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David Rohde's Insights Into What Motivates the Taliban
The New York Times' David Rohde writes about the seven months he was held hostage by a group of extremist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conveys this observation about what motivates them:
My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington's antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged.
Apparently, when we drop bombs on Muslim countries -- or when Israel attacks Palestinians -- that fuels anti-American hatred and militarism among Muslims. The same outcomes occur when we imprison Muslims without charges in places like Guantanamo and Bagram. Imagine that. Recall, according to Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, what prompted 9/11 "ringleader" Mohammed Atta to devote himself to a suicide mission, as recounted by Juan Cole during the Israel/Gaza war:
In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation--with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center. (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 307: "On April 11, 1996, when Atta was twenty-seven years old, he signed a standardized will he got from the al-Quds mosque. It was the day Israel attacked Lebanon in Operation grapes of Wrath. According to one of his friends, Atta was enraged, and by filling out his last testament during the attack he was offering his life in response").
On Tuesday, the Israeli military shelled a United Nations school to which terrified Gazans had fled for refuge, killing at least 42 persons and wounding 55, virtually all of them civilians, and many of them children. The Palestinian death toll rose to 660.
You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today.
One could -- and should -- ask that question every time the U.S. or Israel engages in another military strike that kills Muslim civilians, or for that matter, every day that goes by when we continue to wage war inside Muslim countries. Rohde adds this about what motivates these Taliban:
America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves.
One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world. We systematically torture Muslims and then cover it up and protect our torturers while preaching accountability and the rule of law; we condemn deprivations of due process while maintaining and expanding lawless prison systems for Muslims; we demand adherence to U.N. dictates and international law while blocking investigations into U.N. reports of war crimes and possible "crimes against humanity" by our allies; we righteously oppose aggression while invading and simultaneously occupying numerous countries, while threatening to attack still more, and arming countries like Israel to the teeth to wage still other attacks, etc. etc.
As a result of the media avoidance of such topics, many Americans don't ever think much about the huge gap between what we claim about ourselves and what we do. But much of the rest of the world -- certainly including the Muslim world -- sees that discrepancy quite clearly, often up-close. That's what accounts for the radically different, even irreconcilable, perceptions that Americans and so many people in the rest of the world have about who we are and what we do ("why do the hate us?"). Is it really surprising that young Taliban fighters, surrounded by a foreign occupying army and lawless prison system for the last eight years, are "fixated" on such things and are radicalized by it? Shouldn't that, by itself, make us think about not doing those things any longer, since they only exacerbate the problem we claim we are trying to solve?
Finally, Rohde describes his treatment at the hands of the Taliban during his seven months of captivity as follows:
They vowed to follow the tenets of Islam that mandate the good treatment of prisoners. In my case, they unquestionably did. They gave me bottled water, let me walk in a small yard each day and never beat me.
Rohde explains that the Taliban automatically believe that journalists -- especially American journalists -- are spies. Despite that belief, the Taliban never waterboarded him, never hung him naked in a cold room to induce hypothermia, never stuffed him in a coffin-like box as punishment, never deprived him of sleep to the point of severe disorientation, and instead adhered to their commitment regarding "the good treatment of prisoners." We might want to think about what that means about us. That many of the Taliban are inhumane, brutal and barbaric extremists only underscores that point further.
* * * * *
Two other item, one related and the other not:
(1) An Iranian dissident group staged two suicide bombing attacks today which killed some Revolutionary Guard commanders as well as "dozens of others." At least according to an ABC News report from 2007 (from the unreliable Brian Ross), the group which claimed responsibility for these attacks (and which has staged similar attacks in the past) -- Jundallah -- "has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005." If that's true, would that make the U.S. a so-called "state sponsor of terrorism"?
(2) Following up on the Goldman Sachs issues I wrote about on Friday, The New York Times' Frank Rich today has a scathing column condemning Goldman. Their behavior is becoming so transparent that it cannot help but enter mainstream discourse (that even prompted David Axelrod to condemn Goldman's bonuses and other practices as "offensive," while claiming the White House was powerless to stop it).
UPDATE: From Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe, October 9, 2009 (h/t CarolynC):
Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors, but a new generation of tribal fighters vying for control of territory, mineral wealth, and smuggling routes, according to summaries of new US intelligence reports.
Some of the major insurgent groups, including one responsible for a spate of recent American casualties, actually opposed the Taliban's harsh Islamic government in Afghanistan during the 1990s, according to the reports, described by US officials under the condition they not be identified.
"Ninety percent is a tribal, localized insurgency,'' said one US intelligence official in Washington who helped draft the assessments. "Ten percent are hardcore ideologues fighting for the Taliban.''
