onlooker wrote:Yes I have to believe that the West has decided to unleash the forces of irrational religious fervor and that genie may not be able to be put back in the bottle. I appreciate the article but I am all too familiar with the reasoning from the vantage point of the West particularly the US. It is about projecting military might and in the process destabilizing the ME and thus creating a power vacuum which presumable will be filled by puppet regimes following the whims of the West especially to obtain that precious "Black gold". Also, in the process creating a worldwide police state intent of allowing the power structures to remain in place and the monetary rewards to continue accruing to the same beneficiaries. The one thing that the West did not account for is that these Islamic pawns would take seriously their Jihad and not bow to bribery or threats or whatever.
onlooker wrote:I think AD, we are running out of chances to fail, the future may not allow more do overs.
C8 wrote:The West isn't responsible for "elevating" Islam to power- it was responding to growing attacks on its citizens by Muslims. Liberals believe that only the West can be evil- its a pathological self hate that will bring ruin upon us all if we let it.
ennui2 wrote:A large percentage of people feel more comforted when they lay blame on their own tribe than to accept that some foreign actor could appear out of nowhere as a threat. We self-identify with our own tribe so we think "gee, we can self-correct, if we just run around and scream that soylent green is peeple." But you can't somehow impose on people halfway around the globe that sawing off people's heads with a rusty knife is wrong.
That's really what all this self-flagellation is all about. It's about how to frame the situation in a way that feels more solvable or manageable. But it's not.
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onlooker wrote:No, blaming the West is not intellectually bankrupt, it is voicing the truth of imperialism dating back to when Great Britain carved up the Middle East arbitrarily to suit its ambitions.
Ibon wrote:Self flaggelators don't make policy and don't influence absolutely anything.
ennui2 wrote:I find those who continue to ply the narrative that all foreign policy is driven by oil and nothing but oil to be overly simplistic bordering on childish. This also comes across as an apologia for terrorism, which turns my stomach, and it's a gateway-drug to tinfoil conspiracy theories (911).
A large percentage of people feel more comforted when they lay blame on their own tribe than to accept that some foreign actor could appear out of nowhere as a threat. We self-identify with our own tribe so we think "gee, we can self-correct, if we just run around and scream that soylent green is peeple." But you can't somehow impose on people halfway around the globe that sawing off people's heads with a rusty knife is wrong.
That's really what all this self-flagellation is all about. It's about how to frame the situation in a way that feels more solvable or manageable. But it's not.
You'll find that fundamentalist thought (which exists both in religion and secular ideologies) is the real enemy. When people reach epistemic closure and they draw little circles around people with labels over them saying "friend" and "foe", that's when the trouble starts. You can't negotiate with people who have flagged you as a collective existential threat. This flaw in the human animal rears its ugly head just as much with brown-skinned men as white Americans and it takes both sides to perpetuate it. So this continued attempt to spin and spin and blame and blame the West is intellectually bankrupt.
onlooker wrote:No, blaming the West is not intellectually bankrupt, it is voicing the truth of imperialism dating back to when Great Britain carved up the Middle East arbitrarily to suit its ambitions. It is voicing that to this day Israel (An extension of the West) is antagonizing the Muslims/Arabs.
onlooker wrote: Just look at the perverse inequality between Israel citizens and Palestinian people or young people reduced to throwing rocks at tanks to release their frustration.
onlooker wrote:As for the focal point of the West being Oil that is as obvious as the Sun and Moon. Why are we not so engaged in places like Africa or elsewhere?
onlooker wrote:they have awoken
onlooker wrote:who provoked them.
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