Why do they hate us?

KymarFye · Apr 21, 2003

Quote from KymarFye:

Victor Davis Hanson on THE ARAB DISCONNECT:

... religion mixed in with government, sexual apartheid practiced, tribalism promoted over meritocracy, freedom squashed,

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Quote from Madison:

was this true in Iraq?
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In terms of religion mixed in with government and the practice of "sexual apartheid," Baathist Iraq was atypically secular and egalitarian for the region: Still, after having spent years repressing and subverting religious organizations in Iraq, Saddam finally turned, like Stalin, to an attempt to manipulate and exploit religion - having even gone so far, in an attempt to demonstrate his religiosity, as having a copy of the Koran written in his own blood, adding Koranic verse to the Iraqi flag (supposedly in his own handwriting), having new mosques built with architectural features dominated by tributes to his grandiosity. Despite these gestures, and later appeals for "jihad" against the Americans, in terms of relative religiosity, Hussein's Baathism probably qualifies as atypically low for the neighborhood.

As for the other two qualifiers - tribalism and the squashing of freedom - the Baath regime more than compensated for its superficial liberality or modernity in other areas: The regime and security forces were dominated by Saddam's own Tikriti clan, and tribalism elsewhere was manipulated as a means of social control.

As for the squashing of freedom, is there any need even to go into this one? You also left out "statism preferred over open markets" and "governments created by censorship and terror rather than votes" - categories off Hanson's checklist in which Iraq was a contender where not regional champion against strong competition.

AAAintheBeltway · Apr 21, 2003

Quote from msfe:

The American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as "a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Sound familiar?
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We have free elections every four years, actually every two years for Congress. Dictatorships do not.

Babak · Apr 21, 2003

Quote from msfe:

The American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as "a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Sound familiar?
More...

Although there is an absence of a dictatorship, I think you're thinking of Germany, and France where there is no clear line where business starts and government ends. As well, you will find belligerent nationalism alive and well. So well in fact that they stand in front of the potential liberation of an oppressed people.

Now quick run to the Guardian for an article!!

harrytrader · Apr 21, 2003

The brainwashing by the medias either US or French would be very funny if it doesn't serve as a propaganda to maintain the opposition among the people ! This is an article from Alain Minc, a french pro-american, which shows the results of a survey from the Franco-American Fundation:

"A detailed study in Mai 2000 conducted by the franco-american fundation shows a very different reality [than the one medias and the french intellectuals want the french people to believe]. 41% of french declare having sympathy for the United States, only 9% declare having antipathy and 50% declare to be neutral."

(from the original in french here http://240plan.ovh.net/~catallax/article.php?sid=263

"Une Ã©tude dÃ©taillÃ©e, rÃ©alisÃ©e en mai 2000 Ã l'instigation de la Fondation franco-amÃ©ricaine, montre une rÃ©alitÃ© bien diffÃ©rente. 41% des FranÃ§ais dÃ©clarent Ã©prouver de la sympathie pour les Etats-Unis, 9% seulement de l'antipathie et 50% s'affirment neutres." )

During the french election, some people from the right-wing extremists were also exciting people in forums. I suspect that there are some people who also play this role at present in US and french forums.

harrytrader · Apr 21, 2003

European Elites has always been socialist in mentality. But US is joining the camp:
http://www.essential.org/features/corporatesocialism.html

What is corporate socialism if not the alliance of governement and the big business and then according to this dictionary it a disguised word for the nazism.

When I read the methods of national socialism what is striking is that they prepare their plan for dozens of years - careful plan like in trading haha - that's why perhaps the first nazism during world war II was just a prepared pause before the third step. As these guys are mad occultists they worship the number 3.

For mystics just remember that Bush declared the war on
"the 3rd day of the 3rd week of the 3rd month of the 3rd year of the 3rd century (Millennium) "
according to this guy wharf :
http://www.asksollog.com/2003/0401.shtml

Even if you don't believe in mystic stuffs Bush seems to and this confirm that his membership to the satanist sect of Skull & Bones make him apply a plan that one can guess it is not for the sake of Humanity !

Quote from Babak:

Although there is an absence of a dictatorship, I think you're thinking of Germany, and France where there is no clear line where business starts and government ends. As well, you will find belligerent nationalism alive and well. So well in fact that they stand in front of the potential liberation of an oppressed people.

Now quick run to the Guardian for an article!!
More...

KymarFye · Apr 21, 2003

The Collapse of the Dream Palaces
From the April 28, 2003 issue: Mass destruction of mistaken ideas.
by David Brooks
04/28/2003, Volume 008, Issue 32

EXCERPT:

Now that the war in Iraq is over, we'll find out how many people around the world are capable of facing unpleasant facts. For the events of recent months confirm that millions of human beings are living in dream palaces, to use Fouad Ajami's phrase. They are living with versions of reality that simply do not comport with the way things are. They circulate and recirculate conspiracy theories, myths, and allegations with little regard for whether or not these fantasies are true. And the events of the past month have exposed them as the falsehoods they are.