US commanders and politicians often loosely refer to the enemy as the Taliban or Al Qaeda, giving rise to the image of holy warriors seeking to spread a fundamentalist form of Islam. But the mostly ethnic Pashtun fighters are often deeply connected by family and social ties to the valleys and mountains where they are fighting, and they see themselves as opposing the United States because it is an occupying power, the officials and analysts said.
One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we've managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy -- and who fight against us because we're doing that -- and call them "Terrorists," thereby "justifying" continuing to bomb and occupy their country further ("We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay").
56 Comments so far
Show AllIsrael has leveraged historical opportunity with latent once benign fears of different cultures into a CIVILISATIONAL, a RELIGIOUS WAR, pitting Christians vs Islam; GG is spot on; If US aggression, and Muslim, Persian response and fury does not stop escalating,
A Civilisational War will blow up in our faces, All (1 billion of them,) Bad....against All of us, Good. And God is on OUR side.
We are racing to this precipice, why?
When you say we, I assume you mean the ordinary American or Britain, or Israeli. But we are not racing to the precipice, we are being carried there by those who are gaining 'year end, bottom line profits' from war, oil production, etc. To stop this mad dash, we must get rid of those who are responsible. To target these people is not hard: simply make a list of the wealthiest people on the planet. This list will include some Americans, British, and Israelis, and an host of Arab princes, not to mention a few other "Muslims" like the close friends of the Bush family, the Bin Ladens. Subtract the very few who try to do some good with their wealth. The rest consider themselves elite, not subject to the ordinary laws and morals that compel the rest of us. They are willing to do anything to perpetuate their wealth and power. In a human framework, they are evil personified though their manners are polished and they have the best of educations. They use religion as a tool, and in the United States this has been particularly effective with the 'religious right'. Historically, people like this have done huge damage, but it has been confined to local areas, even when it involved great empires. But now it is destroying the planet.
We, the ordinary people, have more in common with ordinary Muslims than we do with our rulers. But until this simple fact gets through our thick skulls, we will continue to be carried towards the precipice. It remains to be seen whether the precipice will be global war and obliteration, or the collapse of the worlds ecosystems that supports us. It's one or the other, unless we (ordinary people) get rid of the parasites. I myself am very pessimistic: I think it's too late, on both counts.
Yes GM, the people are a tilting cart pulled by a team of mad horses. As insane as rutting stallions, but their drive not to propagate the species, but rather to extirpate it, themselves, and all life forms.
Could it be a collective subconscious response of the elites to massive unbearable guilt stretching from the American Plains to the Hindu Kush? Species suicide for all?
Could very well be. The elite are mad with greed and power. If they have guilt, whether conscious or subconscious, they are even crazier and we are surly doomed. I suspect that guilt doesn't enter into it. They are raised to be 'Lords of the Manor', and consider us 'ordinary ones' their servants and tools. It used to be that this kind of arrogance was honest and 'out front'. The king or baron could even sleep with a maiden before her groom was allowed to. It was known as Droit de seigneur. Today it is synonymous with another term, ius primae noctis, which means the right of a superior to tax his inferiors. Sound familiar?
You see these drone attacks that kill innocent people and I have been told that these attacks are flown from within the United States. The common right wing talking point about terrorists hiding behind civilians rings in my ears. Then I realize that through these drone attacks, the civilian population of the US has become a legitimate military target. If we don't get a handle on this out of control military industrial complex, the ramifications could be huge. These are bad times, getting worse.
A little too simplistic. Wrong target. The places from which the drones are sent are military bases, and the existence of these long-distance drone deployment sites fairly well disguised. If you want to take action, you need to find those places. They're not hidden in the suburbs and city neighborhoods.
This claim of terrorists hiding in civilian populations, or civilians shielding terorrists is nonsense anyway, a pretext to blanket-bomb civilian populations and areas. One of Israel's finest contributions to international harmony.
Ah Red, Wikipedia has a list of operator sites. Some of them in densely populated regions of the country.
As for the right wing talking point, I never put too much credence in that contention. On the other hand, the Pentagon operating foreign wars of aggression from within the US civilian population has now become an ugly reality.
Uri Avnery gave an excleent example of the Israeli logic hear in an article he wrote recently. I know LETTO and other apologists for war criminals like to trot out that same old Canard all the time.....
>>Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called "the Red Army" held the millions of the town's inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
>>Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz
http://www.alternet.org/world/121848?page=1
"Shouldn't that . . . make us think about not doing those things any longer, since they only exacerbate the problem we claim we are trying to solve?"
that was the game plan as laid out by rumsfeld in '01 and continued to this day.
smoke'm out.
CD did not link to Glenn's post from yesterday which was a blockbuster.
