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

[Billy's bayonet]

Do you understand that I am not a leftist in any way?  I am a libertarian anarchist which means I believe in individual self-ownership, universal non-aggression and the complete abolition of the State.

That explains a lot,

I would like to quote you on something:

"What do we care what irrational fantasies float in the heads of Madmen"

Your Liberal-tarian belief in "Universal non agression and the abolition of the State is just as irrational and as much as a fantasy. That makes you a sort of madman a well....doesn't it. 

But Thanks for playing.

[Solar]

Let me ask you a very simple question.  Do you think that all human beings should be judged by the same ethical standard?  Surely you're not a liberal moral relativist, right?

If you, like me, believe in a consistent moral standard by which all human beings should be judged, then you have to look at terrorist attacks that kill innocent Americans and US imposed sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s that killed more than 500,000 women and children (and this on the low end of the estimates) through the same consistent moral prism.

I condemn all acts of aggression against peaceful people.  I am a libertarian anarchist after all and I view all human beings as self-owners with natural rights.  Your prejudice is clouding your judgment.  You are happy to condemn every inhuman atrocity committed by Muslim terrorists, yet you seem blind to the atrocities the US government has perpetrated against the Muslim world.  And whether or not you consider these societies "backwards" is immaterial.  Innocent children and women have been killed by the millions over the decades by US wars of aggression, puppet dictators, sanctions and drone bombings.

Isn't that sweet, you implant your ideals on individuals that in no way share your end goals.
These people want to either destroy, or enslave you, you continuously ignore the reality that not all societies share the idea of liberty and freedom, that many M/E nations prefer a dictatorship, they function under heavy rule.

I know you get all agitated that I am somehow "blaming America" for pointing this out and holding US military personnel to the same moral standard as I do anyone else, but you ought to snap out of this simplistic framework.  I blame aggression.  I blame the human act of unprovoked violence against other humans.  Judged with a consistent moral standard.

Not at all, I'm pissed that we never commit to winning. Either we takeover the place, or leave completely, there is no middle ground with the Muscum animal, a people that see women as chattle lower than that of a farm animal, treat boys as sex slaves and girls in many parts of the world to have their clits removed, depriving them of Gods gift.

I NEVER said that the US is responsible for all violence that Muslims commit against other Muslims.  What I am saying is that US foreign policy is largely responsible for why radical terrorist groups gain new recruits and launch suicide attacks against American civilians.  And that our foreign policy in the middle east over the past thirty years has created more terrorism and made Americans less safe as a result.  And, more fundamentally, it has been largely immoral judged on its own.  An unprovoked attack against a sovereign nation, regardless of what one thinks about the internal politics of that nation, is inherently immoral.

And you'd be wrong as usual. Take a look at our immigration policy and tell me it hasn't changed in the last 30 years. But then, I doubt you've been around long enough to do a side by side comparison to the previous 60 years, which is why your world view is so skewed, you only know what some idiot professor tells you to think.

And, lastly, I want to say something about that supposed Iran quote about "wiping off the map".  It's funny to me that you cannot even get your phony talking points right.  The alleged quote was not that the United States should be wiped off the map but that Israel should be wiped off the map.  And even this was never said.  This has been a myth propagated by Neo-con warmongers, neo-liberal interventionists and AIPAC lobbyists who have been pushing propaganda against Iran for several decades.

Let me quote a reliable article on the subject to enlighten you:

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025

My bad, I mixed up quotes, I meant 'Death To America', but now that you bring up the lie of it being a hoax, the fact is, that was a literal translation, but seeing how the word map was misattributed to the word pages, one can claim the quote false, when in fact the rhetoric remains intact.
But to my original point, that being these muscum call for our destruction seems to be a point you want to ignore.
Khamenei calls 'Death to America' as Kerry hails progress on nuke deal
http://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-calls-death-to-america-as-kerry-hails-progress-on-nuke-deal/

As the Guardian columnist Jonathan Steele explained in 2006, a more direct translation of Mr. Ahmadinejad's remarks would be: "this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time," echoing a statement once made by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In an English translation three days after the speech in 2005, the Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri — which was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer — rendered the sentence in a similar way: "Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.'"
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/israeli-minister-agrees-ahmadinejad-never-said-israel-must-be-wiped-off-the-map/?_r=0

[jrodefeld]

Your entire point seems to be Christians and the west are responsible for the actions of Muslims. My question is pretty straight forward. What did Christians and the west do to motivate the actions to invade and enslave southern Europe?

