I am SO ANTI-WAR it is not even funny. Not only am I against war, I am a very strong Democrat. (Hence the name of the thread.)

The common Republican/conservative standpoint on abortion is "it's murder". Why, then, is another part of the Republican/conservative platform that of boosting the military? Is the life of that as-yet unborn American child who will be raised under our policies and fight for us more important than the life of a Afghani who may be all for killing us or may be secretly rooting for us? And more importantly, isn't war murder as well?

Just some thought-provoking questions from a bird whose feathers are EXTREMELY ruffled over this issue...

Peace,

Birdy

I agree, historic precedent tells us that expansionist policy almost allways ends in distabilization and collapse. This time the home front wont have much to do with it though.
the instability in the mid east that grows daily will eventually spike oil prices again, and the economy won't be able to support the stress.

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Originally posted by riskbreaker86:
that depends on how the American people vote, if another Bush comes to power then the American empire will eventually collapse.

ok, so i'm going to call myself a "marxist historian"... at least for now. so, economy and money govern the course of history, right? ok, well, the gap between the rich and the poor in america right now is so enourmous, you could easily compare it to the gap leading up to the french revolution. it is these gaps that cause social instability, and thus revolution. trust me, if history is any indicator of whats to come, america is on the brink of collapse.

Both great comments and very true. Everyone is their own greatest enemy in the beginning...Life is a constant struggle for everyone, religious or not.

I think that war is inevitable...you cannot avoid it...I'm not saying its good nor am i agreeing with war...just saying that its inevitable...

I would go so far as to say that the greatest enemies of any religion are the people who follow it. Islam, in this respect, is no different than Christianity or Judaism, then.

my comment got attention only because it is controversial and because not very many people on this site would agree with it.

LMAO

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the most destructive enemy that Islam has ever had was Islam itself

Check the youthnoise portal, they've spotlighted it. I wonder why the countless posts that say exactly the opposite and provide plenty of evidence never get that much attention.

thats a lot of text torin, could you summarise for us?

I would defenitely agree with your history of Terrorism, however i think you can dig a little deeper.