The British High Court is squashing U.S./British efforts to conceal the torture of Binyam Mohamed at the hands of the C.I.A.
This is perhaps the best news we've had in quite some time.
A must read.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/17/
mohamed/index.html
"The High Court has ruled that US intelligence documents containing details of the alleged torture of a former UK resident can be released."
however:
"Any publication of the material will be delayed until an appeal takes place."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8311075.stm
also a good comment here:
(http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/10/16-4)
Archie1954 October 16th, 2009 8:11 pm
I see the commenter ahead of me beat me to the punch. I truly believe the US judicial system is broken beyond repair. Most of the judges are nothing more than government lackies who wouldn't know justice if it jumped up and hit them in the face. Some day the US might have an independent judiciary such as the UK's but it will probably be many years until that happens. The UK has had many more years of keeping its judiciary separate and independent from the legislative and executive wings of government than the US has and that may be why the US still doesn't understand how important a truly independent judiciary is.
"The British High Court is squashing U.S./British efforts to conceal the torture of Binyam Mohamed at the hands of the C.I.A." (Cygnus X-1)
–It is the BEST news in quite some time!
Let us hope it does not vaporize before our eyes as British and American imperial fascism go 'extra-legal' and weasel out of accountability by whatever specious grounds they can concoct.
This puts in shameful perspective just how abhorrent is Obama's and the American congress' legislative end run around an American court's decision to release more torture photos.
Oh pardon me! Let me correct that: Obama and Congress are officially quite beyond all shame. It is impossible for them to be shamed about too much of anything at all anymore..
–(Jill Bains)
Interesting. This is a direct link between the destruction of the WTC and the ensuing bankruptcy of the United States to the atrocities committed by Israel. Our governmental support for these genocidal atrocities continues unabated.
"This is a direct link between the destruction of the WTC and ... to the atrocities committed by Israel." –(Humbaba)
–Yes. There are many such links. This is a situation where everyone knows that Israel is the 'smoking gun' but pretends to deny it–all the while absurdly claiming there is no 'smoking gun,' or there is no 'proof!' Well that is pure sophistry and academic hokum.
It all starts and appropriately should end with Israel. Israel is the tumescent cancer and the 'black hole' progenitor of war: the single greatest threat to world peace, along with its evil twin the USA.
9-11 was a cumulative response to decades of rampant and unpunished Israeli, and by proxy, American state terror, war criminality, violations of international covenants and mass murder. This should surprise no one except the most obtuse or the morally derelict Zionist apologist.
That is unless the conspiracy mavens are correct and that the terror was an 'inside job' collaboration between the Israeli and American national security apparats to lock in 'permanent war.'
And who am I to say they are not right? –(Jill Bains)
Besides no proof, the trouble with the Bush planted the demolition bombs theory is it casts doubt on the anger against USA/Israeli policy being great enough to strike a blow that would soon destroy the USA by an endless war against a ghost.
In other words not only does it lack any proof, it makes all the ways of the Empire of War look OK compared to when that Bush guy showed up.
The CIA/FBI doesn't even think ben Laden was the mastermind of 9/11.
It was planned and funded in Germany with Saudi and Pakistan aid for the training of the hijackers in The USA.
That for me is what proves the War on Afghanistan was a distraction from the truth and the Demolition theory also serves as another distraction from what is still pretty well hidden under the covers of "national security".
When "we" drop bombs on Muslim countries this causes some resentment?
How medieval of them!
Quite right, waiguoren. We bomb, torture them, yet they remain so delusional that they don't seem to understand all that is for their own good--so they can have a modern, democratic nation with highly educated women. What's up with these Muslims that they just don't understand our altruism?
Just this afternoon I happened to catch another top NYT reporter, a certain Mr. Farquhar, on C-Span. He made it a point to note that he'd spent considerable amount of time in the "Muslim world." Hearing what he had to say, I wondered at times if I was listening to a reporter or a US State Department official.
"We bomb, torture them, yet they remain so delusional that they don't seem to understand all that is for their own good..." –(Lingum)
–How can you say that a Predator drone missile embossed with the decal of a 'smiley face' that incinerates another Afghan wedding celebration is "not for their own good?" Of course it is!
You sound like someone who might not vote for the Democratic party.
Obama and the noble Joseph Biden seem to think drones are great, except they need to triple the amount being deployed.
And are you going to argue with such giants of moral conscience like U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman who advocates deploying and using them 24-7 by Israel in Gaza over civilian populations?
You got a problem with state terror, pal? –(Jill Bains)
Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors,...
----------------
Allow me to suggest a new name for the "enemy" which will be very easy for Americans to remember...BOOGEYMAN.
