saudi Arabia, and the most tolerant branch, Sufism, comes from Central Asia.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 24, 2005 19:28 PM
"Statitistics" for domestic violence from Western countries cannot be compared to Middle Eastern countries because, as far as I know, ME countries simply do not keep the same records on that stuff that we do. If we know that most DV cases go unreported here, I think it is reasonable to think that most also go unreported elsewhere. Combine that with an insitutional bias against taking DV seriously and you have a recipe for phony statistics that do not capture the real picture. I'd bet quite a lot of money that our statistics are MUCH closer to the truth than any coming out of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc. Obviously DV goes on everywhere to some degree, but having a culture where it is taboo, and ususaly needs to be hidden, has got to make it happen less than a culture where it is accepted.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 07:35 AM
"2) This is a value judgment about Islamic culture. Whatever its merits, shari'a seems to be supported by a large number of Muslims. Should we then use our 'moral superiority' to deny the democratic impulse of a community simply because we disagree with its likely results?" Firstly, the most vocal objections against Sharia also comes from the Muslim community. Secondly I am not sure if the "democratic impulse" of the community alone should be the basis to make policies. Within certain communities female circumcision is widely practiced and I won't be surprised if you conduct a poll and find that many members of these communities endorse such practice.But I won't think twice in denying them the "democratic impulse" in carrying out such barbaric mutilation on girls. If that is "cultural superiority" so be it.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 07:28 AM
"1) Our current secular court system clearly discriminates against the poor and racial minorities. Should we then scrap it or would it be more useful to have a partially-running legal system than none at all?" I am not following your argument. You are saying that since the current system has flaws(which I agree) we should go all the way and accept a system that doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that it discriminates? I would think the solution is to fix the "secular system" to remedy the problems you speak of.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 07:14 AM
"Although as I pointed out, Native courts on Native lands *do* sometimes have jurisdiction over Native Canadians, which could perhaps be construed as a 'parallel justice system,' in those special circumstances; in any case nobody ever worries about these, as I said" The First Nations are supposed to be soverign in certain sense. They are exempted from many Canadian laws because of treaty rights and so on. I don't think comparison with the First Nations is valid. To my best knowledge, the Native judicial system does not systematically discriminate any particular subgroups like Sharia. No one from the Native community make that kind of complaints as far as I know. The main objection to incorporate Sharia comes from the Muslims themselves(in particular women)and I think they make a valid argument. It is not some kind of anti Muslim racist plot.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 07:02 AM
"if the Shari'a courts rule unjustly against a woman's inheritance rights, she can still take her case to a regular Canadian civil court. " And be labelled an infidel and be ostracized by her community?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 07:00 AM
"Bwong, you are correct that many women may be coerced into participating, but women are often coerced into not testifying, lying to police etc. even in the secular court system. The problem you are talking about is not particularly or especially germane to the question of Shari'a courts." It is true that coercion can occur under any system. But I am not convinced this is the reason to bring in an mechanism where coercion is particularly likely. The problem of coercion is highly likely for the reasons I explain before(Actually these resaons are provided by Muslims themselves, I just quote them). What is the wisdom of bringing in a system which 1) clearly discriminates against women and 2) knowing in advance that there is a SYSTEMIC reason why women would be coerced into accpeting its judgement?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 06:49 AM
I don't think there is specific law that treats women who retaliate against abusive husbands more leniently. But mitigating circumstances are usually addressed at sentencing. I think there are at least a few cases where the women were given very light sentences for exactly that reason, leading to a lot of hue and cry against " politically correct, activitist judges" by the usual suspects. Some women who fled their home countries because of domestic violence were given refugee status in Canada. But the refugee determination process is somewhat arbitrary so I can't say for sure whether there it is a "policy" or what the criteria are if there is a policy. For example, some gay men were given refugee status because of homophobic violence at home but others from the same countries were turned down. A Mexican man was recently rejected apparantly because he didn't "look gay enough" acording to the adjudicator. Very bizzare.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 06:48 AM
Immigrant bashing in the style of Haider or LePan(or Hansen of Australia) has no market here.Even our main stream rightwing party realizes this. Racism, while still exists, it is not only illegal but also socially unacceptible. This fact is important because it indicates the state of society's consciousness. Multiculturalism is very much part of the mordern Canadian identity, at least to the younger generation.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 06:47 AM
"A simple internet search will find that Western mainstream racial groups hold their own when it comes to domestic violence and violence against women. " Joe I don't think these groups are "main stream" in any way except their members are white. This in no way indicate their ideologies are socially acceptible.These groups infest the internet like sewer rats because of its annoymity. Of course I am not saying the conditions of immigrants are perfect in Canada.There are still many istances of systemic discriminations. For example, many foreign doctors are driving taxis and statistics shows that immigrants on the average are more likely to be unemployed and live in poverty even though they are more skilled and educated than Canadian born. These are problems we have to deal with. But everything is relative, Canada is still much more hospitable to immigrants comparing to Europe. In Europe the social apartheid system is quite open and much more rigid.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 24, 2005 04:57 AM
"A simple internet search will find that Western mainstream racial groups hold their own when it comes to domestic violence and violence against women." 1) I've read, and been told by a friend from Dubai, that in the Middle East a man can publicly beat his wife and no one will interfere - not the cops, not "mall security", and not a group of pissed off citizens. Women find it hard to get the cops to even take their charges seriously - when they have the courage to make those charges. In the US, however, the major reason abusers get away with it is because the WOMAN does not file charges, NOT because the people around don't care. If the woman does not file charges the police cannot legally do anything, regardless of what they know. Now, we can do more to help battered women get away and work up the courage to press charges, but you cannot even compare our situation to theirs. Here the police want to help but sometimes cannot. There the police don't give a flying f*ck.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 02:29 AM
