"Islamic Terrorism" - Dependent or Independent?

Orion · Nov 2, 2009

Agnapostate said:
Would the phenomenon commonly referred to as "Islamic terrorism" continue to be directed against U.S. targets at existing levels regardless of U.S. political regimes' foreign policy and support of the Israeli government due to an inherent hatred of civil rights/liberties, religious pluralism and relative secularism, and political freedoms on the part of certain Muslims?

EDIT: I'm not necessarily asking what would happen if foreign policy approaches were changed now. Try to answer as though responding to the question of whether such terrorism would have been initiated in the first place if certain foreign policy had never existed in the first place.

The fact that the first major attack by the fundamentalists was not on European or even Canadian soil but American is very telling. The fall of the towers symbolized a strategic front against the U.S. for all of its interventionism.

If the U.S. had been absent in the past, the tensions would be higher between the fundamentalist areas and Europe, and especially Britain. I don't think Russia would be at risk per se. In any case, the conflict would not be nearly as widespread as it is now.

Make no mistake, U.S. foreign policy crafted the current situation.

Agent Ferris · Nov 2, 2009

Kandahar said:
And the Bible was used to justify slavery. So what? There is a difference between using religion to justify one's actions, and being motivated by one's religion.

Prove that they don't believe the rhetoric which they preach I double dog dare you.

No, they attacked American ships because they wanted the cargo.

They attack us because they believe it is their religious duty.

Agent Ferris · Nov 2, 2009

Agnapostate said:
"We"? The nationalist conflates the political regime and the nation-state as a whole, but neither you nor I have had any influence on the formation of U.S. foreign policy. I know that I haven't, and if you had, all other American countries would be transformed into U.S. states at this point. Most U.S. influence has been negative; there are relatively libertarian domestic conditions for us but decidedly authoritarian international conditions fostered by U.S. influence,

What a load of ****ing horse****, the U.S. has granted more people their liberty than anyother country in the history of civilization.

as evidenced by the anti-democratic removal of the likes of Mossadeq,

The Shah was a bullwork against the Islamists and the Soviet proxy Tudeh party. Moreover, Mossadeq had aligned with Tudeh and started looking to the Soviets for support, also, he dissolved parliament through a fraudulent referendum in which he got a 99.9% yay vote when Parliament refused to grant him direct control over the military, and then he extended his "emergency powers" indefinitely. Furthermore; under the Iranian Constitution the Shah was the head of state and had the power to remove Mossadeq from power, which he did after Mossadeq's attempted coup de'ta. And the only reason why the Shah was overthrown by the Islamists is because the U.S. put pressure on him to liberalize which he did when he released political prisoners, granted women universal suffrage, and took the educational institutions out of the hands of the clerics.

Arbenz,

Arbenz was a Marxist attempting to set up a totalitarian communist state.

{I}n the past 18 years, researchers have gathered and analyzed new evidence, refining the interpretations of the Guatemalan revolution. Piero Gleijeses uncovered Guatemalan documents and interviewed prominent actors, most notably María de Arbenz, the widow of the deposed president. His book, Shattered Hope: The United States and the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944–1954, focused on the internal dynamics of the revolution, providing the intellectual counterpart to Immerman’s analysis of the Washington foreign policy apparatus. Gleijeses, an admirer of Arbenz, produced irrefutable evidence of Arbenz’s gravitation toward the Communist Party and ideology, shattering previous portrayals of Arbenz as an economic nationalist or reformer. He also reassigned a portion of responsibility to the Guatemalan military, which ultimately betrayed Arbenz and allowed Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas to march unopposed into Guatemala City. Jim Handy mined the archives of Guatemala’s Agrarian Reform Institute to produce a sophisticated analysis of Arbenz’s agrarian reform. Revolution in the Countryside demonstrates how Arbenz’s agrarian reform triggered conflicts far beyond the United Fruit Company (UFCO) and the United States government. The agrarian reform generated conflict within and between indigenous communities, alienated Guatemala’s landowners, and disturbed the Guatemalan military because it disrupted the order that had long prevailed in the countryside...

...While some of Bitter Fruit’s general conclusions may remain intact, recent research calls into question Schlesinger and Kinzer’s characterization of important events and people. They maintain their original position on Arbenz’s ideology, arguing that Arbenz’s primary ideology was nationalism and that accusations that Arbenz was a communist “dupe” were “farfetched”(pp. 60– 61). Their characterizations of Arbenz’s ideology and his program lose credibility in the wake of Piero Gleijeses. Based on interviews with Arbenz’s widow, José Manuel Fortuny and other Communist leaders, Gleijeses concluded that although Arbenz did not join the Guatemalan Communist Party until 1957, he considered himself a communist during the last two years of his administration.

