I have to say as a general reply to a lot of people that I do not apologize for America doing what it has to to protect its interests. All countries try - America is simply better able to do it. Do you think France had the world's best interests at heart when it sided with Saddam Hussein, and then tried to minimize the atrocities in Darfur? No. It was trying to set itself up as a force to oppose US interests, and it seems willing to support even the worst of the world's dictators for the sake of opposing the US. Realpolitik is nothing new, nor is it exclusive to the US.
Saudi Arabia (and other rich gulf states) are in a very different situation, and I apologize for forgetting to mention it. The problem with the rich segment of Saudi society is that many young men, having been raised in an environment of extreme religious fundamentalism, attend university and major in such practical and useful subjects as 'Islamic Jurisprudence'. It is difficult to get a decent job anywhere, in any country with such an esoteric degree. This means you have a bunch of young, fundamentalist Muslims sitting around doing nothing, because they can't get jobs with their inadequate educations. This is in itself isn't really a problem, because they have massive amounts of oil money. They're not starving. However, a bunch of bored radicals sitting on their *** doing nothing makes for a great recruiting pool for the likes of Bin Laden, who himself came to fight in Afghanistan against the Russians under similar circumstances.
Eventually the Saudis started to catch on. Young men started majoring in things that in other countries would get them jobs - engineering, computer science, business, etc.. You'd think the problem would be solved, right? Wrong. Because the Saudis are so filthy ****ing rich, they’ve long imported migrant workers from across the world to perform such menial tasks as working for a living - everywhere from Morocco to the Philippines. Over a fifth of the country’s 25 million are migrants. These people are qualified and they work for cheap. This means Most Exalted Grand Crown Sheikh Prince Abdesalaam Bin-what the **** ever's son can't compete when he goes to look for a job! The problem remains, and al Qaeda continues to recruit. The rest of Saudi Arabia isn’t connected to the royal family and so is piss poor like much of the rest of the Arab world. That’s why economic reform is essential.
Democratic reform is important for the same reasons as in the rest of the Arab and Muslim worlds, but also because too many Saudis see the al Qaeda campaign against the Saudi royal family as being between only between al Qaeda and the government. People really have no say in government whatsoever in Saudi Arabia, and although this will change soon when the first municipal elections are held (guess who prodded them), they really feel they have no stake in fighting terrorism.
Why not? Why should we care about our reputation? The rest of the world doesn't feel compelled to attack us because of it, and I explained why.
First of all, we did have problems with Nazi guerillas for some years after the end of World War II. Germany wasn’t all ****s and giggles at first.
Second, that’s absurd. It isn’t the job of the United States government to look out for the interests of the rest of the world. No country has a foreign policy dedicated to anything other than its own interests. Yeah, we have an interest in promoting democracy and economic prosperity throughout the world, not because it’s ‘right’ but because rich, free people buy our **** and they don’t start wars.
Iraq is not going to turn into a model of democracy and free-market capitalism overnight, or for quite some time. More people are going to be abducted and beheaded, more car bombs will be set off in front of police stations, and more houses will be obliterated by F-16s. But it will happen eventually, and so my only response to that is things might have to get worse before they get better. Thomas Friedman hit the nail on the head when he said the path to a stable Middle East is not a straight line.
Uh, either run yourself or find a candidate who thinks like you and support him. And don’t say it’s the system’s fault if your guy doesn’t win.
You! Get in the plastic shredder!
Quote:
Originally posted by Mort-Hog
The idea of al Queda being made up of displaced, disgruntled working class men with little or nothing in their lives is a classic idea, it's the framework for which profiles of 'terrorists' have been built upon for decades, and it makes sense. The only problem is that it simply isn't true.
The al Queda WTC hijackers were all very well off, some with wives and children. Most of them came from rich Saudi families, sent to study in European universities. They weren't just leaning against a wall, having nothing to do, they were rich and educated and had their whole lives ahead of them. They had every option available to them. They could easily have chosen to be bankers or businessmen, make lots of money, raise a family. But they didn't, they chose al Queda, and they chose to end their lives.