Nope, that's not my point at all.  My point is that US and allied forces military intervention into the middle east is the primary reason why we face the continued threat of terrorist attacks.  Islam will continue to have it's own internal problems, but those problems cannot justify our military killing innocent people and interfering with the sovereignty of nations that haven't attacked us.

[jrodefeld]

Well maybe a little progress has been made, your first few posts concentrated on how terrorism was the U.S. fault, at least now we learn even without the U.S., muslins would still be killing. However you said they would be killing each other, which is true, but they would still be killing everywhere else too. After hundreds of years of killing its kinda hard to quit cold turkey. The links are too many to list again but are there in the other posts if you care.

"Killing" and "terrorism" are distinct issues.  Terrorism is a concerted political strategy.  The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and don't harm others.  There are currently more than three million Muslims living in the United States and they have not, as a group, proven to be any more prone to crime and violence than any other group.

Most of the extremist strains of Islam originate from the Middle East and therefore other socioeconomic and political factors must be considered to explain the radical behavior.  There are fundamentalist interpretations of all religions that people use to justify atrocities.

[jrodefeld]

1. Of course there are more terror attack NOW than 30 years ago, 30 years ago we had an aggressive security and law enforcement policy, plus we had Presidents that weren't trying to facilitate the destruction of America. Then again 30 years ago the INTERNET was something new and not being used in cyber terrorism and RECRUITMENT. Plus the national conciousness wouldn't allow it. NOw with a President that comments on Ramadan instead of D Day anniversary what do you expect?

2.Irrational fantasies play out to 50 people killed in a bar and 19 fanatics flying airplanes into buildings killing 3,000 people. We should just ignore this and shrug it off right?

3. How should we react to terrorist attacks? (this should be good folks.... )

4. Once again I think terrorist recruitment has been facilitated by the internet and by the facilitation of the current US Govt administration, importing thousands of Syrian refugee's and letting down our guard on the Southern border to allow infiltration is more of an incentive than US Policy. WHEN YOU INVITE THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TO THE WHITE HOUSE FOR TEA AND CAKES WHAT TYPE OF MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING YOUR ENEMY?

5. Current US Policy is not making us or the rest of the world safe, it encourages those who wish to harm us and apologizes to radical Islam....won't even use the words....

I'll tell you how we should respond to terrorist attacks.  We should specifically target and apprehend those directly responsible for the plotting and execution of a terrorist attack, capture them alive if possible and give them an open public trial.  The sentence, if convicted, should almost always be either life in prison or death.

After 9/11, former Congressman Ron Paul proposed issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, which was written into the Constitution as a means of targeting a non-State enemy, to deputize special forces or private contractors to find, apprehend or kill Osama bin Laden.

This makes a lot of sense.  What we should NOT do is to invade and occupy a foreign country, overthrow their government and engage in nation building.  Our military forces are the wrong tool for targeting a small group of criminals.

We should listen to the rationale given by the terrorist groups as to why they attacked us.  If we can learn what tends to radicalize people to hate the United States, and we can change our actions to be less antagonistic, then we ought to do so.

After we apprehend or kill those responsible for the terrorist attacks, we must leave immediately from the foreign nation and grant the people of that nation their sovereignty and right to self-determination.

[jrodefeld]

That explains a lot,

I would like to quote you on something:

"What do we care what irrational fantasies float in the heads of Madmen"

Your Liberal-tarian belief in "Universal non agression and the abolition of the State is just as irrational and as much as a fantasy. That makes you a sort of madman a well....doesn't it. 

But Thanks for playing.

What I believe is that aggression against peaceful people is immoral.  That is all.  Do you really disagree with this?  You think that it is morally justified to initiate violence against a peaceful person?

Believing that aggression is immoral does not mean I think that all humans in the foreseeable future will be peaceful and not commit aggression.  Just as most rational people think that murder is wrong, and should be against the law, even though we don't think there will ever be a time when no murder will occur.

Therefore the ideal way to organize society would be through voluntary contribution to governmental agencies, police, courts, public works, social services, etc.  Therefore, no State.  Short of that, we want to limit the power of the State as much as possible.  If we must have a State, then let it be a Night Watchman State that provides for the common defense, protects liberty and property and provides a court system to adjudicate disputes.

If you don't accept the non aggression principle, then it is incumbent upon you to justify the use of violence against peaceful people. 

[je_freedom]

Islam is going to attack America whether we attack them or not.
They attack everyone.  It's who they are.  It's what they do.