The whole terrorist charge is nonsense. The English thought we were terrorists ( they used another term) but they considered Wash. and the rest traitors. The terrorists are soldiers yes irregular ones without nice green or blue or red uniforms but that aside they are soldiers in a war against us. They should be treated as such. Now as for the use of terror in warfare, old as the cavemen. War is hell and everyone uses terror when they consider it necessary. We terror bombed axis towns with no military or Industrial significance so did Japan and Germany. Enough with the terror charge it's just a rhetorical diversion. If the Taliban are our enemy fine lets declare them an enemy and either defeat them or not. Personally, I don't buy that they are merely freedom fighters. I think if they win Afghanistan will return to the brutal rule of Mullah Omar and his crazed theocrats and once again Binny and his gang will be using this country as a staging area for round 2. This is a war and it could go on for a very very long time.
Spoken like an unrepentant Neo-con Zionist advocate of state terror.
Pure troll talk, unless you're being purposefully facetious?
"Personally, I don't buy that they are merely freedom fighters." –(SEAGLASS)
–You "don't buy it?" So what?
For the same reasons that idiots, when confronted with the truth, unashamedly and willfully cling to a prideful ignorance no matter what.
Nothing new there at all. Ignorance is indeed–in your words– "as old as cavemen." What era are you from? The Cro-Magnon or the Pleistocene?
–(Jill Bains)
So glad someone has talked about the change in what the Taliban is. Wonder what per cent is running drugs to pay for their efforts. That's about as un-Taliban 2000 as you can get.
The great lie about 9/11 is about the motives of Mr. Mohammed Atta and the other attackers and planners. Bush and much of Congress and the media, (the military-industrial-congressional-media-complex) told us that they attacked us because of our freedoms. The media actually agreed, publicly, to inhibit the broadcasts of the actual motives of the attackers and their backers in the AQ leadership, in the form of tapes from OBL and AZ.
Glenn Greenwald, like many before him, shatters this Great Taboo, and reveals the simple, understandable openly stated motives of those who resist US foreign policies in Muslim nations—policies of occupation, economic domination and theft of their resources, murder, rape, torture, and humiliation.
I commend Glenn for this.
It is best for progressives to separate stated motives, that may be legitimate, from illegal tactics, such as killing or wounding civilians and/or non-combatants. The former should be understood and a basis of policy changes towards integrity and away from massive hypocrisy. The latter—illegal violence—should be prevented *in our own actions* at all costs, a conclusion not followed by President Obama and most of Congress.
Preventing more violence against US civilians is quite simple: apologize for our crimes; hold accountable those who committed the crimes; pay reparations; pass laws to prevent more crimes; and, simply, switch a foreign policy of lawlessness to one that abides by international law, enforced by us, on us. Or, in other words, stop resistance to empire by ending empire.
And Afghanistan. Oh what do we do? If we want imperial, geo-strategic domination, it is a complicated problem to solve given the success of the resistance to the US and NATO occupation. BUT, if we don't want imperial domination, but instead choose international law as the governing set of rules, then the Afghanistan problem becomes quite simple to solve: announce a date for all US and NATO troops to leave; invite the OIC and Arab League nations to propose through the UNSC to bring in Muslim peacekeeping troops to fill the security vacuum left by the western occupiers' departure, in a negotiated agreement with the Taliban and other resistance groups; demand that the current Puppet Government of Kabul become an interim government; set a date to replace the interim government in an election *in the context of an invited Muslim peacekeeping force* acceptable to the Taliban; and finally, help with US aid to support the nation and develop the Afghanistan economy. This is simple and fulfills the longstanding stated conditions of the Taliban who will not enter the political process under a western occupation.
Then help them turn that poppy crop into Afghanistan pain medication to sell on the global pharmaceutical market. There has to be a way to do that and help their farmers prosper, and lower our own medical costs.
If you want a really good laugh along with the history of our "involvement" in Iran you must watch this clip (4 minutes).
I used to eat my lunch with these guys every day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpgJzlY9y8A
Wow! I've been a Rocky & Bullwinkle, et al fan for nigh about fifty years now. Thanks for the catch!
It's cool that you ate lunch with these guys-- did Alfred E. Neuman from MAD Magazine ever drop by? ;)
· Yr Obd't Servant
Early this spring my boyfriend, daughter and I traveled from our home in Laos to Indonesia.
One thing that struck us–no profoundly affected us– were the many "Mohammed Atta" Tee-shirts and buttons with his face on them. At first we thought this was an 'event specific' phenomena such as a function of a local mosque, but it was not. It was there in city after city and in disparate sectors of each city.Though certainly not a mass phenomenon, it had an eerie normalcy about it, somewhat like an iPod logo.
