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"Islamic Terrorism" - Dependent or Independent?

Is "Islamic Terrorism" Dependent on or Independent of U.S. Foreign Policy?

  • Dependent. Such terrorism would likely not exist if U.S. foreign policy were different.

    Votes: 19 51.4%

  • Independent. Islamic terrorism would exist at current levels regardless.

    Votes: 18 48.6%
  • Total voters
    37
Agnapostate

Agnapostate

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Would the phenomenon commonly referred to as "Islamic terrorism" continue to be directed against U.S. targets at existing levels regardless of U.S. political regimes' foreign policy and support of the Israeli government due to an inherent hatred of civil rights/liberties, religious pluralism and relative secularism, and political freedoms on the part of certain Muslims?

EDIT: I'm not necessarily asking what would happen if foreign policy approaches were changed now. Try to answer as though responding to the question of whether such terrorism would have been initiated in the first place if certain foreign policy had never existed in the first place.
 
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I think it's very dependent upon our history. The West at large has f'd with that region for decades. We made it our play thing, carved it up for what we wanted. During the Cold War, we used it as our faux war playground. Aggressive intervetionist policy has done quite the job at fostering negative, anti-American, anti-West attitude in the region. Would it be zero if we had acted better? I don't know, there's always pissed off people for one reason or another. But it couldn't be supported on such a large scale without our interventionist policies.

People who disagree basically are saying that actions have no consequence; which is of course absurd.
 
Well, let me put it this way...

When was the last time Islamic terrorists threatened to blow up anything in Switzerland? ;)

Of course a country's foreign policy matters greatly.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
It existed before the US was a nation.
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Oh yeah?
You'll have no problem citing many examples of it then.

And please do not cite wars against countries and/or the crusades.
 
Laila said:
Oh yeah?
You'll have no problem citing many examples of it then.

And please do not cite wars against countries and/or the crusades.
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Islamic terrorism is just the current for of Islamic Supremacist Imperialism so why shouldn't we bring up previous wars of aggression initiated by Islamic Imperialists? Anyway how about the Muslim pirate attacks against U.S. shipping off the African coast which led to the Barbary wars?

I think that Islamic terrorism has less to do with our foreign policy than it does with the foreign policy of the Islamists IE expansionism through offensive Jihad.
 
Laila said:
Oh yeah?
You'll have no problem citing many examples of it then.

And please do not cite wars against countries and/or the crusades.
Click to expand...

Is Islam a religion, a political ideology, or both? Does the Quran not impose an obligation on believers to pursue the expansion of Dar al Islam until there is no law on Earth other than Sharia? Can one be a faithful Muslim if he or she abjures this obligation?
 
Agent Ferris said:
I think that Islamic terrorism has less to do with our foreign policy than it does with the foreign policy of the Islamists IE expansionism through offensive Jihad.
Click to expand...

Only fools think the foreign policy of countries do not cause consequences and reactions and in many ways a backlash.

US and many countries in Europe, especially UK in particular has ****ed around with the Middle East as if it is its own little playground to muck around with.
 
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Agent Ferris said:
Then explain this:

In Neutral Switzerland, A Rising Radicalism - washingtonpost.com
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I didn't say there were no radicals in Switzerland. You'd be hard pressed to find one single Western country where there are no Islamic radicals. If you read the article the people that have been arrested so far were not plotting attacks against Swiss targets. They were going after Spain and Israel.

There's very little incentive for terrorists to strike Switzerland. It would be a senseless target. Attacking a country like Switzerland will have absolutely zero effect on their agenda. I'm not saying we're immune to a terrorist attack, no country is. But we're certainly a lot less of a target than the US, UK and other European countries.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
Is Islam a religion, a political ideology, or both? Does the Quran not impose an obligation on believers to pursue the expansion of Dar al Islam until there is no law on Earth other than Sharia? Can one be a faithful Muslim if he or she abjures this obligation?
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Yes you can be a faithful Muslim. I'm not about to start war with any country in the West because as a Muslim, i see myself as having no obligation to do this.
Is Muslims being killed en mass in UK? No.
Are we being forbidden to practice our faith? Suffering oppression? No and no.

Jihad is not compulsory.
 
