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Originally Posted by usafreedom3
I tried to help you, but cannot do it. You are entitled to your opinion, but opinions are just like butt holes, everyone has one and they all stink.
Good luck with the fence around your house dude. Call me if a jihadist knocks on your door! I will come help you kick his arce.  |
Thanks so much for your attempt to help me. I mean your line "the real reason they want to kill us is that they want us to either submit to Islam, or die" was so very enlightening. I'm sure someone more susceptible to sound logic and facts than I would have been instantly swayed by such profundity.
here's my previous take on Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda, a post I put together in another forum in '04 ( way back when most people still thought the Iraq war was a pretty cool thing to do).
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...I like to say that in chess, the player that finds better moves for his opponent than his opponent can find for himself always wins. That is -- to play chess well you have completely put yourself in your opponent's chair and play his side of the board with even more intensity and concentration than you play on your side of the board.
Attempting to drive the point home -- the key to being a cutthroat, merciless, and brutal chessplayer - one who can not only checkmate their opponent but intellectually humiliate them in the process - is to first immerse oneself into an objective respect and empathy for the opponent.
It's the fool that assumes his opponent is stupid, lazy, irrational, and won't find all the good moves. In that regard, a few pertinent notes on Bin Ladin & Al-Qaeda:
a) Bin Ladin is a revered hero to a lot of muslims for his role in the Soviet-Afghan war. That he lived and fought on the frontlines with many of the Mujahideen while using his riches to fight the godless Soviets is seen as prototypical-ideal Muslim behavior;
b) He is by virtually all accounts quiet, pious, extraordinarily patient, plain spoken and consistent in his devotion to Islam;
c) He is enormously talented and resourceful -- while in Sudan during the mid-90's, Bin Ladin managed to build several profitable businesses while organizing a world-wide-war against the US. I submit that building one profitable business is a very hard thing to do, even without the extra burden of mounting an insurgent war against the world's most powerful nation/military;
d) His (and al-Qaeda's) objective is plainly to overthrow what he (they) regard as corrupt/apostate governments in the Middle-East, and create sort of a pan-islamic "ummah" (community of believing muslims);
e) To that end, Bin Ladin believes that it is first necessary to strike at the US which, in his view, provides the muscle to many of the apostate regimes -- once US muscle is removed, the regimes will fall in his view;
f) In Bin Ladin's view, the point where the US is most susceptible to being mortally wounded is in its economic base, which is the source of its strength;
g) Bin Ladin's chief challenge in the muslim world is convincing other muslims that al-Qaeda's war on the US is a defensive jihad -- that the Zionists and the Crusaders are mounting an attack on Islam and that it is therefore an obligation by every Muslim to fight in the jihad; and
h) A secondary challenge for Bin Ladin is convincing other militant Muslims who are sympathetic is the need to fight the *far* enemy (the US) before fighting the *near* enemy (apostate regimes) directly.
In short, we're confronted with an enormously talented, very determined, and most of all, widely revered, warrior with clearly stated goals and a plan that is *rational* (wrt said goals). We're not simply dealing with terrorists, we're dealing with insurgent soldiers who employ tactics that we deem to be *terrorism*.
In that regard, isolating and marginalizing bin Ladin have been very prudent things to do. Bush et al's dismissal of the ideal that Bin Ladin was of central importance was a very prudent thing to do -- alive he's moderately dangerous, as a martyr he's #### lethal.
Of course, he has challenges on his end -- mainly getting recruits which means he has to convince lots of other Muslims to actively join his cause. In that regard, our foolish War on Iraq is a cluster fuck of epic proportions. In taking out a western, secularist regime we have given Bin Ladin extremely convincing 'round-the-clock propaganda for his argument that the US is on a crusade to take over muslim lands.
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Pt being, I think perhaps the real reason they want to kill us is that they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that we provide the muscle to prop up apostate regimes . In order to remove those apostate regimes and create a pan-islamic ummah, they must first force us to withdraw from the middle east.
Of course, I understand that others believe that they want to kill us because we have Brittany Spears on the TV and they'll get 70 virgins when they go to heaven. Perhaps that explanation is simply too complicated for my little mind.
but thanks again, anyway.
cheers