Arbenz apologists have long felt compelled to deny Arbenz’s communist inclinations to maintain the case against the CIA. Yet Gleijeses, an open admirer of Arbenz and his program, explains how and why Arbenz believed that the triumph of communism in Guatemala and around the world was both inevitable and desirable. To reach that stage, Arbenz and other Latin American communists believed that Guatemala had to pass through a capitalist stage in its inevitable evolution toward socialism. Hence, the agrarian reform was indeed designed to make Guatemala into a modern capitalist state, as Schlesinger and Kinzer argue, but that did not make Arbenz a capitalist. Arbenz’s long-term objective, as his opponents in UFCO and the CIA alleged, was the creation of a communist state.

Schlesinger and Kinzer maintain some positions that are no longer tenable. They argue, for example, that the Czech weaponry carried on board the Alf hem and confiscated by the Guatemalan Army in May 1954 was “intended solely for the Guatemalan Army”(p. 153). However, Arbenz’s closest political associates have confirmed that a portion of the Alfhem weapons were to be used to arm workers’ militias. Schlesinger and Kinzer insist that the Americans trumped up the charges about the workers’ militias in order to prove their case about a communist conspiracy. But the Americans did not lie in this case; at least a portion of the arms were intended for the workers.

None of this justifies the American intervention, but assessing responsibility for the collapse of the Arbenz regime hangs in the balance. In the Bitter Fruit account, the CIA orchestrated the counterrevolutionary movement on behalf of “The Overlord,” or the United Fruit Company. After an inept and bumbling covert campaign, spearheaded by a poorly trained army of only 150 men, Arbenz simply resigned. According to Schlesinger and Kinzer, Arbenz did not fight because “he was never more than he seemed to be—a bourgeois reformer whose ideology did not extend beyond basic precepts of nationalism and the stimulation of domestic industry and agriculture” (p. 198). It is now clear that Arbenz was a communist who did not fight because he did not have an army or workers’ militias to lead into battle. He failed in his gamble to arm the workers’ militias, and the army, even knowing that it would win, refused to fight because the officers did not want a direct military confrontation with the United States...

...Cullather also concluded that the United Fruit Company played a minor role in the decision-making process. He argues that the CIA recognized Guatemala as a serious threat even before Arbenz expropriated the company’s property. According to Cullather, “the threat to American business was a minor part of the larger danger to the United States’ overall security” (p. 37). In Cullather’s account, United Fruit is not the “overlord” of the operation but a tool used by the CIA to remove a perceived security threat. Once the company’s usefulness expired, the Eisenhower administration proceeded with its suspended antitrust action, which ended in 1958 with a consent decree that forced the company to divest of its Guatemalan holdings (p. 118).

Cullather’s account is in line with recent research on the Guatemalan revolution. It is significant that Piero Gleijese wrote the afterword to Secret History, giving the account his approval by praising Cullather’s intellect and integrity. Cullather’s research in the CIA files confirms that the UFCO played a minor role in the Guatemalan tragedy. He prefaces his account with a quote culled from Gleijeses’ interview with José Manuel Fortuny, who concluded: “They would have overthrown us even if we had grown no bananas” (p. 7). For those who want to believe that the CIA overthrew Arbenz simply to protect a banana company, Bitter Fruit is required reading, and a great read at that. For those who want a full account of the complex array of factors involved in the Guatemalan affair, Cullather’s Secret History has now been added to the required reading list.

Dosal, Paul J. (Paul Jaime), 1960-

Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, and: Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 (review)

Hispanic American Historical Review - 80:3, August 2000, pp. 633-635

http://hahr.dukejournals.org.proxy.usf.edu/cgi/reprint/80/3/633

Agent Ferris · Nov 2, 2009

Agnapostate said:
and Allende.

A) There is no evidence what so ever that U.S. supported or directed the coup plotters.

B) Allende only one a plurality decision of 1%, which is far from a mandate and then went about trying to erect a totalitarian Marxist regime, by his own admission his goal was to destroy the Chilean Democratic Republic:

"The answer is the proletariat. If it wasn't so I wouldn't be here [...] As for the bourgeois state, at the present moment, we are seeking to overcome it. To overthrow it. [...] Our objective is total, scientific, Marxist socialism" — In an interview with French Journalist Regis Debray in 1970.

(Attributed) "I am not the president of all the Chileans. I am not a hypocrite that says so." — At a public rally, quoted by all Chilean newspapers, January 17, 1971. President Allende sent a public letter to El Mercurio newspaper to deny this alleged statement.