Glenn Greenwald's piece here brought home the truth of the matter: Mohammed Atta is an iconic figure of reverence to millions all over the world, and as Greenwald brutally and unflinchingly points out, not without reason. And many of those reasons–to a certain way of thinking–are very good indeed.
It is a truth that dares not speak its name. It is verboten in America, acknowledged only in the unconscious or pre-conscious psyche as being unutterably true. Yet with each Predator drone barbarity or Zionist intransigence it only becomes more obvious and hence, more purely rational.
Sensitive, bourgeois liberals will always decry 'inhuman' terror that reinvents itself as an emancipatory vehicle; they can argue against that to high heaven, but as Glenn Greenwald correctly suspects, perhaps millions on the Indonesian streets could care less what they think. I can tell you for a fact that Cambodians know all too well that Henry Kissinger remains unpunished and still advises American presidents at elegant Manhattan soirées.
"Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as the courts." –(Maximilien Robespierre)
Yes, Mohammed Atta is very dead, but...
"An event can be turned around, repressed, co-opted, betrayed but still something survives that cannot be outdated. Even ancient events persist and cannot be outdated, as they are openings into the possible." –(Gilles Deleuze/Felix Guattari)
–(Jill Bains)
Amfortas wound October 19th, 2009 9:13 am -- Well said and persuasive. Worth re-reading.
You drop hints about your residences; can you be more specific?
I find that an odd request. I don't know how to take it, but I feel it is suspect. I don't know you.
Why is our travel itinerary of interest to you? You must understand that on line one never really knows whom they are talking to?
I don't "drop hints." I live for most of the year in South East Asia and I stated that. I now reside in America until I return. I politely decline your inquiry.–(Jill Bains)
Amfortas wound October 20th, 2009 4:44 am -- Sorry to have intruded; I was following up on the comment you made about your residence and travels in your post. I was interested in where you saw the Atta Tee-shirts; "city after city and in disparate sectors of each city" is a bit vague. This information is highly interesting and relevant to Greenwald's article. In fact, I'm sure some people would like to check it out (more than I have).
"'Mohammed Atta' Tee-shirts and buttons"
Che is passé.
"Che is passé." –(vdb)
That he is, that he is! The new avatars have arrived.
These Tee-shirts however had not been defanged by being subsumed (as YET) into 'pop culture.' Their agency was political and entirely serious. It was both ominous and strangely exhilarating to behold having the fierceness of an eerie spirituality.
Serious politics do exist. Something that Americans can't seem to understand, as they have none themselves.
Mohammed Atta and his comrades, were nothing if not serious.
–(Jill Bains)
the bitterness and folly of hate.
bligh4
While I agree with much of this article, it seems to whitewash the treatment of captives by many of these groups. Daniel Pearl had his head sawed off by AQ. The hostages in Beirut were chained for years to a wall. Others are terrorized, filmed pleading for their lives-then savagely killed.
So, the whole idea of "better treatment" is subjective at best.
shhhh. don't compare, that's a bad progressive. only our side has any call to decency.
I don't think the message of this article was a comparison of treatment by both sides. When we behave like the terrorists, the terrorists win. When we torture people, hold them indefinitely without charge, kill innocent women and children with predator drones, destroy and occupy, we recruit for the terrorists. We take them out of the closet of fundamentalist zealotry and place normal people into their hands. We create people who have legitimate accounts to settle with the US. Imagine your family becoming "collateral damage".
"America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves."
Notice the past tense. The Taliban shares a conviction with perhaps a "super" majority of the world's people today: No more chances for the USA, Israel, and their allies, and no more excuses.
As usual, Greenwald touches the essence of the matter. I have long shared his viewpoint.
Nonetheless, we must be careful to keep the various elements of the present difficulty in perspective. It's reasonable for us to trace the consequences of U.S. bombing of civilians, torture of detainees, and other atrocities to explain why millions of people around the world idolize Bin Laden and, as a commenter so movingly states in this thread, Mohammed Atta. These explanations are compelling, and certainly never understood by the Bush administration. But the fact that it's reasonable to expect our adversaries to react as they have, and to continue doing so, doesn't mean everything they do against us is reasonable. The fact that U.S. aggression hasn't been morally justifiable doesn't mean acts of terrorism against U.S. civilians are morally justifiable, or that the U.S. isn't justified in defending itself against such acts, just as our adversaries are entitled to defend themselves against unjustified aggression.
