How do we break the cycle of hatred taught by islam?

[LegalEagle 22]

How is it that everytime this subject comes up and someone suggests that something other than military force might be the best approach that the response becomes characterizing that positions as putting daisies in gun barrels and singing Kum-ba-yah while we allow them to destroy us?

I swear, this is why my posting in the politics forum has gone down over the last couple of years. No one seems to be willing to engage and think critically about any middle ground. You either go over there and bomb the Islamic states and kill them all until they utterly capitulate or you "tolerate" Islam and just love them to death? Those are our choices? Because that's what these debates always seem to devolve into.

Look, thinking we've resorted to military force too quickly or that in some situations we shouldn't have is not tantamount to being a hippie chanting "give peace a chance." It's just acknowledging that the world is a more complicated place than "we're good, they're evil, let's kill them." It's acknowledging that no matter how many times President Bush tells us that they attack us because "they hate us for our freedom", that doesn't mean it's true. It's understanding that there are several factors involved in what fuels groups like Al Qaida in terms of recruiting new members from the population at large and that we are actually exacerbating some of them with the way we handle these situations.

If the best folks around here are going to do for arguments is to waste time lampooning ridiculous caricatures of what people are actually saying, then this forum is a waste of time. I should just rename it "Trading Propaganda" so at least then we'll be honest about what it is.

TT, sounds like you have that feelin' you get when you toss pearls before swine!

I agree that this site is out of balance. But, going against the numbers gives you a realistic exercise in existing in the political world.

[TexasTiger 13,029]

I think part of the problem is that over the years we've stuck our noses in where they didn't belong...propping up dictator's simply because we deemed them friendly to us in some way (staving off communism's advance, selling us oil at reasonable prices, acting as a counterbalance to a neighboring state we saw as hostile, etc.) When those dictators did what dictators tend to do, which is abuse power and treat their citizens horribly, we end up being blamed for at least part of it. Then there are the ethnic and tribal lines that don't necessarily correspond to the boundaries on a map and you get a big mixed up mess.

That's not to say everytime we've gotten involved somewhere it's been this way, but because of the situations where we've done it that way, when we intervene for all the right reasons we are viewed with suspicion or outright hatred. The bozos in the upper echelons of Al Qaida might "hate us for our freedom", but the average Joe or Achmed on the street hates us because he doesn't believe we get involved to help him or do the right thing. He thinks we get involved to set up power structures that primarily benefit us and he's an after-thought. Then the crazies come in and appeal to his ethnic and nationalistic pride, tell him we want to undermine his religion and values with our bankrupt culture and when that combines with the cynicism and suspicion he already has, he at best lacks trust in us and at worst hates our guts.

That said, the best thing we can do is exactly what otter said...stop being so damn dependent on foreign sources of oil. Some of that can be done by increasing our own production, but most of it will have to come by increasing fuel economy, making smarter more practical choices in the cars we drive and transportation options we choose, pushing for technologies that help us use a lot less oil and so on. That will choke off the money that fuels a lot of this crap, but also, it makes those areas less important to us. If the world (and us in particular) isn't economically addicted to Middle East oil, then it's much less of a concern to us if some idiot control this or that percentage of the world's oil fields. He's in control of something we don't have nearly as great a need for, so who cares? And when we aren't in their backyard anymore, the arguments Al Qaida uses against us largely fall flat.

I don't really see better fuel efficiency and using less fossil fuels as some moral imperative as much as I see it as an economic and national security issue. And I believe doing that will largely solve our problems with these idiots.

TT, how many years will it be before the U. S. is foreign energy independent - even if the government made the effort to require it?

How many wars; how many nukes; how many dirty bombs, how many chemical bombs explode before then?

The longest journey begins with a single step. We began this process over 30 years ago, began to make great progess and backed off. I would disagree with Titan about "environuts" being a major part of the problem. But I would agree that the Dems were largely influenced by the UAW while the Republicans were largely influenced by Big Oil. CAFE standards started under Republican Ford and a Dem Congress, were diminished under Reagan, and left to languish for the next 20 years through Republican and Dem congresses and administrations.

We have not pushed ourselves on the technology front in regard to diminishing our reliance on foreign oil.