There is first the dream palace of the Arabists. In this dream palace, it is always the twelfth century, and every Western incursion into the Middle East is a Crusade. The Americans are always invaders and occupiers. In this dream palace, any Arab who hates America is a defender of Arab honor, so Osama bin Laden becomes an Arab Joe Louis, and Saddam Hussein, who probably killed more Muslims than any other person in the history of the world, becomes the champion of the Muslim cause.

In this dream palace, the problems of the Arab world are never the Arabs' fault. It is always the Jews, the Zionists, the Americans, and the imperialists who are to blame. This palace reeks of conspiracies--of Israelis who blew up the World Trade Center, of Jews who put the blood of Muslim children in their pastries, of Americans who fake images of Iraqis celebrating in Baghdad in order to fool the world. In this palace, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi information minister, was taken seriously because he told the Arabists what they wanted to hear.

In this palace, old men really do shoot down Apache helicopters with AK-47s. Saddam's torture chambers are invisible, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis he murdered go unmentioned, the fedayeen who shot their own refugees are ignored, but every civilian casualty caused by an American bomb is displayed in all its bloody agony. In this dream palace, rage is always the proper emotion, victimhood the pleasure most indulged. Other people--Iraqis, Palestinians, suicide bombers--are always called upon to fight the infidels to the death so that the satellite TV-watching Arabists, safe in their living rooms, can have something to cheer about.

Then there is the dream palace of the Europeans. In this palace, America is a bigger threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein. America is the land of rotting cities, the electric chair, serial killers, gun-crazed hunters, shallow materialists, religious nuts, savage capitalists, the all-powerful Jewish lobby, the oil lobby, the military-industrial complex, and bloodthirsty cowboy-presidents.

In this dream palace, the Hollywood clichÃ©s are taken to be real. George Bush really is Rambo, Clint Eastwood, and John Wayne rolled into one. American life really is "NYPD Blue" and "Baywatch." In this dream palace, Oliver Stone is as trustworthy as the Washington Post, Michael Moore accurately depicts the American soul, "Dr. Strangelove" is a textbook of American government, and Noam Chomsky tells it like it is.

In the European dream palace, Americans are terminally naive, filled with crazy notions like the belief that Arabs are capable of democracy. In this vision of reality, Americans are at once childish, selfish, and trigger-happy, but Arabs live just this side of savagery. Any action that might rile them will cause the Arab street to explode, and will lead to a thousand more bin Ladens. In this dream palace, history is tragic, and teaches us it is always prudent to do nothing--to do nothing about Bosnia, to do nothing about Kosovo, to do nothing about Rwanda, to do nothing about the slow-motion holocaust unleashed in Iraq by Saddam.

Finally, there is the dream palace of the American Bush haters. In this dream palace, there is so much contempt for Bush that none is left over for Saddam or for tyranny. Whatever the question, the answer is that Bush and his cronies are evil. What to do about Iraq? Bush is evil. What to do about the economy? Bush is venal. What to do about North Korea? Bush is a hypocrite.

In this dream palace, Bush, Cheney, and a junta of corporate oligarchs stole the presidential election, then declared war on Iraq to seize its oil and hand out the spoils to Halliburton and Bechtel. In this dream palace, the warmongering Likudniks in the administration sit around dreaming of conquests in Syria, Iran, and beyond. In this dream palace, the boy genius Karl Rove hatches schemes to use the Confederate flag issue to win more elections, John Ashcroft wages holy war on American liberties, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and his cabal of neoconservatives long for global empire. In this dream palace, every story of Republican villainy is believed, and all the windows are shuttered with hate.
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http://theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/565jgibg.asp

roe · Apr 21, 2003

Quote from Babak:

Although there is an absence of a dictatorship, I think you're thinking of Germany, and France where there is no clear line where business starts and government ends. As well, you will find belligerent nationalism alive and well. So well in fact that they stand in front of the potential liberation of an oppressed people.

Now quick run to the Guardian for an article!!
More...

Babak,

I am sure the Iraqis will enjoy for a very long time the all too visible "clear line" between the US government and corporations such as Halliburton, Bechtel etc. They believe George Schultz when he talks about the way contracts are dished out and are already busy in the streets celebrating the transparency of the process which prioritised those corporations, as you can observe on CNN and Fox every day.