So what happened to the glorious Islamic empire (Ottoman Empire)? Today, True Islam blames the crusades, the Jews, Western culture, and Christians for its fall from power. In truth, the most destructive enemy that Islam has ever had was Islam itself. As the world modernized around them, the Islamic leaders refused to move forward with the rest of the world. Firmly believing in Islamic superiority, the pompous, naive ruling class of religious leaders planted the seeds of hatred towards the West as far back as the 1700s and continue to do it today with the help of media and propoganda. The ruling Islamic religious leaders believed western inventions were evil things (which some are, but every cultures has their evil inventions) created by evil and inferior people. Any attempt to modernize the empire was put down by the ruling Islamic body called the ulema which wanted to hold onto its power and maintain Islam in its pure state. This meant no non-Muslim influence of any kind. The same greed that destroyed the roman empire is what eventually brought destruction to the Ottoman empire. No one sucessfully conquered the Ottoman Empire, it simply fell apart after loosing a few decisive battles, that cost a lot of money and rescources, to the Romanian Empire. The point is, the Ottoman Empire was first in imposing religious beliefs before any other Christian nation or wesern nation for that matter. The crusades had NOTHING to do with imposing Christianity on Islam and EVERYTHING to do with funding the corrupt Church in Europe which at that point in time had itself little to do with religion and all with power, hell, the christian armies even invaded other christian cities on a few accounts on their way to Jeruselam. Long before the crusaides Islam believed in spreading it's beliefs by force. I am not trying to justify the millions that died on either side but merely pointing out that it was Islam and the middle east that imposed their culture on us. We had nothing to do with the fall of Islamic rul in the Ottoman Empire. It was these events in history that created a breeding ground for terroism to follow.
Today’s terrorist movement started in 1928 with the founding of Ikhwan al-Muslimun, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They were founded in order to oppose the Arab secular governments (westernized style of seperation of Church and Government) that stripped the Islamic elite of its power. This group, led by Hassan al-Banna, felt no Islamic country should tolerate a secular government. Islam had always been the judge, jury, and executioner over the people. This is considered "True Tslam"ic thinking which is what the modern terrorist believes. Modern Islam is much different and much more peaceful and i would agree the majority of the world is the latter. However, True Islam believers exists ALL over the world, primarily in the middle east because it's origins are there, and they are spreading rapidly because of the propoganda by Al-Jazeera and other lesser media scources. Once again you have an interal conflict within the muslim nation and whos blamed? The west, because our theories on governmental practices devoloped from learning our lesson that government should be seperated from church in order to eliminate the "divine right" theory and monarchy all together. This was a clear threat to the Islamic ruling body. Many terrorist groups have developed since then and had different goals but they all have had very similar viewpoints, religion over government, spread islam by force and that the west is the devil and should be eliminated.
The west has involved itself because of these ideologies. They have boiled in the hearts of millions of true islamic believers from their great grandparents to today. We put our foot in the middle east (WWI, Israel and unsucessfully Iraq) because we realized that if this is a small problem that didn't need our attention then how come these ideologies have been goin on for 1300 years? For 1300 years the west has been blamed for a problem that started within the the Ottoman Empire, within the Islamic community. I will admit that we have not done a great job at stopping or quelling the anger inside the terrorist network but i will also ask what would work? I think terrorism at this moment in time was inevitable from the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire, from even the beginnings of the Kuran and Muhammad's death. These ideaologies have existed in thier blood lines for generations. Although we failed in Iraq for reasons you and I dissagree on at certain levels, we must continue to fight terrorism and ultamtely impose western ideologies (good ones, that don't insult islam but rather promote it) and government as well because these countires are FAR behind not only the technology curve but just about everything else. It has been the actions of a few powerful clerics that have kept these countries the way they are for so long. The people don't want any other kind of life because they have been kept from knowing what any other life is like. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar have all become unique westernized countries and are some of the richest countries in the world today and geuss what? They still practice Islam. Why, is it so bad for us to not so much impose but in actuality set free people that have been oppressed for too long by a few rich and powerful clerics?

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So then what is it you propose will happen to the united states in say....10,20 years from now?

that depends on how the American people vote, if another Bush comes to power then the American empire will eventually collapse.

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never said that....

No, but why else point out that the terrorist have done worse things? Pardon me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be excusing the actions of the soldiers at Haditha because a) worse things have happened and b) they were frustrated. I doubt you mean it this way, but the way you come across sure makes it seem like that.

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If you treat it like an arguement then you are take my slants personally and they are not meant for that, they are meer tactics.

I tend to use "argue" and "debate" interchangeably. Just to clear that up.

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those statedments were found on the documents we found after having killed Al-Zarqawi

In that case, al-Zarqawi was simply being a human (and a defeatist, at that). What he knew of al Qaeda was crumbling, so he thought it was over. But the head does not always know what the hands are doing. As I said, al Qaeda operates on sleeper cells. They don't need a unified command structure to cause havoc.

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If you think this is a great way to run a country then go find yourself an island, bring some people with you and try it out, tell me how it works out for ya.

Again, I said that wasn't the best situation. But at least he kept the country in one piece, even if it was one piece held together by Scotch tape and the Republican Guard.

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I say this because when the president decides to go to war because he believe the terroist network is a threat and it must be dealt with, especially with an enemy like this, you stand behind your president

Whoa, no one told me blind loyalty was part of being an American. I will stand behind the president when I want to, not because someone else thinks I need to. I love my country, but I have the right to think its government is wrong, and I'll exercise that as much as I need to.

