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Can you support this allegation with anything factual?
Do you consider Reagan a Liberal? He did after all appease the terror friendly Iranian regime with weapons transfers.
And it's fact there is a direct link from 9/11 to bin Laden, Afghanistam, the CIA and Reagan.
No Reagan used one bad guy against another.In fact many former administrations did the same. Just as the french used us in their poower struggle with Britain. Its a struggle of one way of life against another like always.Look at the middle east since 1957 and see that many of the nations have come to accord weoth israel.Only the areas where the terrorist have suport are still in the past and others have moved on to prospertity. I'd say that the terrorist are really losing badly.I mean no real success for Bin laden since 9-11 and so many before thru out the previous decade.
What do the terrorists want? Ask yourself, are there terrorist attacks in Switzerland? How 'bout Costa Rica, or Finland? That's because they're neutral countries. But would they be satisfied with a neutral US? Who knows. I'm glad I don't have to figure it out!
Some things they want are: "withdraw troops from Iraq; to leave Saudi Arabia; ending American support for Israel; pressuring New Delhi to cede control of all Kashmir."
In addition,
"In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."
Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate. Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that has declared "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate."
"In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."
Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate. Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that has declared "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate."
Then why are the terrorists actively murdering other Muslims, Shiites, rival groups... in mass quantities?
In the first place, terrorists are trying to make a point - and to instill terror. Why are there so many innocents killed in drivebys? Wrong place at the wrong time.
In the second place, there are several different sects of Muslims, and all of them dislike each other because none of "the others" are following "The Truth". Why are there 22 self-professed Christian churches in an American town of 3000? Just because the Baptists aren't blowing up the Methodists, doesn't mean that they don't believe that the other ones are mistaken and going to hell. The Quoran is written a little bit differently than the New Testament, a little more intensely, and with harsher punishments for apostasy. Not to mention that historically these warring factions take and give insults generationally, unlike the Western World where the Hatfields and McCoys died out long ago.
That just illuminates the differences between the Middle East and the Western world - The Holocaust, the enslavement of the blacks, the scalping and payment for human pelts as done to the American Indian, are a glossed over and uncomfortable part of the past, not something that is still burning and immediate, an excuse for generational, familial revenge even in 2009. If it makes it easier to understand, the ongoing differences between Northern Ireland and Eire might bring it closer. If you hate someone for what their ancestors did to your ancestors, and try to continue the war through hundreds of years, and generations, and cannot give up one little iota of pride or one grain of sand to your ancestral enemy, you can come to a closer understanding of the Middle Eastern mindset.
Instead, the Western World says things like "Get over it!" and "Why can't we all just get along?" - refusing to understand just why the internal war-waging would continue in the Middle East whether Russians, French, or Americans were there or not, either in war or behind the scenes, manipulating outcomes for profit.
Seriously though, I think the answer is to create a world where everyone can live well, and have some space to themselves and their own beliefs. At least to the extent that those beliefs don't hurt the next person.
In short get rid of the *reasons* folks would become terrorists in the first place.
That just illuminates the differences between the Middle East and the Western world - The Holocaust, the enslavement of the blacks, the scalping and payment for human pelts as done to the American Indian, are a glossed over and uncomfortable part of the past, not something that is still burning and immediate, an excuse for generational, familial revenge even in 2009. If it makes it easier to understand, the ongoing differences between Northern Ireland and Eire might bring it closer. If you hate someone for what their ancestors did to your ancestors, and try to continue the war through hundreds of years, and generations, and cannot give up one little iota of pride or one grain of sand to your ancestral enemy, you can come to a closer understanding of the Middle Eastern mindset.
Instead, the Western World says things like "Get over it!" and "Why can't we all just get along?" - refusing to understand just why the internal war-waging would continue in the Middle East whether Russians, French, or Americans were there or not, either in war or behind the scenes, manipulating outcomes for profit.
You make a good point. And in light of this there is the added insult of encroaching on their borderlines (perceived and physical). How many US military bases have been installed in and around the middle east? There is the very real issue of ancient Palestinian lands taken during the Bengurian era with our support, not to mention our continuing support (and the whole can of worms that goes with it). The historical reference that you make about sweeping injustices under the rug may be even more distasteful. The native American Indians were forced to assimilate or step aside - to the reservation. Some may perceive black culture to be attenuating as it comes into the American fold. Terrorism may be a desperate act to fight the thought that their water cannot and will not blend with our oil (questionable metaphor).
It is a question of autonomy and the fear that because we appear to have little respect or care in our relations around the world, why would a proud tradition believe that we would be any different with them?
It is a wonder to have seen the wall come down in Germany, for Russia to become more westernized and focused on the accumulation of wealth for a larger proportion of their population, and even the inroads being made into China. It is a process that is only successful from within, regardless of the pressure exerted from the outside. Economics is the easiest way to appeal to society, but the dividing lines of religious faith go much too deep. My feeling is that a new paradigm will have to be discovered that brings with it a way to allow for intercultural cooperation without the capitulation of land or religious values. Respect is the required ingredient, but there is not much of a track record in history for it. Is it better to be respectable first and the bring a measure of it to the table and hope for its return, or to demand respect regardless of our track record and return it only when we feel the other side has earned it?
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