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On October 17 2012 04:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 03:58 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 03:57 Nouar wrote:
Nononono, all you ever did was the exact same as every other country did in remote parts of the world : have your companies get all the contracts during the aftermath. This man understands. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a disproportionate number of contracts going to non-American companies after the Iraq war.
Yep.
People like to ignore that little fact, though.
On October 17 2012 04:02 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:00 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 03:58 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 03:57 Nouar wrote:
Nononono, all you ever did was the exact same as every other country did in remote parts of the world : have your companies get all the contracts during the aftermath. This man understands. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a disproportionate number of contracts going to non-American companies after the Iraq war. Meh, what matters the flag of convenience?
What?
So we invade somewhere to get American companies contracts for oil, etc, yet when we end up not getting anywhere near the number of contracts that would have warranted a traditional "we invade you for X" scenario, the fact of who actually receives the contracts becomes irrelevant?
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Who cares if the capital flow all goes through New York/London etc?
The international financial class doesn't give a shit about nation states, except to make them compete against each other...
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On October 17 2012 04:02 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:00 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 03:58 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 03:57 Nouar wrote:
Nononono, all you ever did was the exact same as every other country did in remote parts of the world : have your companies get all the contracts during the aftermath. This man understands. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a disproportionate number of contracts going to non-American companies after the Iraq war. Meh, what matters the flag of convenience?
Heh, well your comment definitely raises interesting issues concerning the nature of multinational corporations. However, I do think that it is unfair to say that the US invaded Iraq merely to assert some kind of economic hegemony over the country.
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Oh, I don't think that's unfair at all. I think that was precisely it.
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On October 17 2012 04:06 sam!zdat wrote:
Who cares if the capital flow all goes through New York/London etc?
The international financial class doesn't give a shit about nation states, except to make them compete against each other...
And THERE it is!
Damn evil bankers getting us into the world wars too!
Bit strange how quickly election cropped up, anyone bet on the next big campaign gaffe?
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On October 17 2012 04:04 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:01 BluePanther wrote:
I'm telling you, the whole "terrorist" system falls apart within Islam without the religious interpretations.
Yes, yes, ideology is glue. It is not primum movens
But what matters?
That they hate us? Or that they're willing to blow themselves up? One of these may happen regardless of religion, the other one would not happen nearly as often.
The former means nothing to Americans. Everyone hates us. And to be quite frank, we're an easy scapegoat for third-world countries. If a politician blames the Americans for domestic problems, they avoid scrutiny for themselves. It happens all over the world. So there would be a lot of anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do.
However, the latter means everything to Americans. That is why the religious take on it matters more than the prior actions part. Sure, those actions would affect their view of us, but they aren't blowing themselves up and running suicide missions without the religious connection. They are protesting, they are being rude to Americans traveling, they might even be doing trade wars and such. They won't be flying jets into buildings.
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On October 17 2012 03:16 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 03:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 17 2012 02:48 Klondikebar wrote:On October 17 2012 02:37 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 17 2012 02:26 Klondikebar wrote:On October 17 2012 02:17 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On October 16 2012 23:58 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 16 2012 23:43 kmillz wrote:On October 16 2012 22:35 paralleluniverse wrote:http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_cw5O9LNJL1oz4XiQuestion A: Because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus bill.
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence:
93% Agree
2% Uncertain
4% Disagree
Question B:
Taking into account all of the ARRA’s economic consequences — including the economic costs of raising taxes to pay for the spending, its effects on future spending, and any other likely future effects — the benefits of the stimulus will end up exceeding its costs.