After all, Allende himself had confided to Regis Debray “that his differences with apostles of violence like Guevara were only ‘tactical,’ plus his admission that he was observing legality ‘for the time being,’ and his assertion that he had agreed to the Statute of Democratic Guarantees as a ‘tactical necessity’.” (Sigmund, p. 140). And his own Socialist Party, at its Congress in January 1971, had stated that “the special conditions under which Popular Unity came to power oblige it to observe the limits of a bourgeois state for now” and had warned its members to prepare for “the decisive confrontation with the bourgeoisie and imperialism.” (Sigmund, footnote 7/12)

Pinochet was ordered by Chilean Supreme Court and Chilean Chamber of Deputies (the equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives to oust the tyrant Allende for his numerous usurptations of the Chilean Constitution:

Chilean Chamber of Deputies Resolution Against Allende

Considering:

1. That for the Rule of Law to exist, public authorities must carry out their activities and discharge their duties within the framework of the Constitution and the laws of the land, respecting fully the principle of reciprocal independence to which they are bound, and that all inhabitants of the country must be allowed to enjoy the guarantees and fundamental rights assured them by the Constitution;

2. That the legitimacy of the Chilean State lies with the people who, over the years, have invested in this legitimacy with the underlying consensus of their coexistence, and that an assault on this legitimacy not only destroys the cultural and political heritage of our Nation, but also denies, in practice, all possibility of democratic life;

3. That the values and principles expressed in the Constitution, according to article 2, indicate that sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation, and that authorities may not exercise more powers than those delegated to them by the Nation; and, in article 3, it is deduced that any government that arrogates to itself rights not delegated to it by the people commits sedition;

4. That the current President of the Republic was elected by the full Congress, in accordance with a statute of democratic guarantees incorporated in the Constitution for the very purpose of assuring that the actions of his administration would be subject to the principles and norms of the Rule of Law that he solemnly agreed to respect;

5. That it is a fact that the current government of the Republic, from the beginning, has sought to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state and, in this manner, fulfilling the goal of establishing a totalitarian system: the absolute opposite of the representative democracy established by the Constitution;

6. That to achieve this end, the administration has committed not isolated violations of the Constitution and the laws of the land, rather it has made such violations a permanent system of conduct, to such an extreme that it systematically ignores and breaches the proper role of the other branches of government, habitually violating the Constitutional guarantees of all citizens of the Republic, and allowing and supporting the creation of illegitimate parallel powers that constitute an extremely grave danger to the Nation, by all of which it has destroyed essential elements of institutional legitimacy and the Rule of Law;

7. That the administration has committed the following assaults on the proper role of the National Congress, seat of legislative power:

a) It has usurped Congress's principle role of legislation through the adoption of various measures of great importance to the country's social and economic life that are unquestionably matters of legislation through special decrees enacted in an abuse of power, or through simple "administrative resolutions" using legal loopholes. It is noteworthy that all of this has been done with the deliberate and confessed purpose of substituting the country's institutional structures, as conceived by current legislation, with absolute executive authority and the total elimination of legislative authority;

b) It has consistently mocked the National Congress's oversight role by effectively removing its power to formally accuse Ministers of State who violate the Constitution or laws of the land, or who commit other offenses specified by the Constitution, and;

c) Lastly, what is most extraordinarily grave, it has utterly swept aside the exalted role of Congress as a duly constituted power by refusing to enact the Constitutional reform of three areas of the economy that were approved in strict compliance with the norms established by the Constitution.

8. That it has committed the following assaults on the judicial branch:

a) With the goal of undermining the authority of the courts and compromising their independence, it has led an infamous campaign of libel and slander against the Supreme Court, and it has sanctioned very serious attacks against judges and their authority;

b) It has made a mockery of justice in cases of delinquents belonging to political parties or groups affiliated with or close to the administration, either through the abusive use of pardons or deliberate noncompliance with detention orders;

c) It has violated express laws and utterly disregarded the principle of separation of powers by not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives and, when so accused by the Supreme Court, the President of the Republic has gone to the unheard of extreme of arrogating to himself a right to judge the merit of judicial sentences and to determine when they are to be complied with;

9. That, as concerns the General Comptroller's Office—an independent institution essential to administrative legitimacy—the administration has systematically violated decrees and activities that point to the illegality of the actions of the Executive Branch or of entities dependent on it;

