[ucee054]

I answered this above.

Occupation is one reason the kamikaze may feel like a cornered rat. Indirect occupation is another.

This can be because the perpetrator (USA) is giving weapons to the actual occupier (Israel), because the perpetrator is implementing a sanctions/embargo regime amounting to a mediaeval siege that killed half a million, mostly children (Iraq) or because the perpetrator has installed a "government" in your country to do the occupation for it (Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Ethiopia etc etc etc Saudi Arabia).

If you google for the jihadis' motives, you'll find that they mention all three.

Given that the actual 911 attackers were Saudis, I would have thought that US sponsored tyranny in Saudi Arabia would have been their main motive, but it appears that they were significantly motivated by fellow-feeling for Palestinians.

[tome]

I know what excuses jihadis use for their terror. I just don't think any of them are reasonable, including the ones you listed above.

[ucee054]

It is not an excuse if the guy is ready to throw himself and an airplane into a building for it. That means the guy is pretty sincere. The word you are looking for is motive.

The fact that you do not find their motives "reasonable" intrigues me. Is it their methods you disagree with, or their grievances?

If you think their grievances are not legitimate, does it change when you substitute "gold rush" for "oil rush" and "red skin" for "rag head"?

(By the way I'm not thrilled about getting bombed. I almost lost a friend in Boston.)

[tome]

> It is not an excuse if the guy is ready to throw himself and an airplane into a building for it. That means the guy is pretty sincere. The word you are looking for is motive.

The human unconscious is a mysterious place.

> The fact that you do not find their motives "reasonable" intrigues me. Is it their methods you disagree with, or their grievances?

I disagree with deliberately targeting civilians. I also think the worldview of these perpetrators is rather distant from reality.

> If you think their grievances are not legitimate, does it change when you substitute "gold rush" for "oil rush" and "red skin" for "rag head"?

Huh?

[ucee054]

You find the jihadis "unreasonable".

Look, this is the list of things you could find "unreasonable":

(a) the jihadi position on God

(b) the jihadi position on US policy

(c) the jihadi method to affect change - violence

Lets deal with them one by one.

(a) is loony but pretty much irrelevant. You wouldn't feel any better if they converted to Shintoism and continued the jihad, would you?

(b) US policy is well studied so you can't really deny its lousiness. Example references:

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/...

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Systems-Conversations-Democratic...

http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/037...

http://goingtotehran.com/

(c) you can only condemn the violence if you would not do the same thing in their place.

To me, that means you should be able to sell them a peaceful method as being more effective than jihad. Well, we have a historical record.

The peaceful, liberal, pro-democratic reformers in the middle east seem to have gotten defeated and tortured by the CIA and their local satraps. Like what happened to my family.

On the other hand Jihad seems to be winning in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and so on.

http://zenhuber.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/preview-bin-laden-dea...

So you don't have a very strong case.

[tome]

I'm sorry to hear about your family. It wasn't my intention to make this debate personal. What were your family working towards?

[ucee054]

The relative I was thinking of was an activist for constitutional democracy and against absolute monarchy. Don't know what happened to him in prison; he doesn't talk about it.