It's my experience that when people kick off a post like this, it usually indicates someone with an axe to grind or whose mind is made up already.
Oh make no mistake. My mind is absolutely made up about this enemy. I know who it is and I know that the vast majority of my enemy merely act as comfort for those who pick up the vests and AKs. I know this, because I make it a point to understand the world I've deployed into since 1993.
Oooh so close. There are a lot of pissed off people all over the world and a lot of them are pissed at us. I daresay the Chinese dont care for us much more than most Muslim extremists and there are A LOT more of them with A LOT better arms.
And are we at war with China? Are we at war with the pissed off world? Any non-Muslim nations breeding non-Muslim enemies? There's some people in France that hate us too. Are they our enemy? This politically correct weakness that people are parading about is pathetic. You get no where by refusing the identity of your enemy simply because you don't want to be a "racist" or a religion basher (Clinton politics at its best).
This raises two questions for me.
One, why isnt any of this rhetoric aimed at places like China where the same sort of mentality is cultivated and where there is an actual army, nuclear arms, political and economic influence, and a MUCH bigger population?
Two, where was all this on 9/10? You cant say we were never attacked by Muslim extremists before because we were on a number of occasions yet this kind of rhetoric never sprung up until now, why is that?
1) We are not at war with China! We are prepared as any good military should be, but our enemies are not Chinese! What is it with you people and the great bogeyman? The Defense Industry has sold billions of dollars worth of programs to idiot politicians ever since the Berlin Wall came down over the prospect of a war with China. They even convinced themselves that we should prepare for wars that we want to fight instead of wars that we are going to fight (in 2003 civilians freaked out over the lack of body armor, but had no sense of criticisms towards the gross spending towards F/A-22s to fight China with.) This is a nation that needs us as much as we need them. Besides that, a war with China would be won because they are landlocked and it would not be what people imagine.
2) Because until you civilians were attacked on 9/11, none of you gave a damn about the military personel dying in embassies, ships, and barracks. Clinton's policy on intel reports was that no religion was to be "bashed" and therefore reports from the Pentagon and the CIA were watered. Furthermore, you would have heard much more on Bin Laden when Clinton was trying to convince Americans that he is one of our number 1 threats had you all not been more concerned over a cum stained blue dress. he even told Bush that he was sorry he has to pass off these two threats..."Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein." But the kicker here is that you would have been aware of this had you gotten off your ass and stopped looking for politicians and reporters to tell you about the world you live in. Even today you wait for television to enlighten you don't you?
There actually aren't. Even if there were a million armed and committed terrorists, that would only be 1% of the Muslim population of the world which is a damp squirt of a minority.
This is the whole damn point. People want to pretend that there aren't a lot if you consider the population of Muslims around the globe, but just 1 damn percent is a million. You fear a war with a million man Chinese Army, but not a war with a million terrorists in plain clothes who's only goal is the struggle to please God?
The argued number among experts vary (nowhere near a million), but it only took 18 to kill 3,000 didn't? This is what happens when we underestimate this enemy and reduce them to nothing as compared to a fantasized Chinese threat. This is why morons were shocked and bewildered on 9/11 when our enemy sported turbans and a Quran, not chopsticks and Su-27s. Some people are still looking to dismiss the enemy upon us for the fantasized war with China aren't they?
Because 90-95% of the world's population of Muslims are Sunni.
Oh it's not that simple. The Sunni tribe is the region's problem. Even with Iran existing, it's the backward religiously oppressed nations of the Sunni Arabs that produce our enemy. Islam has developed into a religion that caters towards the Sunni Tribe and not towards God over the centuries. Wahhabism is a Sunni creation. Even Khomeini, who blessed suicide bombings as divine and as a tribute to God, has been surpassed by the Sunni tribe, which has inherited the idea of the divinity of the suicide vest.
Strength of faith can overcome any societal or mental barrier, this is not unique to Islam by ANY stretch of the imagination.
Well of course they don't corner the market. Who said they did? Again...politically correct nonesense. Islam is not unique in it's religious zealousy. But are we talking about the Crusades or are we talking about the present? Are we really trying to exonerate the Islamic tidal wave of international violence today because a Christian killed an abortion clinic doctor in his own country a few years back?
This is rediculous.
Indoctrination by over-zealous clerics and a culture of fear combined with desperate economic circumstances, constant war, a bleak future, and constant political infighting helps too.
