The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

by BarrileteCosmico Thu Apr 25, 2013 2:02 pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/boston-terrorism-motives-us-violence

This man needs a medal

by •MilanDevil• Thu Apr 25, 2013 2:26 pm

It is true, think of these people that are in pain and asking for help, yet no one gives them any attention. In my opinion, those terrorists are avenging the deaths of their families and friends, however, the way in which they are doing it is not justified. Fighting fire with fire is not wise at all. Not only that, they also use Islam to justify their actions. Like I've said before, the ignorance on both sides is the root of all evil.

Honestly, this seems like a usual crazy hollywood scenario, when group 1 is hit by a small part of group 2, in response a minority of group 1 decides to attack group 2, eventually, this results in a war between the 2 sides because of a minority in these 2 groups. The worst part is that both groups are oblivious of the actions of their minority.

by RealGunner Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:40 pm

Huge fan of Glenn Greenwald. Fantastic article

by Yuri Yukuv Thu Apr 25, 2013 10:25 pm

This is ridiculous, its the one guy the comes over and says he wants to fight you because you looked at him funny

Lets all remember here that the previous Iraqi regime was one that invaded two other muslim countries involving it in war for more than a decade. It is also the regime that gassed and killed its own people like rats. And we are out of there anyways, we didnt even steal their oil like many claimed we went there for.

Lets also remembers that the US after being struck in its own country with more than 3,000 casualties asked the taliban to handover all elements of al qaeda or face a war, in which taliban chose the latter. Like any invasion the US invasion would have negatives but it also had many positives such as over throw of theocratic rule which hates women and any sign of rights or democracy. Just hearing about how taliban treated women and non-islamist factions of society would bring range to any decent human being.

The united states helped the muslim world in many other incidents and no one was complaining then:

-Helped the bosnians when they were being slaughtered in genocide by serbians and europe was watching like it liked it or didnt care

-Supported chechens when they were trying to break away from Russia/Soviet union, stopped when they begun to become terrorists

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

-Supported afghanistan against the soviet union

-Supported the libyan people when they were trying to topple madman ghaddafi

-The US government also pushed for political reform within its middle eastern allies which resulted in much more internet freedom and a hint of democracy. (Especially in Jordan and Egypt)

Right now the sunni muslim population (of which elements within it perpetrate most of terrorism acts against the west) is begging the US to intervene in Syria, they would complain if the US intervened or if it didnt to be honest.

As part of the US's job as the leviathan when there is signs of hesitation or instability it will step on some toes, the only culture which has people hitting back at innocent western civilians are muslims. If you notice most of those terrorists are more motivated to kill westerners than they are to help their own people or to weed out extremism and violence.

by BarrileteCosmico Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:55 am

The united states helped the muslim world in many other incidents and no one was complaining then:

-Helped the bosnians when they were being slaughtered in genocide by serbians and europe was watching like it liked it or didnt care

-Supported chechens when they were trying to break away from Russia/Soviet union, stopped when they begun to become terrorists

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

-Supported afghanistan against the soviet union

-Supported the libyan people when they were trying to topple madman ghaddafi

-The US government also pushed for political reform within its middle eastern allies which resulted in much more internet freedom and a hint of democracy. (Especially in Jordan and Egypt)

Compared to how many civilian casualties in the Afghani and Iraqi wars, not to mention countless military involvement in the region before? That's what people in those countries see, and hatred breed hatred. To call 134,000 civilian deaths the equivalent of looking at someone funny is a huge understatement.

by Yuri Yukuv Fri Apr 26, 2013 2:44 am

BarrileteCosmico wrote:
The united states helped the muslim world in many other incidents and no one was complaining then:

-Helped the bosnians when they were being slaughtered in genocide by serbians and europe was watching like it liked it or didnt care

-Supported chechens when they were trying to break away from Russia/Soviet union, stopped when they begun to become terrorists

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

-Supported afghanistan against the soviet union

-Supported the libyan people when they were trying to topple madman ghaddafi

-The US government also pushed for political reform within its middle eastern allies which resulted in much more internet freedom and a hint of democracy. (Especially in Jordan and Egypt)
Compared to how many civilian casualties in the Afghani and Iraqi wars, not to mention countless military involvement in the region before? That's what people in those countries see, and hatred breed hatred. To call 134,000 civilian deaths the equivalent of looking at someone funny is a huge understatement.

