Posted on 07/08/2005 1:35:55 PM PDT by Pokey78
Murdoch paper is kicking-in.
As Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, neatly put it, "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."
"In dealing with terrorism you are confronting a resentment that is not concerned to improve the lot of anyone, but only to destroy the thing it hates. That is what appeals in terrorism, since hatred is a much easier and less demanding emotion to live by than love, . . ."
Am I the only one that believes this sentence describes the dummycrats and their hate for President Bush?
Ain't gonna happen...
I believe it's akin to asking Germany or Japan to surrender in WWII. We had to firebomb one and use the Atomic bomb on the other. IMHO, they will not surrender until they are thoroughly beaten and humiliated.
Well written article. Nietzsche is a great thinker, despite his many eccentricities, and later insanity. He has many very poignant insights into human nature, and this was a particularly interesting one. But your point about how many of these terrorists, especially Al Qu'eda, are the middle class pioneers who should have been who instead chose a faster path glory is a critically important point to be understood. By their actions, AND by their inactions, these men who blame the problems of the Arab world on the West are themselves causes for the problems of the Arab world. Not all Muslims and Muslim countries are doing badly these days, and hundreds of millions do not support terrorism. In fact, many Muslim countries are slowlw climbing out of their economic death spiral. But very few of the Arab Muslim countries are. Why is that? Perhaps it's because they are looking for an easy, faster way out. And the individuals who should be leading them to success are leading them instead to destruction.
That is why the development of a moderate, Muslim middle class is critical. Because then, they could offer an alternative, with tangible benefits. "Ok, young Achmed, you COULD go join up with Al-Zarqawi and become a martyr, and kill infidel Christians or Jews or your own people: you see those chunky kibbles on al-Jazeera? That's what you'll look like. And that will bring retribution down on EVERYONE's heads and we all lose, and you will be responsible for your community becoming a charred pile of ash. Or...You could go to medical school, help your fellow Muslims (as the Koran says), heal them, make a wad while doing so and contribute to both your community and your own success. In doing so, you could live well, help your family live well, help your people live better AND be a shining example to others, as well as proof that the Islamic faith does not demand you blow yourself and innocent people up to be righteous."
To most of us, it would not be a hard choice. To many in the ME, because of the lack of an established moderate middle class, it is. Martyrdom offers instant glory. A chance to strike at those who are successful, to become a hero (martyr collectible baseball cards in the West Bank are just sickening), and venting your own rage.
You see, he didn't resent my position at all; he resented the fact that it was me, and not him, who was in my position. And he found a way to take my position from me without doing the hard work associated with climbing up on his own. The calculus is simple: if you can steal something with impunity, why build it yourself or work for it? Mohammed figured that out many centuries ago, and his koranic jottings lay out his plans for stealing the world away from its rightful owners.
Time for rest: read 'it was I, and not he,' for 'it was me, and not him,' in my previous posting.
The only way to stop a terrorist is to eliminate the terrorist from the face of the earth. People who think that you can placate terrorist, who believe as these devils do, are idiots.
Great Cartoon video
http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.mikeoverbeck.com/osama/diplomacy.html
It's not even as complicated as the article tries to make it. They don't resent us. They just want to convert us or kill us. Following a religion started by a demon-possessed pedophile will do that to you.
I have always thought the reason so many hate America is because they envy us.
Excellent article. I agree with you on Nietzsche - sometimes a nutcase, sometimes a very perceptive thinker.
However, I think there is a significant difference between the AQ terrorists and the others named in the article. Most of the latter are Marxist-inspired (the IRA is NOT Catholic, but Marxist, and the same is true of ETA, regardless of their origins), and Marxism is the quintessential philosophy of resentment.
However, AQ is inspired by Islam, which is conquest-based. It has morphed so that it now includes resentment-based political philosophies (hence the attractiveness of Islam to left-wingers). But if you look at the history of Islam, you will see that its pattern since its inception has been violence and conquest - Mohammed was, after all, a bandit, and lived a violent life in a violent, disintegrating period.
Islam becomes strong when its targets become weak, which is essentially what has happened with the collapse of Western civilization (and particularly with the collapse of the Church in the West after Vatican II). Islam has fortuitously joined up with Western-originated resentment movements, partly because people from Muslim hell-holes must wonder why their countries don't prosper and instead of blaming their crazed religion and corrupt rulers, are inspired by the leftists and find it easier to blame the West. But mostly Islam is violent and full of anger and resentment simply because that is its nature. And when it senses weakness in its prey, it acts in accordance with its nature.
Inside the mind of a terrorist, like these ones, also lurks the mind of a vandal. Someone incapable of creating something great or good and who KNOWS IT!! Therefore what better way to get back at the successful societies than by killing and wrecking what the successful societies have achieved. So-called experts can rant on about Israel, Iraq, and our backing dictators, but for me I truly believe that much of the terror and destruction the Islamo-fascists create is due to simple resentment. We are successes, and they are failures. They know it, and they can't stand it. Misery loves company.
No you are not. That was my first thought when I read the title I thought of the RATS first.
Wow. This is both brilliant and disturbing in pinning down the enormous task we have before us: confronting never-changing human nature. Good luck.
It's worse than that: Germany and Japan had, at least militarily, entirely rational reasons for behaving as they did. Both countries had a legitimate shot at grabbing and holding huge and powerful empires over a fair chunk of the globe. Unlike al Qaeda, they weren't entirely incapable of listening to reason.
bttt
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