Sorry MSFE, did not have the time to look up a cut and paste article to back this "original thought", but I am sure your adept Kymarf... will come up with something juicy

KymarFye · Apr 24, 2003

From "Who Is Our Enemy," by Stephen Den Beste

The diseased culture of our enemy suffers from all seven of the deep flaws Ralph Peters identifies as condemning nations to failure in the modern world. Peters makes a convincing case that there is a correlation approaching unity between the extent to which a nation or culture suffers from these flaws and its inability to succeed in the 21st century.

He lists them as follows:

Restrictions on the free flow of information.
The subjugation of women.
Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
Domination by a restrictive religion.
A low valuation of education.
Low prestige assigned to work.

And carrying all seven of these, our enemy is trying to compete in the 21st century footrace with both feet cast into buckets of concrete. They are profoundly handicapped by the very values that they hold most dear and that they believe make them what they are.

The nations and the peoples within the zone of our enemy's culture are complete failures. Their economies are disasters. They make no contribution to the advance of science or engineering. They make no contribution to art or culture. They have no important diplomatic power. They are not respected. Most of their people are impoverished and miserable and filled with resentment, and those who are not impoverished are living a lie.

They hate us. They hate us because our culture is everything theirs is not. Our culture is vibrant and fecund; our economies are successful. Our achievements are magnificent. Our engineering and science are advancing at breathtaking speed. Our people are fat and happy (relatively speaking). We are influential, we are powerful, we are wealthy. "We" are the western democracies, but in particular "we" are the United States, which is the most successful of the western democracies by a long margin. America is the most successful nation in the history of the world, economically and technologically and militarily and even culturally.

***

We're everything that they think they should be, everything they once were, and by our power and success we throw their modern failure into stark contrast, especially because we've gotten to where we are by doing everything their religion says is wrong. We've deeply sinned, and yet we've won. They are forced to compare their own accomplishments to ours because we are the standard of success, and in every important way they come up badly short. In most of the contests it's not just that our score is higher, it's that their score is zero.

They have nothing whatever they can point to that can save face and preserve their egos. In every practical objective way we are better than they are, and they know it.

And since this is a "face" culture, one driven by pride and shame, that is intolerable. Nor is it something we can easily redress. The oft-proposed idea of increasing aid and attempting to eliminate poverty may well help in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, but it will not defuse the hatred of our Arab/Islamic enemies, for it is our success that they hate, not the fruits of that success.

It isn't that they also want to be rich. Indeed, the majority of the most militant members of al Qaeda came from Saudi Arabia, out of comfortable existence. What they want is to stay with their traditional culture and for it to be successful, and that isn't possible. We can make them rich through aid, but we can't make them successful because their failure is not caused by us, but by the deep flaws in their culture. Their culture cannot succeed. It is too deeply and fundamentally crippled.

Everything they think they know says that they should be successful. They once were successful, creating and ruling a great empire, with a rich culture. God says they will be successful; it's right there in the Qur'an. God lays on them the duty to dominate the world, but they can't even dominate their own lands any longer. They face a profound crisis of faith, and it can only resolve one of three ways.

First, the status quo can continue. They can continue to fail, sit in their nations, and accept their plight. By clinging to their culture and their religion they may be ideologically pure, but they will have to continue to live with the shame of being totally unable to compete. Solution one: they can stagnate.

The second thing they can do is to accept that their culture and their religion are actually the problem. They can recognize that they will have to liberalize their culture in order to begin to achieve. They can embrace the modern world, and embrace western ways at least in part. They can break the hold of Islamic teachings; discard Sharia; liberate their women; start to teach science and engineering in their schools instead of the study of the Qur'an; and secularize their societies. Solution two: they can reform.

Some Arab nations have begun to do this, and to the extent that they have they have also started to succeed. But this is unacceptable to the majority; it is literally sinful. It is heresy. What good does it do to succeed in the world if, by so doing, you condemn your soul to hell?

Which leaves only one other way: become relatively competitive by destroying all other cultures which are more capable. You level the playing field by tearing down all the mountains rather than filling in the valleys; you make yourself the tallest by shooting everyone taller than you are. Solution three: they can lash out, fight back.

It's vitally important to understand that this is the reason they're fighting back. It's not to gain revenge for some specific action in the past on our part. It isn't an attempt to influence our foreign policy. Their goal is our destruction, because they can't keep hold on what they have and still think of themselves as being successful as long as we exist and continue to outperform them.
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http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/09/Whoisourenemy.shtml

roe · Apr 24, 2003

Quote from KymarFye:

From "Who Is Our Enemy," by Stephen Den Beste

http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/09/Whoisourenemy.shtml
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Hey KF: can't you stop boring us with your rightwinger crap and come up with some more original thoughts?

KymarFye · Apr 24, 2003

Quote from roe:

Hey KF: can't you stop boring us with your rightwinger crap and come up with some more original thoughts?
More...

guess I'll just have to leave it to original geniuses like yourself