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence:
60% Agree
26% Uncertain
14% Disagree There's a lot of results for many questions on that website which I found interesting. I think it is interesting to note that the economics profession has a 3:1 Democrat to Republican ratio. Bryan Caplan points to a piece by Justin Wolfers. Let’s start with Obama’s stimulus. The standard Republican talking point is that it failed, meaning it didn’t reduce unemployment. Yet in a survey of leading economists conducted by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, 92 percent agreed that the stimulus succeeded in reducing the jobless rate. On the harder question of whether the benefit exceeded the cost, more than half thought it did, one in three was uncertain, and fewer than one in six disagreed. We here at the Cat are the 8 percent. Let’s look at Caplan’s critique first. Wolfers says that the panel is “ideologically diverse.” When I asked Kashyap, however, he said that there’s no public data on panel members’ political views. If you casually peruse the list, its members seem to lean heavily Democratic. Dan Klein’s systematic empirics say that the economics profession has Democrat to Republican ratio of 3:1. None of this would be a problem if becoming an economist caused people to join the Democratic party. In my experience, though, most economists picked their party long before they started studying economics. Okay – so most academic economists are part of the highly educated elite and have political views consistent with that status. Not surprising – both Hayek and Schumpeter have theories of why intellectuals are likely to have left-wing views. Caplan goes on to talk about the stimulus. My complaint: These results are basically what you’d expect from a non-expert panel with two Democrats for every Republican. What’s the value-added of the IGM’s economic expertise on this question? Hard to see. Partisan bias seems particularly troubling when the IGM deals with policies that have recently been in the news. When economists analyze events decades in the past, it’s relatively easy to put politics aside and coolly apply abstract economics to concrete cases. When they analyze events they recently lived through, however, objectivity is harder to achieve. This is especially true when they’re personally close to the administrations that adopted the policies they’re now asked to judge. I’m not convinced – the evidence is in. I’m happy to believe that people could be wrong ex ante, but ex post? Not so much. Here is an earlier version of a very famous graph. ![[image loading]](http://catallaxyfiles.com/files/2012/07/US-unemployment-may-2011.jpg) A model was used to generate two series of estimates in that graph. First the unemployment figures without a stimulus and then the unemployment figures with the stimulus. The red dots reveal what actually happened. The red dots invalidate the model. If you believe – as do 92 percent of leading US economists in the sample believe – that “the stimulus succeeded in reducing the jobless rate” then you must also believe that the stock standard Keynesian model that generated both sets of forecasts in the graph is wrong too. Now some argue that the stimulus was too small, but why weren’t those 92 percent of economists saying so at the time? Of course, that simply raises the question; how did they know it was too small at the time? Where is their model and its predictions? Maybe the reason so many economists lean Democratic is because Democrats have better economic policies? Or maybe it's because Republicans have "cranks and charlatans" (Republican economist Greg Mankiw's words) that believe lower taxes will increase revenue, and crackpots who advocate for the return to a gold standard (which 100% of economist disagree with in this survey). Sort of like how scientist have a democrat ratio of like 9 to 1 (or something ridiculous like that), because Republican's denial of evolution and climate change makes them anti-science. Nah. More likely people's pre-existing ideas gravitate them towards different fields. If you believe in government intervention then go study economics. If you believe the opposite than go study finance. What? A HUGE swath of the Economics profession loathes government intervention. Financiers were the ones who cried for bailouts and tax breaks (government intervention). And, for the record, most Economists are actually more confident in Republican tax/economic policy http://www.economist.com/node/21564175You see a lot of economists who vote democrat because they prefer spending on welfare to spending on war. They are for immigration reform. And they want a less hostile foreign policy. They consider all of those things more important than a few percentage points in the tax code. Most economists favor stimulus to remedy a recession - to clarify I count that as government intervention. Ofc financiers called for a bailout. Politics fall to the wayside when reality is staring you in the face. Edit: the survey you linked to favored Obama over Romney on every issue except entitlement reform... Not a single one of the Economists I know favored the stimulus. They are ok with stimulus in theory but they know that in reality an enormous amount of resources will be expended with rent seeking (to the point that the stimulus may even be a net loss for the economy) and the stimulus will not be spent at all efficiently. Calling for a bailout wasn't putting politics by the wayside...it was exploiting politics to get a big old end of the year bonus. Entitlement reform is a big deal no? And they are neck and neck in Tax Reform, Fiscal Discipline, and Long Run Growth. The other things are mostly social issues that Republicans have repeatedly effed up and it's no surprise they're still effing them up. My understanding is that most economists favor the stimulus / complain that it was too small. If the economists you know disagree, then, well, they are an exceptional bunch IMHO  As for the bailouts, I'm not sure how else you stop the bleeding enough to prevent a full on bank run. Economists don't "favor" the stimulus. After they took all the data they did agree that it helped. Jobs were created. But what they aren't sure about is whether or not it was really better than alternatives (including doing nothing). Acknowledging what it did and actually favoring it are two different things. Those bailouts didn't prevent bank runs. Remember the AIG scandal? Those bailouts actually went directly into the pockets of executives as "performance bonuses." It was rent seeking at it's most transparent. You don't prevent bank runs with bailouts. When the money multiplier starts to collapse you run your printing presses 24/7 and you lower the interest rate to near zero so the federal reserve can act as the lender of last resort.
