The Orlando shooting and the motivation for Islamic terrorism...

[jrodefeld]

I've posted on these forums a considerable while ago, but I'd like to get a sense of the conservative view on the recent Orlando terrorist attack at the gay nightclub and about terrorism in general and the so-called "War on Terror" in particular.

I am a libertarian anarchist, also sometimes referred to as "voluntaryist", just so you are reminded of my ideological persuasion.

What's left out of this discussion about the Orlando shooter was a key piece of information about his motivation, which was reported in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160614-snap-story.html

At a news conference Tuesday at Florida Hospital in Orlando, one survivor, Patience Carter, described cowering with two friends inside a handicapped bathroom stall at the club while Mateen stood nearby, chatting. Among other things, she said, he announced: "This is about my country."

Mateen was born in New York to Afghan immigrants. Although he was a U.S. citizen, he appeared to be talking about Afghanistan.

"He said that the reason why he was doing this was he wanted America to stop bombing his country," Carter said.

Libertarians have always maintained that the motivations for Islamic terrorist attacks against the United States have always been about our foreign policy.  It is NOT about the religion of Islam.  Al Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS have been primarily motivated by anger and resentment about US interventions, drone bombings, nation building and general disregard for the corpses, numbering in the millions, of Arab Muslims caused by our military excursions into the Middle East over the past several decades.

This is not to say that, absent our meddling into the affairs of middle eastern nations, that radical Islamic elements would disappear.  But attacks against the United States would almost certainly disappear.  The problem of radical Islam would become an internal problem for moderate Muslims in the region to deal with, or not deal with.  It would no longer be our concern.

Robert Pape has studied the motivations for suicide terrorism and his conclusion is that this war is about political goals, not religious goals.  There is a strategic objective that Islamic terrorists seek through the use of terrorism.  They seek to change our foreign policy through generating fear of civilian deaths among the democratic populace of the occupying nation.  The goal is that people end up realizing that the military occupation of foreign nations is not worth the resulting threat to civilian safety from the terrorist response to said occupation and that people rise up and make their leaders change their policy, withdrawing troops, lifting sanctions and so forth.

See Robert Pape's book "Dying to Win:  The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism".


This recent Orlando shooting is yet another example of blowback.  Our so-called "War on Terrorism" and the preceding decades of sanctions, bombs, and the overthrow of elected leaders in the middle east has, and will continue, to directly result in the deaths of American civilians. 

If you support these military interventions you must share some of the culpability for the blowback that has predictably resulted from those ill-conceived actions.

I'd just like to engage with a conservative audience regarding the Orlando terrorist attack, the motivations for terrorism, your views on Robert Pape's work and how you feel about US foreign policy, specifically in regard to the Middle East, nation building, drone bombings and so forth.

[Possum]

I've posted on these forums a considerable while ago, but I'd like to get a sense of the conservative view on the recent Orlando terrorist attack at the gay nightclub and about terrorism in general and the so-called "War on Terror" in particular.

I am a libertarian anarchist, also sometimes referred to as "voluntaryist", just so you are reminded of my ideological persuasion.

What's left out of this discussion about the Orlando shooter was a key piece of information about his motivation, which was reported in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160614-snap-story.html

Libertarians have always maintained that the motivations for Islamic terrorist attacks against the United States have always been about our foreign policy.  It is NOT about the religion of Islam.  Al Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS have been primarily motivated by anger and resentment about US interventions, drone bombings, nation building and general disregard for the corpses, numbering in the millions, of Arab Muslims caused by our military excursions into the Middle East over the past several decades.

This is not to say that, absent our meddling into the affairs of middle eastern nations, that radical Islamic elements would disappear.  But attacks against the United States would almost certainly disappear.  The problem of radical Islam would become an internal problem for moderate Muslims in the region to deal with, or not deal with.  It would no longer be our concern.