So there must be something else at work here.
al Queda is composed of generally quite wealthy men. Your framework might be more applicable to the Palestinian organisations.
The idea of al Queda being made up of displaced, disgruntled working class men with little or nothing in their lives is a classic idea, it's the framework for which profiles of 'terrorists' have been built upon for decades, and it makes sense. The only problem is that it simply isn't true.
The al Queda WTC hijackers were all very well off, some with wives and children. Most of them came from rich Saudi families, sent to study in European universities. They weren't just leaning against a wall, having nothing to do, they were rich and educated and had their whole lives ahead of them. They had every option available to them. They could easily have chosen to be bankers or businessmen, make lots of money, raise a family. But they didn't, they chose al Queda, and they chose to end their lives.
So there must be something else at work here.
al Queda is composed of generally quite wealthy men. Your framework might be more applicable to the Palestinian organisations.
Saudi Arabia (and other rich gulf states) are in a very different situation, and I apologize for forgetting to mention it. The problem with the rich segment of Saudi society is that many young men, having been raised in an environment of extreme religious fundamentalism, attend university and major in such practical and useful subjects as 'Islamic Jurisprudence'. It is difficult to get a decent job anywhere, in any country with such an esoteric degree. This means you have a bunch of young, fundamentalist Muslims sitting around doing nothing, because they can't get jobs with their inadequate educations. This is in itself isn't really a problem, because they have massive amounts of oil money. They're not starving. However, a bunch of bored radicals sitting on their *** doing nothing makes for a great recruiting pool for the likes of Bin Laden, who himself came to fight in Afghanistan against the Russians under similar circumstances.
Eventually the Saudis started to catch on. Young men started majoring in things that in other countries would get them jobs - engineering, computer science, business, etc.. You'd think the problem would be solved, right? Wrong. Because the Saudis are so filthy ****ing rich, they’ve long imported migrant workers from across the world to perform such menial tasks as working for a living - everywhere from Morocco to the Philippines. Over a fifth of the country’s 25 million are migrants. These people are qualified and they work for cheap. This means Most Exalted Grand Crown Sheikh Prince Abdesalaam Bin-what the **** ever's son can't compete when he goes to look for a job! The problem remains, and al Qaeda continues to recruit. The rest of Saudi Arabia isn’t connected to the royal family and so is piss poor like much of the rest of the Arab world. That’s why economic reform is essential.
Democratic reform is important for the same reasons as in the rest of the Arab and Muslim worlds, but also because too many Saudis see the al Qaeda campaign against the Saudi royal family as being between only between al Qaeda and the government. People really have no say in government whatsoever in Saudi Arabia, and although this will change soon when the first municipal elections are held (guess who prodded them), they really feel they have no stake in fighting terrorism.
Quote:
Originally posted by Matthew Pate
I did not mean that the USA does not have the power to do as it likes; obviously it does. What I meant was that it should not just do as it pleases, the rest of the world be damned. That is certainly one reason the USA does not have a stellar reputation in the Middle East at the moment.
I did not mean that the USA does not have the power to do as it likes; obviously it does. What I meant was that it should not just do as it pleases, the rest of the world be damned. That is certainly one reason the USA does not have a stellar reputation in the Middle East at the moment.
Why not? Why should we care about our reputation? The rest of the world doesn't feel compelled to attack us because of it, and I explained why.
Quote:
Originally posted by nottheking
It is unwise to attempt a nation-bulding operation if you know that you will still be attacked by some in that nation for years to come. We didn't have terrorsists based in Germany attacking the Allied forces for years after Germany was captured. I'm stating that it was a very bad idea (very bad bargain) to undertake such an endeavor.
That is one of the few opinions that is just plain morally wrong. The United States is part of the world, and more over, is the most powerful force among the 6.3 billion humans on this planet. Being the most powerful, it should be the duty of our nation to ensure the best for not just the 293 million living within out borders, but the 6 billion living outside, as well. Your ideas of isolationist realism were proven quite wrong in the 20th century; when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was shown that a small band of political ideology, believing in multilateral actions to promote free, open democracies, was the only truly correct political ideals. Anything to the contrary is simply wrong, and really shouldn't need any argument against it; time has done enough.
