format_quote Originally Posted by
sameer
It’s pretty clear to me that one of the things the West fears/ opposes to is the setting up of an Islamic state/ government run and controlled by students/Scholars/ learned people who follow Islam. The question on my mind is why?
Well, the same reason why America and its allies clashed with communism, the ideologies on both sides appear incompatible. So there is a natural tendency towards resistance, on both sides. Many in the West hope there will be a world wide acceptance of their values, which they associate with liberty and prosperity. Similarly, clearly many of those who profes political Islam have a global outlook on life, they hope to spread their truth to all, so that all societies can achieve social justice and freedom from domination by other men, by following Gods laws.
But of course, this incompatibility does not explain it all. There are historical circumstances that led us to this open clash and these hostilities. In my opinion Americans didn't care at all about Islam in politics or Islamic states until 1979, when the Islamic revolution took place in Iran and American embassy personel was taken hostage. This was the first time American foreign policy really started to take into account political Islam IMHO. Yet, even after 1979 the importance of 'Islam' in American policy was limited. The US didn't approach the Middle East and its dictators any differently than it approached dictators in other parts of the world, everything was viewed in the context of the Cold War. With the fall of the Wall and the removal of the communist threat American policy could focus clearly on the new threat that emerged, partly because of it's own actions in the region, actions that were IMHO never before framed as a 'fight against Islam'. For example the first Gulf War and the containment of Saddam. Heck, not even the support of Israel was framed in an Islamic context, but rather in one of arab nationalism. The same goes for the Somalia intervention in 1993, I don't remember anyone back than talking about the possibility of an Islamic state. The same goes for Bosnia. All that changed in 2001, suddenly all that mattered was Islam and everything in the region was related to it.
Muslims often act as if the resistance to Islam is an old phenonemon, a continuation of the crusades in the Middle Ages, but it was simply not a political issue, certainly not before 1979, but hardly even between 1979 and 2001. Muslim fanatism was not seen as a particular threat, it was only discussed in the context of, say, the civil war in Algeria. This war against a certain political interpretation of Islam is a new phenonemon.
Is this a threat to them in some way? Do they assume that any Islamic state would send terrorists against them?
They consider it likely, yes. Mainly because of their experience with the Taliban. Pious Muslims tend to protect and help their Muslim brothers, especially if that brother is disliked by kaffirs. While certainly even idealistic Islamic politicians are limited by some 'real politik', it is clear there is more support for 'freedom fighters' resisting 'zionist-crusaders' among those who favour an Islamic state. Such a state is simply more likely to protect and shelter those willing to conduct martyrdom operations against the perceived enemy, namely the US. Because lets be clear about this, it's not just Americans distrusting these regimes, it's also these regimes distrusting America. The hate goes both ways.
Would they do that without a reason? Is Somaila really threat to them in some way? Why accuse the Islamic freedom fighters there to be training al-Qeada recruits?
Because of the many contacts between Bin Laden and those around him and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. Like I said, these organizations share the same hope in the establishment of a caliphate and the destruction of non-Islamic government in the Muslim world. They are revolutionaries and thus a threat to the status quo and stability. For example, they have in the past sheltered those who were held responsible for the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 in which over 300 people died.
If Nigeria executes someone according to Shari’a, y is it big world news in a negative way? Don’t other ppl in the US and other countries have the death penalty carried out on them?
Yeah, I agree on that. But it is related to the perceived incompatibility of ideology and thus values. Sharia law is different from Western law, which many Westerns think is 'universal'. So they are angry about it, some punishments are often seen as injust and 'barbaric'.
Was Taliban a threat to the US? I know they were accused of hiding Bin-Laden so they bombed them. But isn’t fact that the Taliban was going to give up Bin-Laden if they provided them with proof? This seemed to be a reasonable request, especially since in my country a person is put on trial b4 he is extradited to the US for a crime. Or maybe proof wasn’t important and this man was guilty no matter what?
The US was angry after 9/11. And impatient. The taliban were not even the recognized government of Afghanistan, only Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan recognized them. I doubt they had 'proof' in the legal sense right after the 9/11 attacks, but a US court of law had already indicted him for his supposed involvement in the 1998 embassy bombings. Remember that Bin Laden had already formally
declared war against the United States a few years earlier, only now did they return the favor. After all he had openly declared he intended to attack the US:
format_quote Originally Posted by OBL
[t]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.
Before 9/11 this declaration was taken seriously, but not serious enough to warrant military action in response to the threat. After 9/11 this changed. In this context of an open declaration of war and a connection to earlier attacks against US targets, 'legal proof' was insufficient for the Americans. They wanted him, dead or alive, he was their public enemy #1. He wanted war, and he got war. The US no longer viewed the problem as one of law enforcement, but as one of defense, so it has now become a military matter. As Bush made clear in one of his speeches, the US considered anyone an enemy that was associated with him or that harbored him or associates.
How come all the negative propaganda about the Taliban on the western news just before 9-11? Did they need to turn the western public against the Taliban even b4 9-11 so what ever they had planned for them would seem justified?
The Americans hardly cared about the Taliban pre-9/11, there was also little interest in Afghanistan in general in the Western press and among the public. The Taliban got negative press, not because of a propaganda campaign by the US government, no mostly after reports by organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN. Again, there was a clash between the values espoused by the Taliban, especially their view on the role of women in society, and Western values. They appeared to be complete opposites. That led to negative press.
Don’t drugs kill more ppl in the US than the 9-11 events. Isn’t drugs a bigger terror and the drug dealer a bigger terrorist killing more ppl around the world? I am sure drugs affects us a lot closer to our homes and lives more than any terrorist.
Thats a bit silly. Thats a bit like saying: "Don't more Palestinians die in car accidents than of Israeli bullets, if so, why do so many Muslims criticize Israel?". The issue is the political agenda and the deliberate criminal act with the intention to undermine and disrupt society. Drugsellers want money, they do not have a political agenda, in their mind they are not involved in a 'war' with the society they sell drugs to.
So with this in consideration, y don’t the US demand that the drug lords of Colombia and other countries be handed over and if not, then invade them also since they are a bigger threat to the US and the World than the Taliban or Hamas?
Actually, the US is very much engaged in what the call the 'war on drugs', so they are certainly attempting to prosecute those who use or sell drugs. However, they don't invade, say, Columbia, because the country is itself actively hunting down drug traders. So any comparison with the Taliban is quite ludicrous, because:
1. There is no politics involved (i.e. a declaration of war)
2. The country in question is already attempting to eradicate the problem