Thank you Paul for a well written opinion piece. I agree with the first part of your argument. I happen to believe that the western governments’ naivety (mid seventies) creating ideological puppets to fight communists, created the monsters we are fighting today. I also believe that the stupidity of the western governments attempting to fight ideology with guns is the root cause of our failures today.

 I will have to disagree though about individuals past track records as an indicator of future action except of course if this track record reflects ideological stands (Bush and company).

I believe the only trend I can see from Obama’s picks so far is pragmatism. If this is the case, then we should expect real solutions. I might be wrong but I hope I’m not.

by sameh abdelaziz (47 articles, 10 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 39 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 11:54:58 AM

I'm in complete agreement with Sameh, for the record.

by martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:25:04 PM

Sameh, sorry but Mr. Roberts is spot on.

By the 1970's, the ideologies were already in place and moving full steam ahead. Back up about 3 decades and start there....

 Watch this film: The Power of Nightmares

[This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today.]

And don't forget (CIA) things like this: The 1953 Iranian coup d'état

The US has had this behavior for a long time, it's really whether or not we want to see it.

 .

by Tippy Canoe (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 46 comments [10 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 6:15:35 AM

I totally agree on your points on Hillary Clinton. Obama seems to have made a deal with the devil, she has brought the “sleaze factor” in before his administration has even begun.

 

Where is change?

 

Certainly not with Hillary. She allegedly saw to it one of her on New York constituents was jailed for trying to inform her about the judicial misconduct of Judge Wesley, a judge that Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush wanted to install for his case fixing abilities. [story]

 

I wrote George W. Bush a letter back in 9-15-01. I was sick of paying $2000 plus a month for 3 prostitutes I had no interest in sleeping with. The prostitutes could move in my apartments, change the locks, and police would do nothing. The prostitutes allegedly were sleeping with Connecticut State Police officers and the prosecutor, Keith Courier, who told me that I would be arrested and he would prosecute me and see to it I went to prison if I evicted one of the prostitutes. I was attacked on my property 10-11-01 by a police informant. Only I was arrested, and without a record Keith Courier saw that I got prison for having pepper sprayed the felon to end the beating I was taking in my dark driveway.

 

Text of letter [scroll down here]

 

The third shift of a Connecticut police department virtually had to be shut down as officers were too busy sleeping with prostitutes and hanging out with drug dealers to answer citizen calls. [story]

by Steven G. Erickson (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 57 diaries, 218 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 12:30:12 PM

paying $2000 month for prostitutes you were not sleeping with? And the references about Clinton you make directs the reader to your blog where you rant about Clinton?

by virginius "gin" arnold (18 articles, 7 quicklinks, 47 diaries, 516 comments [22 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:15:37 PM

So true. 

I spoke to a religious/civic group last night about my experiences as a soldier in Iraq.  Near the end of the speech, I said:

"It is amazing how many opportunities the U.S. gives the world to hate us.  We need not only to pray for the leaders that we currently have, but we must also pray that we ultimately elect  the kind of leaders that will stop providing the world such opportunities." 

I was very surprised, considering the oft-unquestioning patriotism of such people to the current President, that nearly everyone agreed with me.

by Frank Staheli (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 37 comments [16 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 1:20:04 PM

One hundred fifty years ago many people in the South talked about Washington's arrogance in supporting the terrorist actions of Abolitionists who wanted to foment a slave rebellion.  Opinions as to what is arrogance seem to change with timel

by Michael Bradley (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:09:47 PM

I was  thinking  the  other  day about  Obama  and  the  change  he  has  promised.  His  choices  for his  administration thus  far do  not  seem  to  support change in  the  way  it  is  generally  understood. 

 

I  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that the  change he  was  speaking  of  was 'short change' like  the  newspaper  hawker on  the  corner does.  

by DR (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:41:11 PM

Bull's Eye, Paul! What an insight! Correct on all counts!

