Yesterday a guy got stabbed. But the stabber isn't to be blamed. The realy culprit is the shop that sold him the knife. Actually, no, not the shop. It's the manufacturer of the knife that sold it to the shop. Or no wait, it's the company that delivered the knife making machine. Or perhaps the company that supplied the metal to forge the knife? Perhaps it was the one that invented the knife?
And after all this, you still never answered the question. We weren't talking about people being stabbed. You said something about suicide belts. What are suicide belts, and what are they made of?
No kidding Sherlock... indeed. So what exactly are we talking about?
Read the thread title if you're confused: "Why is Islam so dangerous?" You said something about "purchase contracts," so I was asking for clarification. That's another question you ducked.
Last time I checked, Islamist jihadists aren't using P90's and F16s.
I don't have their weapons inventory handy at the moment, so I'll just take your word for it for the time being.
Don't change the goalposts. You insinuated that their conflict was due to western meddling and selling weapons and whatnot. I pointed out that this is false. The west has nothing to do with their sectarian wars. That's all about the internal religious conflicting views.
I haven't change the goalposts. My central point and the arguments I'm making have been consistent throughout this thread, focusing on the OP's question "Why is Islam so dangerous?" Of course, such a question is often examined from a Western point of view, so I also looked at it from that view and focused on why Islam is (purportedly) so dangerous
to us.
In that sense, you were the one changing the goalposts by throwing in an irrelevancy about Sunnis and Shiites killing each other, when that doesn't really address the question or the topic of this thread. In fact, if all they ever did was kill each other, the West wouldn't consider them dangerous at all. So, you were the one who was going off the topic, not me.
Considering that they literally live on the oil reserves of the world which literally grew into the very engine of western economy, I'm guessing it was kind of hard to not leave them alone and / or ignore them.
There are/were other sources of oil in the world. Besides, a lot of it also had to do with fear that the Soviets could move into the region and exert its own control over the oil. That was the primary motive behind overthrowing Mossadegh in Iran and installing the Shah. With Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan fully in the US fold, the West was able to contain the Soviet Union and prevent any possible move into the region.
It wasn't completely about oil. The strategic position of the Middle East - the Suez Canal and the trade routes in and around the region - this was also a factor.
All of this is besides the point and just a distraction for the actual topic.
The "actual topic" remains "Why is Islam so dangerous?" The points raised related directly to that question.
That their sectarian conflicts are purely religious in nature and that the west shares no responsability in that whatsoever.
The topic has very little to do with why they're fighting each other, but why they're fighting the West. If the Little-Endians want to fight with the Big-Endians, why should we take sides or interfere in that at all? Let them fight if that's what they want to do, and I never once stated that the West had any responsibility for their religion or their sectarian conflicts. But our interference in those conflicts may pose a problem, and that might be a good reason to pull out.
As you say, we share no responsibility in this, so what are we doing there?
You can ramble on about oil and weapon deals as much as you want.
It won't change the facts... Nobody told those people to mass kill eachother. Nobody told those people to hate eachother's guts.
So, what are you saying then? Are you saying that because of sectarian conflict within Islam, this is what makes them dangerous? Are they just dangerous to each other, or are they dangerous to the West, too?
The topic is about what motivates that violence, not about where they got there weapons or whatnot...
Okay, so Sunnis and Shiites have a grudge and longstanding hatred towards each other which puts them in a constant state of war. I get that. So, should we, in the West, be concerned about that? Should we consider them "dangerous" because of that and only that?
If they're fighting and killing each other in their own lands, then all we have to do is stay out of the crossfire and let them battle it out. Just stay away. That's all I've been saying. What's the problem?
And we have absolute zero responsability in their internal religious conflicts and intolerance.
I never said we should take responsibility for those things.
But we needed their black gold nevertheless.
As I said, there were other sources of oil we could have utilized.
Euh....... engaging in the cold war was not a "choice".
Ah I see. So it was the Devil's work, was it? If the Cold War did not come about through the choices of human beings, what else could it have been?
If we didn't engage in the cold war, we'ld all be living in communist states being held hostage by a mighty soviet union capable of destroying entire countries with the push of a single button.
We had the same capability, and we could have wiped each other out - along with the rest of human civilization. Good thing saner heads prevailed.
Needless to say, I don't agree with your speculative analysis of what might have happened if the US and USSR took a more peaceful and cooperative path after World War II. I know a lot of people feared that the "Evil Empire" was planning to take over the whole world.
The problem with islam and their radical beliefs, have nothing to do with the cold war.
A belief is not dangerous, in and of itself. Remember, this topic is about why is Islam so
dangerous.
In fact, what would eventually become al-qaida (including Bin Laden) were considered CIA friends and allies in the fight against Russia in afghanistan. And then, when the soviets were kicked out, radical islam swooped into that vacuum.
Yeah. Interesting how these things just happen. But it's nothing we have any responsibility for, right?
Nobody in the west created that radical ideology.
That was entirely their choice and their responsability, to go down that route of medieval barbarism.
You have an interesting way of presenting human events. You're painting it as a bunch of people who all suddenly chose to become mad killers and terrorists.
If we had chosen a path of peace and friendship with other major powers
Impossible.
That's because many of our leaders were greedy, stubborn hotheads. But it wasn't impossible.
And other, not so nice, regimes would have taken the lead in the world and become the sole superpower while holding the rest of us hostage with ICBM's pointed our way.
Well, we built ICBMs, too. But we had quite an advantage in the early years of the Cold War. The Soviets were also still recovering from the enormous damage they sustained during WW2. That's the main reason they wanted peace with the West, because they had been through so much - they didn't want to have a repeat.
But we should also note that, before the Cold War, the US and USSR were allies. Nationalist China was also our ally, and we had also made diplomatic contact with the Communist Chinese, who were also fighting the Japanese. As the Arsenal of Democracy, we were obligated to help our allies.
Perhaps we can continue this discussion in a new thread about "Why is Communism so dangerous?"
But for the purpose of this thread, my contention would be that, if the US and USSR had taken steps to ensure a more cooperative and friendly relationship (as one might expect from "allies"), then we could have avoided so much turmoil and misery in this world.
And in all fairness, I'm not saying that it's all
America's fault. I used the term "West" primarily because of the traditional alliances and shared interests the nations of the West have with each other. So, we're all multiply connected.
It would still be very much a factor in the middle east. Which is the primary point of the thread here: problems with islam.
I think the primary point of the thread is to explore what, specifically, is the cause of whatever problems there might be with Islam. That, to me, seems a reasonable approach: If there is a problem, then examine that problem and try to identify and isolate the cause of said problem.
One problem you've identified is that Shiites and Sunnis hate each other and want to kill each other. This is a problem, but that's really
their problem to solve. I am neither Shiite nor Sunni, so I have nothing to do with this. It's their fight. I don't really see that our government has any obligation to take sides or interfere.
