But I guess you thought I was actually making “excuses” for the terrorists. Sadly, the right as well seems equally incapable of grasping the difference between trying to understand a problem in order to better solve it and “making excuses” for violence.

I’m sorry but, again, if this is your idea of centrist thinking — “That didn’t excuse them for shooting up the school, and it doesn’t exuse Islamic militants from killing people.” — I hate to hear what you think sounds like right wing pablum.

If I wasn’t having this conversation on this site, and you didn’t say it, I wouldn’t know if you were left or right. So, no, I’m not attacking the left and embracing right-created caricatures. I came to the Islamonazi conclusion on my own. Nobody had to feed it to me.

I think I unequivocably stated that I think we need to fight terrorism, but Iraq was the wrong venue, no “brute force fixes all” was anywhere in my statements…but brute force has a time and place, like everything else under the sun.

I think your last paragraph is where I have a problem. I have no qualms about acknowledging the root issues of any problem. But once it manifests itself with violence, how do you respond? The kids who shot up Columbine were brought to do so because of intense feelings of isolation, rejection and bullying. That didn’t excuse them for shooting up the school, and it doesn’t exuse Islamic militants from killing people.

One thing or another won’t stop this. It will require dialog, understanding, negotiation and, yes, brute force at times. I never suggested solving the Mideast problem would be simplistic. If I could solve that, I’d be the smartest person in the visible universe, and I assure you I’m not.

I don’t get it then. Why then did you write this:

One thing I think we’re all nimbly dodging around because its an unsavory thought, is that many believe the Muslims are motivated by simple discontent and feelings of persecution.

Did anyone suggest that the motivations of Hezzbolah or Hamas or any terrorist group were pure? Please. Is this supposed to pass for centrist thought, criticizing the left for things it never said while taking seriously every caricatured boogeymen that the right drags out from under its soiled bed?

Seriousness is a willingness to grapple with complexity, not applying the same “brute force fixes all” solution to every and any challenge that crops up.

It’s the left that has insisted we would have better luck fighting terrorism by addressing the range of motivations behind it, rather than simply holding fast to knee-jerk, cartoonish fantasies. Sheesh.

I’m sorry but did someone suggest that al qaeda was fighting for a noble cause?

Politics is ugly, and life is one shade of grey after another. There are no absolutes, especially when trying to decipher reasons behind violence and war. There are a lot of ugly facets we don’t like to address.

One thing I think we’re all nimbly dodging around because its an unsavory thought, is that many believe the Muslims are motivated by simple discontent and feelings of persecution. I’m cynical enough to believe that Muslim radicalism isn’t singularly about religion. Somewhere, somehow, someone is making a few Rial off Middle East turbulence.

We have certain profit motives behind our wars, why assume their cause is noble and just?

Because in Dugger’s moral universe it isn’t Thou Shalt Not Kill, it’s Thou Shalt Not Kill As Much As The Other Guy.

Brilliant. Following that logic one can only guess what it means when and if our death toll rolls passed Hussein’s.

He also goes on to exemplify the mindless rhetoric of the right I noted above. He all but admits there’s a civil war in Iraq — “insurgents fighting against it are fighting against their own people” — but refuses to even consider what role our own policies and continued presence have played in creating that situation. To suggest just that our use of violence might have made things way fucking worse in a volatile region to engage in “moral equivalence.”

He’s an idiot.

Since all Christians fail to condemn those actions, they must be complicit.”

Baloney! The only people seriously murdering bunches of other people in the name of their religion are Muslims.
I tend to disagree with our Iraq action, but I believe the numbers indicate the likelihood of more deaths under Saddam than during the war/post war.

And one hopes that no one here is suggesting moral equivalence between terrorists/insurgents and American troops (well, Durbin maybe). The government of Iraq is a democratic one and the terrorists and insurgents fighting against it are fighting against their own people.

Sort it out boys and girls, and give up the moral equiavalence bullsh*t.

But wait a second, we use violence as an expression against policy we don’t like all the time, don’t we?

Obivously, we are directly responsible for several regimes who we thought were nice tools against the Soviets and Iranians, who have now turning against us. As unpalletable as it is, we essentially created Al Qaeda by funding Bin Laden and the Muhajadin.

