[twoodfin]

His argument is that radical Islamists hate us for what we do, not who we are. But we do what we do because of who we are. That's nearly a tautology in a democracy. We support Israel because its people largely share our values. We threw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and maintained a presence in Saudi Arabia because we support and defend the sovereignty of our allies, particularly when those allies supply vital resources. We continued to prop up Mubarak because we thought he was better than the alternative, etc.

All of these are policies reached through a free, democratic process, which has not been a hallmark of those societies which have welcomed Al Qaeda into their midst.

Also, have you heard of Sayyid Qutb? Just curious.

[mpyne]

Also remember when all the fatwas were proclaimed for a Danish newspapers publication of a cartoon featuring the Prophet Muhammad? That's not even considering the issue of extremist religion and Sharia law, as led to the shooting and near-murder of Malala Yousafzai.

Islamist culture is not entirely compatible with Western democracy, just as far-right fundamentalist Christian extremism is not entirely compatible with Western democracy (e.g. the 1996 Olympic Park bombing).

[jckt]

Why do you say Islamist and not radical Islamist, while you say Christian extremism and not just Christian?

[mpyne]

I'm using Islamist as the term was first defined, which means exactly "Islamic terrorism". As far as I know there's never been a popularly-agreed-on meaning of "Islamist" other than that, if you're referring to the peaceful followers of Allah the term is Muslim, or perhaps Islamic, but never Islamist.

Christian on the other hand is already overloaded with many meanings and I don't feel like inventing new words when I can simply add adjectives as appropriate.

Pray tell, is my explanation sufficient?

[tome]

"Islamism" certainly does not mean "Islamic terrorism". It means a belief that Islam should be a force in the public sphere, not just a private religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism

[gngeal]

Which is precisely the thing that is incompatible with Western democracy. Of would you like to amend the First Amendment?

[tome]

It's absolutely incompatible with democracy, and more importantly in my opinion, with liberalism.

[jckt]

Sorry, I didn't realise that such a term was even widely used. Accepted!

[mpyne]

Well, it's certainly a pity that Islamic terrorism is a big enough threat that they had to invent a Huffman-coded word for it. Though perhaps we can treat it as a relief that Christian terrorism is no longer so prevalent that we had to make a shorter term for it after we invented 'terrorist'.

Though I hear 'Crusader' is a close equivalent among many Muslims, for obvious reasons. I don't think Americans or most West. Europeans would understand that as a negative connotation though.

[ucee054]

But we do what we do because of who we are

So you are telling me that the "decadence" of modern Western society simply FORCED the USA to support the Shah, Mubarak, Ben Ali, the dictators of Bahrain etc etc etc down through history?

Like the Western world couldn't possibly have beer and miniskirts without installing dictators in or invading other countries?

Also, have you heard of crude oil? Just curious.

[twoodfin]

If you think OBL would have been thrilled with a peaceful, democratic, Islamic world with all the freedoms and associated "decadence" we see in the West, just so long as the U.S. had never interfered there, I don't think you are seeing the whole picture.

Obviously the U.S. record in the Middle East is not spotless. But it's not as if we haven't been a force for good there on more than one occasion. The Suez Crisis comes to mind immediately, as does Desert Shield/Storm. Our record there isn't better or worse than our record in, say, Central and South America, yet for some reason, Nicaraguans and Chileans aren't blowing themselves up in Times Square.

[tome]

Right, nor are the Vietnamese, nor are the Indians blowing themselves up in London, nor are the Gabonese blowing themselves up in Paris.

[ucee054]

Are you telling me NO Vietcong ever launched a kamikaze attack? Maybe you should try asking the French what happened to their tank crews in Vietnam

[tome]

No, I'm saying that historical misadventures don't always have to lead to suicide attacks.

[ucee054]

In the Monkey King Legend the heroes are warned not to overwhelm the monster by a reference to the Art of War by Sun Zi.

If I remember correctly, the translation is "even a rat will fight if cornered", though today we might mutter something about "asymmetric warfare" in response to "full spectrum dominance".

Sun Zi wrote in about 500BC. So it's not like you were warned yesterday. You've had 2500 years of warning.

Expect kamikaze attacks. They happen. Especially from people who feel they have nothing to lose, and feel under attack from very, very strong opponents.

[ucee054]

This has actually been studied:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Log...

http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Win-Strategic-Suicide-Terrorism/...

TL;DR People do not run kamikaze attacks against other people for being less religiously conservative than they are, they run kamikaze attacks against occupiers.

[twoodfin]

Pray tell, which Islamic nations was the U.S. "occupying" on 9/11? We're getting way off topic, re: decadence and "hating freedom", but let me try to bring it back. Why blow up the World Trade Center? Surely that was a symbolic act, against a quintessentially civilian target.

[ucee054]

As I've stated elsewhere, and as you can find by googling what jihadis actually say about their motives, the motive for 911 included the occupation of Palestine and US enabling of it.

And if they wanted to make a symbolic attack, they would have hit the Statue of Liberty, not financial and military targets like the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Furthermore it is you who are taking things off-topic.

The topic was jlgreco commenting about the Granai massacre, and how resistance in Afghanistan is because (sarcastically) "they hate us for our freedoms"

You tried to make it out that "Western Decadence" in fact was the reason, which is plain WRONG and contradicted by authorities which I have cited and provided references for.

You have repeatedly attempted to derail the point by going off on a tangent about Osama Ben Laden's psychology, or why Nicaraguans haven't reacted the same way, despite all of my efforts to stick to the topic. The 911 example is a similar red herring, because NO Afghans, Taleban or otherwise, were involved in that attack.

Just admit that you are wrong, will you?

[tome]

> As I've stated elsewhere, and as you can find by googling what jihadis actually say about their motives, the motive for 911 included the occupation of Palestine and US enabling of it.

It doesn't matter what they say. It matters what's true, and it matters what's right.

It's as though you defend a child's tantrum because the child explained "my mummy didn't buy me any sweeties".