Also, going from more of what I've read by Dick Clark, it seems that the President didn't go to war because he felt al Qaeda was a threat. Instead, everyone was focused on Iraq. No clue why, but very few people--before and even immediately after 9/11--saw al Qaeda as a threat. Heck, the CIA and FBI both thought it didn't exist. And most, if not all, of Bush's trusted advisers (Wolfowitz, mostly) thought Iraq was the bigger threat.

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In 1299 a Turkish Muslim warrior known as Osman began to lead raids on Christian Byzantine without any threats from us or our allies.

True enough. The Muslims during the centuries immediately following the Prophet Muhammad's death felt that they were called by God to create a worldwide caliphate. One world under Allah, so to speak. And they succeeded bloodlessly for a number of centuries, spreading out from Arabia across the Middle East and northern Africa before encountering resistance from the Christians, who, of course, took offense at people telling them they needed to be Muslim to get into heaven. So the fighting began. I'm not excusing it, of course, but that was their mindset. They felt as if Byzantine was theirs by God's will.

That just led to the many Crusades, as we all know. But the Muslim-Christian conflict of that era ended shortly after the last of the Crusades. Going into the 19th and 20th centuries, few people had ever heard of Islam, and violence between Muslims and other people was at a minimum.

The current violence actually stems from a couple of different things. First, the American-backed Shah in Iran, who was overthrown in 1979 by the fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini. But their violence was limited mostly to the U.S. embassy in Iran and Hezbollah attacks in Syria and Lebanon. But what really set things going was the entrance of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia on August 7, 1990. Now, not many American soldiers are Muslims, and Saudi Arabia is considered the Muslim holy land due to the presence of the two holiest mosques at Mecca and Medina. Infidels, or non-Muslims, should never be allowed to enter the holy land. Understandably, a lot of Saudis were ticked off, even though the soldiers were there by invitation of the Saudi King.

One of these people was none other than Osama bin Laden, who had offered to bring in his mujahideen (veterans of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) to protect Saudi Arabia. American troops were brought in instead and bin Laden was eventually exiled from Saudi Arabia (after speaking against the King's decision publicly). Following that, he moved between Afghanistan and Sudan to create a network out of his mujahideen contacts which was called al Qaeda.

How's that for a bit of a history lesson? It's all really interesting. I really wonder if al Qaeda would have caused as much trouble for us if we had forced a regime change in Iraq following the Gulf War and removed the American troops from Saudi Arabia. See, the troops were there only to protect Saudi Arabia from any possible incursions by Iraq. Once we eliminated the Iraqi threat, we'd leave. Since Saddam was left in power and the Republican Guard was left relatively intact, the threat remained and there we stayed, pissing off fundamentalist Muslims everywhere.

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there isn't just a few people in the crowd...were talking thousands.

Well, yes. Islam is a religion prone to violence, and considering its roots (in Arabian tribes that warred constantly), that's really no surprise. But there are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. As numerous as the extremists are, they're still quite the minority.

Also, it's interesting to note that many Muslim terrorists (including Osama bin Laden) are Wahhabi Muslims. As the link shows, Wahabbism is a very puritanical, fundamentalist view of Islam. They're the ones who most strongly believe in remaking the entire world into a Islamic caliphate. Not only that, but most Muslims in Saudi Arabia are Wahabbists, which explains why the hatred of Islamist terrorism is so easily spread in schools, since the two movements both have as a goal a fully Islamic world.

This is great stuff, i would have to say i am impressed with your vigor. however...

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So that makes it okay to shoot kids and women?

never said that....

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But Bush decided to act, and that's what screwed us over.

Bush acted because of the cnosistent pressure that was being handed to him by military strategist, his acting was not what screwed the war over itself, in my opinion it was the deteriorating support for the war that caused it to flip. I am not discrediting your friend and i thank him for his service but he went to Iraq when it was well into falling to pieces im sure thats what he saw. I was in Iraq just before the $hit hit the fan, infact i was able to see the slow transition from it actually looking like this war could be won to it slowly fading as more countries like Italy pulled out because they folded under an a attack on thier country and numerous terrorist threats.