"I just think we should look after our own house first, and then offer help and advice (when asked for) to others" I disagree that we cannot say anything against clear abuse elsewhere until we are squeaky clean. We had perfect right to object to apartheid in South Africa even though our own treatment to the first Nation is appalling. To avoid being hypocritical we should simultaneously retify injustice in our own backyard, rather than taking the position that since we all have our skeletons in the closet so we should all shut up. If some Muslem women in Canada are treated as second class citizens by their communities. IT IS OUR OWN HOUSE. The only thing which can be worse than silence is to actually legitimize the practice of discrimination by enshrining Sharia.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 01:00 AM
r4d20, I don't know any link off hand. I heard Tarak Fatah on TV and radio several times and he made the same argument(along with other objections to Sharia). You may try checking out the web site of Muslim Canadian Congress . I am sure he has something in writing.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 00:56 AM
When people are excluded from the main stream they are more likely to stick to their old ways, that include some very objectionable things such as female circumcision, domestic violence, women abuse and so on. Also, marginalization of immigrants as a group has the effect of keeping women in a even more vulnerable position becuase they would be more dependent on their communities for survival. I don't think we have to choose between turning a blind eye to obviously unacceptible practice in immigrant communities in the name of "tolerance" or immigrant bashing. Either way is counter productive. If we genuinely treat the new immigrants as equal citizens (instead of just "talk" about multicultralism) they will become part of the main stream. Most second generation Canadians are just like "everyone else" in terms of their values regardless of where they come from.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 00:55 AM
The problem with Europe is that many European countries are still very tribal and are not very good at intergrating new immigrants into the main stream. It is true that there is certain multi cultral sensitivity but it hasn't penetrated deep into the society. Overall immigrants are very marginalized in Europe.Social exclusion faced by immigarnts are much more severe than in Canada(Can't say about the U.S)Sweden and the Netherlands are among the worst in their treatments of immigrants.In France the muslem ghettos are plagued with poverty and violence in a way that rivals U.S inner cities.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 24, 2005 00:24 AM
"the introduction of Sharia is a back handed way for the government to privatize the court in order to cut costs. It has nothing to do with multiculturtalism." Interesting interpretation. Could you post the link, I'd like to read it.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 00:22 AM
At a more fundamental level, there is simply no reason to incorporate a parallel judicial system. No one has ever come up with a compeling argument why Canadian law and our Charter is inadequate in addresssing immigrant needs. Everyone should be equal under the law. As Tarak Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress argued, the introduction of Sharia is a back handed way for the government to privatize the court in order to cut costs. It has nothing to do with multiculturtalism.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 24, 2005 00:22 AM
"The Canadian example (I'm Canadian) is a case of adding a 'sub-level' to the justice system, participation in which is entirely voluntary and which is explicitly superseded by Canadian provincial and federal law in all cases, should a conflict arise between them. No one is compelled to participate in it if they don't want to" Graeme I have to disagree with you on this one. While it is true that participation in the Sharia court is "voluntary". Many critics(many of them are Muslem women btw) pointed out in practice many women would be coerced into particpating. For many Muslem women, especially the newly arrived, their communities are the only support system they have. They are in too vulnerable a position to make the "voluntary" choice of rejecting Sharia against the wish of their relatives or imams. Then there are inherent problems with Sharia which are completelty unacceptible.Many aspets of Sharia are manifestedly unjust to women(regarding child custody, inheritance, etc) In fact women are treated as second class citizens. We cannot compromise the basic principle of equality in the name of "tolerance" and multicultrualism.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 24, 2005 00:14 AM
"participation in which is entirely voluntary" In theory, yes, but we all know that years of abuse can reduce a person to the point where they are no longer capable of excercising independent judgement.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cmzimmermann, Cmzimmermann at Feb 23, 2005 23:09 PM
Concerning the van Gogh affair in the Netherlands, they are legitimately experiencing a crisis. What is instructive in this situation is not that it happened, but the backlash. All of these incredible statements, death threats, etc. a re coming to the surface within a culture that prides itself on its tolerance (which by the way is a substantively exists on the surface but does have a force in the way that the Dutch have organized their society). Many in Europe are linking this assassination to the war on terror and are seeing how the Dutch deal with this situation.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cmzimmermann, Cmzimmermann at Feb 23, 2005 23:03 PM
'While I do not agree with notions of a "plot" to conquer Europe (especially any one that tries to link this "plot" to the Turkish conquests of 500 years ago), I do think that European Sensitivity to MultiCulturalism has made them hesitant to take an active role in stopping such Crimes.' Without fully entering into this particular debate, which seems to me to be a non-debate, I would like to point out that yes, there is a certain amount of sensitivity to multiculturalism in Europe, however the immigration 'problem' in Europe stems from a cruel history of colonialism. This is to say that there has been an influx of immigrants from North Africa in France, for example, because of the fact of French colonial domination of these countries. There is a certain amount of guilt involved and an awareness that the French have a responsibility with respect to those that they have dominated. This awareness is a direct result of prolonged grass-roots struggle. Also, through this colonial relationship, there is a certain amount of cultural exchange, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of younger North Africans are franco-phones.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 22:53 PM
Violence against Women is not "inherent" to any culture. It is an anachronism, common to many older cultures, that can be done away with without losing anything of real cultural value. It used to be a big part of Western Culture too. There is nothing "racist" in reading the Koran (which I have done) and saying "Hey, all those guys saying that 'true' islamic women wear veils and stay home are full of shit. That isn't 'Islamic' - it is a relic from their tribal, Bedouin, pre-Islamic culture that has no more place in the modern world and can be dismissed without losing any of the beautiful aspects that their Culture also has".

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 22:34 PM
Secondly, While I do not agree with notions of a "plot" to conquer Europe (especially any one that tries to link this "plot" to the Turkish conquests of 500 years ago), I do think that European Sensitivity to MultiCulturalism has made them hesitant to take an active role in stopping such Crimes. http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2157/context/cover/ [EXCERPT:] "Like Hirsi Ali, she contends the problem originates in interpretations of the Koran, though Rus also blames the Dutch, whose "misplaced respect" in an effort to promote cultural freedom permitted sexual and physical abuse, child abuse and honor violence to proliferate without the intervention that takes place within ethnic Dutch families. When in 2003, a 36-year-old Afghan woman was murdered by her estranged husband in Maastricht, along with her 10-year-old daughter, lawmakers struggled to find an appropriate response: Should the killer be prosecuted according to standards of Dutch law or Islam?"

