terrorism and what we should do about it
A week ago, the world was shocked again when the london subway blasted into pieces. The country whose flag once never set was strucken by terrorists. Does terrorism ever end? Will we ever eliminate terrorism? no. Terrorism has always been around. even "we" Christians, not just Muslims, had/have terrorized people of other religions, ethnicities. This is just a mere cycle. Now, the Muslims unleash their vengence through terrorism. To trace their hatred toward us nowaday, we have to go back to Medival time...
Islam in essence is never a violent religion. There are also passages in the Koran urging non-aggression toward Jews and Christians. However, politics and human greed intervenes. Muslim terrority expanded, and Christians, definitely, tried to prevent Muslims from ever expanding. The Pope ordered the Crusade. Then tens of thousands of people died. The seed of hatred was planted.
Eventually, Muslims went all the way to the Balkans. then a few centuries passed away. Christians, who had acquired better technology, started to push the Muslims from the Balkans and Africa back to Middle East. The Christians started colonizing the Muslims.... hatred continued.
After World War II, after the Christians from Europe retreated, one new Christian country came in. This is us, the Americans. We went in for Muslims' black gold. yes, the black gold that powers our SUV and our wasteful way of life. Though we the Americans never used military force to extract their resource, we used political and economic means to force them signed contracts with us. While some Muslim countries benefitted. Some didn't, and those who didn't benefit from us instead incited their people to hate us. They accused western way of life while they yearned for having one themselves. Then since they didn't have it, they want us not to have it too. Therefore, they bomb us....
Humans are always involved in competitions for resources. since the U.S. keeps most of the world's resources (yes, money is a form of resource), no wonder some of the world hate us. some yearn for making good relation with the U.S., but some, instead, try to destroy our way of life... the ultimate problem lies in economics, the lack of resources. If we can try to share our resources, this may not a terrible way to solve the problem.
However, we instead invest heavily on military. we build precision missles and stealth bombers so we can "destroy" them more effectively. Can we destroy hatred, or terrorism effectively? probably not. Why don't we try to open diplomatic bridges with them? Because we are arrogant. We think that through force we can conquer them. Yes, we can, but not for a long time. Physics says, "for every action, there is a reaction." If we bomb them, they bomb us back. And it continues for eternity.
Having a friend is always better than having an enemy. I think it is time that we start learning their way of life so we can communicate and resolve our differences, not just learning how to bomb them more effectively..
posted by An Intelligent Investor Wannabe @ 2:25 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
"Terrorism has always been around. even "we" Christians, not just Muslims, had/have terrorized people of other religions, ethnicities"
While it may be true, what does that have to do with the people who decided to blow up a subway in London, or fly planes into buildings in New York? Nothing. Not one of those people who died were standing in the way of Islam, terrorism is not about revenge, it is about... submission. Strangely enough that is exactly what the world Islam means.
"Islam in essence is never a violent religion."
This is a hard one to choke down. Mohammed himself waged a holy war against the city that practiced Ka'aba and captured Mecca in the process.
This was before his dead in about 632. By the time 700 rolls around Syria, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Persia all were taken by conquest. Also by 700 there had been a civil war (vs. Shi'ites), the Dome of Rock established (because at the time no other hajj was possible because of internal strife and war). This Dome was built with the purpose of showing Jws and Christians that their religions were in the past and the present belong to Islam.
By 711 Moorish Spain was made by conquest, and the Byzantine Empire was near collapse. Fortunately by 720 the Muslim attackers were forced to stop attacking Constantinople - for the time.
October 10th, 732 is the Battle of Tours - where the governor of Moorish Spain faced Martel by the Loire River. So for the first 100 years after the Prophet's deatht here was nothing BUT bloody expansion.
The Battle of Talas put the Chinese in the mix fighting Arabs in Middle Asia.
Already tens of thousands of people have died and we're still 300 years before the first crusade - which was only launched because once again the Byzantines were being raided, conquered, and sacked.