What is this 130,000 number counting? In the invasion of iraq between 3,000 and 7,000 civilians passed away and this is because of both coalition and iraqi government forces actions. In afghanistan its around 12,000 to 14,000 for the whole 11 years again because of both coalition forces and taliban. Most of other deaths in Iraq involve sunni-shia infighting which the US didnt have much to do with.

Lets compare this to some other stats:

-Iran Iraq war 100,000 civilian fatalities on both sides and USD 1 Trln in economic losses
-Anfal campaign by saddam 182,000 civilian fatalities
-Uprising against saddam 100,000 - 230,000 civilian fatalities
-Countless other crimes against is population
-Taliban massacre of 8,000 hazaras
-Taliban sheltering of alqaeda which killed 3,000 civilians in NYC alone
-Taliban brutal suppression of rights and responsibility for more than three fourths of civilian causalities in afghanistan

What are the previous US excursions in the middle east, except for briefly in lebanese civil war and gulf war I do not remember any of significance?

Dont you find it funny that most muslim terrorists do not come from countries that the US has engaged with militarily, when was the last time we saw an iraqi or an afghani try to blow something up in the west? When it does happen its mostly from our sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and now Chechneya

by BarrileteCosmico Fri Apr 26, 2013 3:04 am

I'm not sure exactly what the number is counting, I got it from this article which does not go very in depth about it: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 . Also from the article it points out that as a result of the war women's rights have suffered setbacks, which I find surprising and is definitely counter to bringing "democracy" to the region. I find it hard to believe that the civilian death toll is so high because their "forces government action" when there is a lot of damning evidence of US troops killing civilians based on almost whim (I believe there is another thread about this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kelmEZe8whI).

Dont you find it funny that most muslim terrorists do not come from countries that the US has engaged with militarily, when was the last time we saw an iraqi or an afghani try to blow something up in the west? When it does happen its mostly from our sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and now Chechneya

I imagine people in those places have more direct ways to act, presumably by joining the insurgency, whereas that's an option that is not readily available to those outside iraq and afghanistan.

In any case I'm not saying Saddam was a saint and should be kept in power. All I'm saying is that the guy that sees his village bombed, friends and family killed, property destroyed is likely to develop very strong anti-american feelings regardless of the just cause, and there's a very important difference when your neighbor does this to you than when a global superpower does.

by TalkingReckless Fri Apr 26, 2013 3:22 am

Yuri Yukuv wrote:
BarrileteCosmico wrote:
The united states helped the muslim world in many other incidents and no one was complaining then:

-Helped the bosnians when they were being slaughtered in genocide by serbians and europe was watching like it liked it or didnt care

-Supported chechens when they were trying to break away from Russia/Soviet union, stopped when they begun to become terrorists

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

-Supported afghanistan against the soviet union

-Supported the libyan people when they were trying to topple madman ghaddafi

-The US government also pushed for political reform within its middle eastern allies which resulted in much more internet freedom and a hint of democracy. (Especially in Jordan and Egypt)
Compared to how many civilian casualties in the Afghani and Iraqi wars, not to mention countless military involvement in the region before? That's what people in those countries see, and hatred breed hatred. To call 134,000 civilian deaths the equivalent of looking at someone funny is a huge understatement.

What is this 130,000 number counting? In the invasion of iraq between 3,000 and 7,000 civilians passed away and this is because of both coalition and iraqi government forces actions. In afghanistan its around 12,000 to 14,000 for the whole 11 years again because of both coalition forces and taliban. Most of other deaths in Iraq involve sunni-shia infighting which the US didnt have much to do with.

