Should Israel Attack now?

[Wilber]

The Treaty of Versailles was also unjust and made possible the rise of the Nazis, so should we blame the Allies for the atrocities committed by the Nazis. I don't think so, they dreamed those up all by themselves, just like radical Islam. While they may have some valid grievances, they alone are responsible for what they do about them.

[KrustyKidd]

Black Dog

Sixty years of promoting regional "stability" to the benefit of western interests and at the expense of the local populace has come with a price, and we're just getting the bill now.

That's like blaming the Middle East for our pollution problems and money woes. The deals made were approved by the rulers of those countries and ours and, with no invasions happening. To turn around and blame them or us for things agreed on is crap. If people are too stupid to make better deals for themselves or have govenments that look out for the people then change it, don't blame us. And before you come off with your question of 'how are they supposed to do that?' ask yourself why that is our problem when they are selling their stuff and we are buying it. I don't walk into a store and start fixing their problems, I buy stuff for fair market value and, don't expect to fix my problems at home.

If we just getting the bill now, imagine if we don't pay it. Millions of starving Arabs killing each other for extremely meagar resources and us buying off other nations and cutting back on consuption to the point of inconvienience. Wow, that'll make the leftist world rock.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Argus,

This is a land ruled by hundreds of princes who spend vast amounts of time and money in the West, who send their kids to school here, who know damned well what advantages we have. They have rejected the West and all it stands for in favour of their ancient, mystical religion and ancient, barbaric ways. More importantly, they have spent billions spreading their barbarism around the world, giving birth to the current phase of Islamic fundamentalism

Yes indeed, yet they still enjoy 'best friend status' with the US, simply because they are 'a drug dealer' that helps to feed (and stabilize the price of) the US' addiction to oil. There is a huge, glaring hypocricy about the US-Saudi (and Kuwaiti) relationship.

[Rue]

I have said far too much but I will add this to the debates. Islamic fundamentalism is not a new phenomena. It has existed since the inception of Islam and there is a very simple reason for it. Islam is ayounger religion then Christianity and Judaism and most of us forget that. From an anthropoligical point of view, it is still in its infant stage. From that perspective, Islam is still collectively at a fundamentalist stage and is yet to evolve to a stage of critical thinking where its followers will question the religion, try reform it, and begin to question things and not see things in black and white terms.

One of the reasons Islam is not developing to the critical stage where people question rigid dogma and fundamentalist beliefs is a socio-economic one. The lack of seperation of religion from state, causes Arab or Muslim states to be bogged down with incompetence and coruption. Show me a country where religion and state are not seperate, and I will show you a corupt, repressive regime...and that is no different then what happened in the Christian world of the 1400-s to 1990-s and of course you want to go back in the Bible, at one point even the Jewish world and kingdom became corupted by a repressive hierarchy that of course Jesus challenged and other reformist Jews challenged.

Islam is not year near the stage of critical development and it won't be for another 400 or so years. The lithmus test is simple-determine the level of literacy of the countries in which Islam is the religion. As long as that literacy rate remains low, this critical evolution can not happen for the simple reason that as is the case now, as long as the majority of Muslims can not read and write, they need to depend on their clerics to tell them how to think and as long as that continues these clerics have raw power and control...and absolute power corupts. As we can see the regime in Iran and all the fundamentalist regimes corupt power by concentrating it in the hands of a few who make pronouncements.

Until the average Muslim learns to read and write, he or she can not begin to question and come to the conclusion there may be a way to do things other then the way they are told by their clerics.

One of the reasons the US was doomed to failure in Iraq was because it naively thought it could just march into Iraq and impose democracy. You can't impose democracy on people who can not read or write. Such people necessarily simply follow orders and of course they will not follow orders from aliens or Westerners who they have been told come from the land of the infidel and even some of us Westerners wonder if coke and macdonalds are the devil's tools.

So all I am saying is Islamic fundamentalism is old and its to be expected.In the West we do see Muslims who have learned to read and write and of course go on to become successful academics, professionals,

etc., begin to question fundamentalism...but let's be realistic...it took hundreds of years for Christians to stop burning witches (and some days we still see fundamentalist Christians in the West engage in

some very scary things) and evolve, and it took thousands of years for Jews to evolve and both Jews and Christians still have many rigid fundamentalists so why be so suprised that the Muslim world is rigid, dogmatic and a flourishing environment for terrorism.

Now back in the West, we also have to look at ourselves. Uh yes we have evolved but into what? The fact is we have a set of social values and culture that is far from perfect. We tend to take for granted our individual rights and that they just didn't come about..if they have come about it has been as a result of brave individuals fighting to get those rights for us.

[GostHacked]

Dear Argus,

This is a land ruled by hundreds of princes who spend vast amounts of time and money in the West, who send their kids to school here, who know damned well what advantages we have. They have rejected the West and all it stands for in favour of their ancient, mystical religion and ancient, barbaric ways. More importantly, they have spent billions spreading their barbarism around the world, giving birth to the current phase of Islamic fundamentalism

Yes indeed, yet they still enjoy 'best friend status' with the US, simply because they are 'a drug dealer' that helps to feed (and stabilize the price of) the US' addiction to oil. There is a huge, glaring hypocricy about the US-Saudi (and Kuwaiti) relationship.

This is true.

19 Hijackers that took down the WTC in NYC were from where? Saudi Arabia?

(and we now know some of them are actually still alive)

Who got invaded 2 months after 9-11? Afghanistan.

Who was next? Iraq

If we went after state sponsors of Terrorism, Saudi Arabia would be the first to go. But yes you are right. Saudi money and oil control part of the US and how they go about things on the global stage. The Saudi's have alot of influence on the US about as much as the Israeli lobbyist groups in the US.

If the US was following the money trail, they would have been led back to the Saudi's But those links were never followed I think. Every other time they want to find out who financed these terrorists, and sometimes do. But none in Saudi Arabia. The money trail could have been picked up in Afghanistan and easily linked to Saudi Arabia (remember Osama is a Saudi) It's always funny too that the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia got contracts to rebuild some of the US's facilities in the Middle East and parts of Asia. Does that not sound fishy to you? Giving money to the family of a known Terrorist? In a way financing Al-queda indirectly?

That money trail should be followed. And why the hell has that not been done as of yet?

[Charles Anthony]

That money trail should be followed. And why the hell has that not been done as of yet?

Maybe some of that money can be traced back to places we do not want to admit.