In order for the Pope to convince people to help the Eastern Orthodox Church (read: not Catholic) he said that by keeping the EOC intact, the armies could move to reclaim Jerusalem and give a buffer zone in case of more attacks.
Enough history, there is loads of documentation -- if you desire to learn about it.
"They accused western way of life while they yearned for having one themselves. Then since they didn't have it, they want us not to have it too. Therefore, they bomb us...."
No. The despise our drinking, our lewd nature, or open society, the idea that women have rights, and the fact that we are so successful despite these 'flaws'. They feel it the work of Satan (The Great Satan is not something to 'yearn for', it's something to destroy), and the culture, and movies, and music, and everything else is a temptation, a path to stray from holiness.
We could share everything we have and it would held in contempt because of the nature of our society, it is a very lofty but niave idea that sharing will do anything to help. I guess it's the Barney motto though, but don't count on him to defend you.
Maybe humans are inherently violent, and it can't be stopped. However, when you have sufficient resources, why is there a need to fight. if we stop chasing the terrorists and start giving aids to those poor muslim countries. when everyone has what he/she wants, he/she will not continue to support the terrorists.
of course, religion always plays a role in this conflict, but we can never ignore the importance of economics.
As i-sell-the-moon points out,what is sufficient? And I do not even mean this in the sense of greed.
Take for example Jamaica. They have enough food to sustain the population, they have tourism for relatively easy money, and a reasonably stable population (i.e. no civil wars, etc.).
What would be sufficient resources for them when there is not a large storm about to destroy their homes and businesses?
If you were the leader would you not need to build up a surplus in order to rebuild your nation so your people can once again make a living?
While Jamaica isn't the worse, it could use better hospitals as well. But are the sufficient? Can you, or anyone, tell sick Jamaicans that despite the fact that some will die, it is sufficient and as such we need to share elsewhere?
This is why sharing is not something you want to get into as a large policy. Charity is good and a very wonderful thing, but government mandated sharing is... an idea that failed.
Also, Germany did not go to war over religion. The Soviets did not either. Actually neither of them were very fond of religion in general, and they combine to be the biggest causes of death in one century the world has ever seen.
Stalin alone indirectly killed 30 - 50 million of his own people while in power -- all in the name of Marx's idea of sharing, too.
By the way, despite my contrary positions, I do like your posts as I weigh them against my own thoughts and knowledge. I ran across your blog while looking for others from the town in which I now live... though I have yet to get to the Friendly's... and I may not from what you've said.
what would you suggest dealing with them? I want to hear your opinion.
I'm coming in here late, sorry I didn't see your post before. But here's my 2¢.
The idea that the entire Muslim world hates us is, in a word, ridiculous. The USA is not universally loved, but that is more political than religious. I read a worldwide poll a few years ago, I think it was pew center, that showed worldwide and Muslim-world-wide public opinion of various countries. The US's ratings very low, but some of the highest-rated nations were also in the west (such as Canada).
Of course some of them hate us. Some of us hate them.
Of course you win more with friends than with enemies. Which is why intimidating foreign policy is so disastrous - they'll obey as long as they have to, but meanwhile they'll hate us.
I read a book once in which someone had developed a philosophy of volunteer communism. The name for it was a translation into the local language of "Enough is enough," or something like that. The idea was that if you have excess good fortune, you share it, and if you can't handle everything that's coming at you, you get help. The world would be a much nicer place if more people did this. Of course, few will, but it was more than a nice sentiment.
Government mandated-sharing works on a small scale. Communism doesn't work, we can see that. But if you only do a little bit of it, it helps, not hurts.
Religion has done many good things and many bad things. To suggest that Christianity is historically peaceful is kind of ridiculous. Ed, are you suggesting that WWII/Soviet communism are the inevitable results of - of what? Agnosticism? Germany did indeed have a national religion, I believe. It was a pretty sucky religion, but it was there.
So anyway, I'm pretty much done all my ranting. Final statement: are foreign policy should be directed towards diplomacy, not intimidation. OK, I'm done for now. If I ranted too much, you can ignore some of the things I said.
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