Comments on: What’s New

By: ben chapman

ben chapman — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 17:38:28 +0000

what does WWI have to do with the ideology of the nazi regime? true it led to the popularity of it and enabled the nazi party to win a significant enough portion of seats in the reichstag (enough to essentially stage a coup and eliminate all other parties) but what does WWI have to do with a lack of political freedoms? you can want to rebuild infastructure and put an end to hyperinflation, sure. but hating jews? come now!

and as for the communists, i know youve read the communist manifesto. thats their ideology. did they practice it? well not really, we both know that from gregors class (ie, all “communist” nations were very nationalisitic, and had huge state bureaucracies as opposed to the stateless society marx envisioned) but they still believed in world wide revolution, and to that end, funded communist overthrows around the world. but the manifesto’s prescription of world revolution was written in 1848, before WWII or the cold war. how can US actions have effected that?

ideology matters. their causes do too, of course. but come on. adolf hitler was crazy. stalin was crazy. communism is a boogus ideology. and i would contend that osama bin laden is a mad man, and instead of isolating ourselves (you could make the argument of appeasement) we should treat extremist islam as we treated nazism and communism, as an evil to be confronted. should we reward terrorism? if we stop aid to israel, we do. if we pull out of iraq, we would. and whats to stop them from asking for more after that? and a little more? and a little more? its happened before, thats the point of my little history anaolgies. we gave hitler the sudetenland. he wanted more. we showed weakness in the bay of pigs. the soviets put nukes in cuba. our actions do matter, hovannes, you are right. but id rather our actions be of strength, not weakness.

was going after hitler to defend poland a worth while cause? would it have been a worth while cause to disarm him in 1935, after he violated the treaty of versaille? wanting to end reperation payments is one thing. nazism is completely another, and hitler used WWI to manipulate the masses for support of his cause. i would argue that bin laden is doing the same today over israel.

at what point, hovannes, would you say enough is enough and finally say that the extremist are asking for too much, that altering our actions in the face of terrorism and evil is not an option? i dont mean this to criticize or attack you, im just curious. you know i respect you and your opinions.

By: Morbo

Morbo — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 21:29:22 +0000

And Hovannes, who cares about the techincal root cause that creates the hate? Bolsheviks ordered all their people to liquidate the Kulaks. Now, Lenin himself surely had political reasons for this, but the majority of Bolsheviks simply hated the Kulaks since they were oppressors and stealing from the people. There was no rational way for the Kulaks to save themselves.

Same with Jews and Hitler. Hate is self-perpetuating.

By: Morbo

Morbo — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 21:27:42 +0000

Hovannes,

I attended a few Congressional hearing this summer, and although I don’t have the evidence on me, quite a few witnesses in hearing regarding Israel showed videos of Imams and Clerics, subtitled, who say with no compunction that Israel and America are evil and must be destroyed since we are sinful. There was an exchange between an Imam and one of his parishoners where the Mulsim man asked “What happens when we kick America out of our lands?” The Imam responded “Then we move into theirs and continue Allah’s work.”

Palestinians TV routinely shows propaganda films showing Jews controlling the world and America as a land of filth and moral depravation. None of these images had anything to do with Saudi lands or an incursoin into Iraq. These were all films from before 9/11, in fact.

These people don’t exactly hide the fact that they hate us. They are incdeibly open about it. Read http://www.memri.org sometimes.

By: cw

cw — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:51:59 +0000

I’d appreciate it if those who repeatedly claim that “terrorists terrorize us because they hate our freedom!” would provide some sort of evidence, especially since proving their motivation is not self-evident by their actions. Thus far I haven’t seen substance presented, aside from Kerry’s anecdotal non-proof. Actual evidence, I’m afraid, suggests al-Qaeda terrorism to be a response to US (and now coalition) actions rather than jealously or hatred of political freedoms.

Ben Chapman, you’ve inadvertantly stepped backwards into a minefield. While your attempt at bringing up parallels is obviously weak, you point out how narrow-sighted people can be in this debate. So here’s your history lesson: Adolf Hitler and the Soviets did hate a lot of what the US and the West did.

You’re supposedly a history expert (at least that’s what your Patriot column would like us to believe). How did the Nazi regime rise to power in Germany? Don’t look dumb and reject the key importance of the war burden from the First World War.

And the Soviets? Remember how the Soviets came to power after the Bolsheviks claim that Russia had been dragged into a Western war?

This isn’t to claim any of them are correct. My point is that underlying motivations are important. Don’t deceive yourself.

By: HB

HB — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 18:45:00 +0000

Of course, the US knows what’s best for everyone? Right? The US government that is.

After this little failed crusade we will find ourselves with more enemies, hopelessly in debt and our soldiers fighting with chineese-made M16.

How disasterous must the fall be to break through the hubris of today’s neo-cons?

By: ben chapman

ben chapman — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:43:24 +0000

Adolf Hitler doesnt hate freedom at all. he just hates what the western democracies *do*

how dare they defend poland and czechslovakia! if we just let him take the sudetenland, he’d leave us alone!

the soviet communists dont hate freedom! they hate what we *do*

if we just let them continue to aid communist overthrows around the world, in latin america and else where, theyll leave us alone! seriously, how dare we build a nuclear arsenal? if we just stopped building our arms, theyd stop. right?

this form of logic doesnt work guys! we have historical reasons to believe that. if we stop aiding israel, the only democracy in the middle east, is that preferable? do we want fewer democracies in the world? and besides, the US gives more aid to the palestinians than anyone else. the reason we dont give them more is the lack of transperancy, a trait commonly associated with … democracy!!!! if al queada really were pissed at us because of these actions, then their persception is quite misguided to say the least. if they really wanted whats best for muslims around the world, why not start with building palestinian infastructure, among other things.

By: Kerry

Kerry — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:05:44 +0000

I looked at that article, Fresh Prince. “Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think”– just because there have been suicide bombings not related to jihadism doesn’t mean that there isn’t an jihadist movement that the United States is specifically targeting. The War on Terror is a war against the Islamic fundamentalism that the U.S. encountered on 9/11 and for that reason the claim in the article that “the aim of suicide bombers is not to advance Islamism in a war of civilizations” is simply incorrect. The aim of those suicide bombers that we are specifically against IS to advance Islamism in a war of civilizations. A major problem that the U.S. is dealing with is the fact that there is state-sponsored terrorism. Of course terrorists want to drive the U.S. and other democratic nations out of “their” countries– because terrorists want to be the ones controlling the governments. The claim in the article that the Iraq War has “created” terrorists is flawed in my opinion– do you really think that all of the terrorists appearing now in Iraq are native Iraqis? Terrorists view Iraq for what it currently is– an unstable region that could succumb to their control if they fight hard enough for it. If the U.S. wins in Iraq, that would be a major blow to terrorists who would now have another democracy, besides Israel, in their midst. If the U.S. withdraws from Iraq without leaving a stable regime behind, terrorists will have another venue through which they could commit even more horrendous attacks against the Western world. And yes, they do hate freedom and they do hate Western values. I completely agree with Michael who posted that Islamic extremists feel threatened because Western nations are so successful. The article says that “suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism.” But suicide terror is a relatively recent phenomenon– why did Palestinians not resort to suicide attacks when they were occupied by Muslim countries such as Jordan? They began this only after Israel, a Jewish democracy, became the occupying country. In other words, I agree with you that suicide bombers want to get rid of foreign occupation. But what I’m saying is that they want to get rid of that type of foreign occupation that is non-Muslim and that crushes their ability to commit terror attacks against the West.