Robert Pape has studied the motivations for suicide terrorism and his conclusion is that this war is about political goals, not religious goals.  There is a strategic objective that Islamic terrorists seek through the use of terrorism.  They seek to change our foreign policy through generating fear of civilian deaths among the democratic populace of the occupying nation.  The goal is that people end up realizing that the military occupation of foreign nations is not worth the resulting threat to civilian safety from the terrorist response to said occupation and that people rise up and make their leaders change their policy, withdrawing troops, lifting sanctions and so forth.

See Robert Pape's book "Dying to Win:  The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism".


This recent Orlando shooting is yet another example of blowback.  Our so-called "War on Terrorism" and the preceding decades of sanctions, bombs, and the overthrow of elected leaders in the middle east has, and will continue, to directly result in the deaths of American civilians. 

If you support these military interventions you must share some of the culpability for the blowback that has predictably resulted from those ill-conceived actions.

I'd just like to engage with a conservative audience regarding the Orlando terrorist attack, the motivations for terrorism, your views on Robert Pape's work and how you feel about US foreign policy, specifically in regard to the Middle East, nation building, drone bombings and so forth.

Sounds like another article which blames us again, seems like I have heard this before.

[Solar]

I've posted on these forums a considerable while ago, but I'd like to get a sense of the conservative view on the recent Orlando terrorist attack at the gay nightclub and about terrorism in general and the so-called "War on Terror" in particular.

I am a libertarian anarchist, also sometimes referred to as "voluntaryist", just so you are reminded of my ideological persuasion.

What's left out of this discussion about the Orlando shooter was a key piece of information about his motivation, which was reported in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160614-snap-story.html

Libertarians have always maintained that the motivations for Islamic terrorist attacks against the United States have always been about our foreign policy.  It is NOT about the religion of Islam.  Al Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS have been primarily motivated by anger and resentment about US interventions, drone bombings, nation building and general disregard for the corpses, numbering in the millions, of Arab Muslims caused by our military excursions into the Middle East over the past several decades.

This is not to say that, absent our meddling into the affairs of middle eastern nations, that radical Islamic elements would disappear.  But attacks against the United States would almost certainly disappear.  The problem of radical Islam would become an internal problem for moderate Muslims in the region to deal with, or not deal with.  It would no longer be our concern.

Robert Pape has studied the motivations for suicide terrorism and his conclusion is that this war is about political goals, not religious goals.  There is a strategic objective that Islamic terrorists seek through the use of terrorism.  They seek to change our foreign policy through generating fear of civilian deaths among the democratic populace of the occupying nation.  The goal is that people end up realizing that the military occupation of foreign nations is not worth the resulting threat to civilian safety from the terrorist response to said occupation and that people rise up and make their leaders change their policy, withdrawing troops, lifting sanctions and so forth.

See Robert Pape's book "Dying to Win:  The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism".


This recent Orlando shooting is yet another example of blowback.  Our so-called "War on Terrorism" and the preceding decades of sanctions, bombs, and the overthrow of elected leaders in the middle east has, and will continue, to directly result in the deaths of American civilians. 

If you support these military interventions you must share some of the culpability for the blowback that has predictably resulted from those ill-conceived actions.

I'd just like to engage with a conservative audience regarding the Orlando terrorist attack, the motivations for terrorism, your views on Robert Pape's work and how you feel about US foreign policy, specifically in regard to the Middle East, nation building, drone bombings and so forth.

Are you fuckin serious, our fault?
Learn some damned history, these animals have been enslaving people since before the 7th century, our own history shows our first encounters with these animals as a nation was due to their incursions over our merchant shipping lanes. (Barbary pirates), Jefferson. Are you afraid of what you might learn?
Your view of the world is upside fuckin down!

[Leon]

Agree with you absolutely. Islamic terrorists' motives deal more with their intention to change foreign courses of the non-Islamic countries (USA in the first run) rather than with their religious agenda. Religion is only a cover to disguise true aims. The Orlando shooting is just the case.
As for the foreign line of the State Dep. it seems to be rather a huge irritant for Islamic world. I guess Muslims see the so called democratic drive of the USA in the Middle east as a grandiose threat to their safety, to Islam, to their culture and their whole existence as independent Islamic states ...you know.   

