ScaredGirl said:
Wow Yossarian, the terrorists are good people with good hearts who do what they believe is best????
Why do you think they do it? Do you believe they kill themselves for the sake of being evil? Do you think they wake up one day and say "Hey I'm evil, I'm going to do evil things." Good and evil is a very simplistic way of viewing the world. Good guys don't always wear white and the bad guys don't always wear black.
I have no intention to absolve anyone from what they did. Just because they believed what they were doing was right doesn't mean it was. I'm not trying to defend their actions, I just believe if you want to stop these events from happening you have to understand why they do it so you can hopefully counter their beliefs. Terrorists don't come from Terrorland which you can just bomb away despite what George Bush thinks. It's unfortunately more complicated than that.
Everyone who knew those who carried out the London bombings were shocked because they all thought they were really good and kind people. They couldn't understand why they did it, let alone suspect them of doing it before hand. This is because we still have naive stereotypes of good and evil. No way in the parents of these peoples minds could they ever conceive that they would do such a thing. Perhaps if they understood that bad people don't smell and have evil cackles they could of picked up on their childrens beliefs and done something about it. Or perhaps they couldn't but there would be more chance I think.
I repeat I am not for what they did. I am not arguing with you that it is bad. I just disagree on how we try to help the situation. I also disagree that the Muslim community created this. Individuals did. Muslims were the first to suffer mass slaughter at the hands of fundamentalists who wanted to create strict Islamic states. Their tactics didn't work and they became isolated and rejected. Then apparently they set upon themselves. They were almost completely washed out. Until they changed their tactics and tried to gain support by instead of butchering Muslims into submission, they decided to fight what they tried to convince other Muslims was a dangerous threat to Islam. The West. It is this illusion that is used to recruit followers to their way of thinking. They try to make people see the West and it's values as a bad and evil threat. After all, good people want to fight evil right? The more the West acts in an aggressive way or at least in a way that can be perceived as aggressive and threatening to Islam, the more ammunition these people have to recruit followers.
Here is a link to a site which has transcripts to a 3 part documentary called
The Power of Nightmares It's purpose wasn't to explain the history of these events but it does have information on how it started. I think it is very interesting that the people behind this movement started off by killing other Muslims. Unfortunately now it has turned it's attention to the West, such actions seem to of been forgotten. Perhaps they wouldn't have so much support or followers if more people knew about this history. Maybe it wouldn't make any difference but I hope it would.
To me this isn't a war about land or oil. Although it is easy to convince people it is. It is a war of Ideology. A war about how to be a true believer, how to serve God's will best. The irony being that was the same reason for the Crusades. I wish I could believe these people were just outright evil but they don't seem to be. Weapons and technology have little place in this conflict. Beliefs and perception do. Maybe if we understand that most of these terrorists believe what they are doing is a holy act. A good act, then we can try and convince them it is not. That they can best serve God/Allah in other ways. I don't know.
I can understand how what I said seems like a validation but it wasn't meant to be. I just think it is more complicated than it first seems and unless we understand why these acts happen then they will be harder to stop. In a war of beliefs, the truth is very important. Of course I maybe wrong. I'm just trying to understand rather than assume.