The U.S. government's attacks on radical Muslims are NOT
to "bring freedom to that part of the world."
That's just war propaganda.

One very likely reason is for the global ruling clique
(based largely on Wall Street, in London, and a few other places)
to reconstruct the Middle East in the image of
the reconstruction of America (especially the monetary system)
they foisted on us in 1913.

Also, rational people usually think that, when there is conflict,
a person or party would join one side and try to help them win.
The global ruling clique doesn't think that way.
How they work is well illustrated in World War I:

They infiltrate and manipulate as many sides as they can!
They try to maneuver everyone into fighting one another
and wearing one another out.
The global ruling clique is not so much about making anyone win
as they are about making EVERYBODY lose!

That's what they did in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Croatia (Catholic), Serbia (Eastern Orthodox), and Bosnia (Muslim)
were all goaded into attacking one another
to grind ALL of them down,
so they would have to go into debt to the international bankers
to rebuild their countries.
It's conquest through debt.

That's what the global ruling clique is doing today.
They're buying ISIS oil on the black market to keep them viable,
while they're promoting "neo-cons" in America
to keep us spending ourselves into debt with war expenses,
and to erode our national spirit by making us "war weary."

How Barry The B*****d helped them is
he pulled America out of Iraq abruptly, INTENTIONALLY destabilizing it,
to create a crisis, so they could wear down America some more.

The Illegitimate One's  Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel put it this way:
"Never let a good crisis go to waste." 
You can enact change in times of crisis
that people would never accept in normal times.

The global ruling clique is doing to us again
what they did in the Vietnam era:
getting us into war, and then not letting us win!

That's one reason the ruling clique hates Trump so much.
He intends to actually win the war against ISIS!
instead of continuing Bathhouse Barry's "pin prick" airstrikes.
HilLIARy (or Biden, or any other Democrat) would continue the same.
Putin and Trump might make a good team
at bringing peace and stability to the world.

[walkstall]

"Killing" and "terrorism" are distinct issues.  Terrorism is a concerted political strategy.  The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and don't harm others.  There are currently more than three million Muslims living in the United States and they have not, as a group, proven to be any more prone to crime and violence than any other group.

Most of the extremist strains of Islam originate from the Middle East and therefore other socioeconomic and political factors must be considered to explain the radical behavior.  There are fundamentalist interpretations of all religions that people use to justify atrocities.

I hope the next 1000 move in next door to you. 

[Billy's bayonet]

What I believe is that aggression against peaceful people is immoral.  That is all.  Do you really disagree with this?  You think that it is morally justified to initiate violence against a peaceful person?

Believing that aggression is immoral does not mean I think that all humans in the foreseeable future will be peaceful and not commit aggression.  Just as most rational people think that murder is wrong, and should be against the law, even though we don't think there will ever be a time when no murder will occur.

Therefore the ideal way to organize society would be through voluntary contribution to governmental agencies, police, courts, public works, social services, etc.  Therefore, no State.  Short of that, we want to limit the power of the State as much as possible.  If we must have a State, then let it be a Night Watchman State that provides for the common defense, protects liberty and property and provides a court system to adjudicate disputes.

If you don't accept the non aggression principle, then it is incumbent upon you to justify the use of violence against peaceful people.

No I don't condone violence against peaceful people....but terrorists and certain outlaws do....That's why I believe in killing them. You can't reason with them, you cant dismiss them or ignore them as you suggest, that only emboldens them, the only effective way to deal with them is to kill them. Which I beleive in doing most efficiently and effectively....not playing around with them as we are doing now.

Like most conservatives I am a realist, and as a realist your utopian concept of a Statesless State where people just live in harmony and stop their aggression will NEVER HAPPEN.

I understand man's true nature.....

You Don't.

[jrodefeld]

No I don't condone violence against peaceful people....but terrorists and certain outlaws do....That's why I believe in killing them. You can't reason with them, you cant dismiss them or ignore them as you suggest, that only emboldens them, the only effective way to deal with them is to kill them. Which I beleive in doing most efficiently and effectively....not playing around with them as we are doing now.

Like most conservatives I am a realist, and as a realist your utopian concept of a Statesless State where people just live in harmony and stop their aggression will NEVER HAPPEN.

I understand man's true nature.....

You Don't.