The difficulties seem overwhelming. We take for granted the reconciliation following the horrible destruction of WWII, but the fact that the U.S. could end up allied with our WWII enemies, and now even Russia and China, gives hope that there may be a way to peacefully resolve the conflict we have now with those we consider our enemies. Peace won't come until we we begin to understand our enemies and their motives.
while it is a truism that these things do NOT have to be this way, no one should expect these things to NOT be THIS way
regarding where the USA is concerned IF the USA did not go abroad on its adventures of EMPIRE.
that's it.
by going where it doesn't belong, thousands of miles away, building and using its technological wizardry to cross the seas to MEDDLE in the affairs of other cultures and nations for "national interests" is the ROOT of the problems that the USA finds itself in - which - as you point out:
"we have to defend ourselves".
"defend ourselves?"
WHY ?
because the USA went where it SHOULDN"T have gone to MEDDLE.
the usa is MEDDLESOME. that is the root of the problem.
rather than use its power since world war 2 - to promote fairness, justice, equitable roles amone societies - what DID the USA REALLY DO?
it used that position, whether in economics, its dollar, or militarily and culturally
'
to IMPOSE its will upon the world...be it through "fighting communism". or "isolating" or encircling - or the favorite word of the current day "containing" ...
whether it was Russia or china (back and forth, depending on the season if they are relatively cooperative or not) -
or Venezuela, or ARgentina, or brazil (remember the diplomatic quarrels of just a few years ago?) - or other south american countries
or vietnam or haiti, or grenada. or syria, or lebanon, or iran, iraq,
you name it - the USA done it.
so - all this talk about "we have to defend ourselves" flies in the face of the ROOT of the problem :
THE USA's OWN MEDDLESOME , hubristic, exceptionalist INTRUSIONS into other regions - not for the sake of HELPING really - or promoting THEIR prosperity -
but to SUPPRESS any disobedience against US "interests" and US dogmatic theories of social and economic order.
if the rest of the world sees the USA - from DIRECT experience - as all of the above, meddlesome and INSINCERE ...it is because it is based on FACTS of history.
for any american to claim that the usa is "over there to defend ourselves because they attacked us"
is like someone saying - after going into another neighborhood and kicking sand on the faces of the people there - then gets thrown a stone - ":I am only defending myself".
never bothering to answer the question and realities and history that the USA has demonstrated to people everwhere...a history of
"Viciously exploiting and Dehumanizing and Enslaving People Everywhere" (John perkins, Former CIA economic hitman) :
WHAT WERE YOU DOING THERE to begin with? and if you were THERE - you have NOT shown any more interest beyond kicking MORE sand on MORE people's faces. and you were told to GET OUT -- because you misbehaved - but you didn't, instead - you set up more fortresses from which to shoot more people in THEIR neighborhood and take away their rights to live as they have because YOU think you know BETTER than they what to do with THEIR lives...and even if you DID know better - you are only doing that to make THEM become YOUR slaves...so YOU are occupying, YOU are meddling, YOU are an INTRUDER, and YOU have shown yourself to be a landgrabber and enslaver for YOUR own advantage. you are a STRANGER in Strange Lands and YET you have the GALL to dictate to people what YOU call "the american way". you have disrespected other people IN their own lands. behaving that way, you are NOT wanted. not even as a guest..but you are not even THAT. you are just an INTRUDER.and that's what you have been since you started your "nation" against the native indians in THEIR land..and now you have gone abroad to all corners of the globe doing exactly the same thing you did before...and you are going to say :
"we are only defending ourselves?"
"we are defending the american way of life?"
YOUR american "way of life" is the one that has been the THREAT to others. and it is not a case of the "americans defending the way of life"
but the OTHERS , the REST of the world DEFENDING THEMSELVES
against the AMERICAN way which has proven itself to be merely an extension in global terms of where it BEGAN:
the VICIOUS exploitation, dehumanization, enslavement and even genocide of people in america where "the american way of life" was "born" supposedly as the "shining city on the hill"
but actually has been built on MOUNTAINS of moral, economic, cultural and spiritual DEBT to countless BILLIONS in throughout history and across the world!
and YET an american DARES to IMAGINE that "we are only defending ourselves"!
that is like a serial RAPIST and MURDERER pleading - he was only defending himself from being harmed by his next victim!
bligh4
Upon reading the full first person account by David Rohde in the New York Times- the one that the quotes from this article are taken- I can only say that the article is extremely deceptive.
The article left out the fact that Rohde and the other two captives were deceived by the Taliban and kidnapped by the very commander that they were going to interview. The other two captives were beaten repeatedly over the months and all were constantly threatened with death-the only thing that stopped the Taliban from killing them was greed over a ransom.
Finally, the author somehow left out the fact that Rohde is in all probability still alive because he escaped over a wall while his captors slept.
For the full interview, read the NYT 5 part series, not this out of context crap.
And how many innocents have been abducted from their homes in the black of night by gangs of masked, heavily armed US military thugs who then fly them to the black site hellholes of CIA 'enhanced interrogations'?
