From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2003 - 16:37:34 MDT
--- John K Clark <jonkc@att.net> wrote:
> I'm not blasé, I know it's a terrible problem but I
also know that making nice to Islam will not reduce
their anger one iota because the root cause of
that anger was not any specific action committed by
the west. They are angry at us for what we are not
what we did.
Allow me to present an alternate view. (Which is a
gentle BUT RESPECTFUL way to say I disagree.)
When the 911 attacks came, I thought "***NOW SURELY***
people will ask 'Why?' " Then, before the question
could be posed large in the forum of public discourse,
Bush made his "You're either with us or your against
us" speech of Sept 20, 2001, and disposed of the
question (begged the question? deflected the
question?, distracted us from the question? pre-empted
the question?) He said the terrorists did this because
they hate us because we're rich and free, and all they
know is the will to power. (Strikingly, this seems an
apt characterization of the attitude of the Patrician
ruling class (of which the Bush cabal is a subset)
towards the "loyal" opposition.)
I realized then that we were screwed. That the
question would not be addressed honestly--if
ever--until the next, presumably larger, lethal event.
How bad does it have to hurt before someone gets real
about this? (Sidenote: Violence gets attention when
seemingly nothing else will, but inflames reason and
extirpates sympathy. It's counterproductive, and
frankly, dumb. A credible threat of violence is more
practical, but still comes from the same bitter menu
of options. There is a better way.)
> ...the root cause of that anger was not any specific
action committed by the west. They are angry at us
for what we are not what we did.
No. Some segment of Islam--maybe even a very large
fraction--may disapprove of western cultural values,
but so long as we keep it here, and don't force it on
them, it's probably not something they care a whole
lot about.
It's the aggressive intrusion of the west that
inspires their antipathy. The crusades. The
invasions of western "colonial" powers, most noitable
and recently the parcelling up of the mideast by the
Europeans (primarily the Brits) after the defeat of
the Ottomans. The propping up of corrupt local puppet
regimes for the dual benefit of control of a strategic
resource (oil) and the theft(essentially) of the
profits therefrom. And finally, the jewel in the
crown, the poison pill, the knife in the back (or
perhaps I should say the ice pick in the face) of the
deliberate, overt, unashamed, and unrelenting
"erasure" of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians, accompanied by their replacement by an
ultra-aggressive, ultra-militaristic(which is to say
threatening), and ultra-contemptuous
Jewish state (where, despite declamations of its
democratic nature, Jews are, by law, the privileged
class).
That is why they are pissed.
Best, Jeff Davis
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of
atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a
remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
George Orwell
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