I would like you to read this short article by libertarian author and scholar Sheldon Richman:

After the terrorist violence in Brussels many people, including Barack Obama, said we should not change our way of life and live in fear because that is what terrorists want. Maybe, but is that all they want? It seems that something important is left out of the story. In the classical model of terrorism, instilling fear (along with causing death and injury) is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end.

Terrorists don't necessarily get a kick out creating carnage and fear (though it is possible). Primarily they want the survivors' fear converted into action aimed at changing their government's policy. Thus terrorism, if it is to have any meaning, is a political, not a sadistic, act. In the paradigmic case a weak nonstate group, unable to resist a state's military or to change its policy directly, terrorizes the civilian population of that state in the hope it will demand a change in foreign or domestic policy. (Let's leave aside for this discussion that terrorism has been strategically (re)defined by the United States and its allies such that it can apply only to their adversaries, even when they attack military targets instead of civilians.)

It's not hard to fathom why officials and pundits do not acknowledge the full story of terrorism: it would draw attention to what the U.S. government and allied states have long been doing to people in the Muslim world. Nearly all Americans seem to think it's a sheer coincidence that terrorism is most likely to be committed by people who profess some form of Islam and that the U.S. military has for decades been bombing, droning, occupying, torturing, etc. in multiple Islamic countries. Or perhaps they think U.S.-inflicted violence is just a defensive response to earlier terrorism. (I might be giving people too much credit by assuming they even know the U.S. government is doing any of this.) When the U.S. military isn't wreaking havoc directly, the U.S. government is underwriting and arming tyrants like those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere. And just to complete the picture, the U.S. government fully backs the Israeli state, which has oppressed Palestinians and occupied their land for many decades.

All this is what Islamist terrorists say they seek revenge for (more here), and the U.S. government acknowledges this. (That does not excuse violence against noncombatants, of course.)

But telling the full story about the terrorists' objectives might inadvertently prompt a fresh look – maybe even a reevaluation – of America's atrocious foreign policy. The ruling elite and the military-industrial complex would not want that.

Since questioning and changing U.S. foreign policy are out of the question, the pundits and "terrorism experts" look for other ways to prevent terrorism. Unsurprisingly, everything they come up with entails violations of our civil liberties. Discussions about "profiling" are featured on cable news channels almost regularly. Should we or should we not profile? Those few who say no are accused of "political correctness," the handy put-down for anyone who is leery about violating privacy or gratuitously insulting whole classes of people.

But let's think about profiling for a moment. As acknowledged, when one hears about public, indiscriminate suicidal violence, such as occurred in Brussels, it is reasonable to wonder if the perpetrators professed some "extreme" variant of Islam. (That doesn't mean another group, say, neo-Nazis and white nationalists, couldn't be the perps, as in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.) But since Islamists come to mind first, that might give us a clue to how to profile. As part of the profiling, why not look for links to countries the U.S. government and its allies bomb, occupy, or otherwise abuse? The media inform us that many of the terrorists in Europe first went to Syria to try to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad (whom the U.S. government wants overthrown), but then came home angry after NATO countries started bombing the Islamic State there and in Iraq, with the inevitable civilian casualties. In some cases Syrian nationals sneaked into Europe through Turkey.

So the perpetrators of the next terrorist act are likely to be Islamists with links to or sympathy for people terrorized by the United States and its allies – namely, in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. But if that kind of profiling makes sense, wouldn't it make even more sense simply to stop inflicting violence on the Muslim world?

I guess that's too simple for our experts.

http://original.antiwar.com/srichman/2016/03/29/what-do-terrorists-want/

What I am trying to explain to you is that the major reason that otherwise moderate Muslims radicalize and join groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda is due to grievances over our foreign policy.  By continuing our interventions, drone bombings, military occupations and so forth in the Middle East, we are insuring that we are creating more terrorists than we could possibly kill.

You really don't seem to understand the extent of the brutality that the US has unleashed against the Muslim world over the past several decades. 

According to reliable sources, Bush and Obama's drone attacks have killed far more innocent civilians than terrorist suspects.  In fact, 90% of those killed were not even suspected of being terrorists.

Do you think it is morally acceptable to support a program that kills 9 innocent people for every 1 terrorist?  And those claimed to be terrorists are really just alleged terrorists, since they haven't been convicted in a court of law.

Or how about Clinton's sanctions against Iran in the 1990s?  How can you endorse a policy that directly caused the deaths of 500,000 women and children?  Or do you think that children who by accident of birth happened to be born in a certain country are somehow guilty by association and their lives have no value?