But, so what? Nothing is going to change. Like all Empires before it, the US Empire is going to disappear and for the same reasons its predecessors did. Some went with a bang, others went with a whimper. The US Empire will go with a bang, a BIG bang at that. BOMB BOMB BOMB, KILL KILL KILL, STEAL STEAL STEAL, LIE LIE LIE AND SPEND SPEND SPEND lead to a SINGLE INEVITABLE ENDING!   

by syed mahdi (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 92 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 2:42:36 PM

The US will unilaterally relinquish its reign of terror over the Middle East or it will be forced by economic realities to do so. One way or the other the kind of egregious behaviour and actions once done without so much as a glance at the potential for unexpected consequences is coming to an end. The question is will it end gracefully (if that is still possible) or with an embarrassing defeat?

by Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1757 comments [112 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:05:03 PM

it's the people and corporations currently running Washington. And in my opinion it isn't arrogance, that's just an act, like the phony outrage over violence. Read Naomi Klein. She has done the due diligence. The MIC is doing this on purpose. The MIC owns the mainstream media. They are in it together. Thus the vital importance of this forum and others like it, where reason replaces dogma and propaganda. This stuff is illegal in Burma and China. Comedians go to jail for disrespecting the junta. They need enemies to keep the blood feeding into the maw of the war machine, from which they all profit so handsomely. They are what Dylan called "The Masters of War". They profit from your childrens' deaths while crying about the violence of the terrorists they have created to kill our soldiers for profit. Wake up. It is a scam. They steal your money, your kids education, your job, and send your kids to wars that break every international law of war. And they claim it was all an accident. 'Darn those guys for makin us do this.' And they LAUGH among themselves about it. :"Those weapons of mass destruction must be here somewhere." Solutions to all the problems we currently have are readily available, but those solutions would cut the profits of the obsolescent industries in control of our government. Before you criticize Obama give him a chance. He knows all this stuff better than we do. It is no accident we have "enemies" when we should be the world standard of human rights, admired and imitated and deserving and getting the co-operation of them all. It is no accident when the world's potentially most powerful friend turns into a bully and suffers an invented crisis which requires us to give billions to those who created the crisis in the first place. This is not incompetence-- it is stupidity, it is bad strategy, it is short-term profit-centered thinking. See all the empty factories, crawling with rats? See all the mammals living on the edge of extinction? See all the children with autism, asthma, lead poisoning, homeless and orphaned? Children died in New Orleans-- they are starving to death in America-- we have 800 billion for banks, but we cut funds for childrens' school lunches and health care-- we have Veterans homeless living on the street who cannot get health care because the budget was cut. We paid sixty billion to repair the damage from a six million dollar cut in levee maintenance funds-- not to mention the thousands that died and the hotels that bought the real estate of the disappeared. You think that's an accident due to arrogance and stupidity and incompetence? No, NO, mon ami.

by martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:56:57 PM

Martin, what kind of eyeglasses are you wearing? Or, are you deliberately making your comments impossible to read? Please consult someone who can see colors and tell you the problem with the colors you pick for your comments.

Peace

by Edip Yuksel (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 90 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Dec 7, 2008 at 11:49:43 AM

This comment has been flagged
Reason: (Great Comment: Promote to Article) Great Comment: Promote to Article

As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America's example is lawlessness. America's brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself--a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution.

I m not a Muslim. But I have been anti-American since America became anti rule of law and pro preservation of American privilege against Americas word on treaties. And I became aware of the depths of American depravity and hypocrisy in the time of President George W Bush, when the people and their representatives gave him a political pass to murder in their name. This they did most conspicuously. 

When  a body politic becomes so far depraved as to allow its leaders to unlawfully mass murder (that is what aggressive, illegal invasion is, murder is just unlawful killing, and law is just a social contract) then that body politic must be addressed by a wider body politic as breakers of the social contract so as not to be permitted to be a cancer on humanity in the aggregate.

In a world of mortals where none live longer than 123 years anyway why should 300 million people (a mere 5 percent of the worlds population) expect that they should enjoy a right to have their leaders kill in their name without there being PROPORTIONATE response from the rest of the world?

And when the means by which those leaders kill is illegal domestically ad requires the complicity of congressional representatives why should Americans trust other
Americans?