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 22:29 PM
"Is the point that people from Muslim countries have a cultural that is abusive to women and therefore they should not be allowed to live in European countries because they will eventually take over and then all women of Europe will then be abused" NOT AT ALL. I am all for immigration. What I am against in the push to change the laws of the home country to satisfy demands of a small minority of activist immigrants. Many Canadian Muslims, espp. women, DID NOT want Sharia Law incorperated into their family court system, but that didn't stop the Candaian Government from caving into the demands of a verbal minority who did. Now, abused women can be forced (through further abuse) into accepting judgement under Sharia which will abuse them one more by screwing them over in favor of their husbands. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/36C85FA4-7C91-4DB5-A259-6A3DD38D1AB7.htm http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd%5B157%5D=x-157-72180 While the current siutation in canda is not terrible, I don't like the direction it seems to be heading in.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 23, 2005 19:02 PM
Would you dialogue with someone who was fond of running down gays or Jews? I think that he should at least be ostracized until he gives some indication that he plans abdicate this tactic. Otherwise, we are allowing him to spread vicious lies that lead to violence.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 23, 2005 19:01 PM
"But I don't think it's necessary to stop talking with someone just because I disagree with him. I think people like r4d20 sometimes make good and challenging points, and I have no problem with engaging in a dialogue with that kind of person. ... In any case I don't think r4d20 is a Nazi." Graeme, I have a great deal of respect for you too. You certainly are a lot better informed on these subjects than I am. And, in his own warped way, r4 is well-informed too. But it's not all about facts and figures; I'm sure there were many knowledgeable and "challenging" people amongst the Nazis. This is the 2nd time that I know of where this individual has defamed a whole group of people, with absolutely no proof to back it up. That is unreasonableness. Moreover, when someone calls him on it, he refuses to retract his slur, let alone apologize for it. That shows bigotry. (The classic treatment of this mind-set is Sartre's Portrait of an Anti-Semite.) contd.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 23, 2005 07:25 AM
"Yes, we should be wary of assuming our culture is more "advanced" or more "civilised" than theirs, but there is nothing racist calling a guy a pussy for beating his wife. The treatment of women in the Middle East is terrible and Europeans are going to have to resist changing their laws to accomadate the traditions of these immigrants." r4 Graeme, It turns my stomach just to think that there are actually people who would dare say such a thing. This man has absolutely no evidence to prove what he is saying. It is nothing but a racist myth, from which I have suffered personally. No honorable person would even believe such a thing. Thus, I implore you, as I implored bwong- do not dialogue with him. We must not provide him with a forum to state views that are behind the killing and maiming of tens of thousands of innocent people, the wholesale destruction of lives and families-may God have mercy on us all. When he posts attacking Prof. C. or spewing his vileness in some other way, kick him in the balls and leave it at that.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 06:10 AM
Bwong, The Pim Fortuyn example is well made, but I don't think you can compare the Van Gogh murderer to the crazy swede. There is, as far as I know, no evidence that the Van Gogh killer is insane. He is a perfectly sane idealogical extremist, and I think it is a dangerous fallacy to assume that all savage killers must be unbalanced. It is simply not true and will not help us in understanding them or their motivations. The guy who killed Pim Fortuyn did so because he thought the benefits were worth it. The same is true with the Van Gogh killer. He killed Van Gogh because he thought that Van Gogh had defamed Islam and, in his mind, defaming Islam is a capital offence that deserves the ultimate punishment. His value system is perfectly coherent and sane - it is just the antithesis of the one most of us hold dear.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 06:07 AM
Graeme, Your point is also taken. However, I would point out that while wife beating happens in America, it is NOT socially acceptable. Most abusers take pains to hide abuse from others. From what I understand, in the Middle East men do not really hide their abuse. Periodic "chastisment" of a wife is considered part of being a man (obvious this is less os in the major, cosmopolitan, centers, but is much more true in the rural areas). The truth is Graeme that I can't think of a single "Fault" of their culture that is not present in our own to some degree. While I understand that we should not by hypocrites, I think it is unreasonable and impossible to expect us to hold off criticism of egregious human rights violations just because we have not COMPLETELY eliminated the problem here.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 23, 2005 06:06 AM
I bought up Pim Fortuyn because he was well known for being very outspoken against Islam and immigrants. But he was murdered violently by a Dutch non Moslem.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 23, 2005 05:36 AM
"The treatment of women in the Middle East is terrible and Europeans are going to have to resist changing their laws to accomadate the traditions of these immigrants" I don't think the Europeans are about to change their laws to allow wife beating or honour killing any time soon, nor should they.People who commit honour killing" should be dealt with harshly by the law, I don't think there is any question about that. You brought up the van Gogh affair, but how indicative it is of the state of Islam in Europe? I think it may have been more of a case of bad optics than evidence of Islamic peril. The Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was murderd by a crazy man who claimed to be an enviromentalist. I don't recall Green Peace being put on the spot. The Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh was brutally stabbed to death in a shopping mall by a white Swedish Christian claiming he heard voices. No one would think that he is the poster boy of all white Christian Swedes. Should all Moslems throughout Europe be tarred because one extreme nut murdered Von Gogh?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 05:06 AM
We cannot be so afraid of being labeled a "racist" that we don't stick up for our core values. Yes, we should be wary of assuming our culture is more "advanced" or more "civilised" than theirs, but there is nothing racist calling a guy a pussy for beating his wife. The treatment of women in the Middle East is terrible and Europeans are going to have to resist changing their laws to accomadate the traditions of these immigrants.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 23, 2005 04:58 AM
"Why is Bernard Lewis so fixate on "Muslems"? Would he be so alarmed if his model predicts that Europe would be "flooded by Jews" in 2050?" I think you have a point, but I also think to shrug off the cultural differences between Middle Eastern immigrants and European people is naive. For example, Europeans are starting to have problems with incidents of honor killings in Muslim families. Maybe in some countries it is ok to kill your daughter for screwing a foreigner, but I doubt many Europeans want that practiced in their backyard. Or take the Van Gogh affair. Every few years in America the religious people get their panties in a bunch over some art exhibit, but when was the last time you heard of a westerner killing the artist?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 23, 2005 00:49 AM
"But to be fair, Americans don't have a monopoly on ugliness. The newly rich Chinese got to take the cake in terms of grotesque consumptions and wealth flaunting." bwong All the nice things that I've said about you and you turn around and insult me. As a proud American, I take exception to your claim that some of your countrymen are uglier than ugly Americans. I will take a back seat to no one when it comes to admiring Chinese civilization; but your people will NEVER surpass us when it comes to "grotesque consumption and wealth flaunting." Never!

