Quote from jem:
Arab ruler 101.
Goering speech.
Focus on Israel, Jews and the U.S.
Keep all the oil money. Fly to liberal places, drink, gamble, whore and spend your money. Maybe even invest in U.S. stock market.
Go home. Teach your people to hate the U.S. Team up with the clergy if you grip on power is weakening. Hate Jews and the U.S. even more.
That is why we are hated---- not our foreign policy.
While I disagree with much of the way our foreign policy has been handled by the Bush administration, I do not disagree with this statement.
Throughout history, ethnic groups have been used as scapegoats to promote hatred among the weak minded masses, and to create a common "enemy" among them. Hitler did it with the Jews, as have the many Arab leaders for the greater part of the past century. But Jews have no monopoly on being the targets of this kind of politics. We saw what happened with "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia just a few years ago. The list is endless of the peoples that have been used to unify unjust causes as scapegoats. Chinese, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Blacks, American Indians, Serbs, Kurds, and on and on. The list is really endless. The politics of hatred go back to the dawn of history.
Even in Islam itself, today the hatred between the sects is almost (if not equal to) as bad as the hatred of the non Islamic "infidels". Look at the war between Iran and Iraq. Now the extremist Wahabe sect is represented by Bin Laden and Al Qada. They want to overthrow Islamic theocracies that are not of their own sect. Is it really about religion? Or is it about power?
The most fanatic of the fanatics may or may not have their "God is Great (as long as it's our god)" beliefs driving their causes. Or maybe not. Certainly Mohammed Atta and his crew were willing to die for a ticket to paradise. But you don't see Bin Laden, or Arafat, or Quadaffi, or any other "leaders" making martyrs of themselves. They seem only interested in power. And money.
Jem is just right.
When they found the home of Mullah Omar, the opulence was in total contrast to the supposed beliefs of the Taliban.
Nolan-Vinny-whoever may have his legitimate points in his distaste for our leader's way of handling the war on terror. But Nolan...what do you suggest as better alternatives?
There really can't be (IMO) much of an argument against the statement by Jem regarding the hypocrisy of the Arab leaders (the ones that support terrorism, and have ALWAYS managed to unite the Arab world in their one common cause...the elimination of Israel).
The use of scapegoats is one of the most effective motivations for working up the masses into a frenzy. Got problems? Hey, it's not us (your government)....blame it on the Jews, Christians, Serbs, ....(fill in the blanks). This has worked for thousands of years. Why would a successful strategy not be employed now?
While I am not a supporter of Bush and his administration, I do hand it to them all for suppressing the initial national anti-muslim reaction here after 9/11. I give the administration a lot of credit for calming the populace as well as they did. Clearly there was potential for a lot of our outrage to turn a lot more ugly than it did regarding American Muslims. Perhaps we learned our lesson after the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Whatever the reason, we should be proud as a nation that we did not see massive violent reaction against the American Muslim community.
There were isolated instances for sure. There always are. But anyone who knows what the "Crystal Night" was about should appreciate what a great country ours is. And no matter what Prescott Bush's politics were, clearly GWB, as big an idiot as he may appear, is far from evil. (not so sure about Cheney
).
Peace,
RS
Yer better stop before it's too late.
The "scenario" worked out like a charm. Iraq's oil is ours, US treasury money is smoothly transferred to HAL/Betchel et all
What do you think they are doing these days at 30+ a barrel???? 