The war on terror. Do we have it backwards?

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What do you think about the war on terror?
It was a carefully contrived scheme to deprive us of our rights and to justify endless wars over oil and other resources 100%  100%  [ 11 ]
There might be terrorists 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
The war on terror is real, I know because the news told me so 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 11

NextFact
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20 Jan 2012, 4:32 pm

What if we have it backwards?
What if the war on terror is a carefully orchestrated lie set up to target anyone who doesn't like what the major world governments are doing?
Israeli/Palestinian conflict; what if the Palestinian's are the victims and the Israeli's are the oppressor?
What if the terrorists are the American powers and not the Afghans/Iraqi's?
What if all these so called "terrorist groups" are merely resistance groups fighting back to protect their people and fight off invaders?
What if the news is carefully scrubbed down and selected so that you only see favorable news stories that depict America and it's allies as good guys, and arab countries as the evil bad guys?
What if it's the other way around?
What if you don't get the whole story in the news?
What if everything you've been conditioned to believe through the media about the affairs in the world is a lie?
What if there is a major psychological operation going on through mass media to shape your opinions and views in such a way that favors the agenda of the major world powers?
What if these middle easterners are people just like you and me and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect?
What if the Iranians really aren't trying to create nuclear weapons?
What if our government just want's control of the oil resources in Iran?
What if they will tell you any lie they can to convince the public that military action needs to be taken against Iran?
What if they lied to you about Afghanistan and Iraq?
How many more times will you fall for it?
What if it's true?



Last edited by NextFact on 20 Jan 2012, 4:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

snapcap
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20 Jan 2012, 4:36 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-CpCUOygqU[/youtube]


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androbot2084
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20 Jan 2012, 4:43 pm

Violence just begets more violence. Terrorists need redirection to more peaceful activities such as space travel.



blauSamstag
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21 Jan 2012, 12:04 am

There are terrorists.

There are likely to be terrorists for the foreseeable future.

Trying to stop terrorism by invading countries is clearly not working.



abacacus
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21 Jan 2012, 12:15 am

blauSamstag wrote:
There are terrorists.

There are likely to be terrorists for the foreseeable future.

Trying to stop terrorism by invading countries is clearly not working.


I bet if we stopped shoving our guns where they didn't belong we wouldn't get attacked.


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donnie_darko
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21 Jan 2012, 4:21 am

Terrorism only exists because we terrorize them.



visagrunt
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23 Jan 2012, 1:43 pm

NextFact wrote:
What if we have it backwards?
What if the war on terror is a carefully orchestrated lie set up to target anyone who doesn't like what the major world governments are doing?
Israeli/Palestinian conflict; what if the Palestinian's are the victims and the Israeli's are the oppressor?
What if the terrorists are the American powers and not the Afghans/Iraqi's?
What if all these so called "terrorist groups" are merely resistance groups fighting back to protect their people and fight off invaders?
What if the news is carefully scrubbed down and selected so that you only see favorable news stories that depict America and it's allies as good guys, and arab countries as the evil bad guys?
What if it's the other way around?
What if you don't get the whole story in the news?
What if everything you've been conditioned to believe through the media about the affairs in the world is a lie?
What if there is a major psychological operation going on through mass media to shape your opinions and views in such a way that favors the agenda of the major world powers?
What if these middle easterners are people just like you and me and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect?
What if the Iranians really aren't trying to create nuclear weapons?
What if our government just want's control of the oil resources in Iran?
What if they will tell you any lie they can to convince the public that military action needs to be taken against Iran?
What if they lied to you about Afghanistan and Iraq?
How many more times will you fall for it?
What if it's true?


Here's the problem, as I see it.

There are some who believe uncritically everything that they read in the newspaper or on the internet, and everything that they see on television--or on the internet. And there are some who uncritically refuse to believe anything that they see from those sources.

Neither of these errors are correct. On any given question we are not limited to two answers. It's not a case that government is either telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; or else that government is lying to us about everything. The fact of the matter is that government--just like everyone else--is trying to put the best story forward. It's a very foolish government, business or person who provides the media with an outright lie. But half-truths, or incomplete truths are open to contextualization.

Let's remember, news media are in the business of selling advertising. News reporting is the vehicle for that business activity, but the revenue that news reporting generates by itself (though subscriptions, for example) is trivial compared to advertising. So what are busy journalists to do? Most of them willingly take the media releases, backgrounders and fact sheets provided to them by the communications staff of the organizations that they are writing about. Many of them will lift, whole cloth, the material already written for them. The better ones will lift, whole cloth, from two sides and contrast them. But it is a true avis rara among journalists that has the time, resources and skill to go behind the media releases and make an independent search for information.

Do I believe that everything that government tells me is the truth? Well, by and large, I will believe that government is not going to let itself get caught out in a deliberate falsehood--certainly not in the last 7 or 8 years. Do I believe that everything that government tells me is the whole truth? Absolutely not. Do I believe that the failure to disclose the whole truth means that the truth is the opposite of what government is telling me? Absolutely not.

The challenge is to sift through the wealth of information that is out there, and to reach a critically sound, independent conclusion about the truth of events.