Rubbish. The economics profession has become so partisan that it's closer to advocacy than science.
The most obvious example of this is the fact that economists don't tailor their side at all for the circumstances of individual countries. They tend to stick to the same partisan side that they're on in the US. Paul Krugman doesn't say "stimulus is a good idea in the US but Greece has a different problem that requires austerity." He says the liberal shoe fits on the US so the liberal shoe should also fit everyone in the EU. It's ridiculous.
And "helping" is a meaningless term. Of course it helped. But did it help in a cost-effective and sustainable manner? That is a much tougher question and economists dispute that a lot in the debate between austerity and more stimulus.
Finally, be VERY CAREFUL when you say we should run the printing presses 24/7. That's a barn door you have to be extremely wary about opening.
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On October 17 2012 04:09 Elegy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:06 sam!zdat wrote:
Who cares if the capital flow all goes through New York/London etc?
The international financial class doesn't give a shit about nation states, except to make them compete against each other... And THERE it is! Damn evil bankers getting us into the world wars too!
Oh yes when you put it that way it does seem so silly...
I'm sure the bankers just mean the best
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On October 17 2012 04:09 Elegy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:06 sam!zdat wrote:
Who cares if the capital flow all goes through New York/London etc?
The international financial class doesn't give a shit about nation states, except to make them compete against each other... And THERE it is! Damn evil bankers getting us into the world wars too! Bit strange how quickly election cropped up, anyone bet on the next big campaign gaffe?
Barring some epic fail at one of the final two debates, I don't see anything major shaking up the election from here on out unless the Benghazi thing explodes (and I think it will). To the extent that either campaign has some major dirty laundry to air on the other candidate, it would have come out by now.
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On October 17 2012 04:09 Elegy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:06 sam!zdat wrote:
Who cares if the capital flow all goes through New York/London etc?
The international financial class doesn't give a shit about nation states, except to make them compete against each other... And THERE it is! Damn evil bankers getting us into the world wars too! Bit strange how quickly election cropped up, anyone bet on the next big campaign gaffe?
I'd prefer it if we continued to discuss any and all topics that allow for the prodigious use of the word "hegemony", preferably from the vantage point of cultural critique a la Gramsci
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On October 17 2012 04:11 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:04 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:01 BluePanther wrote:
I'm telling you, the whole "terrorist" system falls apart within Islam without the religious interpretations.
Yes, yes, ideology is glue. It is not primum movens But what matters? That they hate us? Or that they're willing to blow themselves up? One of these may happen regardless of religion, the other one would not happen nearly as often.
They go together.
The former means nothing to Americans. Everyone hates us. And to be quite frank, we're an easy scapegoat for third-world countries. If a politician blames the Americans for domestic problems, they avoid scrutiny for themselves. It happens all over the world. So there would be a lot of anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do.
I don't believe that there would be anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do. I believe there is anti-American sentiment because of what we do.
However, the latter means everything to Americans. That is why the religious take on it matters more than the prior actions part. Sure, those actions would affect their view of us, but they aren't blowing themselves up and running suicide missions without the religious connection. They are protesting, they are being rude to Americans traveling, they might even be doing trade wars and such. They won't be flying jets into buildings.
You are separating out phenomena in a totally illegitimate fashion. The religious part is not a separate phenomenon from the rest of it.
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On October 17 2012 04:06 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:02 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:00 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 03:58 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 03:57 Nouar wrote:
Nononono, all you ever did was the exact same as every other country did in remote parts of the world : have your companies get all the contracts during the aftermath. This man understands. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a disproportionate number of contracts going to non-American companies after the Iraq war. Meh, what matters the flag of convenience? Heh, well your comment definitely raises interesting issues concerning the nature of multinational corporations. However, I do think that it is unfair to say that the US invaded Iraq merely to assert some kind of economic hegemony over the country.
Iraq had the power to play on the global oil prices and production, lowering or raising it, on a.... disturbing scale, and it was quickly becoming unbearable not only for the US (who suddenly realised their own production was not enough and they would have to depend on others) and Europe etc, but also for Saudi Arabia and other OPEP members. I won't go into too much details since it's not the topic of this thread. But don't be too blind and look into it.