Proportionality is what makes terrorism against Americans moral. Americans declared the war of terror. Their President declared it. And they did not repudiate him but joined with him. Previous to 9-11 killing people (including Americans) was already a crime. What the US people allowed to be thrown away was the rule of law when they allowed their President to invent a war on terror and to fight it with the tools of terrorism (torture and aggressive invasion).

Shock and Awe was the obvious name of the bombing campaign aimed at terrorising Iraqis. Iraqis as citizens of a UN member nation were entitled to expect that they would not be killed by Americans who had promised in treaties not to launch aggressive wars.

Those who wrote the US Declaration of Independence were not Muslim radicals. But they wrote principles that were intended to resonate with people of reason. They wrote of the right and duty of people to throw off bad government. The United States of America is now the bad government. 

When one is confronted by a nation of killers that kill against their solemn promises and that claim for themselves impugnity one is confronted by a nation of unrepentant killers ready to kill again. It doesn't matter whether one is a Muslim or a martian.

Confronted by killers who are also murderers working together in the form of a nation state and against the promises of that nation state, then one is indeed entitled to consider oneself a revolutionary by opposing force with something more than submission.

The great danger to the world of most human beings comes from the propaganda of exceptionalism taught in that madrassa called the United States of America.

 

 

 

 

by Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 1308 comments) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:06:35 PM

Your comment should be an article in itself.

Well said and with clarity.

by Rolland Miller (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments [78 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:26:26 PM

Injustice breeds Terrorism, Terrorism breeds more injustice. Around, around we go.  When it all ends, only our own government knows.

by kato krause (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 216 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:23:50 PM

Good article

Well Said

We need more of this reality thinking.

by Rolland Miller (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments [78 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:29:02 PM

I have followed your writings for the past few years. You always get right to the heart of our problems; be they foreign affairs or economic. Dr. Ron Paul repeatedly pointed out the same problems during his campaign for President. Dr. Paul has also pointed out that if we are to take back control of our economic future, we must eliminate the power of the central bankers (The Federal Reserve) to control the issuance of our currency.  This private banking cartel has overtaken our government and it must be abolished.

by ronheri (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 257 comments [45 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:29:06 PM

is simply an inadvertent 'limited hangout'. The United States actively recruits and forms terrorist groups to serve the purposes of the Empire ... many of which actions caused by these 'terror' groups become false flag terror events. The folks who run the Empire are not fools, at least strategically. They Create the Foe they wish us to fear and to attack. Hubris and arrogance of Empire are a bit of the picture. The puzzle is completed when you realize - based upon the actual evidence - that we commit the terror through the proxies we create. Just google, the butcher of Honduras , John Negroponte and the CIA.

by richard (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 1359 comments [400 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:43:39 PM

Dr. Roberts succinct as usual, as is Richard.

"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get."

-- Ian Williams Goddard

 

by Munich (1 articles, 86 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 1125 comments [86 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 1:25:44 AM

Crooks without borders.  Washington and Israel are Responsible.  Washington expresses Israeli arrogance and blockheadness more and more each day.

 

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1762 comments [39 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 8:04:06 PM

Mr. Roberts, your post is among the precious few attributable to a former high-ranking official. Don't take any small plane journeys, ala Wellstone and Carnahan.

This statement, in particular, shatters the silence that is killing the newspaper business. Odd, that major media would go bankrupt rather than tell the unconscionable truth. In fact, the whole parade of lies and distortions, denials of recent history and professions of innocence is bizarre. But then Hitler perfected the Big Lie and fascist governments go to great lengths to insist that war is peace, poverty is prosperity, and war and debt are necessary.

I have to agree with your primary assertion that our government is creating enemies to justify these desperate measures. But I remember that we have never yet lived up to our ideals and that we are coming out of a history dominated by lies, injustice and the rule of illegitimate force. The fix has always been in and only now are we able to publish our unconventional perceptions of rife unethicality other than in folk songs which can no longer get airtime, conveniently for the ruling and most violent organization.

Can all this be a justification for the violation of Posse Comitatus? Does the fear mongering hope to legitimize private armies and privatized necessities? Can these folks be so short-sighted and rash as to fail to see they are qualifying their own viability and putting the value of the money they so crave in jeopardy?

