Video of Iraqi Insurgent being interogatted

And when we look at who has supported, sponsored, funded, or otherwise aided many of the terrorist organizations in the world; what country and its friends are responsible?The United States....

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"The plain and painful truth is that on any reasonable definition of terrorism, taken literally, the United States and its friends are the major supporters, sponsers, and perpetrators of terrorist incidents in the world today...many, probably most, significant instances of terrorism are supported, if not organized, by the U.S., its partners, and their client states" (George 1991:1-2).

Well, shooting someone in the head is a little different than raping someone, but it doesn't make either thing right.If we are the "good guys" then we need to act like the good guys.

I never said it was right, and if you bothered to read my posts, you would see I have some ideas on what was really going on.

Wrong. While the US has a lot to answer for, and we did support the KLA in Kosovo, herion-dealing terrorists, we are not the primary supporters of terrorism.For example, we don't support:the Shining Path
Hamas
HIzbollah
Islamic jihad
Al Qaeda
various Marxist terror groups in Africa and elsewhere
the IRAExactly what terrorists do we support?I suppose we do support the PLO, and you'd have a point there.

It has a general vague appeal, I certainly like it, but usually breaks down on the specifics. For example Israel is not a real democracy and intends to never be one, but is called such because it has representation from the masses. In Europe there are many Constitutional Monarchies, that's like dictatorship in a bottle. But these are what the people want.In any case the domino theory was proven incorrect. I remember the theory, don't you remember the historical disproof? I'm sorry but this is wholly mistaken regarding historical fact. Talking was getting everywhere. That is why Israeli terrorists killed their own PM.Then a more conservative PM was brought in. Amazingly talk was again keeping things calm (take a look at the actual record of violence during that time). Yes the talks began to fall apart, and yes Arafat was negligent and missed an opportunity, which he himself admitted later. Ariel Sharon took advantage of the temporary setback in talks to incite anger among Palestinians, and topple the PM politically.That is when Ariel became PM using scare tactics and inciting moves. Once installed as PM he used incitement and and scare tactics to continue his reign, pushing for the ability to kill arafat and other enemies at will and in complete violation of international law.Iraq changed nothing on the ground there. Once Arafat died, that was the end of Sharon's ability to blame everything on Arafat, and perhaps even ended his underlying reason for hating and killing Palestinians. His longstanding foe was gone. It also allowed for the installation of a new representative which thankfully Sharon has agreed to work with. This says much for self-fulfilling prophecy.Since then he has become a tad more moderate and is making moves, perhaps under US pressure, toward some form of conclusion.Syria hasn't changed since the Iraq war. If you are attempting to bring in Lebanon, you are mistaken. That had a history of its own.It really does appear that you are buying into the neocon line that anything that occured or did not occur after the Iraq war, must be because of the Iraq war. Who is to say it was not Afghanistan? Or 9/11? Or events that have nothing to do with the US? That's the problem with Iraq, we just gave terrorists more area to exist in comfortably. That will continue even after a democratic Iraq exists. The only thing we can hope is that the new gov't does work to crack down on miltant terrorist orgs within their border. But that will be hard, especially given the terrain.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm not sure how you define "primary". Certainly Iraq did not support most of those entities you listed. So I guess they weren't primary either.What's convenient is that you did not allow for US citizen support for such orgs to count (which is what we do when talking of other nations), nor allowance for the existence of their groups (IRA).And what's more interesting is that you failed to mention the terrorist orgs that we did support that were precursors of such groups (Remember the Mujhadeen and Taliban?), and all the terrorist groups within the Central and South American nations which we supported.There are lots and lots of terrorists out there. Choosing from some our gov't does not directly support does not prove we don't support them.