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 21:02 PM
"There is no rising affluence in the vast majority of the middle east, there is no indication that the native populations in most of Europe will do anything other than contract, and there is no indication that the populations in the ME will do anything but rapidly expand. The EU is also expanding into areas with populations that are contracting long term, save Turkey, so that alone will not offset the massive labor needs of near future Europe." Your point being? Is this the problem of Islam or how the EU treats its Muslem populations? If you bring in "foreign workers" to work for 20 years without giving them citizenship(as in Germany) is it surprising that these "foreigners" don't assimilate?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 20:57 PM
"Well if you consider the work of both Ash and Lewis as wild and unsubstantiated, then I suppose you may have a point. BTW, have you actually read either of the two individuals I have provided, or is it enough to blindly obey Chomsky's edicts and write them off as “vile propagandists”." One doesn't have to go by Chomsky. Just base on your report and endorsement we can get a fairly good idea what Lewis stands for.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 20:52 PM
"Because they are not like you in any shape of form, they will never assimilate and be like you and they will always seek to dominate you. Islam is a religion of conquest; that is what it has always been, from Mohamed's first days in the desert of Arabia to the current problems in Darfur. " Is this serious history analysis from the Bernard Lewis school or just vile racist slurs from wtgn? You can say pretty much the same thing about Christianity if not worse. Last There are American military bases all over the Muslem world (actually, all over the world) but not the other way around. Who is enganging world domination?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 20:41 PM
It seems wtgn got kicked off the site for abusive behaviour and comes back with a new handle.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 20:39 PM
"Well, I did not treat dm/dt as a constant; you do realize that a non-linear function can be extrapolated? Or don't they teach that in Marxist literary critique classes?" Yeh, I seriously doubt that Bernard Lewis does any non linear analysis. If he did it would be nice to know what his assumptions and methodology was if all he had was the average rate "over the last 20 years" like you told us. Bernard Lewis has no credential whatsoever as a mathematician or a staistician, btw. "Ahh yes, there's that bit o anti Semitism that has been the hallmark of the left as of late" How is that an "anti-Semetic" statement? It is a statement about Bernard Lewis's fixation on Muslems, idiot. It seems like you need some help in basic comprehension.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Wtgn, Wtgn1 at Feb 22, 2005 19:01 PM
Oh, get over this nonsense. Foreign support for the PLO is about as relevant to the Palestinian cause as French support was to the cause of the American colonists in 1776. Seems to me that the American revolution was well under way when the French joined in. Secondly, it is also more than a mere coincidence that the Palestinian organizations got violent when the Soviets and Cubans began pouring resources into them. Did you know that Carlos the Jackle received intensive training from the Cuban DGI )in Cuba no less) before joining up with the Palestinians? Fascinating stuff, even if you try and fluff it off. Treating "dm/dt" as constant and extrapolate it out is no statistics analysis either. Well, I did not treat dm/dt as a constant; you do realize that a non-linear function can be extrapolated? Or don't they teach that in Marxist literary critique classes? “Would he be so alarmed if his model predicts that Europe would be "flooded by Jews" in 2050?” Ahh yes, there's that bit o anti Semitism that has been the hallmark of the left as of late. Bravo man, good show!

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Wtgn, Wtgn1 at Feb 22, 2005 18:59 PM
"Finally, you never provide any evidence why a higher percentage of Muslims in the EU (which is likely to happen, I agree) is anything to fear." Because they are not like you in any shape of form, they will never assimilate and be like you and they will always seek to dominate you. Islam is a religion of conquest; that is what it has always been, from Mohamed's first days in the desert of Arabia to the current problems in Darfur. Islam spreads at the tip of a spear, or as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says, "our minarets are our bayonets". But hey, like I said, you gotta live in it, not me. If you feel comfortable allowing yourself to be surrounded by tens of millions of people who see you as nothing more than an infidel and are easily radicalized by their surroundings, more power to you I guess.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Wtgn, Wtgn1 at Feb 22, 2005 18:59 PM
At least I provide numbers. All you do is make wild, unsubstantiated claims about the flood of Muslims about to knock the door down. Well if you consider the work of both Ash and Lewis as wild and unsubstantiated, then I suppose you may have a point. BTW, have you actually read either of the two individuals I have provided, or is it enough to blindly obey Chomsky's edicts and write them off as “vile propagandists”. If you had read them, or any other serious study on the issue, you would realize that you cannot substantiate any of your arguments. There is no rising affluence in the vast majority of the middle east, there is no indication that the native populations in most of Europe will do anything other than contract, and there is no indication that the populations in the ME will do anything but rapidly expand. The EU is also expanding into areas with populations that are contracting long term, save Turkey, so that alone will not offset the massive labor needs of near future Europe. Better learn which way to bow to Mecca.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 10:33 AM
"If you look at dm/dt (change in numbers of Muslims in the EU vs. change in time) of the past twenty years and extrapolate out to say the year 2050, Bernard Lewis' predictions ring true. " Treating "dm/dt" as constant and extrapolate it out is no statistics analysis either. Why is Bernard Lewis so fixate on "Muslems"? Would he be so alarmed if his model predicts that Europe would be "flooded by Jews" in 2050? Europe needs to better integrate its new immigrants and become more open to different cultures. The ghettos and prisons in countries like France are the breeding ground of radical Islam. But the issues are social exclusion and poverty, not Islam per se.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 22, 2005 07:50 AM
“Then I rescind my earlier judgment: you are an idiot (i.e., someone who lacks the ability to objectively process facts about a place he or she spends any time in).” I have spent quite a bit of time outside Tiel, and the ohh so liberal folk there are scared shitless of what is going to become their tolerant liberal society. These are well educated, cultured, and open folk, but they are saying some things that might surprise you. “Consider Palestine, where terrorism never really developed until the mid-60s, despite the fact that Palestinians had legitimate 'grievances' against Israel at least since 1948. If you push people long enough though, eventually they will start to push back.” I wonder if. Pushing aside, that is when the Soviets and Cubans got really involved in Palestinian organizations.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 22, 2005 07:48 AM