[walkstall]

I've posted on these forums a considerable while ago, but I'd like to get a sense of the conservative view on the recent Orlando terrorist attack at the gay nightclub and about terrorism in general and the so-called "War on Terror" in particular.

I am a libertarian anarchist, also sometimes referred to as "voluntaryist", just so you are reminded of my ideological persuasion.

What's left out of this discussion about the Orlando shooter was a key piece of information about his motivation, which was reported in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160614-snap-story.html

Libertarians have always maintained that the motivations for Islamic terrorist attacks against the United States have always been about our foreign policy.  It is NOT about the religion of Islam.  Al Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS have been primarily motivated by anger and resentment about US interventions, drone bombings, nation building and general disregard for the corpses, numbering in the millions, of Arab Muslims caused by our military excursions into the Middle East over the past several decades.

This is not to say that, absent our meddling into the affairs of middle eastern nations, that radical Islamic elements would disappear.  But attacks against the United States would almost certainly disappear.  The problem of radical Islam would become an internal problem for moderate Muslims in the region to deal with, or not deal with.  It would no longer be our concern.

Robert Pape has studied the motivations for suicide terrorism and his conclusion is that this war is about political goals, not religious goals.  There is a strategic objective that Islamic terrorists seek through the use of terrorism.  They seek to change our foreign policy through generating fear of civilian deaths among the democratic populace of the occupying nation.  The goal is that people end up realizing that the military occupation of foreign nations is not worth the resulting threat to civilian safety from the terrorist response to said occupation and that people rise up and make their leaders change their policy, withdrawing troops, lifting sanctions and so forth.

See Robert Pape's book "Dying to Win:  The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism".


This recent Orlando shooting is yet another example of blowback.  Our so-called "War on Terrorism" and the preceding decades of sanctions, bombs, and the overthrow of elected leaders in the middle east has, and will continue, to directly result in the deaths of American civilians. 

If you support these military interventions you must share some of the culpability for the blowback that has predictably resulted from those ill-conceived actions.

I'd just like to engage with a conservative audience regarding the Orlando terrorist attack, the motivations for terrorism, your views on Robert Pape's work and how you feel about US foreign policy, specifically in regard to the Middle East, nation building, drone bombings and so forth.

I am a down home conservative country boy, sometimes referred to as an SOB.

So when a bully on the playground comes and takes your lunch you have no problem with that day after day.   

[jrodefeld]

Sounds like another article which blames us again, seems like I have heard this before.

What do you mean by "us"?  I draw a sharp and distinct line between myself and other peaceful American citizens and the US government.  The neo-cons, the Progressives, the defense contractors, AIPAC, and others who have launched these wars in the middle east are the ones who should be blamed.  It is "they", not "us".  You are a conservative yet you think of government as "us"? 

The article I cited was not ideological, it was just objective news.  I am informing you about the reality of the motivations for these terrorist attacks.  They come right out and say what they are fighting about. 

If you want to keep supporting an interventionist foreign policy, drone bombings and the like, then the price you have to pay is perpetual terrorist attacks against civilians such as what happened in Orlando.  This is called "blowback".

There is no excuse for the targeting of civilians ever.  I am not excusing terrorist attacks.  What I am saying is that terrorism is a political tool that is resorted to by desperate people who have no other way of fighting back.  A sane anti-terrorism strategy would be to remove the incentive for recruitment.  Remove the antagonizing element by following a non-interventionist foreign policy where we mind our own business.

[jrodefeld]

Are you fuckin serious, our fault?
Learn some damned history, these animals have been enslaving people since before the 7th century, our own history shows our first encounters with these animals as a nation was due to their incursions over our merchant shipping lanes. (Barbary pirates), Jefferson. Are you afraid of what you might learn?
Your view of the world is upside fuckin down!

Like I said before, I didn't say "our" fault.  Explaining and understanding the motivations for a criminal attack doesn't excuse an attack against civilians.  And if you are trying to fight against crime and keep people safe, then removing the incentives for certain kinds of criminal behavior is wise.