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On October 17 2012 04:13 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:09 Elegy wrote:On October 17 2012 04:06 sam!zdat wrote:
Who cares if the capital flow all goes through New York/London etc?
The international financial class doesn't give a shit about nation states, except to make them compete against each other... And THERE it is! Damn evil bankers getting us into the world wars too! Bit strange how quickly election cropped up, anyone bet on the next big campaign gaffe? I'd prefer it if we continued to discuss any and all topics that allow for the prodigious use of the word "hegemony", preferably from the vantage point of cultural critique a la Gramsci
Oh man do I wish I could assign everybody in this thread a big fat stack of Gramsci
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 17 2012 04:11 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:04 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:01 BluePanther wrote:
I'm telling you, the whole "terrorist" system falls apart within Islam without the religious interpretations.
Yes, yes, ideology is glue. It is not primum movens But what matters? That they hate us? Or that they're willing to blow themselves up? One of these may happen regardless of religion, the other one would not happen nearly as often. The former means nothing to Americans. Everyone hates us. And to be quite frank, we're an easy scapegoat for third-world countries. If a politician blames the Americans for domestic problems, they avoid scrutiny for themselves. It happens all over the world. So there would be a lot of anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do. However, the latter means everything to Americans. That is why the religious take on it matters more than the prior actions part. Sure, those actions would affect their view of us, but they aren't blowing themselves up and running suicide missions without the religious connection. They are protesting, they are being rude to Americans traveling, they might even be doing trade wars and such. They won't be flying jets into buildings.
Pretty sure what matters is that they wouldn't be suicide bombing civilians if we didn't give them reason to. If it was just religion by itself they wouldn't go so far.
But don't take it from me.
On September 14 2012 22:02 Souma wrote:A couple excerpts: Show nested quote +Americans and Europeans are no doubt looking at the protests over the "film", recalling the even more violent protests during the Danish cartoon affair, and shaking their heads one more at the seeming irrationality and backwardness of Muslims, who would let a work of "art", particularly one as trivial as this, drive them to mass protests and violence. Yet Muslims in Egypt, Libya and around the world equally look at American actions, from sanctions against and then an invasion of Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and sent the country back to the Stone Age, to unflinching support for Israel and all the Arab authoritarian regimes (secular and royal alike) and drone strikes that always seem to kill unintended civilians "by mistake", and wonder with equal bewilderment how "we" can be so barbaric and uncivilised. Russia receives little better grades on this card, whether for its brutality in Afghanistan during the Soviet era, in Chechnya today, or its open support of Assad's murderous regime. Meanwhile, the most jingoistic and hate-filled representatives of each society grow stronger with each attack, with little end in sight. ... As I flew home yesterday from Europe, unaware of what had transpired in Libya, I read through the 2008 report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, titled "From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Oppression: Human Rights in the Arab Region". The report described the often unbearable levels of abuse suffered by citizens across the region is one of the most depressing reads imaginable. Every single government, from Morocco to Iraq, was defined by the systematic abuse of its citizens, denial of their most basic rights, and rampant corruption and violence. And in every case, such abuses and violence have been enabled by Western, Russian and other foreign interests. Simply put, each and all the policies and actions described in the report - and 2008 was no better or worse than the years that proceeded or followed it - are as much forms of terror as the destruction of the World Trade Centre, invasion of Iraq, or attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. In fact, the Middle East and North Africa have for over half a century constituted one of the largest and most pernicious terror systems of the modern era. And the US, Europe, Russia, and now increasingly China have been accessories, co-conspirators, and often initiators of this terror throughout the period, working hand-in-hand with local governments to repress their peoples and ensure that wealth and power remain arrogated by a trusted few. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291391347458863.html
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On October 17 2012 04:15 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:11 BluePanther wrote:On October 17 2012 04:04 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:01 BluePanther wrote:
I'm telling you, the whole "terrorist" system falls apart within Islam without the religious interpretations.
Yes, yes, ideology is glue. It is not primum movens But what matters? That they hate us? Or that they're willing to blow themselves up? One of these may happen regardless of religion, the other one would not happen nearly as often. They go together. Show nested quote +
The former means nothing to Americans. Everyone hates us. And to be quite frank, we're an easy scapegoat for third-world countries. If a politician blames the Americans for domestic problems, they avoid scrutiny for themselves. It happens all over the world. So there would be a lot of anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do.