10. That among the administration's constant assaults on the guarantees and fundamental rights established in the Constitution, the following stand out:

a) It has violated the principle of equality before the law through sectarian and hateful discrimination in the protection authorities are required to give to the life, rights, and property of all inhabitants, through activities related to food and subsistence, as well as numerous other instances. It is to note that the President of the Republic himself has made these discriminations part of the normal course of his government by proclaiming from the beginning that he does not consider himself the president of all Chileans;

b) It has grievously attacked freedom of speech, applying all manner of economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government, illegally closing newspapers and radio networks; imposing illegal shackles on the latter; unconstitutionally jailing opposition journalists; resorting to cunning maneuvers to acquire a monopoly on newsprint; and openly violating the legal mandates to which the National Television Network is subject by handing over the post of executive director to a public official not named by the Senate, as is required by law, and by turning the network into an instrument for partisan propaganda and defamation of political adversaries;

c) It has violated the principle of university autonomy and the constitutionally recognized right of universities to establish and maintain television networks, by encouraging the takeover of the University of Chile's Channel 9, by assaulting that university's new Channel 6 through violence and illegal detentions, and by obstructing the expansion to the provinces of the channel owned by Catholic University of Chile;

d) It has obstructed, impeded, and sometimes violently suppressed citizens who do not favor the regime in the exercise of their right to freedom of association. Meanwhile, it has constantly allowed groups—frequently armed—to gather and take over streets and highways, in disregard of pertinent regulation, in order to intimidate the populace;

e) It has attacked educational freedom by illegally and surreptitiously implementing the so-called Decree of the Democratization of Learning, an educational plan whose goal is Marxist indoctrination;

f) It has systematically violated the constitutional guarantee of property rights by allowing and supporting more than 1,500 illegal "takings" of farms, and by encouraging the "taking" of hundreds of industrial and commercial establishments in order to later seize them or illegally place them in receivership and thereby, through looting, establish state control over the economy; this has been one of the determining causes of the unprecedented decline in production, the scarcity of goods, the black market and suffocating rise in the cost of living, the bankruptcy of the national treasury, and generally of the economic crisis that is sweeping the country and threatening basic household welfare, and very seriously compromising national security;

g) It has made frequent politically motivated and illegal arrests, in addition to those already mentioned of journalists, and it has tolerated the whipping and torture of the victims;

h) It has ignored the rights of workers and their unions, subjecting them, as in the cases of El Teniente [one of the largest copper mines] and the transportation union, to illegal means of repression;

i) It has broken its commitment to make amends to workers who have been unjustly persecuted, such as those from Sumar, Helvetia, Banco Central, El Teniente and Chuquicamata; it has followed an arbitrary policy in the turning over of state-owned farms to peasants, expressly contravening the Agrarian Reform Law; it has denied workers meaningful participation, as guaranteed them by the Constitution; it has given rise to the end to union freedom by setting up parallel political organizations of workers.

j) It has gravely breached the constitutional guarantee to freely leave the country, establishing requirements to do so not covered by any law.

11. That it powerfully contributes to the breakdown of the Rule of Law by providing government protection and encouragement of the creation and maintenance of a number of organizations which are subversive [to the constitutional order] in the exercise of authority granted to them by neither the Constitution nor the laws of the land, in open violation of article 10, number 16 of the Constitution. These include community commandos, peasant councils, vigilance committees, the JAP, etc.; all designed to create a so-called "popular authority" with the goal of replacing legitimately elected authority and establishing the foundation of a totalitarian dictatorship. These facts have been publicly acknowledged by the President of the Republic in his last State of the Nation address and by all government media and strategists;

RESOLUTION CONTINUES BELOW

Agent Ferris · Nov 2, 2009

RESOLUTION CONTINUED:

12. That especially serious is the breakdown of the Rule of Law by means of the creation and development of government-protected armed groups which, in addition to threatening citizens' security and rights as well as domestic peace, are headed towards a confrontation with the Armed Forces. Just as serious is that the police are prevented from carrying out their most important responsibilities when dealing with criminal riots perpetrated by violent groups devoted to the government. Given the extreme gravity, one cannot be silent before the public and notorious attempts to use the Armed and Police Forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks;

13. That the creation of a new ministry, with the participation of high-level officials of the Armed and Police Forces, was characterized by the President of the Republic to be "of national security" and its mandate "the establishment of political order" and "the establishment of economic order," and that such a mandate can only be conceived within the context of full restoration and validation of the legal and constitutional norms that make up the institutional framework of the Republic;

