Xurtio

I think you've oversimplified my perspective. The problem with that simple narrative is that the US is not a single entity, and power is dispersed. There may be some conspiracy to keep the middle east unstable, but there's also entities like RAND, CSIS, the Center for American Progress (which helped fight legally and politically in the US for troop withdrawal from Iraq).

The US is actually quite inefficient in this way, because internally we have a lot of bickering to do before anything gets done (compared to, say, Japan'S MITA) because of how we distribute power. There are people who want to stay at war and people who don't and they're both in political positions vying for their ideology.

Also, the Soviet Union was a serious threat to UN dominance. They were working with China and North Korea directly against US interests. That had nothing to do with stability and everything to do with self preservation. Yes, the US doesn't want to compete with other superpowers; I addressed that.

The major issue with pursuits of stability in the middle east is that we have an ethnocentric approach to it. Really, what stability means to us is to have someone in power who is sympathetic to US interests. It's not so much and intentional underhanded manipulation as an ignorance and intolerance towards cultural differences. Ideologically, we view them as wrong and us as right. Most people in these positions do actually believe they're doing the "right" thing but are too hard headed to acknowledge the destabilizing role they play.

__________________
H̓̇̅̉yͤ͏mͬ͂ͧn͑̽̽̌ͪ̑͐͟o̴͊̈́͑̇m͛͌̓ͦ̑aͫ̽ͤ̇n̅̎͐̒ͫ͐c̆ͯͫ̋ ̔̃́eͯ͒rͬͬ̄҉

John Wilkes Booth

i don't necessarily mean a conspiracy... more like a built in incentive not to let any belligerent powers manifest. yes, of course we'd love to have a complacent puppet state. in that case "stability" would be beneficial. we tried that with iran and that didn't work, so then we tried it with iraq and once again that didn't work. both of those powers made us too uneasy to ever let them really dominate the region. they didn't take saddam out because they wanted democracy... they took him out cause he was starting to look like an arab hitler or napolean.

Frownland

Sorry for the late response, I've been pretty sick.

Nah, it's pretty relevant because different places have different ways of interpreting Islam. There is a lifestyle that a common Muslim follows, but across sects there's very little overlap except for the basic five tenants of the religion. Granted, there are issues with how Islam is carried out in those countries, I don't want you to get the impression that I believe that Islam is less dangerous than other religions. The facts go directly against that statement. My issue is your use of the term "mainstream Islam," which makes little sense because even if an American, Saudi, Indonesian, and Australian are all Sunnis, they will still carry out their religion quite differently from one another, even if they fall under the same umbrella term. I do agree that the Islamic way of life is cultural to an extent, but you're making it out to be a singular culture when it's anything but. Your culture influences how you practice your religion in any circumstance, I don't understand why Islam would be any different.

On the flipside Americans think of Middle Eastern countries as backwards. Huh, guess no one's ever happy with how anyone else lives.

Specific instructions for what? Since the Quran was written in a more archaic form of Arabic without a lot of the accents that are used in the script today, translating and interpreting the texts is different from person to person. The process for determining Shariah law is done through scholars and often times there are hundreds of conflicting fatwas with a single element of Shariah. The interpretation of Shariah (as well as how it should be implemented, most modern Muslims think things like cutting off hands are anachronistic) is just another element that Islam is divided on.

A lot of Muslims I've met consider Islam to very central to their lives, so I think that they could also use that tactic to bring in new terrorists since they're disillusioned by the conflict in their area and **** like that. I pretty much agree with your point here.

Ah religion of peace. I've come across that site a few times and I'm not tasting the objectivity that they're proclaiming. Those stats are interesting, but why does ROP have to juke the stats when they're putting the information they linked onto their website? For example, lumping "neutral" or "mixed feelings" with "strongly agree" and "slightly agree" is incredibly misleading. Plus, first link is from a Telegraph article. That's never a good sign.

A lot of those numbers that we were lucky enough to have links to are pretty interesting, but then again a lot of those are aimed at people in the Middle East, which houses under 20 percent of the entire population. So projecting these stats as "global" is pretty off base. Like I said mate, it's cultural (and yes, that does count but you can still laugh if it's become a joke to you).