The only way we can prevent any form of hostility towards the U.S. is if we were completely isolationist, which isn't going to happen.
 
Agent Ferris said:
Islamic terrorism is just the current for of Islamic Supremacist Imperialism so why shouldn't we bring up previous wars of aggression initiated by Islamic Imperialists? Anyway how about the Muslim pirate attacks against U.S. shipping off the African coast which led to the Barbary wars?

I think that Islamic terrorism has less to do with our foreign policy than it does with the foreign policy of the Islamists IE expansionism through offensive Jihad.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that the goal of some ragtag pirates on the Barbary Coast - which stole cargo from ships - was "expansionism through offensive jihad"?
 
Laila said:
Yes you can be a faithful Muslim. I'm not about to start war with any country in the West because as a Muslim, i see myself as having no obligation to do this.
Is Muslims being killed en mass in UK? No.
Are we being forbidden to practice our faith? Suffering oppression? No and no.

Jihad is not compulsory.
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I asked you three questions. You answered the third question. Thank you for the reply. With all due respect I ask that you answer the first two questions I posed for you. Thank you for your courtesy and cooperation.
 
The first take on it would be that;
If the US wouldn't be following its current foreign policy - it'd probably be following another.
An empire the size of the US cannot practically stay out of international affairs and become an isolationist, that's just not realistic.
And since the US would be involved in issues around the world, including Muslim countries, terrorists are still expected to attack America and American targets in what they'd describe as "The honorable resistance to the interventionist policy of the Great Devil's policy" -- which, in humanity's definition, would be "The murdering of innocent people based on their nationality in an inhuman act that could only be described as barbarism".

The second take on this would be that;
Terrorists, as individuals, are mostly irrational beings that are capable of the murdering of innocents based on their nationality merely in order to promote a political agenda.
Such beings certainly wouldn't need a big reason to attack American targets, it would indeed be enough that an individual associated with America would even say something that those spoken beings would perceive as "offensive to Islam" and a terrorist attack would be on its way, or at least an increase in tensions between groups in the Muslim world and America that, if increased with the time, would lead to the same result.

One should remember though, that the situation described in the second 'case' is really irrelevant, as once again, an empire such as the US cannot be an isolationist, that's just not possible.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
I asked you three questions. You answered the third question. Thank you for the reply. With all due respect I ask that you answer the first two questions I posed for you. Thank you for your courtesy and cooperation.
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To answer your first question; Islam is a political ideology drawn from a culture drawn from a religion.
 
It is very dependent on our foreign policy. We and other western nations have a long history of sticking our noses where they don't belong in the Middle East, propping up various pro-western regimes, etc. We need to leave those people alone and let them determine how they want to live their lives. If they want to be a bunch of primitive asshats, fine by me, it's their lives.

We have zero business whatsoever being involved with the Middle East, period.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
I asked you three questions. You answered the third question. Thank you for the reply. With all due respect I ask that you answer the first two questions I posed for you. Thank you for your courtesy and cooperation.
Click to expand...

It depends entirely on your scholar or Imam. I view Islam as a religion not a political ideology. If I was politically influenced by Islam, I would be a Conservative and a hardcore one at that.

Dar al Islam is used by Non Muslims as something negative who have no knowledge of the Qu'ran and I would bet have not even read it.

It is not even described in detail in our most fundemental writings. The Qu'ran or Hadiths.
It was made up and defined by some Muslim scholars.

But lets talk about dar al Islam according to the scholars views.
It is described by Imam Hanifas as a place where Muslims are safe. If it is not safe for Muslims it is called 'Dar al Harb' and for it to be called Dar al Islam. Muslims must be able to practice their religion freely in a Non Muslim country. The West being a perfect example. It has freedom of religion and therefore it is labelled as friendly to Muslims and Jihad is NOT permitted or sanctioned.

However if Muslims were oppressed by the West and prevented from practicing their faith. It would be called Dar al harb and yes, Jihad is 100% permittable under Islam and rightly so.

Answered?
 
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Agent Ferris said:
Islamic terrorism is just the current for of Islamic Supremacist Imperialism so why shouldn't we bring up previous wars of aggression initiated by Islamic Imperialists?
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Because doing so would invalidate their thesis that the United States is the Source of All Evil.

They don't it when people use facts against them.
 
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