Where are you from, bizarro world? In what other place could statistical analysis be interpreted as 'bury[ing] your head in the sand?" I was trying to be facetious when I asked you if you knew what facts were but maybe you really don't. You call that a statistical analysis? My God man, have you no decency? Throwing static numbers up to validate a weak to non-existent argument is no statistical analysis. If you look at dm/dt (change in numbers of Muslims in the EU vs. change in time) of the past twenty years and extrapolate out to say the year 2050, Bernard Lewis' predictions ring true. And why wouldn't they? Europe has a declining population and needs workers. Where is the closest pool of labor, North Africa and the Mid East. It don't take a genius to see that the Muslim flood's a comin'. Interestingly enough Timothy Garton Ash makes this very same point and argues that the EU must do a better job assimilating its new Muslim brethren. But hey, its like I said earlier, just some friendly advice, I aint the one who is going to have to live in it.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 22, 2005 03:44 AM
Lebanon is not under Syria occupation. The Syrians installed a puppet regime and stations troops in Lebanon. Lebanon is a Syrian client state but it is not under Syrian occupation anymore than Saudi Arabia or Iran under the Shah were under U.s occupation. Of course that is not right but it is completely misleading to compare that with the Palestinians."Occupation" has a very precise meaning under international law.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Ericsilverman_2000, Ericchicago at Feb 21, 2005 21:16 PM
CM, I'm glad you brought up the notion of homogeneity. To assume that all of the Arab world is the same is to surrender to gross generalization and prejudice. Separate from the messages of our leaders and the beauty of foreign cultures becomes clear. The solutions to problems between the Israelis and Palestinians will become less complicated once there is energy invested in ending the hate, which I think means creating programs that involve youth. Anger is not a genetic trait, it is learned. Bringing kids together will create a bond that transcends politics. I know this sounds idealistic, but it is the place to start. The rest is just a band-aid

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Cmzimmermann, Cmzimmermann at Feb 21, 2005 20:53 PM
'If a solution is to be found it must come from the Israeli public, subsequently backed up by international public opinion and actions.' RTucker As is the case in nearly all discussion in the US and in Israel concerning potential solutions, RTucker's comment is indicative of the entire system of domination that determines the discourse in that it entirely excludes the Palestinians. Also, talk of the 'Arab' population(s) as if Arab nations, culture, language, institutions, etc. are homogeneous ignores entire histories and traditions and glosses over nuances and understanding essential to any change whatsoever.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 21, 2005 20:17 PM
And BTW, I go to Europe quite often for work. 6 times a year for a week a shot.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 21, 2005 19:41 PM
And a majority of the Muslims don't have to be radicals to fuck Europe up. The majority of Muslims in the middle east are not radicals, but radicals certainly do seem to run things there now don't they? What the Turks could not do 5 centuries ago through warfare they will now do through migration. But its just some friendly advice, I aint the one who has to live in it.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 21, 2005 19:40 PM
"Even forgetting for the moment that not all who self-identify as Muslim would even remotely favour an "Islamic EU," or would have 'values' any different from those of other Europeans, the fact that is that in aggregate the EU has a much *lower* percentage of Muslims today than it did ten years ago, " Hmm, that's an interesting argument; bury your head in the sand … interesting. Sure, out of a total population of 450mil, only 15m are Muslims, and this figure seems small in the grand scheme, but Bernard Lewis, a British historian at Princeton, disagrees. He predicts that within 100 years (and that is his best case scenario) the EU will have a majority Muslim population. Its quite simple really, natives are dying off and not breeding and the EU needs a work force. Unlike the US, you don't have Christian mainly western neighbor to the South and you do not assimilate foreign populations as effectively as the US does. So you have to rely on North Africa and the Middle East to fulfill this gap. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 21, 2005 19:19 PM
"Only our great patriots had the right to resist foreign occupation, right? You seem to have no sympathy for anyone but yourself and those like you. It's not enough for you to decry violence, you have to belittle those who aspire to the same freedoms you enjoy." And freedom?!?! Considering the players in Palestinian politics, old Soviet and Cuban backed commies, corrupt thieves, and jihadist, how can you honestly say that freedom, or anything remotely close to it is either the intent of the players, or the most likely outcome. I would also suggest that you brush upon your American history as well. It was a rebellion, not “resistance to occupation” that was fought 227 years ago.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 21, 2005 19:19 PM
"So are you saying that the Palestinians should roll over and play dead like the Lebaneese supposedly are doing?" Blah blah blah………… First of all, you completely missed the point: perhaps “occupation” is not what is driving the intifata. If a similar situation exists to the north in Lebanon, and no violence is directed against that particular occupying force, what else can we conclude? Now I know you are going to say, “but the horrors subjected by the Israelis (or Zionazis, I am not sure which term you would use) are far worse than what the Syrians are doing”. Bullshit, pure and simple. You may perceive Israeli actions as being more harsh than the Syrians, but that is because no one writes about Syria's occupation. So, unless you are ready to come to the table a bit better informed, I suggest you drop it.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Anonymous, Anonymous at Feb 21, 2005 19:00 PM
I think anyone who can see beyond the propaganda will agree to the motivations stated here. My question is, why did OBL use terror as a means of retaliation? Look around the world at the terror movements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_groups This just has the major terror groups and it is huge. Not to mention, the casuality suffered because of their terror. We all know that resistance by terror only worsens the situation. What then are the reasons these groups (people) decide to retaliate by terror, when they know that it is an inefficient and brutal way to let the world know of their grievences? Is it bcos of religion (there is a big list of Islamic/Christian terror movements), political/economic ideology (communistic movements)? Of course, the long term view is to debate and alleviate the grievence, as Chomsky usually suggests? But the question which Chomsky ignores is: "what is the cause for resorting to terror whenever there is a grievence"? A simplistic answer would be apathy of common man. But i think there are deeper issues. IMHO, this issue should be considered very seriously and debated.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 21, 2005 18:32 PM
"If Palestinian violence, err I mean “resistance” is motivated solely by the presence of an oppressive occupying power, why is there no similar “resistance” against Syria for its occupation of Lebanon? And why no droves of humanitarian types railing against al-Assad?" WTGN So are you saying that the Palestinians should roll over and play dead like the Lebaneese supposedly are doing? Only our great patroits had the right to resist foreign occupation, right? You seem to have no sympathy for anyone but yourself and those like you. It's not enough for you to decry violence, you have to belittle those who aspire to the same freedoms you enjoy.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 21, 2005 18:25 PM
Graeme, Decent-minded readers of this blog owe you a debt of gratitude for taking on and utterly humiliating this "total idiot."