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

RoxyRollah

That is mainly bc ppl think God thinks just like me. ^

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Frownland

I figure that god and I think quite similarly. I mean he's supposed to be a smart guy, right?

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

RoxyRollah

Right.

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John Wilkes Booth

my point was basically that when people say "it's cultural" they are trying to separate 'culture' from 'islam' as if they are two separate entities. in reality they are tightly intertwined.

it's a common talking point, specifically from muslims, to write off any aspects of islamic culture that get criticized as something that is just inherent to the cultures in islamic countries. like if you talk about how islam isn't really that progressive towards women they will say "oh, well did you know that actually islam was a step forward for women's rights in 7th century arbia? those crazy pagans used to bury their daughters alive!" well congrats on being better than 7th century bedouin pagans, islam. i like how it's not considered bigoted to just regard arab culture as backwards and oppressive towards women but it's somehow 'islamaphobic' to make the same charge against islamic ideology.

it seems like your point is that islam is a diverse religion with many different sects, so i shouldn't treat it so singularly with terms like 'mainstream islam.' i'll concede that point if that's all you're concerned about, but i don't think it undermines the gist of what i'm saying here. i mean you can make similar generic statements about 'christianity' which is every bit as diverse as islam.



on the flipside you probably think of religious fundamentalists from the south as backwards as well. but that's a safe opinion since they're largely white



specific instructions for how to live your life and more generally for how to govern an islamic caliphate. yea, there are interpretive differences etc. but historically this basic idea of an islamic caliphate with sharia law is a more or less straight forward implementation of islam. it's not just a wacky idea that some extremists have... the historical precedent for islam as both a religion and a political institution extends all the way back to muhammad himself.



i'm not sure you do, because you still think it's basically about 'conflict in their area'

this is sometimes true and sometimes not. the palestinian suicide bomber is most likely primarily influenced by 'conflict in their area'

osama bin laden was not. he was a rich kid from saudi arabia with no reason to become a terrorist. statistically, islamic terrorists are more wealthy and more educated than their peers in islamic society. the idea that it's all just economic strife and warfare that drives them to terrorism is just another fairy tale told in liberal mythology. most of the specific recruits that carried out 9/11 were likewise not poor disillusioned kids from palestine but true believers from europe and saudi arabia with decent lives and education.



right... had a feeling you would do that. the long list of links that i provided you with comes from a biased site. i was being lazy and/or intellectually honest in linking you to this icky biased site directly. i could've just went in and picked out the links that were from reputable sites and linked them all to you directly, and then you couldn't use the initial site i found them on as a reason to dismiss them. unfortunately i'm too lazy for any of that.

Frownland

Well if they're not consistent across different Muslim majority countries, I don't view it as an Islamic issue. I see it as an issue specific to that country. They may use Islam to further their prospects (good or bad), but I don't think Islam itself the issue here because you could do that with any religion.

And don't forget that Islam was a major step forward for women in comparison to the rest of Europe as well.

Not to mention that the region you're associating with "mainstream Islam" doesn't even account for a quarter of the world's population of Muslims.

Ugh, quit with that ****. I think Batlord said it earlier but you're not debating Sansa. I was just saying that different cultures aren't always going to agree on how the other lives, Islamic or not.

I'm aware with how politics are intertwined with Islam, it's the key reason for the Sunni/Shii split (which isn't quite the long and arduous conflict that the media would have you believe). It's not as straightforward as you would think, especially considering that the language that the texts are written are ambiguous and linguistically archaic. Plus since Islam doesn't currently have an accepted caliph, the straightforwardness is diluted even further. Look at any verse in the Quran or element of Shariah that you believe is a straight forward declaration of how to live one's life, and I guarantee that you'll find hundreds of fatwas with the opposite opinion.

So the US's history of ****ing over the Middle East took no role in their decisions...right. Overthrowing a democratically elected leader and instituting a dictator would only anger the poor, rich kids wouldn't even give a **** about that. You make a solid point, friend.

My point was that many terrorists (bin Laden isn't the only one, you know) are largely retaliating against the US for all of the conflict that we've conflicted to their homelands (or against other countries, the US is just the most obvious example). Since religion is a large part of their culture (there's that word again) in that region, new recruits who already have a negative view of their enemy are given a justification to retaliate. No, it's not the case for every single terrorist, but that's representative of a good deal of the situation.

