Quote:I agree with you regarding 9/11.  I think it would be safe to say that 2001 was the beginning of the war on Terror.  Here's something I always found stupid, and didn't understand how anyone could buy into it--- Right after 9/11 everyone was asking, "why"  why did they do this.  And the Bush/Cheney administration decided to say it was because "they hated our freedom".  What a load of Mike Mularkey.  I don't understand why anyone would think this was a legit.  The USA was a superpower and the beacon for western civilization since for the longest time.  The middle east didn't just wake up and realize that we wear jeans and our women vote and shave thier legs.  It was the stupidest reason and is part of the problem we still have today.

 

Many still do no understand why middle easterners, specifically from certain countries are wanting to attack us.  And it's not because of our western society.  They are attacking us because of our imperialism, that's my take on it.

 

One thing to back up my point...  Iran is a theocratic country.  But, besides postering, they are not involved in any of these terrorist acts.  Yes, one can say they fund certain groups, but they are not directly involved.  It's not about religion, it's about something else.  These specific middle easterners feel wrong by the USA's involvment in thier lands and are lashing out.  I don't believe this has anything to do with religion.  It's much simpler than that.  Now, don't get me wrong, ISIS is clearly using religion to recruit individuals, to make the fight bigger than just thier own self interests.  

 

Remember Ireland?  The protestant v. catholic war was more about britain's oppression of Ireland's freedoms.  People said that that war would never end because of it's religous foundation.  But once both parties could agree in principles to recognize Ireland's freedom, did not the "religous" war end?  I think it's important to realize the similarities there.

 

Now we totally jacked up the middle east because of Bush/Cheney., thier excuse that they hate our freedom should have been a warning sign that they had no idea what the hell they were doing.  But here we are, a vacuum in Afganastan and Iraq has lead to a whole bunch of radicals that are using religion to recruit people to fight a war that in effect is a grab for power and a fight against the imperalistic western countries that screwed up the region.  It's more a political fight than it is a religious one.  In my opinion.

 

I tend to agree.  It's not that "they hate our freedom."   That's bovine excrement.   I think that a large part of Arab resentment of the United States is because of

 

1) our hypocrisy and greed.   We say we support democracy and human rights, but at the same time we prop up the Saudi royal family and other non-democratic kingdoms in the region, because we want their oil.  

 

2) our support for Israel, which many Arabs see as a European colony which was placed in their midst by outside powers.  

 

A lot of Arabs just want the United States and its allies to go away and stop trying to run the Middle East.  What ISIS wants is the opposite: they want to draw us into a war, with the West on one side and all Muslims on the other side.   I suspect that we will see more terrorist incidents over the coming months, in an attempt to influence the election and get Trump elected President.   I suspect that ISIS would love for Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States, because that will enable them to "prove" that the United States is in the Middle East because we hate Muslims.  

 

That's what a lot of people don't understand.   ISIS and Al Qaeda don't want us out of the Middle East, they want to draw us into the Middle East.   They believe that the more we are in the Middle East, the easier it will be for them to recruit followers.  

 

Edit: also, I would  add, we (The West) sends sexually related images and videos into their homes via the Internet.   These people are pretty straight-laced, and here we are producing and exporting [BAD WORD REMOVED] free on demand to everyone in the world, corrupting their society with it. 

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