How many of them were betrayed by those who sought monetary gain or who capitulated or collaborated with the violent occupying forces?
Now that the government's version is debunked and destroyed, we will be pulling out tomorow.
"They attacked us because of our freedoms". That statement was an insult to the intelligence of anyone but a moron! What that statement shows is just how ignorant they must think the average American is, but then again they are probably correct in that assumption! They might as well follow that propaganda up with: Bush took away our freedoms with the patriot act, so the terrorists will not hate us for our freedoms anymore! Makes about as much sense.
What the taliban and ME "terrorists" believe they are fighting for is not necessarily the same as the aims of their leaders.
I doubt the leaders really see America as the overwhelming threat to their society that must be defeated at all costs, if they did all the factions and sects would unite in common cause to defeat the US.
Rather they prefer to fight amongst themselves and blame others for their own war like actions.
In the meantime lives are lost.
From the article: "It was the day Israel attacked Lebanon in Operation grapes of Wrath."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Lebanon_war
"Operation Grapes of Wrath (Hebrew: מבצע ענבי זעם) is the Israeli Defense Forces code-name (Hezbollah calls it April War) for a sixteen-day military blitz against Lebanon in 1996 in an attempt to end shelling of Northern Israel by Hezbollah."
The classic pattern of how most recent conflicts occurred (both in Lebanon and in Gaza). An Islamic fundamentalist group, committed to destroy Israel (the only non-Muslim country in the Middle East) start firing rocket on Israeli civilians; some of the rockets were launched near or within UN / civilian facilities. Israel fights back in force and hit the rocket launchers and their surroundings. Civilians are killed (even though Israel's tried to minimize civilian casualties.) The fact that Muslim civilians are killed by non-Muslims makes other Islamic fundamentalist very angry, and they join the fight.
From the article: “One could -- and should -- ask that question every time the U.S. or Israel engages in another military strike that kills Muslim civilians “
Israel is a tiny country, about 0.2% of the Middle East. Muslims control 99.8% of the Middle East. Perhaps those fundamentalists from the Hezbollah or Hamas should ask themselves every time they think of firing rockets on Israel: “By firing rockets on Israeli civilians, will it make things better for me and my people? Will it make civilians in my side safer?”
Don't be angry. Don't be motivated by hate. Try the live and let live approach.
Terrorists came and drove my family and our community and surrounding communities from our ancestral land.
Don't be motivated by hate. Try the live and let live approach.
So reasonable.
Surely there is no Israeli act that ever justifies any reaction. At least you do use the qualifier "recent"... but even with that, completely absurd in your one-sidedness.
Where do you live? Who do you fear? Who stole your land? Who are your allies?
Not that this provides blanket justification for any and all acts. But you seem to have a very warm blanket of your own...
"even though Israel's tried to minimize civilian casualties"
How can you type this with a straight face. I have read and watched numerous reports on the Gaza attack that indicate the exact opposite. This duplicitous load of crap you write isn't worth the hard drive space it is stored on. "Live and let live" my ass. The policy of both Israel and neocon US forces seems to be just the opposite. Have you ever heard about an "eye for an eye"? Israel and the US seem to have thrown this out the window and it is an eye for your life and the life of your wife and life of your children and anyone else who happens to be standing around. Such is the moral depravity of our political leadership here and in Israel. As I watch these disproportional responses unfold, I know in my heart that there will be a price to pay. 3000 plus dead in the 9/11 attacks, conservative estimates place at least 80,000 innocent Iraqis dead as a result of our invasion. This number doesn't include the tens of thousands we have slaughtered in Afghanistan. Israel's ruthless attack on a civilian population in a densely packed area made me sick to my stomach. I have similar reactions when I watch the grainy films of holocaust camps. I can hear the souls of those holocaust victims wailing when I watch Israel slaughter children in Gaza.
You have touched all the major zionist talking points in your post. Israel is small but her big brother is big. And the bombs and drones that Israel and her big brother have are even bigger. And the slaughters they engage in are even bigger. Live and let live. You should tell that to our neocon leaders and your fat, lying, duplicitous sack of crap prime minister.
Your scabrous posting is perhaps the most obscene regurgitation of point by point Zionist propaganda I've yet read in my short time on this site. What organization is paying you? Your local collegiate Hillel?
Such vile and callous apologias can only succeed in reinforcing existing hatreds of Israel, if not creating more virulent ones yet. And guess what? I'm not talking about Anti-Semitic hatred here. That would be too easy for your ilk. No one here is an anti-semite.
No, its not the "live and let live approach" I'm talking about when it comes to Israel; its the live and let die approach. Are you interested in a secular one state solution where Zionism is banned for its racism? I didn't think so.