It is unwise to attempt a nation-bulding operation if you know that you will still be attacked by some in that nation for years to come. We didn't have terrorsists based in Germany attacking the Allied forces for years after Germany was captured. I'm stating that it was a very bad idea (very bad bargain) to undertake such an endeavor.
That is one of the few opinions that is just plain morally wrong. The United States is part of the world, and more over, is the most powerful force among the 6.3 billion humans on this planet. Being the most powerful, it should be the duty of our nation to ensure the best for not just the 293 million living within out borders, but the 6 billion living outside, as well. Your ideas of isolationist realism were proven quite wrong in the 20th century; when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was shown that a small band of political ideology, believing in multilateral actions to promote free, open democracies, was the only truly correct political ideals. Anything to the contrary is simply wrong, and really shouldn't need any argument against it; time has done enough.
First of all, we did have problems with Nazi guerillas for some years after the end of World War II. Germany wasn’t all ****s and giggles at first.
Second, that’s absurd. It isn’t the job of the United States government to look out for the interests of the rest of the world. No country has a foreign policy dedicated to anything other than its own interests. Yeah, we have an interest in promoting democracy and economic prosperity throughout the world, not because it’s ‘right’ but because rich, free people buy our **** and they don’t start wars.
Quote:
Originally posted by GHORG
Sine, I read your post and it looks less like you're looking at the invasion of Iraq objectively and more like you're trying to apply an idealistic motive to it. Invading Iraq did nothing to kickstart democracy and everything to kickstart terrorism.
As if the USA's reputation in the middle east wasn't bad enough, and in spite of the fact that although Iraq is a massive policy failure there are a lot of people there with good intentions, Joe Mohammed recruiting for Al Qaeda can now use Iraq as a textbook example of how the US is bad.
99.9% of westerners in Iraq are there because on one level or another they want to make a difference. Unfortunately a significant proportion of Iraqi's want to kill them. All it goes to show is that you can't look at the world through rainbow-tinted Power Ranger goggles and define everything simply into good and evil.
Sine, I read your post and it looks less like you're looking at the invasion of Iraq objectively and more like you're trying to apply an idealistic motive to it. Invading Iraq did nothing to kickstart democracy and everything to kickstart terrorism.
As if the USA's reputation in the middle east wasn't bad enough, and in spite of the fact that although Iraq is a massive policy failure there are a lot of people there with good intentions, Joe Mohammed recruiting for Al Qaeda can now use Iraq as a textbook example of how the US is bad.
99.9% of westerners in Iraq are there because on one level or another they want to make a difference. Unfortunately a significant proportion of Iraqi's want to kill them. All it goes to show is that you can't look at the world through rainbow-tinted Power Ranger goggles and define everything simply into good and evil.
Iraq is not going to turn into a model of democracy and free-market capitalism overnight, or for quite some time. More people are going to be abducted and beheaded, more car bombs will be set off in front of police stations, and more houses will be obliterated by F-16s. But it will happen eventually, and so my only response to that is things might have to get worse before they get better. Thomas Friedman hit the nail on the head when he said the path to a stable Middle East is not a straight line.
Quote:
Originally posted by Master Tonberry
What if you don't like the stance of either guy? Somehow Coke and Pepsi would make you just as happy if it was the same cola in two different cans.
What if you don't like the stance of either guy? Somehow Coke and Pepsi would make you just as happy if it was the same cola in two different cans.
Uh, either run yourself or find a candidate who thinks like you and support him. And don’t say it’s the system’s fault if your guy doesn’t win.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mort-Hog
Perhaps it is too early for the Middle East to secularise.... perhaps Saddam Hussein was a man ahead of his time..
Perhaps it is too early for the Middle East to secularise.... perhaps Saddam Hussein was a man ahead of his time..
You! Get in the plastic shredder!
A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.
A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
art
A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
art