Lets compare this to some other stats:

-Iran Iraq war 100,000 civilian fatalities on both sides and USD 1 Trln in economic losses
-Anfal campaign by saddam 182,000 civilian fatalities
-Uprising against saddam 100,000 - 230,000 civilian fatalities
-Countless other crimes against is population
-Taliban massacre of 8,000 hazaras
-Taliban sheltering of alqaeda which killed 3,000 civilians in NYC alone
-Taliban brutal suppression of rights and responsibility for more than three fourths of civilian causalities in afghanistan

What are the previous US excursions in the middle east, except for briefly in lebanese civil war and gulf war I do not remember any of significance?

Dont you find it funny that most muslim terrorists do not come from countries that the US has engaged with militarily, when was the last time we saw an iraqi or an afghani try to blow something up in the west? When it does happen its mostly from our sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and now Chechneya

you can't really count the Iran-Iraq war, because the US was openly supplying Iraq was weapons, handing over chemical weapons...

Taliban were willing to hand over AQ, Bush said no
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

And YES everything happening in Iraq can be blamed at US, there was civil war because they came and bombed the shit out of the country...the civil war is a direct result of the invasion.

According to WikiLeaks & AP 110k civilians have died in Iraq

US is also indirectly in war against Pakistan, if you have ever been the Northern Area's of Pakistan( & i have), many of them there have lost relatives of some sorts due drone attacks, they were once allied with the Pakistani Army but now are creating their own militias or joining the Paki Taliban.

What are the previous US excursions in the middle east, except for briefly in lebanese civil war and gulf war I do not remember any of significance?

Lets see support openly supporting dictators until they are no use, Qaddafi, Mubarak, Saddam.

Now lets see why the Major Muslim countries hate US

Iran: Openly Deposing a democrat elected leader and installing a dictator. Supplying weapons to Saddam for war which resulted in 1mil+ people dying

Pakistan: Drones killing innocent people in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, Many blame US getting the Afghan war spilled into Pakistan

Saudi: The extremists in Saudi (not the rulers) hate US for having bases there

Iraq: Destroying their country for lie.

And one last thing you need to learn about how religion ties people together.

Many Irish decent & Catholic people in US and around the world supported the cause of the IRA , IPLO (Terrorist groups) etc by sending them money, joining their ranks etc. The same with the Jews they are tied by their religions and some will go to the ends of the worlds to justifity everything Israel does.

The same could be said for the Muslims right now, they see their fellow religious people dying around the world, and when they look at who to blame, fingers are pointed at US

by Eupraxia Fri Apr 26, 2013 4:16 am

Legend wrote:
Many Irish decent & Catholic people in US and around the world supported the cause of the IRA , IPLO (Terrorist groups) etc by sending them money, joining their ranks etc. The same with the Jews they are tied by their religions and some will go to the ends of the worlds to justifity everything Israel does.

The same could be said for the Muslims right now, they see their fellow religious people dying around the world, and when they look at who to blame, fingers are pointed at US

I'm sorry I don't understand your point, are you condemning Israel and Muslims or are you condemning the US and saying Muslims and Jews are infact innocent? it's unclear.

I partially agree with the Glenn Greenwald's article, just because it happens that the terrorist in that case is a Muslim, doesn't mean Muslims around the globe should be blamed for his actions.

I would rather question the mental ability of these Sheikhs.

watch?v=w-rgwRFlf-c
Youtube, I can't post external links due to being a new member.

If some sort of Islamic authority is to be constructed where people teaching Islam are monitored and denounced if they're preaching hate, racism or crazy. I think we'll see a better version of Islam in 10 years.
The problem currently is that people are following what Sheikh tells them blindly, in which sadly most of them are lunatics.

by •MilanDevil• Fri Apr 26, 2013 6:11 am

Eupraxia wrote:
Legend wrote:
Many Irish decent & Catholic people in US and around the world supported the cause of the IRA , IPLO (Terrorist groups) etc by sending them money, joining their ranks etc. The same with the Jews they are tied by their religions and some will go to the ends of the worlds to justifity everything Israel does.