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tdc, Wtgn at Feb 21, 2005 01:51 AM
A question to ponder: If Palestinian violence, err I mean “resistance” is motivated solely by the presence of an oppressive occupying power, why is there no similar “resistance” against Syria for its occupation of Lebanon? And why no droves of humanitarian types railing against al-Assad? And for my European friends on the board, some advice: better stop worrying about the perceived US dominance and worry a bit more about becoming the Islamic European Union, the next outpost for Middle Eastern values. Its coming faster than you think.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Bush1, Nathan at Feb 20, 2005 07:07 AM
i am responding to the third question posed in the first post: "Lastly does it seem to anyone else that the whole Ward Churchill thing is only helping our side by opening up a diologe about the causes of the "terrrorist" acts and exposing the illiogic of the "the hate our freedom" argument?" from my personal experience i would say no, it is not helping. from the little i have followed it, i think your average sane and informed individual would take offence, as i did, at the characterization of the victims of the september 11th attacks as 'little eichmanns.' the analogy is disgusting and the moment i heard it i felt that this man had nothing constructive to tell me. but that was just my reponse.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Feb 20, 2005 01:50 AM
I am not sure that Israel is about "getting a foothold in the ME." I think it is more about destablization of the region. It is also creates huge weapons consumers. Lastly it is a sort of bait, to try and pull other states into the conflict in an effort to paint them as the enemy of the US, Irael and all freedom loving countries.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 20, 2005 00:50 AM
What I meant to say is that the level of supports(politically, financially and diplomatically) the U.S has given to Israel seems to go way beyond what is necessary to gain a foothold in the ME.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 20, 2005 00:31 AM
"Put it this way: if the oil dried up tomorrow, American aid to Israel would dry up the day after tomorrow. " I don't know. It is not immediate obvious (at least to me) that supporting Israel almost unconditionally and alienting all Arab rulers as a result is the best way to control ME oil. There does not seem to be any strategic reason why the U.S backs Israel so one sidedly if oil were the only reason. Certainly the U.S is becoming very unpopular because of that.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tucker, Roger at Feb 19, 2005 10:24 AM
Regarding graeme's comment that “The US calls the shots,” I have to agree with bwong‘s comment that it's “more complicated than that.” And I think the Israelis would be amused at being considered an American puppet. I tried to make the point that there's no hope of convincing either the Israeli or US governments. If a solution is to be found it must come from the Israeli public, subsequently backed up by international public opinion and actions. The US govt will only capitulate if the Israeli electorate goes in a different direction. And the majority of the Israeli public, I am morally certain, would back a One State Solution if only they were given the option. This would require someone like a Gandhi, a Sakharov or an M.L. King to emerge within Israeli society, or at least some reasonable facsimile. Anyone know of such a person?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 19, 2005 06:27 AM
I could be wrong but I don't think either the Israeli Jews or the Palestinians want a single bi national state. They each want their OWN state, it seems. What may sound reasonable to the enlighted activists really doesn't mean squat if the people on the ground(both sides) do not share their vision.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Gammon101, Bwong at Feb 19, 2005 06:16 AM
I don't think the U.S holds all the card if by that you mean Israel is just a hand puppet. I think Israel is much more closely tied to the U.S than just being another client state. There seems to be a connection that goes beyond mere politics and economics. There is a tie in the cultural or emotional level. In one of his talks Norman Finkelstein was asked this very question. Does the U.S control Israel? While acknowleding Chomsky's view, he said he thought the relationship was much more complicated than that. As an example he cited Israel's nuke. He said according to declassified documents the U.S policy makers not only did not endorse Israel's development of the bomb, they went absolutely ballistic when they discovered Israel was doing that behind their backs. Johnson(?) initially wanted to put his foot down but very powerful pro Israeli lobby convinced him to lay off Israel. He said he couldn't think if any other U.S client state which could get away with something like that.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tucker, Roger at Feb 19, 2005 01:37 AM
I agree with your premise that "The current situation is only possible because of massive US aid to Israel," and not just economic aid. The last piece of the puzzle, the hardest to make fit, would be convincing the US govt to support the One State Solution. Convincing the majority of the Israeli public would be easier. Then the US would have to follow. A recent survey showed that nearly half of Israelis would be willing to share the land with the Palestinians if it meant peace. And that was without an organized advocacy campaign.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tucker, Roger at Feb 19, 2005 01:24 AM
"..you arer ignoring the role of religion." One can't ignore anything. But the number of Israelis and Palestinians who would prefer a theocracy is probably less than 10%. Israel is a secular democracy, although a "Jewish democracy" is an oxymoron. And the PLO is the same. Zionism and Islamism are mirror images, and only a small minority would fight for them. Perhaps two potential insurgencies, but they couldn't prevail. All that is needed are a few convincing voices from the Israeli left; I'm looking for them.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 19, 2005 00:48 AM
"The Israelis and Palestinians are as reasonable as anyone else. The argument that their best interests lie in forming a new state that conforms to the current paradigm, a secular democracy, is overwhelmingly compelling." Unfortyunately you arer ignoring the role of religion. The LAST thing many arabs and zionists wants is asecular state. They WANT a religious state, anmd there cannot be viable a one state solution so long as they continue to want that. You may feel jusified in ignoring the desires of the Zionists, but you can't make any progress if you do.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tucker, Roger at Feb 18, 2005 23:34 PM
The US can't escape the conflict until it is resolved. The conflict can't be resolved until the Israelis and Palestinians come to terms. There are three possibilities: the current “one state” (Israel with its bantustans, more ethnic cleansing, etc.); two states, one of which is a collection of prison labor camps administered by the inmates; or a pluralistic democracy consisting of all residents. If people are serious about peace and justice, it is not so much a matter of preference as one of necessity, no matter the degree of difficulty. And I say again, it needn't be as difficult as people think. The Israelis and Palestinians are as reasonable as anyone else. The argument that their best interests lie in forming a new state that conforms to the current paradigm, a secular democracy, is overwhelmingly compelling. It just needs to be made.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Antiamerican800, Bernardo at Feb 18, 2005 10:30 AM
