Reasons for 9/11 (real one)

Joby · 06-15-07, 05:44 PM

Please explain your choice.

Vader · 06-15-07, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joby

Please explain your choice.

Where is the poll?

Cephus · 06-15-07, 07:51 PM

Real simple, we meddle in their affairs, we back their enemies, we work against their best interests, we leave them no military, political or economic alternatives, they're going to strike back the only way they have left.

We keep it up and we're going to get hit again. We need to learn our lessons. We haven't.

mikhail · 06-15-07, 08:24 PM

Religious fundamentalism mixed with a little who should we point the jihad at America there the obvous target the same way when there is a school shooting they usually go for the most popular kid in school.

America is easy to put in the big bad empire slot the only problem is that if you compare it to empires. It is the most benevolent in the history of mankind.

basically its bull**** the usa isnt causing misery in Iran or saudi arabia they are doing it to themselves they where never enlightened thats the problem thats were there problems stem from they use every benefit the west has are technology are inventions the kind of things that what could never be developed in a dogmatic country.

My point to them is if you hate the west so much why do you love are things that would strike me as someone who is jealous not someone better.

The sad fact about people like the taliban is they use western developed technology but they dont know how to fix them if they break because their ideology has made them stupid.

aquapub · 06-15-07, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cephus

Real simple, we meddle in their affairs, we back their enemies, we work against their best interests, we leave them no military, political or economic alternatives, they're going to strike back the only way they have left.

We keep it up and we're going to get hit again. We need to learn our lessons. We haven't.

Newsflash: We're going to be targeted regardless of whether or not we "learn our lesson," which is a thinly veiled way of saying, "blame the U.S. for the decisions of butchers and make ourselves the only country on the planet that doesn't pursue it's own national interests."

The "Religion of Peace" has been entrenched in self-initiated bloodshed in every corner of the world since not long after it's bloody inception, and today's savages require no more provocation than yesterdays.

We are the country that follows bombings of the Taliban with air drops of food and supplies for innocent civilians. They choose to mass murder innocents for political gain. The two are not moral equals to be judged in a vacuum.

Democrats already proved that what you mean by "learning our lesson" will only make things worse. They retreated from Islamic terrorists in Somalia and it led to nearly a decade of Al Queda attacks, which they further demonstrated that they "learned their lesson" by doing nothing about.

And the people we're talking about aren't naive boobs. They realize that every country's alliances change with their national interests. They're not sitting there aghast that we stopped supporting the Mujahadeen after the Soviets were defeated.

Also, it is total bull**** to say we deprive them of diplomatic, economic, or political ways of dealing with things-as if mass murdering civilians could ever be justified by a group "feeling powerless" in the first place. We reward countries that do the right thing and punish those who commit atrocities and provoke bloodshed, hence the difference in our treatment of North Korea and Libya.

These points you have made are a bunch of disgustingly intellectually dishonest excuses for the sickest animals alive. These are all the same excuses Hitler used. I suppose what he did was acceptable too then.

Sergeant Stinger1 · 06-15-07, 09:57 PM

The terrorist have been wanting to hit us here for a long time but they were smart enough to wait for a WEAK Pres to get in and then they hit us.
So, my real reason would have to be 'Bush" was in office.

aquapub · 06-15-07, 09:58 PM

The reasons:

-our presence in Saudi Arabia

-to a much lesser degree, our support for Israel

-our freedom, which they see as our moral depravity, which threatens their world

-they wanted Jihad

-they belong to a savage religion

Trajan Octavian Titus · 06-15-07, 11:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joby

Please explain your choice.

The first two because of A) Sayyid Qutb's interpretation of jahilliya, and B) pan-Islamism.

Trajan Octavian Titus · 06-16-07, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cephus

Real simple, we meddle in their affairs, we back their enemies, we work against their best interests, we leave them no military, political or economic alternatives, they're going to strike back the only way they have left.

We keep it up and we're going to get hit again. We need to learn our lessons. We haven't.

lol we back the Arabs and Muslims far more often than not, so please stop with the blame the victim bull****:

Quote:

THE BLAME GAME

FOR YEARS NOW, anti-Americanism has served as a means of last resort by which failed political systems and movements in the Middle East try to improve their standing. The United States is blamed for much that is bad in the Arab world, and it is used as an excuse for political and social oppression and economic stagnation. By assigning responsibility for their own shortcomings to Washington, Arab leaders distract their subjects' attention from the internal weaknesses that are their real problems. And thus rather than pushing for greater privatization, equality for women, democracy, civil society, freedom of speech, due process of law, or other similar developments sorely needed in the Arab world, the public focuses instead on hating the United States.

What makes this strategy remarkable, however, is the reality of past U.S. policy toward the region. Obviously, the United States, like all countries, has tried to pursue a foreign policy that accords with its own interests. But the fact remains that these interests have generally coincided with those of Arab leaders and peoples. For example, the United States may have had its own reasons for saving Kuwait from annexation by Iraq's secular dictatorship in 1991-mainly to preserve cheap oil. But U.S. policy was still, in effect, pro-Kuwaiti, pro-Muslim, and pro-Arab. After all, Washington could have used the war as a pretext to seize Kuwait's oil fields for itself or demand lower prices or political concessions in exchange for fighting off Iraq. Instead, U.S. leaders did none of these things and sought the widest possible support for their actions among Arabs and Muslims.

When the United States has involved itself in conflicts in the region, furthermore, it has usually been during fights pitting moderates against either secular Arab forces or radical Islamist groups that even most Muslims consider deviant, if not heretical. And in such conflicts, the United States has generally backed parties with a strong claim to Arab or Islamic legitimacy. This trend can be traced back to the 1950s, when Egypt, Syria, and later Iraq became dictatorships friendly to Moscow and menaced Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. Even then, the United States, hoping to demonstrate its sympathy for Arab nationalism, sought good relations with Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and prevented his overthrow by the United Kingdom, France, and Israel in the 1956 Suez war.