Do me a favor and watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Dd6mtZA5k

This is a lecture given by Robert Pape, who I mentioned earlier.  He has studied suicide terrorism more than anyone else.  He is the worlds leading expert on the subject.  He came to the conclusion based on his extensive research, that suicide terrorism is motivated by foreign occupation.  Do you know which group engaged in more suicide terrorist attacks than any other?  The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.  They were essentially an atheist Marxist group who used suicide terrorism as a political strategy against a foreign occupier.

What Pape also found was that when the foreign occupier leaves, the incidents of suicide terrorism virtually vanish.

I know you think that Muslims are some sort of sub-human "animals", but consider for a minute what it would be like to be on the receiving end of US foreign policy in the middle east.  What if your entire family was murdered by a drone during a wedding ceremony?  What if you elected a government only to have the US overthrow this government and install a puppet dictator that is a savage tyrant?  What if the US government assumed the authority to virtually shut down your economy through crippling sanctions and you couldn't even import the medical supplies and food necessary to keep your family alive?

Setting aside the merits or de-merits of Muslim culture in the middle east, any rational person would be angry and want to seek revenge if they were subject to such atrocities by an occupying force.  From this background of constant US meddling, radical elements gain direct or tacit support and approval from the general population when they promise to fight back against the perpetrators of these atrocities.

We have to look at things from a consistent moral framework.  If you are going to (correctly) say that ISIS beheading people is barbaric and evil, you must equally condemn US drone strikes that kill innocent civilians.

[Possum]

What do you mean by "us"?  I draw a sharp and distinct line between myself and other peaceful American citizens and the US government.  The neo-cons, the Progressives, the defense contractors, AIPAC, and others who have launched these wars in the middle east are the ones who should be blamed.  It is "they", not "us".  You are a conservative yet you think of government as "us"? 

The article I cited was not ideological, it was just objective news.  I am informing you about the reality of the motivations for these terrorist attacks.  They come right out and say what they are fighting about. 

If you want to keep supporting an interventionist foreign policy, drone bombings and the like, then the price you have to pay is perpetual terrorist attacks against civilians such as what happened in Orlando.  This is called "blowback".

There is no excuse for the targeting of civilians ever.  I am not excusing terrorist attacks.  What I am saying is that terrorism is a political tool that is resorted to by desperate people who have no other way of fighting back.  A sane anti-terrorism strategy would be to remove the incentive for recruitment.  Remove the antagonizing element by following a non-interventionist foreign policy where we mind our own business.

Read your history, muslins have been killing long before there was a United States. To blame terrorist attacks by muslims which kill U.S. citizens on the U.S. is insane and part of the damn problem. Blaming the victim is nothing but a old liberal trick.

[Solar]

Like I said before, I didn't say "our" fault.  Explaining and understanding the motivations for a criminal attack doesn't excuse an attack against civilians.  And if you are trying to fight against crime and keep people safe, then removing the incentives for certain kinds of criminal behavior is wise.

Do me a favor and watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Dd6mtZA5k

This is a lecture given by Robert Pape, who I mentioned earlier.  He has studied suicide terrorism more than anyone else.  He is the worlds leading expert on the subject.  He came to the conclusion based on his extensive research, that suicide terrorism is motivated by foreign occupation.  Do you know which group engaged in more suicide terrorist attacks than any other?  The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.  They were essentially an atheist Marxist group who used suicide terrorism as a political strategy against a foreign occupier.

What Pape also found was that when the foreign occupier leaves, the incidents of suicide terrorism virtually vanish.

I know you think that Muslims are some sort of sub-human "animals", but consider for a minute what it would be like to be on the receiving end of US foreign policy in the middle east.  What if your entire family was murdered by a drone during a wedding ceremony?  What if you elected a government only to have the US overthrow this government and install a puppet dictator that is a savage tyrant?  What if the US government assumed the authority to virtually shut down your economy through crippling sanctions and you couldn't even import the medical supplies and food necessary to keep your family alive?