The same could be said for the Muslims right now, they see their fellow religious people dying around the world, and when they look at who to blame, fingers are pointed at US

I'm sorry I don't understand your point, are you condemning Israel and Muslims or are you condemning the US and saying Muslims and Jews are infact innocent? it's unclear.

I partially agree with the Glenn Greenwald's article, just because it happens that the terrorist in that case is a Muslim, doesn't mean Muslims around the globe should be blamed for his actions.

I would rather question the mental ability of these Sheikhs.

watch?v=w-rgwRFlf-c
Youtube, I can't post external links due to being a new member.

If some sort of Islamic authority is to be constructed where people teaching Islam are monitored and denounced if they're preaching hate, racism or crazy. I think we'll see a better version of Islam in 10 years.
The problem currently is that people are following what Sheikh tells them blindly, in which sadly most of them are lunatics.

I can agree with this. This is the main source of ignorance, many people follow their religion blindly which is very wrong, it can lead to terrorist activities. The problem is most if not all Muslim countries are extremely corrupt and they are not willing to spend that much on education. The biggest example is in Saudi Arabia, compare the quality of life between the citizens and the rulers.

This is also why, these countries are considered third world countries.

by Yuri Yukuv Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:46 am

BarrileteCosmico wrote:I'm not sure exactly what the number is counting, I got it from this article which does not go very in depth about it: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 . Also from the article it points out that as a result of the war women's rights have suffered setbacks, which I find surprising and is definitely counter to bringing "democracy" to the region. I find it hard to believe that the civilian death toll is so high because their "forces government action" when there is a lot of damning evidence of US troops killing civilians based on almost whim (I believe there is another thread about this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kelmEZe8whI).

Dont you find it funny that most muslim terrorists do not come from countries that the US has engaged with militarily, when was the last time we saw an iraqi or an afghani try to blow something up in the west? When it does happen its mostly from our sunni allies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and now Chechneya
I imagine people in those places have more direct ways to act, presumably by joining the insurgency, whereas that's an option that is not readily available to those outside iraq and afghanistan.

In any case I'm not saying Saddam was a saint and should be kept in power. All I'm saying is that the guy that sees his village bombed, friends and family killed, property destroyed is likely to develop very strong anti-american feelings regardless of the just cause, and there's a very important difference when your neighbor does this to you than when a global superpower does.

Democracy is actually very likely to take away peoples rights, we can look at germany and Venezuela for examples of that. The reason womens rights have deteriorated is because the iraqi people in general would want to see them have less rights than saddam gave them, in the US for example the new left would like to see diminished rights of gun control while neo cons would like to see more anti terrorism laws hat violate legal rights. It is not the united state's fault that democracy is not perfect. I hope I adressed your point, but if you are one of those people that believe that the Iraqis and Muslims in general are too uncivilized to have democracy thats a whole other debate.

Yes in tense war violations there are mistakes made just like in the video, but if you want to really blame someone for mass civilian deaths maybe you should look at the baathist army, alqaeda and the shia death squads.

Extremely graphic

Saddam Army

Al Qaeda in iraq

Shia death squads

The US occupation of iraq ended two years ago now, there are tons of iraqis in the US and the UK and we have not seen much terrorist activities from them. The kurdish and shia iraqis have gained alot since the US has invaded and they accuse the same sunni arab dominated groups of terrorism (Alqaeda and affiliates) which draw their recruits from countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt. They actually accuse foreign sunnis to come into their country and blow up he natives just like what is happening in the west.

Again maybe I would believe this if it came from countries that the US attacked, there is alot of afghanis and iraqis in the US especially in california and Detroit area. I dont really remember them conducting much terrorist activities in the west.