All in all this is such a poor strategy one wonders what they hope to accomplish. Like reasons for murder, there can never be reasons for destroying their own foundations. This must be merely a symptomatic last gasp of the buggy-whip makers in the age of space travel and inescapable responsibility for the consequences of the past. And the murderous band plays on.

Thanks for writing this and tell us what you think about nationalizing the Federal Reserve-- no one else will even talk about it. It seems to be the kiss of death. Capitalism has run itself into a blind alley on the poor side of town.

by martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 8:34:08 PM

I appreciate the thoughtful tone of the comments.  Thank you, readers. Paul Craig Roberts

by paul roberts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 10:21:02 PM

As a muslim author who has been one of the leading figures in Islamic Reform movement since 1986, I am in complete agreement with Paul...

 I lost my closest friend to the knives of an al-Qaida affilated terrorist organization in Tucson, Arizona and I am under continuous threat by the violent Sunni or Shiite gangs...

Yet, I find the foreign policy of the USA, both before and after 9/11, to be just contrary to what is being publicly expressed by our politicians. Our government, together with the military industrial complex, crusaders, AIPAC, etc, is deliberately radicalizing the Muslim world, so that the war-profiteers and other bloody interest groups have feast on our fear, blood and atrocities. They wanted to replace the Communist bogyman with the Muslim one, and they are succeeding.

Paul, you are a real patriot... Those who use the children of poor American families to kill the children of other poor families around the world are the real enemies of American people and humanity. We should start a revolution here, in America.

Peace,
Edip

by Edip Yuksel (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 90 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 11:04:40 PM

   Paul, I suggest you perform some due diligence before speculating further that the Mumbai attacks are an example of a muslim revolution.   The facts simply do not support that parlay:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mumbai-False-Flag-Attack--by-Allen-Heart-081205-639.html

     How exactly might we recognize any substance in  this muslim revolution meme you are now pushing on your followers, after having repeatedly foisted Reagonomics on everyone, usually sidestepping any inquiry into the influence of the Bushco dynasty behind the failed policies you helped enact?     Did you not already agree with realists that 9/11 was not blowback but an inside job?    Do you not believe the claims of Iraqi weaponized anthrax were as bogus as the claims of Iranian nuclear weapons?  We know you are capable of clarity and bravery, but can you do simple investigation of the facts?    How quickly you join in here blaming these attacks on Muslims, a slanderous calling you actually share with both your followers and Israel and its new colony, the US.

by mary sunshine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 149 comments [79 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 3:44:39 AM

In the case of Republicans, it's not so much arrogance as total ignorance and morbid xenophobia.

No wonder world terrorism has tripled under their watch.

We're Celebrating Your Demise!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WugcAuQMP1s

by Perry Logan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 558 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 5:05:37 AM

even his usual delusional standards for misrepresenting the truth. "Something just doesn't quite ring true here attempting to blame virtually EVERYTHING on the U.S.A., which, far from perfect, is easily on balance the most benevolent world power in the history of the planet." LOL. Another example of myopic self delusion. But then, we've come to expect that consistency from AW.

by richard (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 1359 comments [400 recommended, 8 rejected]) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 7:26:39 AM

It is amazing at this point in time that "Mary Sunshine" or anyone would believe that Muslims are such passive creatures that they would have no revolutionary response to the decades of horrors inflicted on them by Western colonial powers.  Does "Mary Sunshine" really intend to deny that Muslims are capable of responding to abuse, or is she just looking for an excuse to rant about Reagan?