Setting aside the merits or de-merits of Muslim culture in the middle east, any rational person would be angry and want to seek revenge if they were subject to such atrocities by an occupying force.  From this background of constant US meddling, radical elements gain direct or tacit support and approval from the general population when they promise to fight back against the perpetrators of these atrocities.

We have to look at things from a consistent moral framework.  If you are going to (correctly) say that ISIS beheading people is barbaric and evil, you must equally condemn US drone strikes that kill innocent civilians.

You are nothing more than a liberal appeaser unwilling to accept the reality that a people whom of which follow a political ideology disguised as a religion want to enslave what they claim to be subhuman, 'infidels'.
No, I will not watch some moron appeaser speak bull shit, no, I'll heed the words of Jefferson and his through thought to refuse surrender to these fuckin animals.
I hope a little history lesson opens your eyes...

In 1786, Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli's ambassador to Great Britain. They asked this 'diplomat' by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved her citizens and why the Muslims held such hostility toward this new nation, with which neither Tripoli nor any of the other Barbary Coast nations had any previous contact. The answer was quite revealing. Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja (the ambassador) replied that Islam:

"Was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur'an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Congress authorized Jefferson to have the US ships seize all vessels and goods that belonged to the Pasha and anything else deemed necessary. As they saw the US was actually committed to the fight, Algiers and Tunis quickly abandoned the war and allegiance to Tripoli. Obviously, the US won the war.

[Red Steel]

I've posted on these forums a considerable while ago, but I'd like to get a sense of the conservative view on the recent Orlando terrorist attack at the gay nightclub and about terrorism in general and the so-called "War on Terror" in particular.

I am a libertarian anarchist, also sometimes referred to as "voluntaryist", just so you are reminded of my ideological persuasion.

What's left out of this discussion about the Orlando shooter was a key piece of information about his motivation, which was reported in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-20160614-snap-story.html

Libertarians have always maintained that the motivations for Islamic terrorist attacks against the United States have always been about our foreign policy.  It is NOT about the religion of Islam.  Al Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS have been primarily motivated by anger and resentment about US interventions, drone bombings, nation building and general disregard for the corpses, numbering in the millions, of Arab Muslims caused by our military excursions into the Middle East over the past several decades.

This is not to say that, absent our meddling into the affairs of middle eastern nations, that radical Islamic elements would disappear.  But attacks against the United States would almost certainly disappear.  The problem of radical Islam would become an internal problem for moderate Muslims in the region to deal with, or not deal with.  It would no longer be our concern.

Robert Pape has studied the motivations for suicide terrorism and his conclusion is that this war is about political goals, not religious goals.  There is a strategic objective that Islamic terrorists seek through the use of terrorism.  They seek to change our foreign policy through generating fear of civilian deaths among the democratic populace of the occupying nation.  The goal is that people end up realizing that the military occupation of foreign nations is not worth the resulting threat to civilian safety from the terrorist response to said occupation and that people rise up and make their leaders change their policy, withdrawing troops, lifting sanctions and so forth.

See Robert Pape's book "Dying to Win:  The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism".


This recent Orlando shooting is yet another example of blowback.  Our so-called "War on Terrorism" and the preceding decades of sanctions, bombs, and the overthrow of elected leaders in the middle east has, and will continue, to directly result in the deaths of American civilians. 

If you support these military interventions you must share some of the culpability for the blowback that has predictably resulted from those ill-conceived actions.

I'd just like to engage with a conservative audience regarding the Orlando terrorist attack, the motivations for terrorism, your views on Robert Pape's work and how you feel about US foreign policy, specifically in regard to the Middle East, nation building, drone bombings and so forth.

They share the same motivation as the "progressives."  They hate. 

[Solar]

They share the same motivation as the "progressives."  They hate.

True, but still funny.

[Billy's bayonet]

Here we go with another Liberal Tarian who blames the US for the worlds ills....or rather us "Neo Cons". These people just don't get it. The world is a bad place full of bad people who hate the USA because they are taught to do so.