Harvard University Press must be the most corrupt publisher in the world. The glossy cover art and slick photography is merchandised to the well dressed exchange student. Who gets good grades. Pusillanimous reviewers from the Washington Post and Time can be relied upon to dribble over the murky text written by 50+ year old sheltered academics with lifetime employment trying to sound cool to prep school jocks from Americas finest suburban toilets. Their catalog is a pathological bizarre of racial, class and elitist obsessions advertised to supplicant yuppies in their filthy careerist pursuits. Chomsky thinks anything that doesn't help lift starving African babies out of poverty is a "diversion". I need more diversions in my life. American publishing is dying and it deserves to, a masturbatory toy for the dank academic seminar.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 18, 2005 08:43 AM
"This is buying into the propaganda that he somehow wants to return the earth to a pre-civliztion state, that he is against "civilization", this is just simplistic reasoning" Osama has been very open about his long-term motivations: he wants to establish a new Islamic Caliphate that will rule a unified muslim empire. That doesn't mean he wants to rewind technology, but he wants to rewind the basic ideas of human society and go "back" to a theocracy under the rule of a new Caliph and ruled under strict koranic law.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 18, 2005 08:37 AM
"The clumsy agressivness of the US gov. plays terrifically to the hand of UBL." Totally. Bush plays to their propaganda by acting like a cowboy. It plays well in the home market though - middle america seems to love it. I am not fan of the false notion that Europe is better and "more sophisticated" in all things that the US, but they are more "realist" in their outlook. The US administration seems to think it rules the world by decree.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 18, 2005 04:48 AM
"Not because he doesn't think it's a good idea but because he thinks it's impractical." Got to agree with Noam here. Israelis can be counted on to violently resist the one state solution (or, as the current case is, violently press forward with their own one state solution). Two state solution is the only one that lets both parties get enough of what they want to agree to stop fighting.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tucker, Roger at Feb 18, 2005 02:58 AM
As I said, “most such people consider the idea a ‘non-starter'.” And the best that such people as Professor Galtung can come up with is a complicated process that would require government buy-in and is therefore a real non-starter. Such an outcome, however, would be a perfectly natural follow-up to the establishment of a secular, pluralistic democracy from the Jordan to the sea. I challenge anyone on this side of sanity to find fault with such a possibility on any other grounds than the difficulty of bringing it about. But, suppose that a critical mass of people were to advocate such a solution. All it would take would be leadership from a few solid Israeli opinion makers, working in concert with their Palestinian counterparts, and the Palestinians are already toying with the idea – after all, they would have everything to gain and nothing to lose. There are also very convincing reasons for Israelis to go along, even those on the right –Jews would be able to settle anywhere they chose, and they would be able to go about their business without fear of terror. Barring the lunatics, the whole world would help and applaud. Remember South Africa. It can be accomplished.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tucker, Roger at Feb 18, 2005 00:45 AM
It is clear that the animus against America, particularly in the Muslim world, is driven primarily by the conflict in Israel/Palestine. There is an equally clear solution to this problem - the One State Solution. I have yet to encounter one reasonable, informed person who would disagree. However, most such people consider the idea a "non-starter" in the current political climate. So let's change that climate. It won't change through the actions of any government, but we, the people, can do it. If you are seriously interested in helping to bring about a peaceful and prosperous Middle East, justice for the Palestinians, providing genuine security to Israelis, and removing the primary motivation for terrorism, then please start by visiting http://www.alternativeflags.org/mideasthome.html , and follow the links. I would also be extremely interested in learning of Mr. Chomsky's and Mr. Herman's views regarding this initiative.

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By Ericsilverman_2000, Ericchicago at Feb 18, 2005 00:24 AM
This is an aside from the discussion, but there is a very cool website call Muslimwakeup.com Check it out.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Pythag3, Pythag3 at Feb 17, 2005 16:35 PM
Correction: the secular movements themselves did not literally fuse with the fundamentalists; their complaints about the United States did. (Though in Iran, for example, anti-Shah demonstrations were led by an unofficial alliance of both leftist anti-monarchists and religious fundamentalists.) Now, must go to sleep. Very, very tired...

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Pythag3, Pythag3 at Feb 17, 2005 16:31 PM
One last point: extremely tired, must force myself to go to sleep. Any discussion about the rise of political Islam must recognize it as a response to the failure and destruction of the region's secular nationalist political forces. The region's first "anti-American" movements were political in the traditional sense and, for the most part, very moderate: Mossadeq in Iran, Nasser in Egypt, etc. For one reason or another, these movements lost their power to act as counterforce to US influence. So it fused with critiques of American policies rooted in fundamentalist Islam, then being actively promoted by Saudi Arabia and Iranian exiles like Khomeini, as well as the Madrassas established on the Afghan-Pakistan border by General Zia. Even Arabs who strongly reject Osama's goals and methods will often sympathize with his political critiques (Israel kills the Palestinian people, the royal families are nothing but Western puppets, etc.) ... For that reason, the issues here really ARE political, and not simply about fanatical religious beliefs.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Pythag3, Pythag3 at Feb 17, 2005 16:18 PM
tvekey: As I understand it, bin Laden's opposition is to American troops on Muslim holy land and his belief that the Arab regimes are heretical Western puppet governments. True, the US has been keen to withdraw their troops from Saudi Arabia, as they (correctly) perceive it as increasing instability there. But as long as US troops are in Iraq, that problem cannot be considered "solved." Comments?

