Quote Originally Posted by George L. Singleton View Post
Bob, you are a fine, very smart fellow but I find the reality of the extremist, terrorist Islamics, that is not all of Islam, to be the root action and reaction in the matter of the war on terrorism.

Sadly, you are right in that the most extreme terrorists are not and never will be reconcilable. Attempts at such reconciliaiton have repeatedly blown up in the face of the Government of Saudi Arabia...and no wonder...as the Saudi Government has allowed the Wahabbi Islamic extremist movement to grow and fund terrorism worldwide.

It began before 9/11, in my view, in 1993, with the first attack on the World Trade Towers, as far as a visible theme or focus point in time. But others can more wisely than me cite other examples I suspect.

Some Pakhtuns claim that Buddah as a human being was from the NWFP of Pakistan. Buddish is a great and large faith system, too, but today's radical Islamic movement has been physically destroying any and all vestages of it in Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan that they find or ever knew about.

I used to think like you, Bob, that poverty, lack of education, illiteracy, etc. were the root cause of terrorism. The I had to face the fact that highly educated radical Muslims, MDs, PhDs, engineers, etc. are among the rank and file as well as the leadership of Islamic terrorism today.
So much for my simple theory of suppressed masses which seems to be what you are driving at.
1. I have never said, nor do I believe that anyone is "irreconcilable." Time, a reduction of testosterone levels, a true addressing of the actual grievances, etc heal all wounds.

2. My position on the Saudis is that the problem there is not the Wahabists (they have been hand in glove with the Saudi Royals in their rise to power, btw), but in the fact that the Saudis are a corrupt dictatorship that offers little in terms of hope for a better future to their populace, and who are widely perceived as being protected by their neighbors and own populace by the strength of the United States in exchange for our oil extraction relationship. The focus on the Wahabists, I believe, is made by those who wish to sustain the status quo and distract people from the real problem. Not religion, but a very bad government that is out of touch with its own populace.

3. Islam is little different to Christianity in its intollerance to other religions, both being so certain of their own rightness and everyone elses wrongness, that they believe easily that they have a duty to convert others to their faith, and that killing non-believers is no great sin. Our political system has evolved in the west so that we don't do this any more; and when the political system of the middle east evolves as well I suspect you will see less of such abuse of Islam for such purposes as well.

4. People do not become insurgents because they or poor, stupid, or ignorant any more than they do because they adhere to any particular faith. My position has been, and remains that, as I said in my last post, they do so when they are subjected to conditions of poor governance (defined as any aspect of governance, usually a higher order issue like lack of respect, that cannot be changed through any available legitimate means) that drives a populace to using illigitimate means to effect change. This is the causation of insurgency. Motivations can vary for any given cause over time, and often do. Certain motivations work best with certain populaces, and religion is usually the best one to use if one has a populace base of any strong faith.

Anyone can feel free to quote me on any of these 4 points. As the politicos say: "I'm Robert Jones, and I approve this message."