19 dead from suspected suicide blast

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by 22catch, May 22, 2017.

  1. Indofred

    Indofred Banned at Members Request

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    But you still can't post the details you claim.
    As I said, you lied and are trying to cover it up.

    You are Trump and I claim my $10
     
  2. Pisa

    Pisa Well-Known Member

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    US never supported the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Their biggest mistake was to trust the Pakistanis with the funneling of the weapons destined for anti-Soviet activity in Afghanistan. Pakistan chose to arm the Taliban because it served their own interests in the region. A fundamentalist Islamic regime was less threatening to them than a nationalistic one pushing for a greater Pushtunistan.

    Well, you know what they say about good intentions...
    Amazing how the role of the Soviet bear in the rise of the Taliban is completely overlooked by all sides. It was their invasion of Afghanistan that triggered the events culminating with the talibanization of the country.
     
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  3. Pisa

    Pisa Well-Known Member

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    Do you have a source for this? OBL's stated goal was to overthrow the Saudis, not to help them.

    http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life...fight-al-qaedas-war-against-the-house-of-saud

    American support for Israel came very, very late. We had no American support in 1948. The only country that helped the nascent Jewish state was Czechoslovakia (and they support Israel to this day), but oddly enough it wasn't targeted by Islamic terrorists.

    US is a target because it has the power and the will to impose the values it upholds - individual freedoms, religious tolerance, human dignity and human rights - values that threaten core beliefs and the ancestral way of life in the Muslim world.

    The so called sticking point is a red herring.

    Frustration due to social and economic factors leads to civil unrest, not radicalization.

    I don't think that opposition to Western-oriented regimes had any significant role in the anti-Western narrative. It's a leftist myth and frankly I'm surprised you agree with it.

    The most fertile ground for radicalization of young Muslims is the Academia.

    This is the reason for Islamists pushing hatred of the US throughout the Muslim world. The simple existence of a regime that allows for such an idea to even exist, let alone be freely expressed, is an abomination for the devout. That hated regime being so powerful only ads fuel to the holy ire.
     
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  4. Concord

    Concord Well-Known Member

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    Look at the timeline. He started to fight the Saudis after they invited the US to balance against Saddam.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/27/w...y-war-lured-saudis-as-rulers-looked-away.html

    As recounted by Prince Turki bin Faisal, then the Saudi intelligence chief, and by another Saudi official, the episode foreshadowed a worrying turn. Victorious in Afghanistan, Mr. bin Laden clearly craved more battles, and he no longer saw the United States as a partner, but as a threat and potential enemy to Islam.

    Arriving with maps and many diagrams, Mr. bin Laden told Prince Sultan that the kingdom could avoid the indignity of allowing an army of American unbelievers to enter the kingdom, to repel Iraq from Kuwait. He could lead the fight himself, he said, at the head of an group of former mujahedeen that he said could number 100,000 men.

    Prince Sultan had received Mr. bin Laden warmly, but he reminded him that the Iraqis had 4,000 tanks, according to one account.

    ''There are no caves in Kuwait,'' the prince is said to have noted. ''You cannot fight them from the mountains and caves. What will you do when he lobs the missiles at you with chemical and biological weapons?''

    Mr. bin Laden replied, ''We fight him with faith.''

    The conversation ended soon afterward, and the proposal was left to rest. But Saudi officials now say that the episode offered an early glimpse of several of the forces the kingdom would spend the rest of the decade trying to contain.

    It doesn't matter. The Muslim world looks either at US as an Israeli puppet or Israel as an American puppet.

    Perception is just as important as reality in this kind of matter.

    Yeah, sure. One only needs to look at the Islamic world during the 50s and 60s to see that the real beneficiaries of unrest were nationalism and communism. But people come to any particular form of extremism because they find it's narrative to be convincing. Over the last few decades the Islamist narrative has been the most enticing, especially among the Sunni.

    It's obvious that this was certainly the case in Iran and Egypt. It is often the case in terms of Saudi Arabia. It gives the Pakistani government some heartache too.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2017
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  5. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What makes you think that ISIS members are not Muslims, Annelle? Did they say that?
     
  6. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But many victims/citizens of these leftists regimes would certainly like to work in European countries suffering from demographic problems. The western Europeans should consider bringing boatloads of them over to alleviate the worker shortage and threats to their social programs..
     
  7. Concord

    Concord Well-Known Member

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    You don't find it concerning that you find yourself impelled to propagate this kind of obscurantism?

    It doesn't feel a bit... Orwellian to you?
     
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  8. Pisa

    Pisa Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for the info, I didn't know that.

    Of course, but my point was that a change in US foreign policy regarding Israel won't make it a lesser evil for Islamists.

    Most of the Muslim world didn't even make it to the Middle Ages. They're still organized in tribes, clans and families. No wonder many of their countries are extremely unstable. Western standards don't work there. If you want to understand what and why is happening in the Middle East and North Africa, you have to learn tribal culture.

    Islamism is enticing because it promises a golden era of a global Islamic caliphate under a righteous caliph while doing charity work among the faithful. Islamists are community organizers, send children to school, pay for medical care, cater to their flock material as well as spiritual needs. They're the good guys in the neighborhood. Their promises of a better future are backed by facts, and that's something real, palpable, true. I think this is the secret of their success even in the Western world.

    The anti-Western narrative certainly feeds on the failures of Western-backed rulers, but I don't think it was born of those failures.
     
  9. Concord

    Concord Well-Known Member

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    Keep in mind that the information had to pass through a few hands and isn't a sure thing, but it's certainly believable. There's no reason that Bin Laden and the Saudis had to hate each other.

    I don't know, I feel like a peace deal between Israel and Hamas that put the West Bank under total Arab control would be a big deal.

    But who knows?

    I also want to point out that it would be a mistake for the United States to be unwilling to work with Islamists as such.

    We made a similar mistake during the Cold War. There's no reason that people like Ho Chi Minh couldn't have been American allies.

    I think that there are ways of creating stable democracies with solid legitimacy in the region. It wouldn't be easy, but it's possible.

    Well, I've written entire threads about what I think steered the Muslim world in the direction it has gone. The social stratification of those societies into semi-Westernized elites and the vast majority of the population was, I think, a major driver in anti-Western sentiment. People came to hate not only pro-Western regimes, but also regimes that were born of Western ideas, like the Ba'athists and communists through the region.
     
  10. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    LOL!!!

    wow, this hole goes very deep.
     

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