Agreed AU but let’s not blame the victims. It is the political elites who promote the “perpetual warfare” mindset who are the biggest threats to world peace. The people who let themselves be manipulated may be enablers or abettors, but they are not the initiators. Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Netanyahu should all be in the Hague facing charges of crimes against humanity.

Id everyone thought like that, the world would be a much better place. It’s more the way people react to Putin and DAESH that make them a threat to world peace – you’re definitely right about that imo.

People who live their life in fear and let the political elite do anything they like to “protect them” are the biggest threat to world peace, because it is these people who enable the “perpetual warfare” mindset.

As an American I am not willing to let other countries dictate our policies. Yes, we have a cozy relationship with the Saudi ruling family, perhaps the most authoritarian and oppressive regime in the world. And we are continuing to support the Egyptian military that overthrew the democratically elected government. So we are going to allow them to tell us we are the policemen of the world so we should do their bidding? If that was a softball you whiffed.

I do not consider every military action an act of terrorism. But when a country with overwhelming military superiority invades a weak country that is not threatening to first country, then yes, I do regard it as an act of terrorism. Hitler threatened the whole world. he had to be fought. Iraq and Vietnam were threats to nobody, certainly not to us, when we invaded them. Limited action to prevent genocide, as in Bosnia, no.

“And I’m sorry to say it, but I think you exhibit that attitude in your comment. Who appointed us policeman of the world.”

Every country who maintains a small national force and invites the US to set up shop on it’s soil. Every nation whose leaders sit around and say (in private) “someone has to go deal with this – glad the US is ready to send thier kids in to get killed”. These are the people who appoint the US as sherrif.

And so that I can understand you better do you consider every military act an act of terrorism?

Thanks

Great comments Paxton. Let me make a few of my own. Few imagine that the world is made up of white hats and black hats. It’s clear to me that the crisis in Ukraine began as a scuffle between East and West over who gets to make the most money there. Now the West wants to protect its interests and Russia wants to prove that it can’t be mocked. There is no good guy here except maybe simple Ukrainian citizens who just want to raise kids and die of old age.

But to say that there is no good guy is not the same as saying that everyone is equally evil. And that is what you are doing. Most Americans, Kiwis, and Canadians are decent people. Most Christians are decent people. Most Muslims, Hindus, and B’hais are too. But there are a few very crappy human beings mixed in there. And there is differnce between killing declared enemies in an armed conflict and sawing someone’s head off for entertainment because god smiles when you kill the infidel. One is horrific and one is evil. The soldier goes home when everyone holds up thier hands and says no more. The religious fanatic takes advantage of the truce for a few more scalps.

The US is counted on as the world’s police force and we enjoy it. I prefer a more libertarian position but outside of the voting booth no one is asking me. Being the world’s police force affords us access for our ideas and our corporations. And as we do the dirty work other countries benefit without having to participate. It’s a nasty business. There will be plenty more of this. I wish we talked more. I wished we would sit down with Iran next week. I’m happy that we’ve opened Cuba. (Speaking of Cuba, where would you rather be detained: Guantanamo or an ISIS camp?)

I don’t know where you get information but I don’t see anyone pilloring all Muslims as complicit. I see people going all the way around the bend to make sure they explain that other Muslims abhor this evil as much as other right thinking folks. But there is an inherant confusion here that comes out in stats. 86% of Egyptian Muslims (per PEW) believe that people who convert from Islam to another religion should killed. They might exist but I know of no Christian who feels the same way. 90% of Pakistani Muslims want to stone to death those caught commiting adultry (though it seems the men often get off). Again – I don’ think most Hindus or Sihks belive anything close to that. I would be shocked to learn that any Muslim I know feels that way but evidence seems clear that much of the world does.

And I think your argument that

We did invade Iraq, in spite of the opposition of sensible countries like your own. Why? The key was the support of the American people for the invasion. There was a substantial amount of principled opposition, but the war supporters used fear, revenge for 9/11, and yes, Christian opposition to Islam, to spur the desire to attack. Now the same tactics are being used to garner the support of the US public to get even more involved militarily than we already are. Just this week the support for “boots on the ground” has passed 50% in the US, about what it was before the Iraq invasion.

It is a mistake to call a military action like that of the US/UK coalition in Iraq, or the Israeli suppression of the Palestinians, “war”. It is the invasion of a vastly more powerful force on an essentially helpless enemy. It is truly an act of terrorism if there ever was one. Many of the innocent people, including many children who died in these attacks, suffered much more cruelly than the beheading victims we are being shown. To ignore the sufferings of these people while focusing solely on the acts of ISIS, is a grotesque distortion of enlightened moral values.

My only plea, to you good representatives of the commonwealth, is that this is not the time to join in the demonization of Muslims. Fifty years ago I would have been saying this is not the time to be joining in the demonization of communists or the North Vietnamese, or the Viet Cong. Yet demonized they were, and the US embarked on an even more terroristic invasion than the one in Iraq. Again on false pretenses and for no good reason. Putin is fair game for now, although I think the comments pointed out that the west is hardly innocent in this case either. Peace.

Robert Burns, “To a Louse”

Heather, there have been conflicts everywhere for centuries. Yes, the battle is primarily between Shia and Sunni, a rivalry that has been going on for centuries. but there is a proximate cause for the fighting in Syria and Iraq now, and that cause is our invasion of Iraq and attempts to undermine Assad in Syria. ISIS is an outgrowth of al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Zarqawi during the Iraq invasion. It was a Sunni response to the fact that we replaced a Sunni gov’t in Iraq with a Shia gov’t.

Yes, all of us have a tendency to see our side as the good guys. It’s the cause of most conflict in the world. Being aware of that in an abstract sense will be of little use, unless we are open to the evidence. And yes, if you have a blog you can write what you want on it, and remove whatever you want if you don’t like it. But that doesn’t make you right. To focus over and over again on how it’s not just the terrorists who are evil, but that a large segment of the Muslim population supports them, while ignoring the greater evil done by “our” terrorists and the segment of our population that supports them, is demonizing Muslims.