I directly went to the sources and while they do somewhat hint at the point you were trying to make, they're nowhere near as alarming as that site makes them out to be. Just thought I'd point that out since you're too lazy to look into it and you might get some misinformed opinions on Islam (might be a little late for that though).

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

John Wilkes Booth

maybe you'd like to explain to me why when western women convert to islam, they often decide to start wearing a lot of the traditional arab/persian garments to cover themselves up as a part of their new found faith. why would a white woman from britain or america decide to take on cultural accessories from countries/civilizations thousands of miles from their native culture? surely, being from the west, it would make a lot more sense if their islamic faith expressed itself in a way that was more consistent with western culture, if islam were as culturally neutral as you seem to be indicating.

perhaps by 7th century standards. once again, congrats islam at being ahead of your time. but a good 14 centuries have passed since then.



you mean the region that gave birth to the religion, the language its holy texts are written in, and the majority of its cultural values? the region that every good muslim is supposed to return to at least once on pilgrimage in their lives? the region they're instructed to pray towards 5 times a day?

i'm not discounting the fact that there are muslims in other regions as well. they often import cultural elements from the region that islam originated from, though. that is why you will see muslims in africa, south asia, america, europe, etc, all with at least some cultural ties to arab/middle eastern culture. arab culture is embedded in the religion, its texts and traditions, and thus cannot be treated as something separate from the religion itself.



ok,fine, i apologize for my tone and i agree with that sentiment. that was honestly part of my point, in talking about sayyid qutb. it was to say that part of the motivation for islamic terror and extremism actually comes from cultural disagreements rather than just anger of US foreign policy. we will return to this point below so for now i'll leave it at that.



i'm not saying there is 1 interpretation of islamic law that is authoritative or straight forward, if that's the impression you are getting.

what i am saying is the basic idea of using islam as a guide to live ones life and to govern the islamic caliphate with sharia law is a basic and straight forward implementation of the religion. the details can vary as to exactly what shariah law dictates. but the idea of a caliphate which is governed by shariah is an inherent part of islamic ideology. as you indicated, sunni and shia muslims split over the details of exactly who was supposed to rule the caliphate after muhammad's death. but the central idea that there should be a caliphate is something they both agree on.

i'm reminded of a time when i was trying to explain to a muslim friend of mine why 'islamism' is a word. he kept contending that 'islamism' was a made up word by the american media or whatever and that it has no meaning, that it was basically just another word for islam. i tried to explain to him that islamism was the political ideology that the state should rule theocratically through islamic principles, i.e. sharia law.

he maintained that this was a meaningless term as to him it meant the same thing as islam. basically he contended that any muslim believer would agree that islamic principles/shariah law are ultimately the best way to rule any state. he didn't understand how someone could be muslim and not share that belief. and whenever i try reading the quran or the hadiths, i honestly sort of agree with him.


i didn't say it plays no role. see, this is the problem, my initial post was meant to be taken holistically to convey the story of sayyid qutb, how he influenced the likes of osama bin laden and ayman al-zawahiri, and how their religious ideology ultimately drove them to become extremists and terrorists for reasons that are more complex than just grievances over US foreign policy.

the point that i'm making isn't that US foreign policy is irrelevant to the discussion, the point is that it's too simplistic to just write off terrorism as a response to US foreign policy. to entertain this ideology you need to ignore the story of sayyid qutb, who was a sort of forefather of modern islamic extremism.

his primary motivation, initially, in promoting an islamic state in egypt was that he saw western liberal values as decadent and destructive and he saw islamic ideology and sharia law as a way to safegaurd his country/civilization from being corrupted by these decadent western values. it was on this basis that he initially lobbied support for an islamic state in egypt, and through his work with the muslim brotherhood and his writings, managed to influence a good portion of egyptian muslims to see things his way. on this basis he necessarily had to oppose the current egyptian state, which was a puppet of the british and was steering the country in a more secular direction.

due to his opposition of the state, he was persecuted and ultimately tortured by the state. after this, he came to support terrorism as a means of opposing the state and implementing his vision of an eygptian caliphate under sharia. he came up with theological justifications for the use of violence first against state figureheads, as by ruling the secular state they were necessarily 'apostates' in his eyes and thus according to his interpretation of the islamic hadiths, fair game to kill.

