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Journal eglamkowski's Journal: islamic terrorism 17

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A lot of people these days are convinced that islamic terrorism against the US is a result of US foreign policies in the middle east, our meddling, interventions, invasion of Iraq, use of military bases in Saudi Arabia, etc. etc. etc.

If intervention/meddling/hegemony is the reason for islamic terrorism, then why have there been problems for years with islamic terrorists in, say, the Philippines, the Sudan, Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Thailand, or any of a number of other countries who have zero influence and zero interest in the middle east?

While US interventions may be a convenient cover excuse for terrorists, it obviously isn't the root cause of terrorism. Even if the US had never in its entire history sent one soldier or one dollar to a middle eastern country, it is entirely possible, even probable, they would be attacking us now anyways. They are certainly quite happy to attack other countries without any obvious provocations...

Anybody care to gander a guess as to why islamic terrorism exists in countries that don't attempt, don't even dream of, middle eastern hegemony?
Hmmm... ???

Because once we answer that, we might be able to begin to understand why it exists against the US without referring to trite platitudes.

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islamic terrorism

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    • damn I wish I had my mod points back. +5 insightful.

      So, islamic terrorism against the US tends to be some people's way to try and stop us from doing stuff they think is bad (and in some cases it really is bad, and in other cases it's not really), but terrorism in general (and it's not all islamic, that just happens to be the group du jour doing it and getting most of the press--I'd categorize a lot of the "lower level" ethnic warfare going on in Africa as similar to terrorism, for example) is as HBI states

  • There are two levels of answer to this.

    One is that of course US policy is not the cause of all terrorism in the world. It is just the cause of the terrorism directed against the US.

    This obvious answer, however, lacks depth. A closer analysis of the situation reveals that the US, along with other western powers, who cannot escape part of the responsibility here, has created most of the conditions which have led to high incidence of terrorism overall in the islamic world. Western powers have supported co

    • Wrong and wrong.

      I ask again: What policies has the Philippines implemented in an effort to oppose, oppress or otherwise meddle with middle eastern countries?

      Or Thailand?

      While other (non-islamic) terrorism may be about politics and influence, islamic terrorism is OBVIOUSLY about something else, since countries who have no intention or even desire to do anything bad towards muslims or muslim nations are victimized by it.

      How do you explain islamic terrorism in these countries?
      • Orson Scott Card [ornery.org] has some interesting insights on this topic.

        Now, if you take this as 'opinion' and allow for his ego, he makes very interesting points.
      • Wrong and wrong

        "WRONG! You all had Special K with banana!" -- Saturday Night Live parody of Johen McLaughlin. "That's not an argument!" -- Monty Python

        How do you explain islamic terrorism in these countries?

        Terrorism is a very complex issue, and there is no way to give a simple, neat answer to such questions. I don't know what specific grievances the terrorists claimed to have in these cases, and it is indeed possible that there were none. That terrorists sometimes lash out at random, or seemingly at

        • See the article [slashdot.org] Jhon [slashdot.org] pointed to.
          • See the article Jhon pointed to.

            Yeah, I read it. He makes some interesting points about OBL, and he's probably right about the fantasy ideology and all that.

            The trouble is, we're talking past each other here, because we're talking about a different level of analysis. Surely, when it comes to individual people like OBL and Saddam, this sort of psychological analysis is useful. But this ignores the big picture, the sociological and historical conditions which form the background against which these men w

    • One is that of course US policy is not the cause of all terrorism in the world. It is just the cause of the terrorism directed against the US.

      I have to go with eglamkowski here. It's just not so. We had terrorism directed at us when we weren't doing anything wrong. Hell, Bin Laden's main complaints against us from when he first started don't exist anymore! We are no longer in Saudi Arabia, and we are no longer fighting against any Muslim government. We still help Israel, but that complaint didn't sur
      • We had terrorism directed at us when we weren't doing anything wrong

        If you take a slightly longer time scale and broader perspective, it becomes clear that there has not been a time when the west was not doing anything wrong in the middle east for centuries.

        • There was a stretch of several centuries where the european countries weren't doing much of anything at all in the middle east and it was under control of muslims. Still the Ottoman's had to deal with the occassional revolt or rebellion.

          But from the historical perspective, it was the french and british doing all the meddling, with the US not getting involved until after WWII. So where's all the terrorism against the french and british? (I'm sure there's some that just doesn't make the US news, but certa
          • Yes, following WWII, we actually sided with Egypt in the UN, against France and Britain and Israel!
          • But from the historical perspective, it was the french and british doing all the meddling, with the US not getting involved until after WWII.

            After WWII, the US took over the former European empires. Since we inherited control of the colonies, it is hardly surprising that we also inherited the grievances that the people have about being colonized. Besides, since WWII, the US has taken a series of specific actions which have been highly detrimental to the muslim world, including supporting the brutal dictat

            • I still disagree vigorously. We've intervened and meddled extensively in many parts of the world, yet we have no problem with Hawaiian or Guamanian terrorists blowing up US targets. Philippinos haven't held a decades old grudge against us. Mexicans still flood our borders looking for a better life despite are incusions of dubious legality looking for Pancho Villa (to name just one example of meddling with mexico).

              There's still something different and unique in the muslim response. No other group "injur
              • There's still something different and unique in the muslim response. No other group "injured" by the US has ever resorted to terror campaigns of the sort we see today

                Ah, now this is a much more interesting argument. You have an excellent point here. The US has indeed oppressed a wide variety of people from different cultures, and Islam has indeed responded much more violently than the others.

                So for example, the US is currently conducting a massive campaign of chemical warfare in Columbia against the car

  • Deprogram Program [deprogramprogram.com]

    Today March 27th, is the anniversary of the birth of the United States Navy, in the Christian year 1794. On that day the United States Congress formally signed off on a bill calling for the building of the first six warships of a navy, and the gentlemen sitting in the temporary capital of Philadelphia did so in response to the menace of Islamist terrorism in the Middle East.

    I'll bet you never heard that before. But in fact, at the very moment of their vote, there were more than 100 US c

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