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Originally Posted by Bit
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Actually, we did not bomb Iran. Iraq and Iran went to war on their own. Now, as it turned out, both the United States and the Soviet Union had reasons of their own to provide material and 'technical assistance' (read satellite intelligence) to the belligerents but outside of an aborted attempt to rescue hostages held in our own embassy (which is, after all, considered part of your own nation) we did not, in the period we're discussing, attack Iran or bomb them back to the stone age.
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Nobody bombed us for Guantanamo Bay, where we routinely tortured people without allowing them a fair trial.
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I think this might need to be amended that no one, so far, has *succeeded* in doing so.
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Our being an ally of Israel is not the root cause of Arab hatred for us; our being an out-and-out warmongering enemy of Arab countries IS. Being an ally of Israel is only a last straw, not a primary cause.
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I would add that our being allied to any number of Arab dictatorships is a very important cause. What's interesting here is that this is an area of foreign policy we are utterly inept at. We prop up dictatorships in places like Egypt, talk about democracy in the region but help keep anti-democrats in power, and then are surprised when people call us hypocrites. What's worse is that these self-same dictatorships then use the existence of Israel and the plight of the Palestinians to inflame anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments as a means of distracting their populations from the fact that their *real* and most proximate problem isn't America or Israel but their own corrupt governments! I mean this is obvious stuff that the American foreign policy elite either doesn't understand or think we're too stupid to understand.
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Honesty and reparations might work. We don't know, since we're so arrogant we've never tried that approach... but then, bullies don't.
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Here I have to disagree. It would not change the mind of Al Qaeda nor would it change the mind of Hamas. In fact, it might actually *encourage* them. "Pay us or lose Kansas City". I'm not saying you don't negotiate with your opponents. If they are open to negotiation do so. But Al Qaeda has made it *abundantly* clear, in their own words, that they aren't interested in negotiation. Hamas has made it clear that they are not particularly interested in negotiations. (Well, at least the old Hamas did the new Hamas that has to actually *govern* seems a bit more pragmatic, funny that.)
But tell me, how many times do we pay reparations under threat of attack? At what point do we *stop* paying reparations? I'm not saying we shouldn't (although I think it sets a very bad precedent) but I'm saying that it's not quite as simple a solution as it sounds on paper. So we pay reparations to, say, Hamas. So then Al Qaeda threatens us so we pay *them* reparations. So then Hezbollah threatens us and we pay *them* reparations. At what point are we not paying reparations and are paying protection money?
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[FONT=Verdana][SIZE=3][COLOR=Teal]I think it doesn't even have much to deal with our libertine culture... I think it has only to do with our complete untrustworthiness, our willingness to bring war to people who have not brought it to us. We are sooo quick to say "they started it!" like six year olds brawling over a bike, but the truth is WE started it, every time.
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I think that if you read Sayeed Qutb or even Osama Bin Laden you'll find that our libertine culture DOES bother them. The threat is not that we have it here but that people in the Muslim world may want it *there* because we do make it look very, very nice (which in some ways it is) and seductive.
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[FONT=Verdana][SIZE=3][COLOR=Teal]We don't know this, Words. We honestly do NOT know with a guarantee that Western countries will forever continue their insane insistence on running the Middle East, and interfering with legitimate governments there.
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Like the legitimate government of Egypt? (Which, before you blame the United States for that situation recall that Egypt was originally a Soviet client state and then they switched sides.) Like the legitimate government of Saudi Arabia? We also need to recognize that we DO have interests in the area. We actually have a very vested interest in Pakistan remaining stable and I'll explain why.
Pakistan has the Bomb and so does India. Pakistan and India have fought three different wars in the 50-odd years those two nations have existed after British rule collapsed. If Pakistan were to fall into the hands of the Taliban, then India WILL nuke them. They would be insane *not* to do so. This is not like the United States having nukes and Canada having nukes or France having nukes and Britain having nukes. In the latter cases, these are nations that have not had recent hostilities and have no serious territorial disputes. India and Pakistan have *very recent* hostilities and an active territorial dispute that both sides take very, very seriously. So our choice is this: pull out of Afghanistan and Pakistan and then wait for the mushroom clouds to form over Islamabad OR stay on the ground and do what we can. As long as India has the Bomb Pakistan isn't giving theirs up and vice versa. Given the enmity between the two nations, one can hardly blame them.
So given the above what would you have the U.S. do? And if you were India, and a fanatical group took over the nation next door, that you've fought three wars with in 50 years, and that group had access to nuclear weapons what would your response be. Not you, Bit, the beautiful, kind and non-violent person but you the leader of a billion Indian national who are looking to you and your cabinet to take care of the national self-interest?
I know you don't like thinking like this. *I* don't like thinking like this! But to see the problem clearly we sometimes have to think like this.
Cheers
Aj