Drones are inhumane, Al Qaeda's # 2 Brother says

At some point in your life you will learn that your professors really didn't have all the answers.

 

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Deez,

I appreciate your probing, but the facts are that what weve been doing hasnt been working, and although it seems like you are honestly trying to be open, there are too many others that just dont want to be.

A contingency plan is nice, but we arent even there yet. We arent even addressing the problem, so a contingency plan is kind of worthless at this point.

Other nations should be paying most, if not all, of our expenses if they want our military there. Concerning Japan and other countries not allowed to have militaries, I think that ship sailed a long time ago. Its time we let them take care of their business.

Ive put on the militant hat for a long time, meaning Ive understood their perspective for a long time. Youre trying to get me to say they are justified in their actions without acknowledging why they are committing said actions.

The point is that we have created most if not all of the reasons why they attack us, and we collectively as a nation are idiots to it.

Little children arent necessarily being blown up in Saudi Arabia as we speak, but have you not thought about everything Ive said? This isnt about an isolated incident that occured a year ago, its about 60+ years across multiple countries. It all adds up, and Arabs are the type to forget things very easily. Its an accumulation over a large area over a long period of time.

Britain was greedy. Plain and simple, and the US CIA went along for the ride.

What would it look like today if we werent in there? I dont know Deez, but neither does anyone else because weve screwed around so much I think its impossible to tell. Those dictators you talk about we funded! This little tidbit also seems to escape realization on a consistent basis, no matter how many times it is discussed. Sheesh.

 

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That depends on what you mean by the word "this".

 

Pretty decent thread. I tend to lean more with Deez. I alos think Slugga makes some good points but I disagree with his final analysis.

It seems the general theme from Slugga and 2003 is that ME terrorists target the US due to the fact that the US has meddled in ME affairs for decades. I say the answer to this is yes and no, but it is not nearly as black and white as some would have us believe.

First, over the years the US has made foreign policy decisions in the ME baed on the long term interests of the US. That is what foreign policy is supposed to do. There is no question that the US been in bed with some pretty bad men and regimes. The US did it because it was believed to be in our best interest. Certainly, in hindsight some decisions were worse than others. But, especially in talking about the last 50-60 years, the issue has not solely been oil. There was a ton of policy crafted in the ME during the Cold War and our issues with the Soviets. I don't think even the most critical attacjers of US ME foreign policy would argue that if the US has remained completely removed from all things ME and all things international that the Soviet Union would have eventually succeded in invading and occupying the ME and gaining an almost insurmountable upper hand in dealing with the US.

From a broad prospective, the ME is like a lot of places in that they only consider meddling to be bad if they think it is not in their personal best interest. The ME was perfectly happy to let the US "meddle" with the Afghans when they were fighting the Soviets. The rest of the ME absolutely knew they were in big, big trouble if there wasn't anyone to stop the Soviets from running over them. Certainly OBL didnt mind the meddling.

Of course, there is other meddling that they didnt like because it kept certain regimes in power and kept others out. But, again, you can't really be happy to have meddling when you want it and then cry foul when you don't.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the ME, as a group, were perfectly happy to have the US "meddle" in their affairs. There was no cry from the masses that the US should get out. They knew, just like they knew about the Soviets, that if Saddam got Kuwait and increased his power and might that Iran or Saudi or all the rest were next on his list. They were happy that the US led forces forced Saddam back.

But, as usual with the ME, when the threat of Iraq was quelled, they wanted the US to go home and not "meddle" anymore. It doesnt work like that. The US wanted pay back. That is netiher right or wrong, it just is.

So, OBL and by extension AQ, were happy to receive our help when it served their interests, but unhappy when it didnt. Post say 1988-99 what "meddling" did the US do in the ME that would have provoked AQ? No one can know for sure, but my strong feeling is that it all came down to Israel.

I absolutely do not want a thread on Israel. Talk about a complex issue. But, if US support of Israel is justification for terror against the US then we just better be ready because the US will never fail to support Israel.

Reagrding terrorism, I am of the opinion that ME terrorism really has nothing to do with making any kind of political statement. I think people like OBL enjoyed being fighters and leading the type of lives they led. They are able to recruit other folks that like the lifestyle. The US is always an easy target. We f**k up a lot, we live well and we won wars. OBL used the US as an easy target to continue to raise money and recruit people so that he could continue his lifestyle. No doubt there were some involved that believed they were in it for a higher cause, but those folks are easy to find and easily manipulated- especially by religion. There has been so much more blood shed by Arab vs Arab violence than anything the US has done. Yet if you believe certain people, if an Arab kills a young boys father he is going to accept it and move on but if an American is responsible for his fathers death, then he is going to turn into a martyr and swear jihad on America.

Its just dumb. terrorsists enjoy being terrorists and they absolutely need a bogeyman to keep their operations going or their own people will eventually snuff them out. We could remove all of military from the ME tomorrow and withold all funding to the ME tomorrow but if we did all that and contiued to support Israel, the attacks would continue. And, again, we are never going to stop supporting Israel. So if meddling now is in the US best interest, we should probably keep right on meddling. The terror attacks arent going to stop until we bail on Israel.