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I think I know what I'm talking about. You may not, but hey, I never asked you to argue with me.

If you treat it like an arguement then you are take my slants personally and they are not meant for that, they are meer tactics.

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Torin2482: Al-Zarqawi himself stated that America is crippling the terrorist network

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CLPO: Really? Hadn't heard that. But that just sounds like reverse propaganda. Get the enemy to believe they're winning, and they may get lax. They get lax, and you strike.

those statedments were found on the documents we found after having killed Al-Zarqawi, it wasn't meant for propaganda

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True enough. But did you notice that when Saddam (a non-religious guy by Islamic standards) was in power, that violence didn't exist? Saddam kept the country in an iron fist and kept both Shi'a and Sunni Muslims at the same level: under the heel of his boot. Not the best situation, yes, but better than the pseudo-anarchy we let loose when we chased Saddam into a hole in the ground.

He kept an iron fits out of his sheer paranoia that he could have been assasinated at any moments time. What was his reaction, well what pretty much all dictators have done in the past: he conducted mass genocide of kurdish populations, killed all who opposed him and tried to keep his country at war at all times so as to boost moral. By the way, may God have mercy on his soul. If you think this is a great way to run a country then go find yourself an island, bring some people with you and try it out, tell me how it works out for ya.

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I'll probably need to explain that to you better, but I'll wait until the next wave of attacks on my opinion.

no need to explain i am fully aware of how he was able to control Iraq, out of fear, in plain and simple form.

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I have no faith in the ability of one government to impose democracy on another one. That simply does not happen. I know what democracy is capable of, and I also know that it's something that comes when it's time is ready. You don't force it.

Thats great, a little too late to say that now. I say this because when the president decides to go to war because he believe the terroist network is a threat and it must be dealt with, especially with an enemy like this, you stand behind your president. The terrorists understand that they cannot beat us by sheer numbers because one, they are cowards of war and two they cannot mobilize because often they cannot agree on many levels with each other. Attacks mean nothing to them because they all have already given theirs lives to their god. What drives the terrorist regime is the world support that they have currently. You have a group of people that can get away with defiling pictures of Jesus Christ with human fecies or by burning picures of him and you see none of this in the media, the moment someone draws a cartoon of Allah with a bomb in his turban they start killing hundreds of innocent people with car bombs and IEDs for weeks. The president of Iran gets away with denying the holocaust and Anderson Cooper calls him a "nice guy". Whenever someone even comes close to insulting islam they are thrown to the dogs by the media. There are plenty of examples throughout history i'm sure you are aware of them so i won't bother to mention them. The more countries that continue to appease their cause the more their moral is boosted. We have appeased for decades, Israel has been forced to appease numerous times in the past, when will it stop? Another history lesson: Correct me if i am wrong but we stepped into their land because they first stepped into ours, i.e. Constantinople. In 1299 a Turkish Muslim warrior known as Osman began to lead raids on Christian Byzantine without any threats from us or our allies. Keep in mind that the Ottoman Empire was the FIRST real islamic threat to the world.

I will end with one last statement and it is about a post you had written to someone about the Islamic faith. You had stated that we shouldn't look at the extremes of a religion and base your opinions off of that soley, agreed, but if you have seen some of the clerics speak about the infidels in videos all over the internet: http://www.durhamrepublicans.org/obsession.html
there isn't just a few people in the crowd...were talking thousands. Check out these videos.

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.......and your point?

Just chipping away at your credibility.

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more so on the terrorist side if you haven't notice how many televised beheadings they have done.

So that makes it okay to shoot kids and women?

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We could have avoided this whole thing by not invading Iraq and letting the terrorist group gain even more momentum and allow them to carry out another attack on America sure why not, but Bush decided to act.