14. That the Armed and Police Forces are and must be, by their very nature, a guarantee for all Chileans and not just for one sector of the Nation or for a political coalition. Consequently, the government cannot use their backing to cover up a specific minority partisan policy. Rather their presence must be directed toward the full restoration of constitutional rule and of the rule of the laws of democratic coexistence, which is indispensable to guaranteeing Chile's institutional stability, civil peace, security, and development;

15. Lastly, exercising the role attributed to it by Article 39 of the Constitution,

The Chamber of Deputies agrees:

First: To present the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces with the grave breakdown of the legal and constitutional order of the Republic, the facts and circumstances of which are detailed in sections 5 to 12 above;

Second: To likewise point out that by virtue of their responsibilities, their pledge of allegiance to the Constitution and to the laws they have served, and in the case of the ministers, by virtue of the nature of the institutions of which they are high-ranking officials and of Him whose name they invoked upon taking office, it is their duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence among Chileans;

Third: To declare that if so done, the presence of those ministers in the government would render a valuable service to the Republic. To the contrary, they would gravely compromise the national and professional character of the Armed and Police Forces, openly infringing article 22 of the Constitution and seriously damaging the prestige of their institutions; and

Fourth: To communicate this agreement to His Excellency the President of the Republic, and to the Ministers of Economy, National Defense, Public Works and Transportation, and Land and Colonization.

Chilean Supreme Court Denunciation of Allende:

"This Supreme Court is compelled to represent to Your Excellency for the umpteenth time the unlawful attitude of the administrative authority in its illegal interference in judicial affairs, as well as for placing obstructions upon the execution of orders from a Criminal Court by the uniformed police, which orders, under the laws in force, must be carried out by the said police force without obstacles of any kind; all of which implies an open and willful contempt of judicial decisions, with complete disregard of the alterations that such attitudes or omissions produce in the judicial order; which attitude further implies not only a crisis in the state of law, as was represented to Your Excellency in a previous despatch, but also a peremptory or imminent disruption of the legality of the Nation"
16

There's no benefit in pushing those "values." As cliched as it is...seriously, read some Chomsky.

Chomsky is a genocide apologist statist POS why in the hell should we listen to anything a Kymer Rouge backing, PLO supporting, and white nationalist holocaust denier fellow traveler like Chomsky has to say?

Apocalypse · Nov 3, 2009

Agnapostate said:
Haganah formed the year before that. More importantly, of course, do attempt to make some remark relevant to the thread. Rebuttal of my quoted post would be dashing.

Indeed, Haganah was formed in 1920, I don't see what this had to do with the argument. :shrug:

As I said, the first terrorist attack in the land has occurred in 1921, by Palestinian-Arab terrorists.

reefedjib · Nov 3, 2009

Where did Agnapostate run off to? I am noticing he has a tendency to drop conversations in the middle. Somewhat annoying.

Agnapostate · Nov 3, 2009

Not any more than your mysterious disappearance elsewhere, though you can ask Australianlibertarian how valid that comment is of me. It's just that Ferris hasn't yet learned not to clutter threads with mounds of garbage, so this time, he has to be educated. :shrug:

reefedjib · Nov 3, 2009

Agnapostate said:
Not any more than your mysterious disappearance elsewhere, though you can ask Australianlibertarian how valid that comment is of me. It's just that Ferris hasn't yet learned not to clutter threads with mounds of garbage, so this time, he has to be educated. :shrug:

Have I? Didn't mean to. It is no reason to ignore my post, since you are obviously still monitoring this thread.

Also, it seems Ferris challenged your assertion with some facts. Care to refute them or do we now know to ignore your use of Mossadeq, Arbenz, and Allende as evidence of US anti-democratic removal?

I have asked you twice about "where do you feel nationality fits in[to moral agency]?"

I have also asked you 2 or 3 times how Anarchism runs an economy without money as an interchange medium.

But you just ignore me

Tucker Case · Nov 3, 2009

I don't like the all or none dichotomy presented by the poll. I believe that the terrorism would exist, but that it might not be directed in the same ways and would not be as bad if our foreign policy had been different.

I'm not really talking about with regards to Israel, either.

I'm talking about things like Operation Ajax and other interventionism in the ME.

I think that the terrorism would still exist in some form to some degree, but the things that we (and others) did that increased the foothold of extremism in hearts of the people within the region has exacerbated that extremism and given it more power than it otherwise may have achieved without those interventions.

In other words, I believe it to be a variable, but not the only variable.

obvious Child · Nov 4, 2009

I'm stuck between yes and no. Part of the reason for extremist Islam is due to Dutch Disease. Without the need for taxation, there is no need for representation, thereby no need for democracy and very little emphasis on education. If Middle Eastern regimes had managed Dutch Disease well to produce an educated, moderate society that promoted representation in government I seriously doubt that what we did in the Middle East would have resulted in what we see today. Note, compare Turkey's relationship with Israel over the past 40 years with Iran's.