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23 Jan 2012, 2:13 pm

If you think terorism isnt real...well...

Which response is justified or sustainable is another thing.



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23 Jan 2012, 2:39 pm

donnie_darko wrote:
Terrorism only exists because we terrorize them.

That's a lie and you know it. Who were we terrorizing prior to the 9/11 attacks? Or the USS Cole attack? Or the embasy bombings? Or the first attack on the WTC in 93?



hadrian_f
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23 Jan 2012, 2:56 pm

Terrorism exists, but one cannot just start a war to end it. It won't work as it will exacerbate the conditions which led to them in the first place, which are poverty and a lack of education. There is a reason the UN saw it as education's first and foremost goal to improve understanding between the different peoples and cultures of earth.

When a person can't read/write, he's quick to believe anything people tell him/her.
When a person is poor, he's going to try and blame someone (which is one of the reasons the Nazis got their power).
When a person has nothing but religion, that religion is what defines the person, and if some nutcase tells him/her that that religion requires him to kill and/or maim other people, than that's what he/she's going to believe.

There's a reason why we were granted rights such as free speech and a free press, and in the US the right to bear arms (although I don't approve of the latter) etc. We have to use them to find the true truth behind things, and not the surface layer of half-truths and deceit that we see, but we can only do that when we've been given the proper education and given the possibility to start thinking for ourselves.

I don't want to say that what terrorists do is good, because any life taken is a bloodbath in my eyes, and any life taken is a life too many. But a war on terror is as pointless as giving a Van Gogh to a blind man. The only true way to world peace is through proper education, and through a social security scheme that leaves no one behind, which is cheaper than a war, if not for money, than for the lives wasted.



abacacus
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23 Jan 2012, 3:04 pm

Bataar wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
Terrorism only exists because we terrorize them.

That's a lie and you know it. Who were we terrorizing prior to the 9/11 attacks? Or the USS Cole attack? Or the embasy bombings? Or the first attack on the WTC in 93?


History and reality will tell you attacks such as those are designed for one thing:

To get you to attack in force. Once you do that, you have lost. America lost the war on terror the minute they gave so many Middle Eastern countries a reason to hate them, and at this point there is no way to win it.


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Sunshine7
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25 Jan 2012, 12:06 pm

Quote:
America lost the war on terror the minute they gave so many Middle Eastern countries a reason to hate them, and at this point there is no way to win it.


I think America incited the distrust of almost all Arab states because of political alignments with Israel.

However, it's hard to hate your biggest (oil) customer.



hadrian_f
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25 Jan 2012, 12:50 pm

Sunshine7 wrote:
Quote:
America lost the war on terror the minute they gave so many Middle Eastern countries a reason to hate them, and at this point there is no way to win it.


I think America incited the distrust of almost all Arab states because of political alignments with Israel.

However, it's hard to hate your biggest (oil) customer.


Thinking the distrust from the Arab nations comes only from the US' ties with Israel is very shortsighted, it definitely doesn't help, but there's also the first gulf war and many other issues involved. Besides, there are those Arab nations who have/had amiable relations with the US, Egypt for example.



visagrunt
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25 Jan 2012, 3:28 pm

Bataar wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
Terrorism only exists because we terrorize them.

That's a lie and you know it. Who were we terrorizing prior to the 9/11 attacks? Or the USS Cole attack? Or the embasy bombings? Or the first attack on the WTC in 93?


So antipathy towards US foreign policy on the part of individuals in the middle east is entirely unjustified? The Americans, the British and the French have a pretty sketchy track record, dating back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Israel may be the flashpoint, but it's certainly not the only example.

If you follow an unbroken line from Morocco in the West through to Myanmar in the East, there is not a single one in which Western European and American influence has not been profoundly felt. And if we exclude the singular case of Thailand, we can extend that line all the way through to the Pacific. If one wants to look at the opening salvos in this ongoing struggle for control one should look to the Anglo-Iraq War in 1941, the US backed overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953, the Egyptian Annexation of Suez in 1956 and the Anglo-French response. The West has treated the Middle East as a colonies--or at best as Client Kingdoms. Soviet interference certainly exacerbated the problem, but the seeds lie in colonialism, and the creation of beholden successor states in which autonomy was an empty promise.

And while the war on terror might well be focussed on the, "Axis of Evil" (tm), one might do well to take out the plank in one's own eye, first. The Oklahoma City bombings were--by the admission of the perpetrators--a response to the domestic use of force by the US Government. Now I don't for a moment suggest that Waco and Ruby Ridge were not legitimate actions on the part of the US Government--I leave that assessment to history and the courts. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that even if our behaviour is perfectly legal, and even if it is right, there are still consequences that may flow from that behaviour.

That doesn't justify criminal response--but it does put criminal response into perspective.

Surely one of the functions of responsible government is not merely the punishment of crime, but the prevention of crime. If we cannot deprive potential criminals of the means to commit crime, then surely we should at least question whether or not we have the means to mitigate their motives.


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25 Jan 2012, 6:12 pm

There is empirical evidence that bombs were used in the destruction of all 3 towers on 9/11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW6mJOqRDI4



Vanis
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26 Jan 2012, 6:38 am

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