Dhimmicratic Underground on "the Root Causes of Terrorism"
While Democrats claim that they're not into "blaming America first", Democrat bloggers at DU continue to do just that with abandon. One of the choicer posts:
The fundamental problem with all of these discussions is that most of the people putting forth presumptions about what causes people to become terrorists seem to be doing so from their own perspectives. They criticize the Bush Administration for failing to comprehend the nature of Islamic terrorists' motivations, and then proceed to analyze those motivations from their own subjective point of view. This is absurd. If they truly want to understand the nature of the motivations of Islamic terrorists, they should study the terrorists, their individual backgrounds and their philosophies thoroughly. Put yourself in Osama's head, with his personal motivations, and understand what would, in reality, affect his decision-making process. The facts which would affect your decision-making process is completely irrelevant. Would a complete American pull-out from the Middle East really satisfy the Islamic fundamentalists and bring lasting peace to the region? Why or why not? Investigating the anwer to a question like this might help one understand why millions of people around the World could reasonably make a claim to being victims of poverty and oppression, but only a few of those people actually engage in terrorism.
In reality, the ten-ton elephant in the living room is the rampant spread of Salafism and Wahabism over the last few decades. There's a Saudi king riding on the elephant. If you want to identify the "root causes" of terrorism, Wahabi and Salafist philosophy is a damn good place to start. The terrorists count many rich, ruling-class Wahabis among their ranks, but very few poor, underclass Copts or Amish. Is this just a coincidence? I doubt it.
Other posts listed poverty as a prominent "root cause". At the outset, let me make it clear that I don't fault anyone for thinking it's a good idea to engage in this discussion. It's only common sense to look at the terrorism problem, and any problem, for that matter, from a systemic perspective. In other words, what makes young boys and girls into fanatical, America-hating killers? I'm pretty sure they're not born that way. If we don't understand what's causing fanaticism, we may not be too successful in stopping it. That said, concern about "root causes" is only one half of the equation. We also have to simultaneously deal with the results (e.g., Al Qaeda) already stemming from those root causes.
Malikshah (1000+ posts)Thu Jul-07-05 12:06 PM
Response to Original message26.Terrorism is a Symptom. The Key is correct diagnosis
One can treat a symptom (i.e. war, bombing etc.) but the symptom will return if that's all one does.
What's the correct diagnosis? Lots of issues
US Foreign policy
Shock and Awe
Human Rights abuses
Support of regimes
That's a start.
The fundamental problem with all of these discussions is that most of the people putting forth presumptions about what causes people to become terrorists seem to be doing so from their own perspectives. They criticize the Bush Administration for failing to comprehend the nature of Islamic terrorists' motivations, and then proceed to analyze those motivations from their own subjective point of view. This is absurd. If they truly want to understand the nature of the motivations of Islamic terrorists, they should study the terrorists, their individual backgrounds and their philosophies thoroughly. Put yourself in Osama's head, with his personal motivations, and understand what would, in reality, affect his decision-making process. The facts which would affect your decision-making process is completely irrelevant. Would a complete American pull-out from the Middle East really satisfy the Islamic fundamentalists and bring lasting peace to the region? Why or why not? Investigating the anwer to a question like this might help one understand why millions of people around the World could reasonably make a claim to being victims of poverty and oppression, but only a few of those people actually engage in terrorism.
In reality, the ten-ton elephant in the living room is the rampant spread of Salafism and Wahabism over the last few decades. There's a Saudi king riding on the elephant. If you want to identify the "root causes" of terrorism, Wahabi and Salafist philosophy is a damn good place to start. The terrorists count many rich, ruling-class Wahabis among their ranks, but very few poor, underclass Copts or Amish. Is this just a coincidence? I doubt it.
posted by Eman at 9:41 AM
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