I don't believe that there would be anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do. I believe there is anti-American sentiment because of what we do. Show nested quote +
However, the latter means everything to Americans. That is why the religious take on it matters more than the prior actions part. Sure, those actions would affect their view of us, but they aren't blowing themselves up and running suicide missions without the religious connection. They are protesting, they are being rude to Americans traveling, they might even be doing trade wars and such. They won't be flying jets into buildings.
You are separating out phenomena in a totally illegitimate fashion. The religious part is not a separate phenomenon from the rest of it.
Right, and you're rationale for this is.... your gut?
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On October 17 2012 04:15 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:06 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 04:02 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:00 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 03:58 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 03:57 Nouar wrote:
Nononono, all you ever did was the exact same as every other country did in remote parts of the world : have your companies get all the contracts during the aftermath. This man understands. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a disproportionate number of contracts going to non-American companies after the Iraq war. Meh, what matters the flag of convenience? Heh, well your comment definitely raises interesting issues concerning the nature of multinational corporations. However, I do think that it is unfair to say that the US invaded Iraq merely to assert some kind of economic hegemony over the country. Iraq had the power to play on the global oil prices and production, lowering or raising it, on a.... disturbing scale, and it was quickly becoming unbearable not only for the US (who suddenly realised their own production was not enough and they would have to depend on others) and Europe etc, but also for Saudi Arabia and other OPEP members. I won't go into too much details since it's not the topic of this thread. But don't be too blind and look into it.
Believe me, I have no trouble admitting that oil was the single biggest reason (not WMD's) for why we invaded Iraq or even give a crap about the country. In fact, I'm not at all opposed to the idea of going to war in pursuit of natural resources (but that topic is for another time). However, what I am saying is that the US did not take over Iraq's oil production, despite what some people here are arguing.
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On October 17 2012 04:19 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:15 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:11 BluePanther wrote:On October 17 2012 04:04 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:01 BluePanther wrote:
I'm telling you, the whole "terrorist" system falls apart within Islam without the religious interpretations.
Yes, yes, ideology is glue. It is not primum movens But what matters? That they hate us? Or that they're willing to blow themselves up? One of these may happen regardless of religion, the other one would not happen nearly as often. They go together.
The former means nothing to Americans. Everyone hates us. And to be quite frank, we're an easy scapegoat for third-world countries. If a politician blames the Americans for domestic problems, they avoid scrutiny for themselves. It happens all over the world. So there would be a lot of anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do.
I don't believe that there would be anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do. I believe there is anti-American sentiment because of what we do.
However, the latter means everything to Americans. That is why the religious take on it matters more than the prior actions part. Sure, those actions would affect their view of us, but they aren't blowing themselves up and running suicide missions without the religious connection. They are protesting, they are being rude to Americans traveling, they might even be doing trade wars and such. They won't be flying jets into buildings.
You are separating out phenomena in a totally illegitimate fashion. The religious part is not a separate phenomenon from the rest of it. Right, and you're rationale for this is.... your gut?
Well, no. this is the kind of thing you think about when you are a literary theorist. It's my field.
That being said, I'm not going to "prove" any thesis about the base/superstructure relationship here in this thread - there's a lot of background reading and discourse that we don't share in common. So if you wanna think I'm just making stuff up I guess I'll just have to accept that. If you're actually interested in the question, I could suggest some readings.
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On October 17 2012 04:21 xDaunt wrote:However, what I am saying is that the US did not take over Iraq's oil production, despite what some people here are arguing.
Yes, but the WEST did
edit: how does one find out an answer to a question like "who controls Iraqi oil production"?
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On October 17 2012 04:21 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:15 Nouar wrote:On October 17 2012 04:06 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 04:02 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:00 xDaunt wrote:On October 17 2012 03:58 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 03:57 Nouar wrote:
Nononono, all you ever did was the exact same as every other country did in remote parts of the world : have your companies get all the contracts during the aftermath. This man understands. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a disproportionate number of contracts going to non-American companies after the Iraq war. Meh, what matters the flag of convenience? Heh, well your comment definitely raises interesting issues concerning the nature of multinational corporations. However, I do think that it is unfair to say that the US invaded Iraq merely to assert some kind of economic hegemony over the country. Iraq had the power to play on the global oil prices and production, lowering or raising it, on a.... disturbing scale, and it was quickly becoming unbearable not only for the US (who suddenly realised their own production was not enough and they would have to depend on others) and Europe etc, but also for Saudi Arabia and other OPEP members. I won't go into too much details since it's not the topic of this thread. But don't be too blind and look into it. Believe me, I have no trouble admitting that oil was the single biggest reason (not WMD's) for why we invaded Iraq or even give a crap about the country. In fact, I'm not at all opposed to the idea of going to war in pursuit of natural resources (but that topic is for another time). However, what I am saying is that the US did not take over Iraq's oil production, despite what some people here are arguing.