That doesn’t excuse using violence as an expression against political policy. If I don’t like the foreign policy of Poland, there would be no jusitification for me to go to Chicago and kill Poles, just as Hizbollah, Hamas or any other terrorist group has a right to think violence is proper political expression. If these groups have a grievence, it should be played out in the political arena, but that’s not happening. In that context, the only way to combat violence is, unfortunately, with violence.

We have two basic cornerstones to radical Islam. American foreign policy and America’s support of Israel. I believe there are other religious sources for the violence, involved with bringing about their version of Armageddeon, but I’ll save that for another argument.

The problem, as I see it, is the Arab nations do not want Israel to exist. They feel the land was taken away from them, given to the Jews.

First, it’s not inconceivable that land was artificially partitioned to make room for a population. Iran, Iraq, and many other Middle East countries did not exist before artificial partition, so there is already a modern precedent for creating a country where none existed before. The only thing the creation of Israel was guity of, in their eyes, was populating it with Jews instead of Arabs.

Second, to express their dismay, they’ve continually attacked Israel, and each time Israel took a little more land from them. Now they want it back.

Well, that’s being a sore loser. If you’re going to play the game, and you lose, you have to suffer the consequences. I know of no other war where the loser asked for the land to be ceded back to them because they didn’t know what they were getting into. But that’s what Israel is expected to do..which they did by withdrawing from Gaza. Where is the peace?

To make another long-winded analogy. Would any of us give up our home and land so Native Americans could re-colonize our town? That’s effectively what the Arabs are asking Israel to do. At a certain point, boundaries have to stick, or we’d still be fighting the British.

So, I agree Muslims are pissed, and I’d like to do whatever we could do to make them happy, but it begins with their acceptance that Israel exists, and they will have to peacefully co-exist with her.

Exactly.

But wait, what we’re doing is Right so there’s no need to condemn it because we are always Right. To suggest otherwise is to aid and abet the enemy.

See how that works as well?

Since all Christians fail to condemn those actions, they must be complicit.

See how it works?

You mustbe new here.

There are, indeed, unreasonable, radical people in the world on all sides. But again, the word “reasonable” is just as slippery as objective.

We have done very little to understand how and why majority Muslim nations perceive us and our actions in the world. Any attempt to actually do so is instantly branded as somehow treasonous: “The Blame America First crowd.”

It’s entirely reasonable for a moderate Muslim to abhor terrorism and the murder of innocent people while having doubts about US intentions in the Middle East. They might also abhor violence while seeing a group like Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance organization. That opinion, of course, is immediately dimissed by the hard right in this country as unreasonable and pro-terrorist. This has become the basis for arguments on the right that maybe Lebanese civilians shouldn’t be considered “civilians” as such and thus legitimate military targets.

That’s a wondefully slipperly slope that, if you accept its logic, could be used to justify 9-11 or Hezbollahs continued actions. And it all begins by refusing to reach across the divide and understand how the moderate Muslim world really perceives us in favor of looking for the answers we want to hear and judging all others as “unreasonable.”

The bottom line is that our actions in the world have consequences and we have to better understand what those consequences are if we are going to “win hearts and minds.”

I think what I am asking for is reasonable journalism. Like this site here. I disagree with about 60% of what is said, but I think everyone here is reasonable and thoughtful, so I value the content.

Can I ask what you mean by ‘objective’? Because if it means Mid East based organization that agrees with us, well, how objective is that?

I did find in my search last night some solid reporting, such as the Bahrain Tribune, but others that presented themselves as ‘news’ like This one are clearly not based on the same journalism principles we use here in America..or are supposed to use, that is.

In terms of Islamonazi or Islamic Fascism, I think we’re all astute enough to know that any administration needs to package a message for public consumption. For the most part, Bush & Co. have avoided using the term until now. But you are correct, it is a term created and grown by the right wing commentators, no doubt about it.

To answer Oliver’s question to this tangent I’ve veered us way off, no I don’t trust the administration to defend us. But I can’t lay it squarely on Bush. Bush isn’t even a figurehead, he’s a hood ornament. The fact is our entire government is charged with defending us, FBI, CIA, ICE, DoD, ETC. The administration just sets the tone, and I’ll grant you it’s a crappy tone. I don’t care who has the better idea of securing our country, I just want it formulated and implemented by someone.