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I begin by asking how you determine what constitutes a primary supporter of terror. Is it by amount of arms supplied, training, degree of involvement, or number of people killed?I’m sure you recognize that the US is the primary supplier of arms to the world. In fact we spent roughly $32 billion in 1997 on arms exports. The US complains that China is increasing their military budget to about $70-80 billion a year, while the US outspends most of the world with its $400 billion defense budget (not including what we spend on Iraq).I’m sure you know that for me to write something that many would take as patently outrageous, would require I be able to back up my words. The sad fact, besides the US’s complicity in terrorist acts is that many of its citizens, while just as intelligent as anyone, are so misinformed and/or lacking in any desire to research the US’s involvement in many repressive regime’s and terrorist organizations. Of course, the government is not going to try and incriminate itself purposely. It is the nature of nation-states that they will try to get away with whatever they can get away with, especially the use of force. If the people let their elected government lie to them, the government will lie.The choice is yours whether you believe or not. If you value freedom, then it is up to you to defend it by holding your country accountable for its actions.For starters, as far as the US’s involvement in terrorist actions you have but to look toward our backyard. The US government managed coup in the democratically elected government of Guatemala.
The 1954 CIA Coup in GuatamalaThis government’s support of the contra rebels, who committed untold atrocities and murders in Nicaragua, all the while supported and sponsored by the US. Terrorists supported by the US. In spite of the judgment of the highest international authorities, the International Court of Justice and the Security Council, Nicaragua failed in its pursuit of justice against the US. The ICJ and SC condemning the US for international terrorism, and ordering the US to desist and pay reparations. This pursuit of Justice failing because the US held the rulings against it as inapplicable.
Necessary IllusionsOr we can look at the atrocities committed in East Timor. In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, using weapons supplied by the US. These weapons, by treaty, were only supposed to be used in self-defense. The US, under pressure, declared an arms-embargo, but violated it shortly afterward and continued to send in new arms and counter-insurgency equipment. The security council of the UN condemned the invasion unanimously, and ordered Indonesia to withdraw. This had no effect because the US wished the UN to remain ineffective. The UN ambassador, at the time later wrote in his memoirs, that the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The State Department desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."What is so striking about this example of US sponsored atrocities is the degree of state sponsored killings. A few months after the UN’s attempt to order the withdrawal of Indonesia from East Timor, there were a reported 60,000 people killed. The press silently dropped further reports and the killings continued. The arms flow to Indonesia also continued and in-fact escalated; arms, such as Napalm, supplied by the US administration. The Indonesian government has recently sent in elite army units, trained and armed by the US, who are carrying out large scale terror. In fact, in the year 1997-1998, government licensed arms sales to Indonesia increased by a factor of five. Training exercises conducted by the Pentagon, for the Indonesian forces were called, somewhat incredibly, humanitarian training and disaster relief."The US did send in a military mission to speak to the commander of Indonesian forces in East Timor, before the recent referendum and during a period of large scale murders. Ostensibly to tell the Indonesian General to stop the massacres, but reported as assuring the General that the US will continue supplying assistance and support. The East Timorese bravely went to the polls and overwhelmingly voted for independence. Indonesia promptly escalated the killings in an attempt to wipe the country out. Finally, the US took a stand and objected to the killings and the Indonesians stopped. Of course, you have to wonder why the US didn’t order them to stop this atrocious pogrom before. When you consider that you have a resource rich country of 100’s of million, from which we make enormous profits and a poor country impoverished country of 800,000, you can see why the US reacted the way it did. Sovereignty doesn’t matter if you don’t provide the US what it wants. Screw the obvious human rights issues. Sovereignty and World Order
The U.S. Needs to Accept its Responsibilities in Indonesia Or should we consider the support we have given Turkey. A country supplied with 80% of its arms by the US. Tens of thousands of Kurds killed and all sorts of atrocities committed, before and after Turkey rejected a 1992 peace negotiations offer by Kurdish rebels. The Clinton administration even upped the amount of arms supplied to Turkey. Turkey Or should we look at the overthrow of legitimate governments? The repressive government of the Shah of Iran put in power by the actions of the CIA. NYT Or how about the repressive, demonstrably murderous atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, against the Kurds with weapons supplied by the US and all the while committed with the knowledge of the US government.
Washington Post All for the sake of propping up governments which at the time were considered friendly to US interests.If we look into US history we see state-sanctioned death squads. The 4,743 lynchings committed from 1882-1968. 3,446 of those lynched were black. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the lynchings. (Robbins 2002:117)Or the sufferings of Native Americans throughout US history.

I think jar was talking about Democracy in particular. Why would making a country a democracy make it less supportive of terrorists?Countries can, and have, been supportive of terrorsits dispite the nature of their govournment.