It doesn't need to take over everything, since you'd make enemies of everybody else. There are delicate statu quo, sharing of contracts between countries, sometimes it works, sometimes it backfires (Iran and the whole Shah story). But the point is no one had control over what saddam could do, and it had the potential to break a lot of things, or bring another oil shock.
End of this backstory since it's completely off-topic.
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On October 17 2012 04:17 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 04:11 BluePanther wrote:On October 17 2012 04:04 sam!zdat wrote:On October 17 2012 04:01 BluePanther wrote:
I'm telling you, the whole "terrorist" system falls apart within Islam without the religious interpretations.
Yes, yes, ideology is glue. It is not primum movens But what matters? That they hate us? Or that they're willing to blow themselves up? One of these may happen regardless of religion, the other one would not happen nearly as often. The former means nothing to Americans. Everyone hates us. And to be quite frank, we're an easy scapegoat for third-world countries. If a politician blames the Americans for domestic problems, they avoid scrutiny for themselves. It happens all over the world. So there would be a lot of anti-American sentiment regardless of what we do. However, the latter means everything to Americans. That is why the religious take on it matters more than the prior actions part. Sure, those actions would affect their view of us, but they aren't blowing themselves up and running suicide missions without the religious connection. They are protesting, they are being rude to Americans traveling, they might even be doing trade wars and such. They won't be flying jets into buildings. Pretty sure what matters is that they wouldn't be suicide bombing civilians if we didn't give them reason to. If it was just religion by itself they wouldn't go so far. But don't take it from me. Show nested quote +On September 14 2012 22:02 Souma wrote:A couple excerpts: Americans and Europeans are no doubt looking at the protests over the "film", recalling the even more violent protests during the Danish cartoon affair, and shaking their heads one more at the seeming irrationality and backwardness of Muslims, who would let a work of "art", particularly one as trivial as this, drive them to mass protests and violence. Yet Muslims in Egypt, Libya and around the world equally look at American actions, from sanctions against and then an invasion of Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and sent the country back to the Stone Age, to unflinching support for Israel and all the Arab authoritarian regimes (secular and royal alike) and drone strikes that always seem to kill unintended civilians "by mistake", and wonder with equal bewilderment how "we" can be so barbaric and uncivilised. Russia receives little better grades on this card, whether for its brutality in Afghanistan during the Soviet era, in Chechnya today, or its open support of Assad's murderous regime. Meanwhile, the most jingoistic and hate-filled representatives of each society grow stronger with each attack, with little end in sight. ... As I flew home yesterday from Europe, unaware of what had transpired in Libya, I read through the 2008 report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, titled "From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Oppression: Human Rights in the Arab Region". The report described the often unbearable levels of abuse suffered by citizens across the region is one of the most depressing reads imaginable. Every single government, from Morocco to Iraq, was defined by the systematic abuse of its citizens, denial of their most basic rights, and rampant corruption and violence. And in every case, such abuses and violence have been enabled by Western, Russian and other foreign interests. Simply put, each and all the policies and actions described in the report - and 2008 was no better or worse than the years that proceeded or followed it - are as much forms of terror as the destruction of the World Trade Centre, invasion of Iraq, or attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. In fact, the Middle East and North Africa have for over half a century constituted one of the largest and most pernicious terror systems of the modern era. And the US, Europe, Russia, and now increasingly China have been accessories, co-conspirators, and often initiators of this terror throughout the period, working hand-in-hand with local governments to repress their peoples and ensure that wealth and power remain arrogated by a trusted few. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291391347458863.html
You're skipping the logic behind my statements.
You are right that if we make them love us, we might stop the violence. "Might".
--- HOWEVER ---
Without the religious backing, there isn't gross acts of terrorism. Look at allllll the groups around the world that hate us. Now think about which ones actually act violently on that hate. What do they have in common?
In sum, your solution isn't wrong per se, but it's overlooking a much simpler explanation for the violence problem.
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EPT