Policies like these create a great deal of anger and resentment throughout the entire Muslim world.  It boosts recruitment to radical terrorist organizations and makes Americans far less safe.

Faisal Shahzad, who tried to ignite a car bomb in Times Square, said in court:

"I want to plead guilty, and I'm going to plead guilty 100 times over because, until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims, and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that."

Richard Reid, who tried to ignite a shoe bomb aboard an airliner, told his sentencing judge:

"With regards to what you said about killing innocent people, I will say one thing. Your government has killed two million children in Iraq.... Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons."


Virtually all terrorist attackers in recent years have said similar things.  Hardly any of them mention wanted to get 72 virgins in paradise, or anything of that nature.  The crux of their motivations, in their own words, have to do with getting revenge over our foreign interventions into their countries.

Why won't you listen?

[Possum]

"Killing" and "terrorism" are distinct issues.  Terrorism is a concerted political strategy.  The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and don't harm others.  There are currently more than three million Muslims living in the United States and they have not, as a group, proven to be any more prone to crime and violence than any other group.

Most of the extremist strains of Islam originate from the Middle East and therefore other socioeconomic and political factors must be considered to explain the radical behavior.  There are fundamentalist interpretations of all religions that people use to justify atrocities.

In this case, terrorism is a religious strategy not political unless you consider sharia law a political movement. When there is a terrorist attack here there always seem to be several "peaceful other muslims" who knew about the attack to come who did nothing. They may not have pulled the trigger, but dont try to stop it either, not all that peaseful is it. Your post seem to be stuck on why the U.S. is to blame, yet do not explain all of the other muslin attacks around the world, is that the U.S. fault also? It also does not explain what do they want to accomplish, the terrorist claim they are to kill infidels, is that our fault too? (yes I know you do not consider yourself to be part of "us or our")

[supsalemgr]

Nope, that's not my point at all.  My point is that US and allied forces military intervention into the middle east is the primary reason why we face the continued threat of terrorist attacks.  Islam will continue to have it's own internal problems, but those problems cannot justify our military killing innocent people and interfering with the sovereignty of nations that haven't attacked us.

You still have not answered my question. That in and of itself means you are just posting BS.

[walkstall]

You still have not answered my question. That in and of itself means you are just posting BS.

Your entire point seems to be Christians and the west are responsible for the actions of Muslims. My question is pretty straight forward. What did Christians and the west do to motivate the actions to invade and enslave southern Europe?

[johnwk]

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

The motivation for Islamic terrorism is found in the Quran.  There is no mystery about it, e.g.,

"Kill the idolaters wherever you find them, and capture them, and blockade them, and watch for them at every lookout..." (Quran 9:5).

JWK



Obama's mission from the very start has been ___ death to America by a thousand cuts.

[jrodefeld]

In this case, terrorism is a religious strategy not political unless you consider sharia law a political movement. When there is a terrorist attack here there always seem to be several "peaceful other muslims" who knew about the attack to come who did nothing. They may not have pulled the trigger, but dont try to stop it either, not all that peaseful is it. Your post seem to be stuck on why the U.S. is to blame, yet do not explain all of the other muslin attacks around the world, is that the U.S. fault also? It also does not explain what do they want to accomplish, the terrorist claim they are to kill infidels, is that our fault too? (yes I know you do not consider yourself to be part of "us or our")

Nearly all of the countries other than the United States that have suffered terrorist attacks over the past decade have been militarily involved in the middle east or are part of the United States coalition during the so-called "war on terror". 

One of the main strategic goals of Islamic suicide terrorism is to incite a change in foreign policy in the targeted country.  They attacked civilians in democratic nations with the goal that these civilian populations recognize the blowback that their countries foreign policy has created and put pressure on their governments to change these policies.

You've sort of made my point when you mention that the otherwise moderate and peaceful Muslims don't seem to be doing as much as they should to speak out against and try to actively prevent these terrorist attacks.  Anger and resentment about our foreign policy is rampant throughout the Muslim world, and outside of it for that matter.  Many who do not believe that it is proper to wage Jihad against the infidels purely out of religious principle nevertheless part of them wants revenge for the atrocities the United States military has wrought against their families and country. 

Our foreign policy makes moderate Muslims sympathetic to the radical terrorist element.  If we remove this antagonizing military presence and stop meddling in their affairs, the moderate elements of Islam will have much more incentive to reform their own societies and cultures.  We ought to give them the right of self determination so they can work out their own problems without our constant interference.