'We" did not create terrorism or terrorists....these people create themselves, include Usama Bin Laudin in that.....he has always hated the US and refused US aide in Afghanistan. If anyone is responsible for UBL and the rise of middle east terrorism it is the former soviet Union who set things into motion with the invasion of Afghanistan and currently what is left of the USSR, ie Russia who empowers Iran towards nuclear arms.

Libral-tarian Idiots like Ron Paul and his Son Rand should know better but since they don't that's why they get 1% of the vote.

Last; Muslim immigrants don't assimilate well into our culture, this guy had a whole host of issues and was messed up in the head to begin with, add to that the current anti American counter culture fostered by the leftists to include the Govt and this is the result.

Expect more of the same...a lot of these shootings are Copy Cat types of deals.

[jrodefeld]

You are nothing more than a liberal appeaser unwilling to accept the reality that a people whom of which follow a political ideology disguised as a religion want to enslave what they claim to be subhuman, 'infidels'.
No, I will not watch some moron appeaser speak bull shit, no, I'll heed the words of Jefferson and his through thought to refuse surrender to these fuckin animals.
I hope a little history lesson opens your eyes...

In 1786, Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli's ambassador to Great Britain. They asked this 'diplomat' by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved her citizens and why the Muslims held such hostility toward this new nation, with which neither Tripoli nor any of the other Barbary Coast nations had any previous contact. The answer was quite revealing. Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja (the ambassador) replied that Islam:

"Was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur'an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Congress authorized Jefferson to have the US ships seize all vessels and goods that belonged to the Pasha and anything else deemed necessary. As they saw the US was actually committed to the fight, Algiers and Tunis quickly abandoned the war and allegiance to Tripoli. Obviously, the US won the war.

I am not an expert on that particular conflict, but I have a strong suspicion that the motivations were more complex than merely religious fundamentalism.  But even if the Tripoli attack on American ships over two hundred years ago had been motivated purely by religion, what are you attempting to prove by citing a single incident hundreds of years ago?  By that logic, I could cite the Crusades and show how evil modern day Christians are.

What actual researchers do is they study many incidents of terrorism, not a single isolated case, to determine if the attacks follow any sort of pattern and what the general motivating factors are.

That is what Robert Pape has done in his extensive research on the subject.  Why don't ISIS and Al Qaeda attack Switzerland?  There are many countries around the world that are libertine in attitude, allow women to vote and go to college, and have social values that are contrary to Islamic teaching.  Yet, with few exceptions, Muslim terrorists don't launch attacks against them.  The victims of terrorist attacks in recent history have almost exclusively been nations that have either been intervening in the home nations of the terrorists, or were providing material support for these interventions.

Another surefire way to know that the terrorists who have launched these attacks were not motivated by Islamic fundamentalism is that they did not live in accordance with Islamic teaching themselves.  The pilots in the 9/11 attacks spent much of their US stay visited strip clubs, doing drugs, paying prostitutes and generally living hedonistic lives.  If they were serious about their religion and it's teachings, why were they breaking all the social tenets of their faith?

This recent attack was perpetrated by a man who was born in the United States.  His parents moved from Afghanistan.  He was radicalized through ISIS propaganda on the internet.  And what was this propaganda?  Terrorist recruitment propaganda has almost always focused on showing the harm to innocent lives from US military intervention.  They show children dying from drone strikes and things like that.  This is why people are motivated to join ISIS and Al Qaeda.  People become appalled by the consequences to innocent civilians due to US foreign policy and they want to strike back any way they can.

It is NOT "blaming us" to admit to the motivating factor in the minds of most modern-day Islamic terrorists.

It also shouldn't be a surprise that most people who nominally belong to a certain religion don't particularly take seriously all, or even most, of it's teachings.  Just looking at the actions of Al Qaeda and ISIS members should make that clear.  This is why appealing to the words of Mohammed or one passage or another from the Quran is not very persuasive.  Most people have other motivations and use religion as a cover or a pretext.