That said, it is absolutely ludicrous to expect people to not lash out at you for screwing up their proverbial house.

Agent Ferris · Nov 6, 2009

Agnapostate said:
Not any more than your mysterious disappearance elsewhere, though you can ask Australianlibertarian how valid that comment is of me. It's just that Ferris hasn't yet learned not to clutter threads with mounds of garbage, so this time, he has to be educated. :shrug:

And by garbage you mean primary source material, eyewitness testimony, and facts. Go read some more genocide denial by Chomsky sport, then talk to me about getting educated. :roll:

Agnapostate · Nov 6, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
And by garbage you mean primary source material, eyewitness testimony, and facts. Go read some more genocide denial by Chomsky sport, then talk to me about getting educated. :roll:

Your comment on that, as previously mentioned, is a rightist talking point that you've learned to repeat without knowing anything about. Aside from the fallacious claim that his views on a topic are sufficient to invalidate every single comment he's ever made, and aside from the fact that I've not even mentioned him as a source for my own claims in this thread, Noam Chomsky opposed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, but merely proposed that the number of deaths that they allegedly caused were overstated, since the U.S.-sponsored intervention in Cambodia in the early 1970's had wide-ranging repercussions that likely caused additional deaths. Your claim is repetition of a disingenuous myth.

Since you contributed almost nothing to the thread, refused to answer my main points, made comical claims about the Barbary pirates rofl), and cluttered the thread by copying and pasting off-topic, disingenuous garbage, run along now. :2wave:

akyron · Nov 7, 2009

Arcana XV said:
Well, let me put it this way...

When was the last time Islamic terrorists threatened to blow up anything in Switzerland?

Of course a country's foreign policy matters greatly.

In Neutral Switzerland, A Rising Radicalism
Islamic Extremists Newly Seen as Threat

"the Swiss Federal Police reversed previous assessments that the domestic risk of terrorism was nearly nonexistent. The report concluded that Switzerland had become "a jihadi field of operation" and predicted that terrorist attacks were "an increasing possibility."

"It would be dishonest to say that these groups are ready to act in Europe but that Switzerland is an island and that these groups could not be active in Switzerland, too," Jean-Luc Vez, director of the federal police, said in an interview here in the Swiss capital. "It is very, very important for us to say this to the Swiss politicians and the Swiss people."

The changes in Switzerland mirror those in other smaller European nations that, until recently, didn't see themselves as likely targets for Islamic terrorists."

In Sweden, another country with a long history of neutrality, prosecutors last month convened a top-secret closed trial of three terrorism suspects in the southern city of Malmo. Authorities have not identified the suspects or disclosed any evidence. But Swedish media have reported that the arrests were made at the request of British counterterrorism investigators.

"In Denmark, counterterrorism authorities say they remain on high alert after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that spurred boycotts, death threats and violent protests in Islamic countries.

And in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has classified the risk of a terrorist attack as "substantial," a threat level proportionally higher than in the United States, where homeland security officials judge the risk as "elevated." The Dutch government established its threat-ranking system in November 2004, when an Islamic radical killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Like Denmark, the Netherlands has contributed troops and other support to U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. But until the van Gogh killing, Dutch officials had played down the threat of terrorism at home."

Try again. That analogy does not hold water.

Agent Ferris · Nov 7, 2009

Agnapostate said:
Your comment on that, as previously mentioned, is a rightist talking point that you've learned to repeat without knowing anything about. Aside from the fallacious claim that his views on a topic are sufficient to invalidate every single comment he's ever made, and aside from the fact that I've not even mentioned him as a source for my own claims in this thread, Noam Chomsky opposed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge,

Do I really have to bust out Chomsky's own words? He was a Khmer Rouge genocide denier, and now he simply blames the genocide on the U.S..

but merely proposed that the number of deaths that they allegedly caused were overstated,

Chomsky not only denied that the genocide was taking place despite vast amounts of evidence to the contrary, but he also said that the Khmer Rouge were a positive influence and credited them with saving up to a million lives. Once again you don't have a ****ing clue what you're talking about.

since the U.S.-sponsored intervention in Cambodia in the early 1970's had wide-ranging repercussions that likely caused additional deaths. Your claim is repetition of a disingenuous myth.

lol yep you just like Chomsky now want to blame the Khmer Rouge genocide on the U.S.. What a surprise.