Have you not been reading what I've said? We could have avoided this whole thing by not invading Iraq and using the support we had from people all over the world (including Iran, interestingly enough) immediately following 9/11 to combat the violent fundamentalist interpretation of Islam in a non-violent way by working to eliminate the conditions that create such hatred and spreading a message of religious tolerance.

But Bush decided to act, and that's what screwed us over.

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Why would i trust a, how old are you 21? 22? year old who goes to college, probably reads blogs all day and has never even been to iraq leta lone been in ANY war

I don't know, why would you trust me? Why should I trust you? For all I know, you're a 35 year old man who still lives with his mom.

Oh, and I'm 18 by the way. And I don't read blogs. Oh, and I know a guy who just got back from Iraq. My girlfriend's brother, actually. I think I know what I'm talking about. You may not, but hey, I never asked you to argue with me.

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Al-Zarqawi himself stated that America is crippling the terrorist network

Really? Hadn't heard that. But that just sounds like reverse propaganda. Get the enemy to believe they're winning, and they may get lax. They get lax, and you strike. Sounds like something out of the Art of War.

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This sectarian violence that the media likes to protray as a recent civil war cause by this war, has been going on for 100's of years!

True enough. But did you notice that when Saddam (a non-religious guy by Islamic standards) was in power, that violence didn't exist? Saddam kept the country in an iron fist and kept both Shi'a and Sunni Muslims at the same level: under the heel of his boot. Not the best situation, yes, but better than the pseudo-anarchy we let loose when we chased Saddam into a hole in the ground.

I'll probably need to explain that to you better, but I'll wait until the next wave of attacks on my opinion.

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You stop these problems specifically by attacking them

Whoa, what? By attacking the Islamist terrorists, we're justifying them in their attacks against us. You need to understand their mindset. They see us as the aggressor, so any aggression on our part will simply justify their "struggle" against us. There are other ways to stop hatred.

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How can you speak for millions of Iraqis and say that they cannot have a democracy when you haven't even BEEN THERE!?

You really think I'd say stuff like that if I didn't know? As I mentioned earlier in this post, I am good friends with a guy who just came back from a tour in Iraq. And he tells me they don't want us there. He didn't see hope in their eyes; he saw resentment. Everywhere the US soldiers went, IEDs and suicide bombers followed. Iraqis died simply because the Americans were nearby. Or so he says. But he was actually in Iraq (in a rather dangerous area, mind you), so I think I can trust what he says about the matter.

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What crushed it is people like you who have no faith in what democracy is capable of.

I have no faith in the ability of one government to impose democracy on another one. That simply does not happen. I know what democracy is capable of, and I also know that it's something that comes when it's time is ready. You don't force it.

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CLPO, i want to know what your scoures are because your arguements are strong but they seem that they are from a viewpoint that is "outside the box" so to speak.

If you really must know, I get the majority of my information (not opinions, but information) from Wikipedia. I find it a very good source because the articles (at least the important ones) are written from a neutral point of view. Since Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, you've got editors from opposite political, religious, and ideological viewpoints all editing an article, which can eliminate nearly all bias.

Plus, all info on Wikipedia needs to come from verifiable sources (no original research) and must be cited, so the information in the articles must be correct. And it is very "outside the box".

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Tell me genius what you think we should do about terorism?

I can tell you what we should not do, but I doubt you want to hear that.

Also, risk has an interest in American politics because the current American foreign policy is causing havoc for all of the West. Because of our actions, our allies are suffering. Especially Great Britain, considering that Tony Blair was best buddies with Bush during the invasion of Iraq.

Great britian....why the instrest in American polotics? Go ahead and answer my last question.

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I will personally buy you a ticket to leave this country =) for good that is. So then what is it you propose will happen to the united states in say....10,20 years from now?

who are you refering to? if its me then i am not an American, and have never set foot in America.

I will personally buy you a ticket to leave this country =) for good that is. So then what is it you propose will happen to the united states in say....10,20 years from now?