Israel has long ago willfully abrogated any right to join the human community in peace. Were it not for the military beneficence of the United States who bankrolls its state terror, it would long ago been run into the desert sands from which it so ignominiously emerged. And frankly, without much doubt, most of the world would have applauded!
And that much to be wished for scenario, with each passing day and with each new atrocity–only gains more adherents, each more militant than the last. Sounds like that is exactly what you want. You are not interested in peace, only the right to impose disproportionate state terror with planes and munitions made in the USA.
You disgrace the contributions of the Jewish people to the human project.
–(Jill Bains)
I noticed some interesting "developments" in the comment section following this article. Starting with the "Oldest First" display, the 4th comment from Lefty at 4:14pm, followed by a comment from Redballoon at 4:47pm, and then a rejoinder by Lefty again at 5:05pm, their subject was military drones, and their disagreement about military drones launching sites.
Well, they both have to be blowing smoke!! They make "sounds" like they have verifiable knowledge about launching site "locations." I just do not believe them...they may have good guesses...but I just don't believe them! I can't imagine that our military(industrial) complex would be so casual about the whereabouts of such locations. Lefty says that there is a list on Wikipedia. But I can't find any such "location" list! Redballoon then contradicts Lefty and insists that locations would be on military bases, sounding like that would cover all drone launching sites. But that has to be a "short" list, too!!
Look, I know that many people think our usa government is about the most stupid "animal" of its type on the planet right now, and I suppose that characteristic could be applied to our military in sofar as it tries to make "policy." But, it is a lot harder to imagine they would be that stupid in the matter of battle-making strategies. I would think that if not an entire blackout about locations, then, and more likely, a lot of misdirection of its fellow citizens (the ones they are ostensibley protecting) would be the choice of strategy.
Now good investigating reporter(s) just might uncover "real" information...but I don't think we have many of those creatures around any more. In any case I would like Lefty and redballoon to dish out some facts, some references, something I can check out.
But the really interesting thing to me in these comments is that right after Lefty and Redballoon, the line of chatter took an entirely new direction. (Now the thread may have returned to the "matter" of drones, and just what motivates a Taliban, later on down the line. I'm not sure, because I didn't read every comment that followed...just a page or so of further commentary). I will check the rest of the commentary after my own submission.
The "change of direction" in the comments section did upset me. In fact, I thought there might have been some sinister intention behind it. A conscious intention to "redirect."
I mean! the article was about what motivated the Taliban! Wasn't it? And drones sent out by anonymous "individuals" in suits, casual wear, or "severely" pressed fatigues (I know about the importance of creases in fatigues) was certainly a prime focus for this article. But right after Lefty and Balloon, the trajectory of thread interest changed.
Well I don't know...we citizens are becoming more like birds transfixed in the stare (the shock, dumbing down, images and sound bites in the returning gaze of the tv screen) of the slowly creeping snake that intends to devour it...us! A terrible time for the poor bird (us)to have Attention Deficit Disorder!!
But hell, I'm an old man...so the mote in my eye might be senility. BTW, I grew up almost entirely through grade school on radio...you needed a little imagination. In the Army I carried the M1. Thank God, I didn't kill anyone with it!
This is the first time I have ever responded in writing to radio, tv, or computer-land. I apologize for wordiness and any obscurities.
Hi oldmoth,
Welcome to cyber world. It was an excellent post and required no apologies.
I am not a military expert. I have read and heard that the drones are controlled from within US borders. I believe they are launched overseas when the mission is overseas. There is a Wikipedia article which lists operator sites. It can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-1_Predator
I can not vouch for the accuracy of Wikipedia. People write the articles and other people review them. In addition, I have sourced Wikipedia on boards like this and have found the information changed or removed a week or two later.
While it might surprise you that the military is open about this kind of information, it doesn't surprise me. They have become increasingly bold and aggressive as they realize the population of this country is increasingly somnambulant and compliant. Their current attitude is one of imperialistic hubris and is a reflection of their neocon creators. In addition, keeping this type of information under wraps is not cost effective when you consider all the other information they need to keep under wraps. That would include all the torture, murder and mayhem they spread about the world on a daily basis.
I happened to be watching an NFL football game and was treated to a USAF predator drone commercial. The basic message was, this is as fun as video games but you get to kill real people as a bonus! Such is our slide into moral depravity.
Ignorance is bliss oldie. I wish I could shut this crap off and make it go away. The reality is, we have become a satanic society and the evil and greed is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. As I said previously, bad times, getting worse.
Kindest regards,
Lefty
"But, it is a lot harder to imagine they would be that stupid in the matter of battle-making strategies."
they were stupid enough to let something hit their own headquarters!