[A-List] Fwd: [R-G] They Hate Us Because We Don't Know Why They Hate Us

Sat Mar 5 05:44:32 MST 2011

It is certainly understandable that the policies of empire can motivate
the victims of empire or their ethnic kin. It is also true that a
greater sensitivity to this on the part of western leaders would be
good. However, it is a logical leap to attribute acts of terrorism
purely to radicalization. For example, it was standard operating
procedure for NATO to commit terrorist attacks against European
civilians during the Cold War and to blame these attacks on communists.
(See:
http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/coll_gladio/intro_ganser.cfm?navi ). On close examination many of the attacks attributed to radicalized terrorists could not have occurred without government support. This includes the Oklahoma City bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 911. Thus I think any policy prescription that ignores this central fact is diversionary -- it misses the point that we could stop a lot of terrorism simply by getting our government to stop doing it. It is, however, laudable to stop making foreigners hate us.

Peter Hollings

On Sat, 2011-03-05 at 08:02 +0100, Suzanne de Kuyper wrote:

> U.S. policies that promote hate are indispensable to a war empire as
> hate can both start and keep going, more wars.  "The File-Sharing
> Agreements between the E.U. and the U.S." and "The File-Sharing
> Agreement between the European Commission and Israel" will both enable
> that war empire by legalizing  the destruction of all privacy laws.
> Suzanne
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sid Shniad <shniad at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 8:53 PM
> Subject: [R-G] They Hate Us Because We Don't Know Why They Hate Us
> To: Suzanne de Kuyper <suzannedk at gmail.com>
> 
> 
> http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/they-hate-us-because-we-dont-know-why-they-hate-us-4953
> 
> February 28, 2011
> They Hate Us Because We Don't Know Why They Hate Us
>  *It is well past time for American leaders to thoroughly explore the
> notion that U.S. policies contribute directly to radicalization.
> Reigning in
> the West's interventionist foreign policy will not eliminate the
> number of
> people and organizations that seek to commit terrorist attacks, but
> will
> certainly diminish it. *
> 
> Malou Innocent <http://nationalinterest.org/profile/malou-innocent>
> [2]
> 
> In light of the
> killing<http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12975087>
> [3] of four Americans by Somali pirates earlier this month, it is
> useful to
> explore the ways in which Washington has repeatedly tried and failed
> to
> bring order to the destitute African state that is Somalia.
> 
> In December 2006, neighboring Ethiopia, backed by U.S. aircraft,
> commandos
> and logistical support, toppled Somalia's loose network of Islamist
> Sharia
> courts, the closest thing to a unified government the country had in
> 15
> years. When Somalia descended into clan-based warfare in the early
> 1990s,
> officials in Washington agreed to enforce a March 1993 United Nations
> resolution that pledged to rehabilitate Somalia's economy and
> reestablish
> national and regional institutions. But the humanitarian mission
> eventually
> would task U.S. military forces with disarming Somali warlords and
> conducting house-to-house weapons searches. At the time, State
> Department
> official David Shinn spoke of "basically re-creating a country," while
> then-UN ambassador Madeleine Albright said America's mission "aimed at
> nothing less than the restoration of an entire country as a proud,
> functioning and viable member of the community of nations."
> 
> No doubt U.S. leaders had the best of intentions. But their noble
> attempts
> to rescue Somalia spawned a number of unintended consequences. Over
> the past
> two years, as many as 20 Somali-American men have disappeared from the
> Minneapolis area. Many fear these men were recruited to fight
> alongside
> al-Shabab, or "the youth," the militant wing of the Islamist Somali
> government overthrown in 2006. In describing Shirwa Ahmed, a
> naturalized
> American of the Somali diaspora who is believed to be the first U.S.
> citizen
> to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing, FBI director Robert Mueller
> said,
> "It appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in
> Minnesota."
> 
> The phenomenon of Western-born Muslims becoming radicalized has grown
> in
> recent years. High-profile examples include al-Shabab aspirants
> Mohamed
> Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte; Ft. Hood Army psychiatrist
> Maj.
> Nidal Malik Hasan; failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shehzad;
> Christmas Day
> plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; alleged Pakistani-American
> planner
> of the Mumbai attack David Headley; would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid;
> North
> Carolina jihadist Daniel Patrick Boyd; London train bombers Hasib
> Hussain,
> Mohammad Sidique Khan, Germain Lindsay and Shehzad Tanweer; so-called
> American Taliban John Walker Lindh; and, possibly, dozens of young
> Somali
> men who have vanished from the American Midwest.
> 
> The narrative that most of these men subscribed to in the wake of 9/11
> was
> that America sought to weaken and control the Islamic world. To them,
> the
> West was not only fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also
> threatening to launch a third against Iran. The West bombs remote
> villages
> in nuclear-armed Pakistan, may soon expand operations into Somalia and
> Yemen, and holds untold numbers of Muslims in secret prisons around
> the
> world.
> 
> Western policies may have fueled the self-fulfilling prophecy that
> these
> radicals were fighting against the West's cultural domination and
> toward the
> ultimate goal of a global Islamic caliphate.
> 
> As a 2006 Government Accountability Office
> report<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06535.pdf>
> [4] noted, "U.S. foreign policy is the major root cause behind
> anti-American
> sentiments among Muslim populations." A 2004 Pentagon Defense Science
> Board
> report<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/politics/24info.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=>
> [5] observed, "Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather, they hate
> our
> policies."
> 
> At times it takes humor to shed light on such weighty and
> controversial
> issues. Writing about the motivation of Islamist radicals, American
> comedian
> Bill Maher once
> opined<http://www.amazon.com/When-You-Ride-Alone-Laden/dp/1597775134>
> [6], "They hate us because we don't know why they hate us."
> 
> For far too long, politicians and pundits have danced around these
> uncomfortable truths. But it is well past time for American leaders to
> thoroughly explore the notion that U.S. policies contribute directly
> to
> radicalization. Reigning in the West's interventionist foreign policy
> will
> not eliminate the number of people and organizations that seek to
> commit
> terrorist attacks, but will certainly diminish it.
> 
> In this respect, terrorism can no longer be attributed to ignorance
> and
> poverty—conditions that exist in foreign conflict zones, but in and of
> themselves do not generate attacks against the West. Viewing poverty
> and
> underdevelopment as an underlying cause of extremism makes the mistake
> of
> stereotyping terrorists and their grievances. It also commits the
> error of
> ignoring the unintended consequences of past actions and very real
> dangers
> right within our borders.
> 
>   ------------------------------
> *Source URL (retrieved on Mar 4, 2011):*
> http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/they-hate-us-because-we-dont-know-why-they-hate-us-4953
> *Links:*
> [1]
> http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest<http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest>
> [2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/malou-innocent
> [3] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12975087
> [4] http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06535.pdf
> [5]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/politics/24info.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/politics/24info.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=>
> [6] http://www.amazon.com/When-You-Ride-Alone-Laden/dp/1597775134
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