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Vekey, Tvekey at Feb 17, 2005 08:30 AM
r4d20: I agree most of what you are saying and also with the direction of your reflection on the subject. Few remarks though. It is not wandering turists UBL objected but rather the presence of US military installations in SA. Also, the US gov.tends to be meddlesome and overbearing in the Mid East. Just compare a typical European government much more respectful aproach with the haughty arrogance of the US political leaders. This is, in my opinion terribly unwise and conterproductive. The resulting popular resentments into which UBL readily taps into. We have not mentioned yet the seemingly unsolveable Israeli-Palestinian 'conflict' where the US stand alone as the only uncritical supporter of Israel. The clumsy agressivness of the US gov. plays terrifically to the hand of UBL. Without it he would be just another lonely voice in the wilderness.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Allen, Robert at Feb 17, 2005 08:20 AM
"The Iraqi insurgents have much (sic, you might want to look into an Adult Ed grammar course; seriously) more legitimate reasons to engage in terrorism than OBL." No one has a legitmate reason to engage in terrorism; it is beyond the pale. Yet the grievances Prof. C cites are legitimate: for one, the US has no business meddling in the internal affairs of any other sovereign state, which it has frequently done in the Middle East, starting with Iran in 1954, in pursuit of cheap oil.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Feb 17, 2005 07:52 AM
First, the use of religion as a tool to control people goes as far back in history as we have records. Machiaveli talked of giving the impresion of being religious if it could benifit you politically. That is what OBL is doing, as is GWB. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." K. Marx Second, who ever said OBL is opposed to "western culture", from what I have seen he inbraces it. Examples include the use of weapons, the media, telecomunication, the selling of drugs to raise funding etc.... This is buying into the propaganda that he somehow wants to return the earth to a pre-civliztion state, that he is against "civilization", this is just simplistic reasoning.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 17, 2005 06:49 AM
"why is it that the majority of US citizens believe the motivations of the "terrorists" is a different than the one the "intellegence agencies" believe" Because Religion DOES have something to do with OBL motivations. Of course, "the terrorists" are not attacking us for "no reason". The reason they are attacking us is because of US policy. However, the source of the objection to many US policies IS religious. OBL doesn't object to western culture because it is "exploitative", but because it tempts men and women away from God with sex, drugs, and rock&roll. This religious dimension is the grain of truth in the lies of the Right. They get away with portraying this as unprovoked aggression caused by religious fanaticism because many of the "terrorists" ARE religious fanatics. Furthermore, they are very public about their faith, so it is easy to find passages from writings or speeches that give great soundbites for the rightwing press machine.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Tolsen1, R4d20 at Feb 17, 2005 06:35 AM
"a)US military occupation of Saudi Arabia. (solved) " I agree that this is a motivating issue for Osama, but I find it hard to support his underlying justification. First, I have little respect for the mindset which feels the presence of "infidels" pollutes the sanctity of the holy sites. I just see it as ignorant and bigoted. This is an attitude I would not tolerate in the US, and imagine the outcry if Vatican City suddenly banned non-Christians, or even just the wearing of non-christian religious symbols by tourists. Secondly, the REASON he objects to the Saud family (and the US support for them) is not because they are "elites". OBL is not a democrat, nor does he even pretend to be. He does not object to the Saud family because they are autocrats - he objects to them because they are impious. All of this adds up to making me hesitent to treat this as a legitimate complaint. The Iraqi insurgents have much more legitimate reasons to engage in terrorism than OBL.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Playerpiano555, Playerpiano at Feb 17, 2005 01:18 AM
"We continue the same formula that lead to the exploitation and destruction of millions of Africans, Native Americans, the slaves, and people in Southeast Asia. "We are colonization re-marketed as liberation." (EricChicago) --- A wolf in sheep's clothing!

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Ericsilverman_2000, Ericchicago at Feb 16, 2005 23:24 PM
Isn't it fascinating that we only go to war against countries that are populated by people of color? That white people who create violence are not usually referred to as terrorists? We make ourselves targets by creating hate through greed and exploitation. We never express contrition for the negative outcomes of our acts. We continue the same formula that lead to the exploitation and destruction of millions of Africans, Native Americans, the slaves, and people in Southeast Asia. We are colonization re-marketed as liberation.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Vekey, Tvekey at Feb 16, 2005 22:43 PM
To EricChicago: Very valid questions and an emphatic opinion. I agree with you that a more pertaining question would be: What is the other chief terrorist Pres. Bush motivation? Fighting terror is shurly not, since army divisions are very ineffective way to fight terror.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Ericsilverman_2000, Ericchicago at Feb 16, 2005 22:14 PM
I truly believe that if the tables were turned and we were being exploited by invading force that our actions would mirror those of the "terrorists" "islamists" "insurgents", whatever we choose to call them. I heard an analyst of MSNBC refer to them as the "evil bad guys".

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Ericsilverman_2000, Ericchicago at Feb 16, 2005 22:12 PM
Whatever the cause(s) may be, the question is really how to progress and how to stop letting fear establish policy. If we are a country of true freedom, then why are our politicians ridiculing people who make critical observations? Why is it such a threat to our president when people speak their beliefs. How come we are allowing organized religion to dictate what is right and wrong, moral and immoral? Organized religion is now a major lobby, strong and fertile. We are no longer a country of individuals coming together and celebrating our liberties. We are now a set of groups jockeying for control of those liberties. Why is there so little social activism? We all know that the war is not about terrorism, we know it isn't about Saddam Hussein, and it isn't about the rights of the Iraqi's who may have their Prime Minister chosen by the Grand Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani, who is likely to choose Ahmad Chalabi. This is a war for oil, money, exploitation, power, and control. If we cared about the Iraqi people, we'd be expressing our sadness for the pain and destruction we've caused. Our president hasn't even acknowledged the collateral damage.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Vekey, Tvekey at Feb 16, 2005 21:48 PM
The main stated reasons of terrorism of Osama Bin Laden according to him is a)US military occupation of Saudi Arabia. (solved) b)The meddling and corrupting influense of the West in the life of Muslims. c)The buttressing up of corrupt regimes in the Muslim world by the US. d)Collusion of the US with the 'racist' Israel to the detriment of Palestinians. In my opinion, his reasons are believable, as his motivation to be an agent for change.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Apartmentbuilding, Robinhood at Feb 16, 2005 20:37 PM
Most people IMO must let go of the fallacy that the media (mainsream) is there to inform the population. They are supportive of the dominant powers because they serve the same interests. Their bias and ommissions are (almost) always designed to put forth a certain image of the basic institutinos and their actions.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Apartmentbuilding, Robinhood at Feb 16, 2005 20:33 PM
I think the answer to your first question has to do with the media - the media distorts basic information (including accurate intelligence information) for its own reasons. I think that this generalizes across the board on issues where the public's interests are not in league with the elite's. Look at the public ignorance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (where some people think that the Palestinians are occupying Israel), the ignorance on the colonialism in the Middle East as being central in terrorist attacks, etc.

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Re: Motivations for Terror

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Feb 16, 2005 20:23 PM
I agree with the analysis of Dr. Chomsky, but have to take it one step further and ask why is it that the majority of US citizens believe the motivations of the "terrorists" is a different than the one the "intellegence agencies" believe. And secondly, how can this ideological blockage be removed or moved past. Lastly does it seem to anyone else that the whole Ward Churchill thing is only helping our side by opening up a diologe about the causes of the "terrrorist" acts and exposing the illiogic of the "the hate our freedom" argument?

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