Rather I see terrorists coming from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Chechneya and Pakistan. Notice how most of those countries are actually ones that we are or have been allied with.

by Yuri Yukuv Sat Apr 27, 2013 1:46 am

Legend wrote:

you can't really count the Iran-Iraq war, because the US was openly supplying Iraq was weapons, handing over chemical weapons...

Taliban were willing to hand over AQ, Bush said no
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

And YES everything happening in Iraq can be blamed at US, there was civil war because they came and bombed the shit out of the country...the civil war is a direct result of the invasion.

According to WikiLeaks & AP 110k civilians have died in Iraq

US is also indirectly in war against Pakistan, if you have ever been the Northern Area's of Pakistan( & i have), many of them there have lost relatives of some sorts due drone attacks, they were once allied with the Pakistani Army but now are creating their own militias or joining the Paki Taliban.

What are the previous US excursions in the middle east, except for briefly in lebanese civil war and gulf war I do not remember any of significance?

Lets see support openly supporting dictators until they are no use, Qaddafi, Mubarak, Saddam.

Now lets see why the Major Muslim countries hate US

Iran: Openly Deposing a democrat elected leader and installing a dictator. Supplying weapons to Saddam for war which resulted in 1mil+ people dying

Pakistan: Drones killing innocent people in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, Many blame US getting the Afghan war spilled into Pakistan

Saudi: The extremists in Saudi (not the rulers) hate US for having bases there

Iraq: Destroying their country for lie.

And one last thing you need to learn about how religion ties people together.

Many Irish decent & Catholic people in US and around the world supported the cause of the IRA , IPLO (Terrorist groups) etc by sending them money, joining their ranks etc. The same with the Jews they are tied by their religions and some will go to the ends of the worlds to justifity everything Israel does.

The same could be said for the Muslims right now, they see their fellow religious people dying around the world, and when they look at who to blame, fingers are pointed at US

You cant count iraq-iran war now? Do we get to pick and choose facts now? Most of the world supported Iraq because Iran was a pariah state attacking diplomats and assassinating its own citizens in foreign countries.

Just so you know the US didnt provide any instruments or materials for the gas, it was actually Germany that provided most of the materials followed closely by france and the UK. Just like it was france that provided Iraq with nuclear materials but lets all blame the US for everything now.

The united states and bill clinton asked for bin laden way back in 1998 and the taliban refused, the US switched support from taliban to masoud in 2001 and formalized this in august 2001, guess what happened less than a month later? Masoud was bombed and 9/11 happened. When the US comes back asking for a terrorist that killed 3,000 of your citizens you dont reply with send over the evidence and well examine it and if we thinks it legit we will hand him over to a third country of our choosing. Ofcourse the US would bomb the hell out of you.

The civil strife in iraq is a result of oppression by the sunnis against the kurds and shias for the last 50 years and of foreign terrorists from countries like Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The criminals of the previous regime which have murdered hundreds of thousands of kurds and shias were fired and barred from politics, they resorted to terrorism. The shias used death squads to counter this, the US didnt have a dog in this fight. Stop blaming the US for others actions.

The leaders of wazirstan hold full responsibility for what is happening, they are willingly harboring terrorists and protecting them. These terrorists have repeatedly stated their willingness and desire to attack innocents all over the world. These leaders force the US into either drone attacks or risking innocents or allies being attacked, as you can imagine any rational entity would choose the former.

Qaddafi? The US never supported him stop the lies. There was a truce from 2003-2011 but US was never on his side.

The whole world supports dictators when there are no democratic alternatives present for the sake of stability, deal with it. Amazing how you dont bring up Russia supporting Assad and Qadhafi.

