Every since 9-11 people have asked the question why? All sorts of platitudes have been give: “They” are jealous of our freedoms, our material wealth, our material possessions. None of these answers made the least bit of sense to me. Why would any of those things make 11 grown men get in an aircraft and drive it into a building as a soaring speed, killing themselves and others? It doesn’t make sense. Who is “they?”
Morning Joe, aka Joe Scarborugh seems to think he has the answer. He say regardless of who he speaks with in the intelligence community, he gets told the same thing when he asks the question, why do they hate us:
1. their religion
2. their culture
3. peer pressure
They hate us because they hate us. No other reason. Everything else is just an excuse.
I am not sure I agree with that and I am not sure I want to go to war over it if it is true. Who is “they?” Are we talking Middle Easterners? Muslims?
Is Morning Joe right or is he full of it?
Occam’s Razor. They hate us, that’s enough. No need to delve into why. Eff ’em. Oh, and here’s a couple billion dollars we had to borrow from our financial sugar-daddies to give you. Please hate us some more and maybe kill an ambassador or two.
We must start minding our own business in foreign policy. I’m the opposite of the neo-cons who think we should try to reshape every country in our own image. I think we should stay out of everyone else’s business, except where there is a direct threat to our security. I’m in favor of fair trade relations and engaging with the world, when it’s to the benefit of the American people. I oppose strongly freely-flowing foreign aid to nations that allow our people to be killed and whose policies are contrary to our own interests. At the end of the day, Israel would likely be the only country that would continue to receive any aid from my presidential administration.
This isn’t isolationism. It’s simply minding our own business and not telling everyone else what to do. If they want economic relations with us, fine, but it must benefit Americans too. Get yourself into a pickle? Work it out yourself instead coming to us as the world’s policeman. We can’t afford it anymore and it’s not in our interest to do so.
I’ll admit that I voted for Romney in the primary because I want a Republican to win the election. He has a far greater chance of doing so than Ron Paul would. Nonetheless, I still like Ron Paul’s thinking on Foreign policy.
Ron Paul had one of the best debate lines of any of the Republican candidates. “It’s a lot cheaper to trade with people than to bomb them.”
Would you give Israel unquestioning foreign aid? If Netanyahu keeps it up, I would cut them off too. He needs to stop tryimng to influence our politics. Drawing his red line isn’t necessarily what’s best for that country and attempting to drag us into it does neither country any good at this point.
How many young people are now exempt from the Israeli draft? That might be a good question to ask. The ultra orthodox are exempt from service and many of them are the saber rattlers.
As for Paul Ryan, I’m tired of his cheap shots too.
“If we project weakness, they come,” Ryan said of those who would attack the United States. “If we are strong, our adversaries will not test us and our allies will respect us.”
Perhaps Ryan needs to reflect back to 9/11/01 and tell us how that worked out for us? That was pretty much a test to me.
Obama authorized killed Bin Laden. Some folks apparently didn’t get the memo. It doesn’t get any more definite than killing someone.
Obviously, in this case, he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
You know, I think I just responded to something Paul Ryan said rather than Ron Paul. Is it just me or are those names just too close? In that case, I don’t disagree with the statement.
I am appalled that no one seems to mind that Netanyaho continues to stick his nose in our politics and seems to want to drag us into war. That makes “Get yourself into a pickle? Work it out yourself instead coming to us as the world’s policeman. We can’t afford it anymore and it’s not in our interest to do so.” ring a little hollow.
Daring Iran to step up to a red line is just not smart. There are other ways that have not been exhausted.
A neighbor of mine is active duty military and has served both in the Middle East and back home. He said he spoke with an associate from a Middle Eastern country who had moved his family here so that his daughters would be allowed to go to school and be whatever they wanted to be about why certain followers of Islam seemed so intent on destroying us. And themselves, to be honest.
This is his theory, and I may not get the details right but I hope this is the bulk of it. To understand it you have to take a walk through history, and I’m not sure his theory offers much hope or any answers of why things keep getting so screwed up.
He said that the great religious books are all the same – they just end in different places. He said the stories that Christians consider the Old Testament are the same stories in Islam and Judaism. Some of the names may be different or the details altered slightly, but they’re still the same stories. God created man. Man stunk. God smited man (locusts, plague, floods, salt pillars, etc). God forgave man and gave him a second, third, forth, ten billionth, chance.