Apostasy in Islam (quran vs hadith)

so basically it is ok to kill apostates as they are no longer muslim. so the leaders of egypt, by leading an apostate state, are therefore apostates and can be killed in the pursuit of establishing an islamic caliphate in egypt, by sayyid's logic. he then later extends this logic to civilians within the egyptian state who are complacent and participate/give legitimacy to the apostate government, thus rendering themselves apostates deserving of death as well. this effectively justifies most terrorist attacks that are carried out with the aim of implementing an islamic caliphate that is ruled under sharia.

ayman al-zawahiri, osama's mentor and right hand man, and the current supposed leader of al qaeda, was an egyptian as well and was one of the ideological disciples of this school of thought that was fleshed out by sayyid qutb in his writings. so basically osama & co were mainly concerned with promoting islamic values and implementing and islamic caliphate. that was their primary concern, all else is secondary, including their grievances with US foreign policy.

did they use US foreign policy as a recruitment tool to justify their attacks against the US, its citizens, allies, and the citizens of its allies? of course. it works perfectly with their narrative that western values are the great satan and the natural enemy of righteous islamic principles. it feeds into the us vs them mentality and gives them ample cannon fodder for their propaganda campaigns.

but if you look at the specific grievances and ideology that they espouse, it becomes quite clear that they use the politics to fuel the religious movement rather than using religion to fuel their political movement. for example, osama & co fought side by side with US funded and armed militants in afghanistan for the purpose of driving russian forces out of 'muslim lands.' in this case they were 100% in favor of US meddling in asian geopolitics because it served their interests at the time.

yet one of the major gripes they had was that when we went in to drive saddam out of kuwait in desert storm, at the request of the saudi government who lacked the military capacity to do so and were themselves nervous about sadddam's belligerent ambitions, we stationed our troops in bases on saudi soil. osama & co saw this as a sacrilege based on a vague saying of the prophet that 'there should be no two religions in arabia' and thus it was seen as wrong to have christian troops stationed there. it had nothing to do with the fact that we were attacking saddam, a hated enemy of the saudis. it was simply a religious grievance and nothing more.

if you look at each of their specific grievances with US foreign policy, they consistently object when the US is percieved as doing something that interferes with and/or undermines 'muslims' and 'islam.'

so they oppose our support of israel, and they complain about our activities in iran and iraq over the years, which might seem righteous enough, but they also complained when we put diplomatic pressure on indonesia to stop the genocide in east timor against local christians because we were once again 'interfering with muslim affairs.' yet surely if we sinned at all in the indonesian conflict it was in taking so long to apply said pressure and looking the other way for so long while they massacred people in east timor, not for finally caving to domestic pressure to step up and do something about it.



see, i just simply disagree because i know of so many cases that align more closely with what i'm talking about then with what you're suggesting. e.g. isis, and their slew of western recruits.

i have also heard that one of the striking things about islamic terror is that the stats just don't bear out the narrative that the terrorism comes from economic or geopolitical misfortune. statistically, islamic terrorists are wealthy and well educated. often from western countries, unaffected by US foreign policy. as was the case with many of the 9/11 hijackers. which was the specific example you brought up when i asked you for one.

i mean, if it were just a matter of 'blow back' from US blunders abroad, as is commonly asserted, then we should be seeing just as many christian or secular terrorists coming out of south and central america. we've done just as much damage there. yet more often than not our main terror threats come from islamic ideology, or, somewhat ironically, far-right western ideologies. thus ideology is the main driving factor, imo.



well, i did tell you when i linked it that i was aware the site was biased. i was just giving it to you for the long list of pew research polls and similar reputable sources that it contains, assuming that you'd be skeptical enough to ignore the daily mail type bull**** that it also contains. but i see a general trend. i'm not trying to be 'alarming,' i was just trying to get you to acknowledge the general trend. i think it'd be pretty hard for either of us to come up with a poll that represents muslims from every significant muslim population worldwide.

Chula Vista

Stimulating conversation guys. Please keep going.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”