by paul roberts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 9:43:58 AM

Looks like PCR is no better at world political analysis than he is at playing structural engineer and FBI agent. Because you don't see poor, disadvantaged, abused, miserable, angry people blowing others up along with themselves ...... unless they're Muslim. Most Muslims don't, but the ones who do -- are Muslim. Obviously, many Muslims resent the U.S., as does pretty much everyone resent someone for something. But that resentment is not what causes people to blow themselves and others up, fly planes filled with dozens of people into buildings filled with thousands, or callously and joyfully kill in cold blood in Mumbai. That's something else entirely. It's the same thing that caused racial hatred and resentment, resulting in terrorism and joyful murder, in our own country's past, even though most had never been personally hurt or threatened by the hated group. It gets passed down through generations -- taught and reinforced, and it is nothing short of ignorant bigotry and the brainwashing necessary to keep it alive. Something just doesn't quite ring true here attempting to blame virtually EVERYTHING on the U.S.A., which, far from perfect, is easily on balance the most benevolent world power in the history of the planet. Islam has a long, complicated bloody history that has led to its current state, reaching far back before this country ever was a country, and it is extraordinarily short-sighted and simplistic to try to make the Muslim world out to be an innocent victim of the big bad America. Roberts' former boss, Ronald Reagan, whose name he proudly uses in his resume apparently for reasons of credibility, is turning over in his grave reading this article. He understood the differences between good, evil and all points in between, and he knew where on the scale the U.S. properly lies. Paul Craig Roberts does not. But then again, what would one expect from someone who can't even seem to accept the simple fact that we didn't attack ourselves on 9/11?

by Alan Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 858 comments) on Saturday, Dec 6, 2008 at 2:19:21 PM

      I will deny that the Mumbai attacks were part of a muslim revolution bred by American hegemonic injustice, as you claimed in your unsubstantiated article.    I doubt you personally have spent much time on the ground in muslim countries meeting families.    I doubt you have the courage to contact someone like Raed Jarrar to discuss your preposterous theories of muslim revolution with.    I deny that the incidence of muslim terrorism is significant compared to the overwhelming terrorist machine you yourself have been so proud to once serve.     I deny that Muslim blowback had anything to do with 9/11, as I think you yourself well know--for which you deserve credit.    I wasn't ranting when  I raised the failure of  Reaganomics briefly.    It speaks to your lack of credibility, in that case amongst anyone with access to the Economic Policy Institute data or charts on income quintiles from the Congressional Budget Office for the period in which you had a hand in things.       

      I have seen you belittle Stanimal and others as though they were ignorant rather than admit any policy failings.  Any time you would like to openly debate Reagonomics here, I am sure there would be quite a few takers.   

   Naturally you werre unable to address the link on the falseflag Hindu attacks in Mumbai, a fact widely known on the street and among informed people in India.    You might have talked instead about the agent provocateurs whipping up anti muslim rage in India.    Just who do you suppose supports them financially?    How many times have you travelled to the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to form your opinon of these peoples' basic character, which you challenge me to deny is in a revolution and threatening hegemony through terror.     

    You could not even address the link I posted with some info for you, possibly the first info you have heard of re Hindu falseflag terror in India.  

    By relative volume of total terror attacks, explosions, killings, or by relative frequency, the incident of muslim terror is miniscule compared to western and Israeli terror in the middle east.    Putting up muslims as a bogey man when they cannot now defend against the bunker busters, cluster bombs, A10 strafings, and Nissour Squares, is like sacrificing them to the people who drink strychinine, dance with rattlesnakes, and program Raptors from cubicles, as far as all the good it does the people who will be targeted as terror harbors.   You should know better, and I think you do... maybe.  Israeli terror in Palestine goes back even beyond the Naqba and King David Hotel attacks.     Hotel attacks in Islamabad and Mumbai both  look to be falseflag terror, as was 9/11.  What you call terrorist havens along with Obomba and Biden are actually tribal homelands that have always resisted foreign invasion.    

      How do you explain the investigation of Hindu falseflag terror by Kerkare in your hypothesis of muslim revolution re the Mumbai attacks?   You seem to simply ignore it.    It seems to me that you are basically unfamiliar with muslim people.  

by mary sunshine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 149 comments [79 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Dec 7, 2008 at 12:01:06 AM

"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example."

The people, for good or ill, have the power to rule their government.  Regardless of what the government does, we cannot even trust it, let alone look to it for an example.  Except for those in the public school system, "the government" teaches few people, and where it intend so, it usually fails.

by ScarySquirrel (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Sunday, Dec 7, 2008 at 3:18:23 AM

Mr Obama has staffed his Cabinet with establishment figures similar to the ones who ushered in this era of lawlessness. Their one saving grace is they know exactly how the thugs ruined our country.