Slugga brought up Nicaragua and it is similat situation. The US supported the Somozas for a long time and the Somozas were not good people. We mad a deal with the devil we knew vs the one we didnt. Arguments that it was wrong to do that are perfectly acceptable. Again, those decisions are complex and sometimes they dont work out as planned. One note (and Slugga I dont think you were making this argument) it was a touch ironic that the Sandinistas went to the International Comunity to complain about US aid to the Contras when the revolution that provided the Sandinistas their power was largely funded by Cuba/USSR. Again, it is all about self interest.

Bringing it back to the OP, it is incredibly ironic and hypocritical for a terrorist organization to condemn any type of action/retrobution as "inhumane".

 

Bronco,

I appreciate your contribution to this thread, but I could not disagree more.

Granted, it is never completely black and white, but if you listen to US spokesmen and the US media at large, it is very black and white: They hate us for our freedoms and nothing else and that the US stands for freedom and democracy for all people. Gag. Its just not true.

You assert that terrorists like being terrorists and enjoy leading that lifestyle, if I may presume here, for shits and giggles. I think that is a gigantic leap, but you are entitled to your opinion. I just find it extremely silly.

You also acknowledge that the US has ****** up alot. I would agree. Whole heartedly.

You also say you dont want this to be about Israel, and then promptly say that terrorism isnt likely to end as long as we support Israel and that our support of Israel is never going to stop. I already have stated that the US needs to stop supporting not only Israel, but all of the countries in the Middle East. It has to be a packaged deal.

Arabs thought that the US might actually have noble reasons for attacking Saddam in 91, but those hopes were quickly dashed when the US not only did not remove Saddam, but then promptly sanctioned the hell out of Iraq after bombing the **** out if it, while Saddam continued to enjoy being in power.

You are correct that Arab on Arab violence is going to exist, but that is their issue, their problem. We do not need to be a part of it.

The US has completely meddled in ME affairs due to national interests, but that has caused the problems we see today, over a long period of time. The problem is that we dont try to correct the problem. We continue to proliferate it and sweep it under the rug.

Slugga does a great job of citing his answers much more than I do. My knowledge comes almost completely from original sources so I dont have a damn thing to cite.

 

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2003- I think the things we disagree on are hard to prove one way or the other. The answers are subjective. I think in any analysis it is important to look at the issues from each sides perspective.

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Slugga,

I'm not going to engage in a pissing match with you. You're not willing to answer my specific concerns, so this is a waste of time.

 

Your question had nothing to do with the thread topic. Like I said, I'm perfectly willing to discuss those specific examples (Germany/Japan), but in a relevant thread or via PM.

 

Yes, the old "let's preserve the sanctity of the thread topic" maneuver. As though this sort of topic shift doesn't occur on about 85% of all lengthy threads.

 

Slugga,

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Bronco,

No matter much you want to massage the "meddling was welcome and the ordinary citizen was a doofus who was told the US was bad because the dictator wanted to stay in power theory", the fact remains that the United States tacitly has been supporting these pieces of filth for 60 years, to the detriment of the people of the Middle East, and the people there were not as ignorant as you think.

In the end, it doesnt matter. We as a nation, with our tax dollars, have been supporting and supplimenting the evil governments in the Middle East for a long time, and the fact is that most, I wont say all, but most of the hatred toward us is a direct result of our actions.

Of course these dictators and kings have had their own agendas, and of course it was in their best interest to deflect all blame on the US in order to protect their image. But that doesnt mean that we werent accomplices to their thuggery....

However, our "leaders", elected representatives who dont really represent us, dont ever want to fully acknowledge this.

 

2003,
You seem to deliberately distort what I post, and I have no idea why you do it.
I never said all the medling was welcome, I said some was and some wasnt.
I never said the US govt wasn't complicit in propping up dictators. In fact, I said they were, but I said we did it to support the best interests of the US at the time.
I never said the meddling isnt used against us in propaganda byt eh powers in the ME.
I am saying that your contention that the meddling is the sole or dominant reason for terror attacks is false. I say that the meddling is just a convenient excuse.
I do not thgink the citizens of the ME are "doofuses" at all. I think they are ignorant of the truth. Just how much truth do you think the average ME citizen was getting in the 70s and 80s? How exactly do you think they would get it? They had no media access to the west. Their schools were closely controlled by the govt. Their religious leaders were complicit in the govt message (often being one and the same). They did not enjoy free travel among nations. How could they possibly know the truth? Especially on a wide scale.

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Couple of things…I think Bronco makes a good point; that is, whatever the Arab “street” thought of us, especially years ago, could only have been formed from information they received from two suspect sources: state controlled press and/or state approved religious leaders.

Another point to consider concerns the 1958 Special National Intelligence Estimate, document 40, and subsequent reports cited in this thread which purport to portray Arab sentiment. Our intelligence agencies don’t exactly have a stellar record when evaluating and analyzing internal affairs and events of foreign countries.