The Jewish story, the story of their faith, ends with what I as a Christian would call the end of the Old Testament.
To Christians, the Jewish story, which we refer to as the Old Testament, exists and was Gods law before Jesus was born. Some Christians even celebrate Jewish holidays because Jewish Holidays are part of their faith. To Christians, Jesus is the big honcho as he was the son of God. Our story, the story of the Christian faith, ends with Jesus’ teachings.
To Muslims, Jesus was a prophet and a messenger of God, but the bible was corrupted and can not be trusted. God was mad about that and gave his final word and truth to Mohammad, and that truth is recorded in the Qur’an. To Muslims the Qur’an invalidates the bible.
The stories may be the same, with only minor alterations, but the stories in the bible or Torah have been corrupted and can not be relied upon. Only the Qur’an can be relied upon.
To devout Muslims of a more extremist variety, the Qur’an is the final word on everything because it is God’s direction to us on how we should behave and treat one another. We offend them when we follow secular law because that secular law isn’t aligned with the laws set forth by God in the Qur’an and is a rejection of God’s law.
Now, in the whole scheme of things, Islam is the new kid on the block. Mohammad was born in 570 AD. The Qur’an didn’t come into existence until around then. The bible is 2000 years old. Jewish doctrine is even older. So Islam is still really new.
500 years ago, if you insulted the Pope or God, you were as good as dead. And so was your family. Heck, in Bloody Mary’s reign you’d get burned at the stake for simply reading the bible. The Inquisition wasn’t a lot of fun for folks who weren’t of the faith of the day. Same with the Crusades.
My neighbor’s post was to give them time for the more moderate Muslims to take over, just like the more moderate Christians have taken over. I’m not so sure time is a luxury we can afford as they believe our mere existence is an insult to God and are getting real close to having nuclear weapons.
I’m not even sure there is an answer, to be honest. Yes, bombs are a lot more expensive than trade, but bombs can curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Thanks for sharing that, Kim. Absolutely religion can get you killed.
I am just not certain that need to have this infallible belief in what Israel wants is always in the best interest of the United States. Israel has politicians too and those politicians want to stay elected.
@KimS
Good post.
“My neighbor’s post was to give them time for the more moderate Muslims to take over, just like the more moderate Christians have taken over.”
Some think that they need a “Reformation” like we had before and after the 30 Years War. Unfortunately, if you look at the Muslim nations during the 50’s and 60’s, they’ve gone towards fundamentalism. I think that they’ve had their “reformation” and went the other way.
Two links about the Middle East.
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/obamas-middle-east-delusions/?singlepage=true
Michael Totten is considered an expert reporter on the Middle East. Here’s his blog.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blogs/michael-j-totten
Maybe we’re taking the wrong track with Iran. Obama’s approach is sanctions and verbal baloney about “shared values.” We have no shared values with Iran. Their leadership (note I’m not saying all Iranian people) still want to live in the 7th or 8th century while we’ve moved on to the 21th.
Jefferson’s foreign policy was to acknowledge that whoever is in charge of a county is its de facto government and it’s not our business to intervene; just maintain mutually beneficial economic relations. He did intervene in Libya over the Barbary Pirates, but they were attacking and raiding U.S. shipping, and we had a security interest at stake.
Jefferson’s approach would be to have full economic relations with Iran. If that were the case, they would have an economic incentive not to cause trouble or threaten Israel. I don’t know if I agree with that – just thinking/writing out loud, but it’s worth pondering.
Iran seems to me like a great illustration of why church and state should have that wall of separation.
I think we do have shared values with the Iranian people.
We can build bridges or we can just go bomb them into the middle of Kingdom come with Israel (read Netanyaho) cheering us on.
I have asked several times here what would Romney do differently wrt the Middle East. I have yet to receive an answer. In the past, Romney has criticized Obama for withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, and not intervening on behalf of Syrian dissidents. Those positions are hard to defend these dAys.
@Need to Know
I’m in full agreement. Our biggest threat to security comes from within. Our biggest terrorist threat also comes from within. It’s not isolationism to get our house in order. Very tired of the thinking that people of all countries want to be like us – we are the only nation that separates Church and state except for some attempt in Norway, France and a handful of others. Great idea but it hasn’t exactly caught on worldwide since 1775.
@Starryflights
And we’re supposed to know?