Since you contributed almost nothing to the thread,

Except disproving every single one of your fallacious points regarding Allende, Arbenz, and Mossadeq.

refused to answer my main points,

I pwned your ass with facts.

made comical claims about the Barbary pirates rofl),

You mean quoted primary sources regarding the Barbary Pirates claims that they had divine right to murder, rob from, and enslave all non-Muslims?

and cluttered the thread by copying and pasting off-topic, disingenuous garbage, run along now. :2wave:

You mean primary sources and secondary sources citing primary sources debunking your claims?

Red_Dave · Nov 11, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
Do I really have to bust out Chomsky's own words?

Yes please

Maximus Zeebra · Nov 11, 2009

Apocalypse said:
The second take on this would be that;
Terrorists, as individuals, are mostly irrational beings that are capable of the murdering of innocents based on their nationality merely in order to promote a political agenda.

What makes you think they are more irrational than people in the US army, or political leadership in the US who orders bombings and so fourth? What makes you believe they are less rational than Israeli soldiers, generals or politicians?
Perhaps the problem is really, that they are rational.

Apocalypse · Nov 11, 2009

Maximus Zeebra said:
What makes you think they are more irrational than people in the US army, or political leadership in the US who orders bombings and so fourth? What makes you believe they are less rational than Israeli soldiers, generals or politicians?
Perhaps the problem is really, that they are rational.

What makes me think that?
Sanity, perhaps.

Maximus Zeebra · Nov 11, 2009

Apocalypse said:
What makes me think that?
Sanity, perhaps.

Do you ever try to understand things from other perspectives than your own and the people around you, or your nation or alliance? They could have perfectly "rational" reasons for what they do, just like a Israeli soldier has when he shoots an arab.

Yet, it is insane to shoot a person, just like it is to blow up one. Both actions are rationalized by the person, in a way.

And.. Why do you insist that sanity is looking at things in your own way? Perhaps you are also insane in other peoples eyes for the things you think and the things you do.

Apocalypse · Nov 11, 2009

Maximus Zeebra said:
Do you ever try to understand things from other perspectives than your own and the people around you, or your nation or alliance? They could have perfectly "rational" reasons for what they do, just like a Israeli soldier has when he shoots an arab.

Yet, it is insane to shoot a person, just like it is to blow up one. Both actions are rationalized by the person, in a way.

And.. Why do you insist that sanity is looking at things in your own way? Perhaps you are also insane in other peoples eyes for the things you think and the things you do.

You take perspective and give it too much meaning.

While it is very important to look at issues from all of the involved perspectives, the perspective of those who go against the human moral code shouldn't be taken into mind, from the same reason that we do not try and justify murders by justifying the murderer's intentions(money, hatred, etc).

Maximus Zeebra · Nov 11, 2009

Apocalypse said:
You take perspective and give it too much meaning.

While it is very important to look at issues from all of the involved perspectives, the perspective of those who go against the human moral code shouldn't be taken into mind,

So then anyone in the military should never be taken into consideration? They have their ideological reasons to be in the military ready to "kill the enemy", just like terrorists have their ideological reasons to be a terrorist and "kill the enemy"..

Apocalypse said:
from the same reason that we do not try and justify murders by justifying the murderer's intentions(money, hatred, etc).

Thats something else alltogether. Both terrorists and western militants are in it for ideological reasons. There is also a hatred in the military for their enemies just like there is hatred for "the enemy" for terrorists. What do I know though. For all I know, the terrorists could do it for strictly ideological reasons without any hated at all.

Agent Ferris · Nov 11, 2009

Red_Dave said:
Yes please

Chomsky's Khmer Rouge genocide denial:

...there are many other sources on recent events in Cambodia that have not been brought to the attention of the American reading public. Space limitations preclude a comprehensive review, but such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London Economist, the Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from the American destruction and killing.

Chomsky stating that the Khmer Rouge were a positive influence:

If a serious study…is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered…that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response…because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system.… Such a study, however, has yet to be undertaken.

Red_Dave · Nov 12, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
Chomsky's Khmer Rouge genocide denial:

...there are many other sources on recent events in Cambodia that have not been brought to the attention of the American reading public. Space limitations preclude a comprehensive review, but such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London Economist, the Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere, have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant discontent, where brutal revenge killings were aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from the American destruction and killing.

Chomsky stating that the Khmer Rouge were a positive influence:

If a serious study…is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered…that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response…because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system.… Such a study, however, has yet to be undertaken.