Culture is fate. You have just summerized the disease behind the symptoms. And yes.... 9/11, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Bashir, countless youth looking to kill themselves for reward, Hezbollah, Qutb, Muslim Brotherhood, etc. are all symtpoms.
I dont know that this is the case.
Well of course it's the case. Where have you been? And guess what? All Sunni or Sunni loyalists. In Somalia they rolled with the war lords and killed Muslims. In Sudan, they assisted Bashirs men in the slaughter of non-Arab Muslims and Christians. In Iraq, they were the driving force of the Sunni insurgency that targetted Shia Muslims (between
30% and 40% of all suicide bombings in the early years of Iraq were claimed by Zarqawi.) They have targetted Muslims in the Phillipines over U.S. Marines because they are easier targets. In Afghanistan they target Muslim schools where women are teachers and Muslim villages that have proven to lean towards a non-Tali-Ban prescription.
But these are the types of guys that are fighting in the defense of Islam and their homelands, right? That's what they declare anyway. Strange how the vast majority of apathetic Muslims look away as these guys shout the loudest and claim to speak for their religion. It's not us that labels them "Islamic" terrorists. They do this themselves.
Study harder.
The atmosphere of the Middle East is not conducive to free speech or open expression. Especially in the tribal areas where family ties are a matter of life and death.
Study harder? You just haven't figured it out yet have you? I'm aware of this region. I've obsesssed over it for almost two decades. I've seen it over and over. I've also seen the apathy and the utter conflict of determining what a "good" Muslim is from one country to the next. You make a Western mistake in assuming your outlook on life is the same as another region's. "Family ties," which is a kind way of stating "Tribal and Clan ties," is precisely why this region is absolutely screwed up and a mass producer of religious terror.
Furthermore, most people in the area frankly dont CARE; it's not their problem. They're busy dodging bombs and trying to feed their families. Geopolitics takes a backseat when the table is empty.
Of course many of them are merely nine-to-fivers. But you make the same Western mistake. Most people in this region very much care about these issues. They are religiously tied to them. They are tribally tied to them. They unite in their hatred over Israel. They are apathetic towards the slaughter of their own by their own, yet complain wildly when outsiders defend themselves against them. They are united to the same Middle Eastern Arab propaganda machine.
And this is their problem because this enemy comes fro throughout the region where their children attend school and graduate with absolutely no prospects or opportunity other than pleasing God. And who declares to please God with the greatest passion in Islam?
Frankly I think it's a little arrogant to expect people living in survival mode to drop what they're doing and massage your ideological ego.
Ego? Survival mode? I don't care if this entire region goes directly to hell in a ball of flames tomorrow. The problem for me is that their wrecked societies are effecting my countrymen and until they fix it they will be a threat upon them. The few that are in survival mode are so because of their apathy. You don't get to come along and pretend that they don't have a history of standing by and doing nothing and now are mindless innocent children who are incapable of taking responsibility for themselves and their culture.
Ideology has nothing to do with it. It's a fact that dictators and religious dogma in the Middle East no longer work to make them behave nicely. If they won't fix themsleves then they get help from those they threaten.
Actually those reports werent acted on because it was assumed that nothing would come out of it. And it's easy in hindsight to criticize for the information not being acted on but consider that for every Osama, there are probably five others with a group of followers and some weapons dreaming of nuking LA who are politically and militarily insignificant.
No...you have it wrong because you are guessing again. I know this because you are assuming with words like "probably" and "hindsight." [ame="http://www.amazon.com/America-Between-Wars-11/dp/1586484966"]America Between the Wars[/ame] is a book that details the events and foriegn policies between 11/9 and 9/11.
President Clinton knew very well about Bin Laden and his threat to Americans. But Democrats laughed at the improbability and Republicans had the nation concerned more about Monika Lewinski. He couldn't convince anybody in this country of this threat. But after 9/11 people demanded to know why we didn't know and later eased their own stupidity by announcing that "hindsight is twenty-twenty?!" Up until 1998, the Pentagon and the CIA were scrubbing intel reports because the White House was too politicially correct to read reports about a religion. Many reports were even sent back to the Pentagon by White House officials just to "lighten" up the wording. Do you really want to pass off that after the military was attacked over and over that people didn't know of this threat?
The "hindsight" argument merely eases the ignorance people celebrated before the fact.