This recent attacker was gay, okay?  The last I heard, homosexuality is frowned upon by fundamentalist Islam.  And he made it explicitly clear why he killed all those people.  He wants the US government to stop occupying and bombing his home country of Afghanistan.

I don't know why you are afraid to look at that video.  Pape is a social scientist and researcher of the highest order.  He is not a partisan in any way.  He has been attempting to get through to people like you about the motivations for suicide terrorism for a decade, yet you seem content to stick your head in the sand and be willfully ignorant of crucial information.  And, to be clear, this ignorance about what this terrorism problem is really about has led to the deaths of many innocent Americans and you are putting many more Americans at risk by not understanding what Pape and others have been trying to tell us.

[jrodefeld]

Here we go with another Liberal Tarian who blames the US for the worlds ills....or rather us "Neo Cons". These people just don't get it. The world is a bad place full of bad people who hate the USA because they are taught to do so.

'We" did not create terrorism or terrorists....these people create themselves, include Usama Bin Laudin in that.....he has always hated the US and refused US aide in Afghanistan. If anyone is responsible for UBL and the rise of middle east terrorism it is the former soviet Union who set things into motion with the invasion of Afghanistan and currently what is left of the USSR, ie Russia who empowers Iran towards nuclear arms.

Libral-tarian Idiots like Ron Paul and his Son Rand should know better but since they don't that's why they get 1% of the vote.

Last; Muslim immigrants don't assimilate well into our culture, this guy had a whole host of issues and was messed up in the head to begin with, add to that the current anti American counter culture fostered by the leftists to include the Govt and this is the result.

Expect more of the same...a lot of these shootings are Copy Cat types of deals.

This is so devoid of factual information it is scary.  Our government and the CIA literally, directly created and funded Osama bin Laden and radical Islamic groups as a deliberate anti-Soviet Union Cold War strategy.  Our government under Ronald Reagan supported the Mujahideen, funded radical madrassa schools because they thought they'd provide a bulwark against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  The Mujahideen became Al Qaeda a decade latter.

The proliferation of radical Islamic groups throughout the Middle East, in modern times at least, can be directly traced to US military interventions and US funding. 

Here is a short article written around the time Osama bin Laden was killed:

 He was our kind of guy until he wasn't, an ally during the Cold War until he no longer served our purposes. The problem with Osama bin Laden was not that he was a fanatical holy warrior; we liked his kind just fine as long as the infidels he targeted were not us but Russians and the secular Afghans in power in Kabul whom the Soviets backed.


But when bin Laden turned against us, he morphed into a figure of evil incarnate, and now three decades after we first decided to use him and other imported Muslim zealots for our Cold War purposes, we feel cleansed by his death of any responsibility for his carnage. We may make mistakes but we are never in the wrong. USA! USA!

Kind of like when the CIA assigned the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro and the Mafiosi turned out to have their own agenda, or when Pentagon experts anointed the Catholic nutcase Ngo Dinh Diem as the George Washington of predominately Buddhist South Vietnam before they felt the need to execute him. A similar fate was suffered by Saddam Hussein, whose infamous Baghdad handshake with Donald Rumsfeld stamped him as our agent in the war to defeat the ayatollahs of Iran.

Awkward, I know, to point out that bin Laden was another of those monsters of our creation, one of those Muslim "freedom fighters" that President Ronald Reagan celebrated for having responded to the CIA's call to kill the Soviets in Afghanistan. That holy crusade against infidels was financed by Saudi Arabia and armed with US weapons to oppose a secular Afghan government with Soviet backing but before Soviet troops had crossed the border. In short, it was an ill-fated and unjustifiable intervention by the US into another nation's internal affairs.