Well the first quote pretty muchs echos what Agnaposte said, I.E Chomskys only point was that many of the deaths attributable to the Khmer Rouge are attributable to U.S intervention. The second is more intresting but ild like to see some context. I find all those ...........s suspicious. Also saying these reforms elicited a possitive responce isnt the same as condoning them, most would accept that Hitlers reforms enjoyed the support of many (if not most) Germans but thats not the same as saying these reforms were good.

Agent Ferris · Nov 12, 2009

Red_Dave said:
Well the first quote pretty muchs echos what Agnaposte said, I.E Chomskys only point was that many of the deaths attributable to the Khmer Rouge are attributable to U.S intervention.

And that's a god damn ****ing lie backed up by 0 evidence, and in fact the evidence completely contradicts that and undeniably leads the conclusion that Pol Pot committed the worst genocide as a % of the population in the history of the planet and any accusation to the contrary is Khmer Rouge genocide denial, but Chomsky went even further to state that the Khmer Rouge were responsible for at most 1,000 deaths, that is no different than stating that Hitler killed at most 1,000 Jews and that those deaths were the result of the allied bombing campaigns. Get ****ing real, the man is a genocide denier and his defenders are ****ing sick in the head.

second is more intresting but ild like to see some context. I find all those ...........s suspicious.

In what context could that straight forward quote be taken any differently? Chomsky said that the Khmer Rouge were a positive influence, end of story.

Regardless here's the full quote:

"If a serious study of the impact of Western imperialism on Cambodian peasant life is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered that the violence lurking behind the Khmer smile, on which Meyer and others have commented, is not a reflection of obscure traits in peasant culture and psychology, but is the direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system, and that its current manifestations are a no less direct and understandable response to the still more concentrated and extreme savagery of a U.S. assault that may in part have been designed to evoke this very response, as we have noted. Such a study may also show that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response from some sectors of the Cambodian peasantry because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system with its final outburst of uncontrolled barbarism.

In other words West = Bad, Khmer Rouge = Good, thanks for playing.

Chomsky is a sick **** who aligns himself with white nationalists and perpetrators of genocide, you keep good company.

Also saying these reforms elicited a possitive responce isnt the same as condoning them,

You're joking right? :roll:

most would accept that Hitlers reforms enjoyed the support of many (if not most) Germans but thats not the same as saying these reforms were good.

Say that Hitler was a positive influence on Germany = saying that he was good for Germany, words mean things.

Red_Dave · Nov 12, 2009

Agent Ferris said:
And that's a god damn ****ing lie backed up by 0 evidence, and in fact the evidence completely contradicts that and undeniably leads the conclusion that Pol Pot committed the worst genocide as a % of the population in the history of the planet and any accusation to the contrary is Khmer Rouge genocide denial, but Chomsky went even further to state that the Khmer Rouge were responsible for at most 1,000 deaths, that is no different than stating that Hitler killed at most 1,000 Jews and that those deaths were the result of the allied bombing campaigns. Get ****ing real, the man is a genocide denier and his defenders are ****ing sick in the head.

In what context could that straight forward quote be taken any differently? Chomsky said that the Khmer Rouge were a positive influence, end of story.

Regardless here's the full quote:

"If a serious study of the impact of Western imperialism on Cambodian peasant life is someday undertaken, it may well be discovered that the violence lurking behind the Khmer smile, on which Meyer and others have commented, is not a reflection of obscure traits in peasant culture and psychology, but is the direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system, and that its current manifestations are a no less direct and understandable response to the still more concentrated and extreme savagery of a U.S. assault that may in part have been designed to evoke this very response, as we have noted. Such a study may also show that the Khmer Rouge programs elicited a positive response from some sectors of the Cambodian peasantry because they dealt with fundamental problems rooted in the feudal past and exacerbated by the imperial system with its final outburst of uncontrolled barbarism.

In other words West = Bad, Khmer Rouge = Good, thanks for playing.

Chomsky is a sick **** who aligns himself with white nationalists and perpetrators of genocide, you keep good company.

You're joking right? :roll:

Say that Hitler was a positive influence on Germany = saying that he was good for Germany, words mean things.

Thats not the point. We,re talking about eliciting a posstive responce from sections of the population not having a possitive influence. Noboddy has mentioned a possitive influence here. Words do mean things but you seam unable to comprehend them. He said they were popular with some sections of the population, not good.

"Islamic Terrorism" - Dependent or Independent?

Is "Islamic Terrorism" Dependent on or Independent of U.S. Foreign Policy?

Dependent. Such terrorism would likely not exist if U.S. foreign policy were different.

Independent. Islamic terrorism would exist at current levels regardless.

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