The UK was the one that lead the coup, mainly because mosadaq wanted to nationalize BPs abadan fields. The president for most of the lead up to that was truman who opposed it. The US mainly supported Pahlavi through the CIA and a muslim country became the US's strongest ally for two decades in the middle east and central asia (more than israel), Iran was very important to the US as it was close to oil sources and to the soviet union. Anyways I havent seen any terrorist from alqaeda or so mention this because they dont consider Iran to be muslim.

Amazing, so you are telling me 9/11 out of which specific incident? How about the 1998 bombings?

Were those all retaliations for the US involvement in the gulf war against a man who committed genocide of his people? maybe muslims should stop blaming others especially foreigners for their problems, they are not children.

Most oppressive states in the world are muslim, least democratic are muslim, the poorest muslim, the ones with the least womens rights are muslims, most likely to have civil war are muslim, most likely to export terrorism are muslim etc etc etc

by El Chelsea Fuerte Sun Jan 12, 2014 2:06 pm

Well, first it would be helpful to define what/who 'terrorism'/'terrorist' is. War is terrorism too. However, it is not portrayed as such and the way some countries have portrayed it, it is as if terrorism is worse than war. Then terrorism gets used to justify war...sigh, if only the average person was a little bit more thoughtful.

by Swanhends Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:08 pm

Greenwald should be given a nobel peace prize. full stop.

by Mamad Sat Mar 01, 2014 10:26 pm

It is also the regime that gassed and killed its own people like rats.

Oh F off. where were the US when Iraq bombed civilians in Iran and used chemical weapons? 8 f*cking years people of Iran were under Chemical attacks and US did nothing. hell they supported Saddam.

I've said this many times, US don't give a sh*t about anyone but themselves. they create and support terrorist to achieve what they want and when they are done with them they kill em and say hey we are US we are good we killed terrorists.

the only reason they are in middle east is because they want to have control over there. for their benefit.

by Adit Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:48 pm

Spot on Mamad. The iraq-iran war is a typical example of US hypocrisy. They supported saddam who used dangerous chemical weapons then after many years they kills same Saddam for possession/making of dangerous weapons.

Not to mention the Taliban double standard. They trained Taliban militants by themselves in Afghan vs USSR war. The likes of Osama Bin Laden emerged from that war,that war was a mile stone in Taliban formation. Now they are fighting their own mad dog.

by Swanhends Mon Mar 03, 2014 7:59 am

by El Chelsea Fuerte Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:06 am

Mamad wrote:
It is also the regime that gassed and killed its own people like rats.

Oh F off. where were the US when Iraq bombed civilians in Iran and used chemical weapons? 8 f*cking years people of Iran were under Chemical attacks and US did nothing. hell they supported Saddam.

I've said this many times, US don't give a sh*t about anyone but themselves. they create and support terrorist to achieve what they want and when they are done with them they kill em and say hey we are US we are good we killed terrorists.

the only reason they are in middle east is because they want to have control over there. for their benefit.

by Nishankly Wed Mar 05, 2014 11:16 pm

Yuri Yukuv wrote:

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

I dont understand why, Its stupid, The only reason i see its personal benefit, They fund them and help them fight the stupid unnecessary wars against India which they always end up losing while using this funding to pressure Pakistan to control terrorism. Not even 10% of the funding from US is used in development by Pakistan. Its just they want a country bordering Afghanistan to be on good terms with them.

by El Chelsea Fuerte Thu Mar 06, 2014 4:18 am

Nishank wrote:
Yuri Yukuv wrote:

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

I dont understand why, Its stupid, The only reason i see its personal benefit, They fund them and help them fight the stupid unnecessary wars against India which they always end up losing while using this funding to pressure Pakistan to control terrorism. Not even 10% of the funding from US is used in development by Pakistan. Its just they want a country bordering Afghanistan to be on good terms with them.