The one jewel among Obama's appointees is the future UN Ambassador Dr Susan E Rice. She is one of the few Americans who speaks against genocide and actually does something about it.

The world suffers from the distinct lack of human rights and their enforcement. There is no government [aside from Costa Rica and Sweden] that empowers the people over the establishment.

The US and Israel stand out from other nations primarily because they are occupiers. Both pretend to be democracies while treating their citizens as dirt. At least, some of their citizens recognize their plight and seek redress.

The rest of the world sleeps enslaved.

by Jason Paz (68 articles, 88 quicklinks, 112 diaries, 1386 comments [97 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Dec 7, 2008 at 4:26:39 AM

Is "Mary Sunshine" "Stanimal"?  Same rant.  

by paul roberts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Dec 7, 2008 at 1:09:06 PM

Even living in oppressive Minnesota, these guys are *duty bound. This is not something that will be cured by whatever the U.S. does foreign policy-wise. No amount of getting out of Iraq or stopping buying oil from Saudi Arabia or forcing Israel out of wherever is going to change this.

Some of the men and boys have called home saying they are in Somalia, without specifying why. There is concern they were brainwashed and then left to fight in the civil war their parents fled from, local leaders said Saturday..... ......Local concerns grew after a Minneapolis man, Shirwa Ahmed, disappeared and killed himself in a suicide bombing in northern Somalia on Oct. 29....... ......"But these children left because they believe Islam permits jihad. ... That cannot happen in Minnesota. That cannot happen in the United States or in the Islamic community. ... Enough is enough."

by Alan Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 858 comments) on Monday, Dec 8, 2008 at 10:53:53 AM

When was it Alan that the United States stuck troops in Somalia and then arranged and assisted the invasion by Ethiopia?  Why do you think it is wrong for Somalians to go to the defense of their country and for Iraqis and Afghans to do so?  You seem to believe that it is quite normal to have the US invading other countries.  When is this going to stop?

by paul roberts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments [14 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Dec 8, 2008 at 12:38:48 PM

..... and that's where the money is these days.

"When was it Alan that the United States stuck troops in Somalia and then arranged and assisted the invasion by Ethiopia?  Why do you think it is wrong for Somalians to go to the defense of their country and for Iraqis and Afghans to do so?  You seem to believe that it is quite normal to have the US invading other countries.  When is this going to stop?"

I think you greatly mis-portray complicated history here as well, and greatly overstate the influence of the U.S. on the tribal/national disagreements that are more over fights to impose fundamentalist Islam or not. It's not as though they were a bunch of peaceful desert dwellers until the U.S. came along and said "psssst..... those guys said your tribe sucks", and set everything off. Sounds more like Shirwa Ahmed was most concerned about mindlessly blowing himself and as many others up as possible, not "defending his country" in any sane sort of way. And the vast majority of Iraqis and Afghans are quite happy to have had their respective oppressors removed, or at least they were before those same oppressors came back out of hiding and started blowing everything and everybody up. You act as if it's some kind of popular uprising, with everyone "coming to the defense" of their country, when it's a relatively small number of malcontents, jihadists and criminals, who the majority wish would just knock it off and let them live their lives in some semblance of peace and freedom after finally being rid of the universally hated Saddam and Taliban. Everything's the fault of the U.S. with you, isn't it? Do you really believe that? Or is there another underlying yet overriding issue that is really driving the lion's share of this foment you so decry? Could it be, more than anything really, chronically Koranic brainwashing from an early age? Just pure and simple hatred for Israel and Jews mainly, with the U.S. and anyone else who doesn't also hate them being guilty by association? Could it be that writings such as this and others on demented 9/11 conspiracy theories actually serve to further incite these people? I mean, if Sarah Palin calling Bill Ayers a terrorist causes an increase in threats toward him, how doesn't you calling the U.S. a terrorist do the very same thing, on a much larger scale? Are you not distorting the true intentions and reasoning behind U.S. military action, and falsely categorizing it as naked terroristic aggression, when in fact it is intended to stop just that? How would Ronald Reagn have felt about your blaming America for everything? Why do you invoke his name, when he would be sickened by your world-view, at least on foreign policy?

by Alan Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 858 comments) on Friday, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:50:15 PM