[otterinbham 0]

I missed two days of this thread. I have to agree with Titan Tiger. Somehow, you guys think that the only solution is to mobilize ten million men, land on the Atlantic shore of Morrocco and march east until we reach the Indus River. It's bizarre logic at best. I don't know. Maybe you guys just like the idea of empire or relish the thought of recreating 100 Carthages, but I don't.

Every great struggle has three dimensions, political, economic, and military. Military is always the last gasp for good reason. Armies are obscenely expensive and seldom do a good job of achieving political goals. Truth be told, from the creation of Israel to the propping up of the Shah of Iran to France's and England's occupation colonization of the region, Western powers have not done a lot to endear themselves to the Islamic world. It certainly does not warrant terrorism, but it's a serious rebuttal to the fantasy world some of you seem to inhabit--Namely, that the West has been a benevolent force in the Middle East over the past 150 years. Wahhabism thinking, the kind espoused by Osama bin Ladn,, did not really begin to mature as a force in Islam until the 1950s and 1960s, after the French and British humiliated the Arab World during the Suez Crisis, and Israel inflicted a number of stinging defeats on Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Up until that time, the militant Islam you see today really was considered to be heretical.

So, what will be accomplished by escalating the level of violence in the Middle East? Not a thing. Instead, you need to realize that this is really a war of thought and culture, much like the Cold War was. And, quite frankly, it should ultimately be an easier one to win through influence, diplomacy, and economic leverage. But saturation bombing of Mecca would be the absolute thing to do, no matter how much satisfaction you seem to derive from it.

[CCTAU 3,350]

Yes. It's always our fault. We, as Americans, should feel guilt as to how we "manipulated" the arabs. We are so good at manipulating world politics that we must have just misjudged that one. This is akin to wanting reparations for slaves just because it happened You guys seem to have no sense of national pride. You sound more and more like a British apologist everyday. When Israel defeated the countries mentioned above, did Israel attack those countries? Or did they just end the fight? ]

This post is about how muslim governments teach hate toward us. And some of you want to call it our fault and attempt to "justify" it?

Sure there are other eays to deal with an issue besides military action. You must also learn from history. Israel has been trying to deal with it non-militarily and what always ends up happening is that they must use force to continue to protect themselves. But that mus t be Israel's fault too.

As long as the arab governments are filled with terrorist apologists and supporters, military action should ALWAYS be at a moments notice.

And yeah, Titan, some of us think kumbayah will not solve this issue between what seems to be a growing number of muslims wanting us dead, and Christianity.

We can attempt to give everyone a chance all the same. But if the muslim world does not take that chance and even stand up to condemn the terrorists, then they are condoning WAR against me and my family.

Sometimes things ARE just black and white and too many folks continue to look for the gray until it's too late.

[channonc 466]

I guess I don't understand how killing them and their families will make them "love us more" and not "preach hatred." I for one, think that it brings about the exact opposite-- more violence.

War should be a very last resort, and in the case of Iraq, I am not sure that all other options were fully exhausted before the talk of war was on the table.

[aumd03 2]

Sure there is. For, right now, they're acting from a position of strength.

Want to change the situation? Change the economics. Figure out how to slash the consumption of oil in this country through better fuel economy or whatever means else required. Develop domestic resources, and to hell with the reindeer and the NIMBY people. Allow gasoline prices to go as high as the oil companies want them to go, because when gasoline hits $4 a gallon, I guarantee you that people won't be driving their Suburbans on unnecessary trips.

Do all that, and the Middle East's economy collapses. Then governments won't have spare bags of cash floating around to pay for race horses or five star hotels, let alone sneaking money to terrorist groups. What's more, the Middle East, in terms of world priorities, will revert back to its normal importance, down there with Surinam or Equitorial Guinea. And, irony of ironies, the economies of the region that will survive will also be the same countries that have emphasized relative moderation and toleration, such as Dubai, Qatar, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Then we will have achieved our aims without having to fire a shot. Checkmate, Arabs.

In other words, self-sufficiency should be a strategic priority of the United States.

Otter has state my viewpoint better than I could have ever stated myself. The practicality of it right now is somewhat questionable and suspect, but it's definitely an atainable goal.