To keep the region divided. Promote hatred between countries or ethnic groups within countries, they fight, become weaker, and the most powerful country in the world removes a potential threat without much effort. The US knows very well to whom its $10,000,000,000+ "aid" (terrorism aid?!) to Pakistan since 9/11 has gone to.

by Il Diavolo Thu Mar 06, 2014 8:56 am

El Chelsea Fuerte wrote:
Nishank wrote:
Yuri Yukuv wrote:

-Supported pakistan in most of its wars against india

I dont understand why, Its stupid, The only reason i see its personal benefit, They fund them and help them fight the stupid unnecessary wars against India which they always end up losing while using this funding to pressure Pakistan to control terrorism. Not even 10% of the funding from US is used in development by Pakistan. Its just they want a country bordering Afghanistan to be on good terms with them.

To keep the region divided. Promote hatred between countries or ethnic groups within countries, they fight, become weaker, and the most powerful country in the world removes a potential threat without much effort. The US knows very well to whom its $10,000,000,000+ "aid" (terrorism aid?!) to Pakistan since 9/11 has gone to.

Well, It's not like the aid that they did give to Pakistan was for development projects in the first place. Most of the aid was "military aid", since the Pakistani military itself has been fighting against the Taliban in the north-west of the country. As for why they supported Pakistan, it's cause they needed an ally in a region where the USSR was becoming more and more dominant. And there tactics paid off when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Without the support of Pakistan, America would never have been able to establish the Taliban, supply them with a crap-load of weapons and keep the Russians occupied.

It's not much different today. They need Pakistan's support as a lot of the supplies to the NATO forces fighting in Afganistan get there through Pakistan. So they continue to provide "Aid". If anyone says that the US does anything for anyone but their own interests, then that's just wrong. Period.

by RedOranje Thu Mar 06, 2014 9:08 am

If anyone says any country or corporation or organization (even charity organizations, to an extent) does anything for any reason other than their own interests "then that's just wrong. Period."

The entire basis of modern international relations is self-interest and self-security.

There's a certain irony in calling the US out on its hypocrisy as those making the calls pretend the same doesn't apply to them/their nations and are therefore hypocrites as well...

Which is not to say that US policy has not been and is not still hypocritical or flawed or self-serving. All of those are definitely true. It's just the same for every single other nation and group world wide as well.

by El Chelsea Fuerte Thu Mar 06, 2014 9:24 am

RedOranje wrote:
There's a certain irony in calling the US out on its hypocrisy as those making the calls pretend the same doesn't apply to them/their nations and are therefore hypocrites as well...

Assuming it's only non-Americans making those calls?

by RedOranje Thu Mar 06, 2014 9:33 am

Not necessarily, no. If someone identifies his or herself by organization rather than nationality and is an American citizen, he/she can still very well be a hypocrite by calling the US out for it's hypocritical policies if he/she does not recognize those same issues within his/her organization (or even personal actions).

Likewise, if someone is a citizen of the US and therefore "American" but identifies with another nation or culture and considers his or herself to NOT be American then the same conditions apply.

Hell, while single humans can and do at times act altruistically it's rare and is certainly not conditioned by society, so even on an individual level people should be able to recognise and admit to self-interest being a driving force in the vast majority of actions.

by El Chelsea Fuerte Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:09 am

It's only human to find fault in others while making excuses for yourself. So whenever we criticize anyone for anything, we are being hypocrites because we too make mistakes on a daily basis or have done so in the past. In addition, while it is easy to sit here and criticize U.S. foreign policymakers for making the self-interested decisions they do (such as Bush deciding it's best to invade Iraq for reasons not stated in public), I'm aware that most people who make such criticisms (including me) would have made those same decisions as they did if we were in the same position because of whatever benefits are yielded to the USA. However, this does not mean that since every person is basically inherently evil (as I see it), that we cannot critique other people's actions or form opinions about others' actions. The power to critique is especially important if you live in a place where most people buy into whatever is presented to them without questioning it first, as listening to people with other opinions would hopefully make them critical thinkers as well.

So yes, every nation makes self-interested decisions even those who are victims of other nations' self-interested decisions.

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Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Re: The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over