Don't trust me on this one. Just read the 1996 memoir by former Carter administration security official and current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a book touted by its publisher as exposing "Carter's never-before-revealed covert support to Afghan mujahedeen—six months before the Soviets invaded." This dismissal of the claimed Cold War excuse for the backing of the mujahedeen was acknowledged by President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, when asked by the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur if he regretted "having given arms and advice to future terrorists," answered that he did not: "What is most important to the history of the world? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

That was said three years before some of those "stirred-up Muslims" like bin Laden and the alleged 9/11 plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—whom bin Laden financed, and whom he first met in Afghanistan when both were US-backed fighters—launched their deadly attacks on the United States. The cost of the American response to that assault has spiraled upward for a decade. A defense budget that the first President Bush had attempted to cut drastically because the Cold War was over was pushed to its highest peacetime level by the second President Bush and now with three wars under way equals the military expenditures of all of the world's other nations combined.

But while Libya and Iraq have oil to exploit, what will be the argument for continuing the interminable war in Afghanistan now that bin Laden is gone? White House national security experts had already conceded that there were fewer than a hundred scattered al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan, and that these were incapable of mounting anti-US attacks. Clearly, what remains of al-Qaida is no longer based in Afghanistan, as the location of bin Laden's hiding place, in a military hub in Pakistan, demonstrated. Nor is there any indication that the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan are anything but homegrown fighters with motives and leadership far removed from the designs of the late bin Laden.

It is time to concede that the mess that is Afghanistan is a result of our cynical uses of those people and their land for purposes that have nothing to do with their needs or aspirations. Even if bin Laden had been killed in some forlorn cave in Afghanistan, it would not have made the case that he was using that country as a base. But the fact that he was in an area amply populated by the very Pakistani military and intelligence forces that we have armed, and that should have been able to easily nab him, gives the lie to the claim that Afghanistan is vital territory to be secured in what two administrations have now chosen to define as the war on terrorism. 

http://www.thenation.com/article/osama-bin-laden-monster-our-own-creation/

This article was written by Robert Scheer and is called "Osama bin Laden:  A Monster of Our Own Creation".

So when you say things like "We didn't create terrorism" and "Osama bin Laden has always hated the United States" you are wrong on both counts.  Osama liked the United States just fine when the CIA was funding him and our government supported him, and radical Mujahideen members, against the Soviet Union. 

Look, if you get a kick out of hating Islam, then knock yourself out.  That's your thing.  But you have to accept the facts.  The modern day terrorist problem that the United States is facing is entirely a product of decades of US military intervention.  The CIA calls this "blowback". 

Take off your partisan goggles for a few minutes and just look at the objective facts.  Watch the Robert Pape video, learn about the history of the US government funding and supporting the Mujahideen and radical madrassa schools during the 1980s.

[supsalemgr]

This is so devoid of factual information it is scary.  Our government and the CIA literally, directly created and funded Osama bin Laden and radical Islamic groups as a deliberate anti-Soviet Union Cold War strategy.  Our government under Ronald Reagan supported the Mujahideen, funded radical madrassa schools because they thought they'd provide a bulwark against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  The Mujahideen became Al Qaeda a decade latter.

The proliferation of radical Islamic groups throughout the Middle East, in modern times at least, can be directly traced to US military interventions and US funding. 

Here is a short article written around the time Osama bin Laden was killed:

http://www.thenation.com/article/osama-bin-laden-monster-our-own-creation/

This article was written by Robert Scheer and is called "Osama bin Laden:  A Monster of Our Own Creation".

So when you say things like "We didn't create terrorism" and "Osama bin Laden has always hated the United States" you are wrong on both counts.  Osama liked the United States just fine when the CIA was funding him and our government supported him, and radical Mujahideen members, against the Soviet Union. 

Look, if you get a kick out of hating Islam, then knock yourself out.  That's your thing.  But you have to accept the facts.  The modern day terrorist problem that the United States is facing is entirely a product of decades of US military intervention.  The CIA calls this "blowback". 

Take off your partisan goggles for a few minutes and just look at the objective facts.  Watch the Robert Pape video, learn about the history of the US government funding and supporting the Mujahideen and radical madrassa schools during the 1980s.

One question. So what motivated the Moors to invade and enslave southern Europe 1,000 years ago?