Washington maintained its pro-Arab policy throughout the Cold War, worried that if it antagonized Arab regimes they would side with the Soviet Union. For this reason, the United States wooed Egypt, accepted Syria's hegemony over Lebanon, and did little to punish states that sponsored terrorism. The United States also became Islam's political patron in the region, since traditionalist Islam, then threatened by radical Arab nationalism, was seen as a bulwark against avowedly secular communism.

Nonetheless, during the Cold War it became popular to portray U .S. policy as anti-Arab-despite the evidence to the contrary. Such rhetoric became a convenient way for radical regimes to establish their own legitimacy and to brand their moderate opponents as Western puppets. Radical Arab regimes (whether nationalist or Islamist) also accused U.S.-backed moderate governments of being antidemocratic or of ignoring human rights, even though the radical regimes-such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, and revolutionary Iran-had far worse records themselves.

Indeed, internal conflicts in the Arab world have posed impossible dilemmas for U.S. policymakers. When the United States helps friendly governments such as Egypt's or Saudi Arabia's, it is accused of sabotaging revolutionary movements against them. As soon as Washington starts to pressure Arab governments into improving their positions on democracy or human rights, however, it is accused of acting in an imperialist manner-as happened this summer, when the White House threatened to block any increase in aid to Cairo after Egypt jailed Sa ad Eddin Ibrahim, a prominent human rights advocate. If Washington did nothing and friendly regimes were overthrown, the radical conquerors would be unlikely to show any gratitude for U.S. neutrality.

All the same, when conflicts in the region did erupt during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s pitting Islamists against more moderate governments, the United States avoided taking sides. During Iran's 1979 revolution, for example, although Washington clearly wanted the shah to survive, it nonetheless restrained him from taking tougher actions to save his throne. And once the revolution had succeeded, President Jimmy Carter then sought to conciliate the new Islamist government. (It was American contact with moderates in the new regime, in fact, that provoked the seizure of the U. S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979.) Although the United States did not want Iran to spread its radical Islamism throughout the Muslim world, it nonetheless sought the best possible relations with Tehran in order to minimize its cooperation with Moscow. And even though relations subsequently soured, Washington has never seriously tried to overthrow the Islamic government; on the contrary, it has periodically sought detente with Tehran.

In fact, the only time the United States has ever become directly involved in a dispute between a government and Islamist revolutionaries was in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation-and in that case, Washington backed the rebels.

A brief survey of U.S. policy toward the Middle East, furthermore, reveals just how hard Washington has tried to win the support of Arabs in particular and Muslims in general. Consider the following:

In 1973, the United States rescued Egypt at the end of the Arab-Israeli War by forcing a cease-fire on Israel. Washington then became Cairo's patron in the 1980s, providing it with massive arms supplies and aid while asking for little in return.

The United States also saved Yasir Arafat from Israel in Beirut in 1982, when Washington arranged safe passage for the Palestinian leader and pressed Tunisia to give him sanctuary. Washington's support for Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization overlooked a history of Palestinian terrorism and anti-Americanism as well as the PLO'S alignment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In the 1990s, moreover, despite the Palestinians' backing of Iraq during the Gulf War, the United States became the Palestinians' sponsor in the peace process with Israel, pushing for an agreement that would create a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem.

Over the years, the United States has also spent blood and treasure saving Muslims in Afghanistan from the Soviets; in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq; and in Bosnia and Kosovo from Yugoslavia. It has supported Muslim Pakistan against India and Muslim Turkey against Greece. Washington has courted Damascus, even tacitly accepting Syria's control over Lebanon. The United States supported Arab Iraq against Persian Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and also refrained from overthrowing Saddam Hussein after pushing him out of Kuwait in 1991.

For decades, the United States kept its forces out of the Persian Gulf to avoid offending Arabs and Muslims there. They entered, in fact, only when invited in to protect Arab oil tankers against Iran and to save Kuwait from Iraq. In Somalia, where no vital U .S. interests were at stake, the United States engaged in a humanitarian effort to help a Muslim people suffering from anarchy and murderous warlords.

The United States showed moderation when U.S. oil companies' holdings were nationalized by Saudi Arabia, Libya, and other countries, and prices rose steeply after 1973; Washington did not try to overthrow the offending regimes or force them to lower prices. Nor did it take advantage of the Soviet Union's demise to dominate the Levant or take revenge against former Soviet allies there. Similarly, it did not use its overwhelming military strength to dominate the Persian Gulf region after 1990 or to force any local regime to change its policies. And when al Qaeda blew up two U.S. embassies in eastern Africa in 1998, causing an immense loss of life, Washington responded with only very limited retaliation. Finally, since September 11, American leaders have taken pains to remind the world (and the American public) that Islam and Arabs are not U.S. enemies.

The overall tally, in fact, is staggering: during the last half-century, in 11 of 12 major conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims, Muslims and secular forces, or Arabs and non-Arabs, the United States has sided with the former group.* U.S. backing for Israel has been the sole significant exception to this rule. Yet what credit has Washington received for its aid? Arab anti-American radicals have distorted the record, ignoring all the positive examples and focusing only on U.S. support for Israel. Even Arab moderates, direct beneficiaries of U .S. aid, virtually never express gratitude for benign American measures-or even mention them at all.

http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.co...mericanism.htm

aquapub · 06-16-07, 07:35 AM

Great article. Great counterpoint.