Ah, that is easier.The answer IMHO is 2 fold. Accountability of the leadership by its citizens and (although this has more to do with free-market commerce) financial freedom for its citizens.Dictatorships (Saddam) are only interested in the businesses that line their coffers. Elected leaders have more of an onus on them to be interested in businesses that help their constituants. If Aknah the Shia can provide for his family, he and his kids are less likely to volunteer for suicide missions. This is in contrast to dirt poor families that have nothing (in the case of these young boys, nothing to do) and the families get paid for their kids blowing themselves up in hopes of getting 72 virgins, because they certainly aren't getting any action here (unless they rape their cousin, then she is stoned to death).

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The claim is we are the primary supporters of terrorism and it's patently false.If you want to claim we have supported terrorism at times, fine, but we have never been the primary supporters of terrorism.

Ignoring the blatant idiocy regarding the virgin issue, all you have done is set up a connection between poverty and the likelihood for a person to want to engage in terrorism.There may be a case made for that, however that does not at all make a case for democracy changing anything. People and nations can be democratic and poor and militant.In the case of Iraq, while the people were poor and oppressed... where then were the huge numbers of terrorists coming from Iraq? Well there really weren't any. It is only since the "freeing" of Iraq that terrorists have multiplied within that nation. If it is to be a free democracy, and not an iron fisted shame democracy, people will still be able to form radical terrorist cells and plot against their enemies.The guy who blew up the OK city building, and all those nut jobs who shot or blew up abortion clinics, could eat just fine, they weren't poor, and yet they were terrorists. Most Israeli terrorists are not poor, yet enact the exact same levels of violence as Palestinians who are dirt poor. And they all live under democratic govts.There appear to be other, more important factors at play. Democracy is a solution for none.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I challenged that claim. Let me repeat that challenge.You have not set a definition of a "primary supporter of terrorism". If it is as you claimed then Iraq was certainly NOT a primary supporter. If we use Iraq or Saudi Arabia as an example, then the US is. We even have a terrorist training camp run by the US govt in the US. Not sure how it gets more clearcut.You must do more than repeat your assertion, you must create a definition whereby we can assess the validity of your claim against the criteria.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You seem to be confusing violent regimes with terrorism. Now, we have supported a lot of repressive, violent regimes.In fact, we supported the worst murdering regime in history, Stalin, and he was our ally, and yet somehow in most of these lists by leftists, only the non-commies are mentioned.You also don't seem to realize that as a nation, we eventually came out, attacked, and destroyed the Klan via the FBI. So the nation as a whole came against that terrorist group.You seem to just want to present a one-sided view of history, and that's unfortunate. Certainly, what we did to the Indians, especially to the Cherokees was wrong. I will never consider Andrew Jackson a good man for that.By the same token, the USA likewise engaged in massive terrorist actitivities against the civilian population of the South, committing war crimes to a great degree.And in Latin America, we supported death squads.So the USA has a bad record in some places and eras. The USA has also been a force for good in the world as well, in assisting Japan and Germany after defeating them and helping the Western or Westernized world stay free of communist dictators.

Holmes, this is what the kids are taught. It isn't idiocy. It is the truth. Yep. Which fosters an more of an environment of free enterprise, dictatorships or democracies? Really? LinkageNope, no terrorism there. Domestic terrorists yes, but that is not the issue. There are many. But democracy is part of the solution.

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Tired of the opposite sex? Want to turn your favorite football player into a raging homsexual? Then purchase your Gay-Gene Cattle Prod! One Zap from the GGCP will turn the Gay Gene off or on at your whim. So if you want your wife to get some hot girl on girl action, the Gay-Gene Cattle Prod is for you! *not intended for use on children*

What does free enterprise have to do with lack of poverty? There are many places with really free enterprise and really bad poverty.Are you now making an argument that we will create a democracy which will naturally create free enterprise which will naturally create stability and so no terrorism because lees people will be poor? Huh? Who said no terrorism? Your argument was that poverty created more terrorism. I asked where all the massive numbers of terrorists were, given that they were so poor.By the way all you showed is that Iraq attempted an assassination and that someone suggested they helped organize some unspecified terror activities back in 1993. Whoa yeah, there's some ironclad info for you. ??? What's the difference? Oh wait so, poor people want to travel the world to kill people somewhere else, and with democracy they'll simply be content to blow up people in their own nation... is that your argument? Well I await one shred of evidence that it is. Remember, democracy solves terrorism. Show the evidence.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)