:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)
This is an open discussion platform; naturally, others answer and interject just as a person does in normal everyday conversation when everyone's involved in a discussion. No need to be rude or an a-hole. How about if you don't like what you hear that you feel free to leave the discussion as well?
Leaving this thread would be a little more realistic if I wasn't the OP on this thread. To a certain extent, the OP of any thread can be expected to be the most consistently engaged and the most interested in ensuring that questions are actually being answered. To your larger point though, I should be nice and that is well taken.
And let me just say I don't appreciate your tone with our brother @
Zafran.
Okay. I'm sure he doesn't like the tone either, and there is a certain part of me that wants to see that he checks himself because of it. But on the whole, I'm sure you're right and I should try to be less combative.
Also, I believe the only reason you're asking this is because you haven't been exposed to formal logic. First and foremost, every area and territory in Middle East has its own history. The reason that Christians weren't becoming terrorists because they were supporting Assad and his armed forces; also, if you take the definition of terrorism that would include Assad and his armed forces, then Christians were supporting state-sponsored terrorism and if any of them were part of the armed forces, then they were part of terrorizing Muslims in the region.
Thank you for this, I appreciate that you are making an effort and staying on topic. For what it's worth, my understanding of the situation is that "terrorism" as a word by itself is generally understood to involve violent non-state actors, with somewhat separate categories of less-direct responsibility for the state funding of terrorism, and then there is another category of state terrorism or state-sponsored terrorism (which comes back to direct responsibility) which, as far as I'm aware, involves the intentional and/or indiscriminate killing of civilian non-combatants, and there's also a bit of a sub-category that involves false flag operations by a state under the guise of not belonging to that state and again we're talking about killing civilian non-combatants, and that may include the possibility of a state's military killing its own civilians.
Basically, I'm anticipating that you will come at this with a rather broad definition of state terrorism that involves any state but mostly the US poking its nose where it doesn't belong, and if you don't like what the US military is doing then it's terrorism. But I'm reminding you that the more broadly accepted definition of state terror is far more limited than that, and it's primarily limited to the killing of civilian non-combatants. At present, it seems to me that the US has relatively little in the way of boots on the ground, it's mostly special forces that are embedded with the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the main opportunities for invoking charges of state terror would have to do with the overwhelming air support and with drone strikes. On the whole though, the US currently has far less of a ground presence than it did just a short while ago and it could easily be argued that with Iran and Russia both in the neighborhood, the US is acting in a way that prevents them from engaging in state sponsored terror as much as they otherwise would, provided that we're on the same page with the emphasis on the targeting of civilian non-combatants.
Also, I don't know what version of Iraqi history you've been reading, but there was armed resistance and retaliation against Iraqi Muslims as well, maybe not your definition of terrorism since only apparently Muslims can commit terrorism.
I'm not arguing that only Muslims can commit terrorism, just that in this particular region where there is some religious diversity, Muslims are the only ones with well-funded terror organizations, or terror organizations of any kind really.
I will go on to say one other thing with regard to terror in a broader context. I do acknowledge that there are non-Muslim terror groups, there are even a couple that have a separatist Christian motivation and a couple that involve cults somewhat related to Christianity. And then there's a few that are not particularly religious in nature, and a few that involve Eastern religions. If I could bring this back to your point about US foreign policy though, there is something that I'd like to point out.
Consider for a moment all the different ways in which a terrorist organization could direct its violent tendencies. One thing they could certainly do is spread hatred for the US and for the West, they could promote armed struggle against the US military and even against US civilians or anything that's broadly West-affiliated. One thing they could care about more than anything else is the armed presence of the US military in various countries all around the world, especially if it's acting as a destabilizing force.
Now let me ask you something. As you think about which terrorist groups choose that as their main reason for existing, how many of those groups are Islamic? Think back for a second on those non-Muslim terror groups, and I did just acknowledge that they exist in quite a few places throughout the world. How many of those non-Muslim terror groups are committed to a broad, long-term fight against the US military? You probably know the names of most of these non-Muslim groups, go ahead and tick them off real quick then let me know if any of them are super committed to fighting back the US military wherever it happens to be. The IRA, in its various forms and incarnations- did it ever make a point of fighting the US military, and of removing its presence and/or influence from a certain part of the world? Yes of course they're terrorists, and that whole situation might just reignite in the current environment, but let's ask if This Particular terror group has adopted hatred of the US and its military presence as any one of its various reasons for existing and operating. Then let's repeat this for any other non-Muslim terror group and find out how many of them hate the US military, in keeping with your working hypothesis- namely, that the US military and US foreign policy is the MAIN CULPRIT
Yes indeed, you sure did say the MAIN CULPRIT
in causing terrorism to happen. Let's just do a quick comparison, okay? I can obviously name all sorts of Islamic terror organizations that hate the US military and who cite US foreign policy as the MAIN CULPRIT for what they are trying to do. But how often is that true of non-Muslim terror groups?
Now, before you say the US military is only guilty of incursions on Muslim countries, I'll remind you once again that there tends to be a fair amount of religious diversity in those Muslim-majority countries. The US has done quite a bit of destabilizing, and with all these different regions taken together, there has certainly been ample opportunity for non-Muslims to form terror groups and name the US as their main enemy and prime target, all while saying the destabilizing chaos of its terrible foreign policy is the MAIN CULPRIT for what they're doing. Now, to your knowledge, is that something that's ever happened when we're speaking of non-Muslim terror groups?
Go ahead and run those numbers, and please let me know what you find out. I'm curious to see if I've really discovered a trend that is fairly common among Muslim terror networks while also being not-at-all common in non-Muslim terror networks. I'm feeling good about it so far, but I would like to know what you think.