Go search the internet. I’m sure that there are statements relating to that, especially lately, at least about his general attitude.
Would you restrict immigration from that region? How about those on a short term visa? How do we know those folks are safe?
Are we now keeping up with people who do come here like we didn’t do before 9/11?
Kim S,
Fabulous Post, thank you. Islam is several hundred centuris behind christianity.
Let me add as far as free speech goes, especially in this area, is the number of people with top secret clearences. Do they “have” freedom of speech ? Not so much!
Nor do their family members–
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19089.xml
They hate “blasphemy” and disrespect. And THEY get to decide when we are disrespectful.
Its the law. http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19089.xml
I think that part is human nature…deciding when someone else is disrespectful. I don’t care if they think we are. I care how they show us.
I’m not sure we are the only country that doesn’t have a state sanctioned religion. I know Canada doesn’t have a state sanctioned religion. Nor does Australia, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t think Japan or Singapore have state sanctioned religions. I seem to recall that some of the Nordic nations (Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Norway) had official state churches, but I don’t know if they still do.
I don’t know what the answer is regarding the middle east. It seems like whatever we try doesn’t work. Maybe nothing will, until they’ve had the time to become more moderate, assuming they become more moderate.
My gut opinion is that we stand for what we believe – which is that each of us has a right to freely express ourselves, no matter how offensive what we say might be. We don’t haul the Director in for questioning or demand that he be jailed and charged with some crime. We certainly don’t claim that making a low quality idiotic you tube movie is an abuse of free speech. If being an idiot violates free speech and is grounds for imprisonment, then someone call a lawyer because the cops will be at my door any minute.
Today was Constitution Day – the anniversary of the signing of our Constitution. I’m a big fan of the Bill of Rights, which was ratified a few years after the Constitution was signed. I pulled out a copy of Common Sense to remind myself of just what our founders were fighting against and what those documents, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, really mean.
It’s kind of amazing what they {our founders} proposed. They proposed that each of us has certain rights that are inalienable from us. That those rights are “granted” to us at the moment of our birth and can not be taken from us by any government or representative of any government. Until then the only rights people had were those the King or Queen gave them, and those could be taken away whenever it suited the King or Queen. Our founders believed that each of us had a right to call them and the entire government big fat doo doo heads if we wanted, without fear of being arrested or put to death (they might have been thinking of something a bit more eloquent than big fat doo doo head).
I don’t know what the answer is in the Middle East. Being the good guy doesn’t seem to work, but being the neighborhood bully doesn’t seem to work either. I think the best thing we as a nation can do is strongly stand behind our beliefs and refuse to play by their rules. That doesn’t mean we can’t condemn the guy who made the movie as a dunder-headed dolt, but it also means we don’t sugar coat the freak out fest or apologize for our beliefs.
Good job, Kim. I think you just described balance. I don’t know the answer either.
Stae religion and state sanctioned are different. Then there’s a theocracy. USA and Austrailia explicitly forbid a relationship between church and state. Never simple but our understanding of separation of church and state is very limited -would be a very small portion of the world…
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-09-17-Prophet%20Film-Libya/id-cd4ea62d348f4ecd8f1808b0eac5af31?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=newsinlibya
What do people do with THIS story, showing the bravery of Libyian men searching for survivors in the consulate. I thought all muslims “hated us?”
Yeah you’re supposed to know, he is your candidate, after all. Only recent statements he has made is that Obama has made us look weak. I assume he means we need more troops in the region, not fewer. I have heard nothing about cutting foreign aid from him, and a lot of bellicose statements about Iran.
@Starryflights
And I would find out exactly as you would. I never said that he was perfect, unlike many of the supporters of Romney’s opponent.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-the-islamists-final-stand.html
From someone that it intimately involved in the struggle for modernity
Well, I’ll give you this much, Starry, we can at least say we know where Obama stands. Pity it’s with his Muslim brethren.
I don’t think all Muslim’s hate us. I think there are some who do, but I would like to think that the vast majority of Muslims on the street in Libya were either rallied into a frenzy by the extremist leaders and taken advantage of, or were honestly attending a protest that was hijacked by the extremists to execute a planned military action against the US embassy.
Maybe both happened, I really don’t know. Maybe there was more we could have done to help Libya after they overthrew Gaddafi. Maybe we could have had better security at the consulate. Maybe I ought not have had that last cupcake last night…..