How to create more Terrorists in 2 easy steps

[Dragonfli]

10. We misunderstood each other, I am well aware that our policies

have for decades provoked many in the middle east. We have a long history of meddling in their affairs and choosing to back regimes that the people under them despised and thus have made enemies of those that despised them; usually for reasons centered on profits of various businesses and/or control we felt we needed over whomever was in power. We have backed everyone from our puppet Shaw in Iran to Saddam Hussein, we still turn a blind eye to extremes by some rulers that we openly and publicly condemn when displayed by others, Saudi Arabia comes to mind (they are open and proud Muslim extremists) as they use State Law to enforce what the Taliban seeks to impose with our disapproval, come to think of it, we once supported the same taliban and armed the shit out of them. Strangely Saudi Nationals were responsible for 911 and Saudis continue to fund more terrorism wherever possible (individuals rather than the state possibly, but with tacit approval of the Royals) yet we do not attack or the nation or target anyone within their borders. We basically fuck up everything we touch over there and all of these things described and many others have led to the radicalization of those that became, and will become terrorists.

What I misunderstood about you was that you don't specifically support drone attacks or specifically dismiss our terrorist attacks, an understandable misunderstanding due to THE OP YOU RESPONDED TO. I will say that you do appear quite comfortable with such tactics as your response did not address the points I made about or even acknowledge how they in fact do create terrorists as the cartoon suggests.

I am now further enlightened regarding your opinions but I am saddened that you do not appear to understand that what we do by our CURRENT policies throws yet more gasoline on a fire started long ago. I tried to get you to understand that killing civilians for whatever purpose, be it by "shock and awe" tactics or double tap and signature strikes significantly amplifies radicalization and justifies to civilian populations almost anything done in the name of revenge, I simply used the most current such policies as examples (that were in fact the subject of the op).

I believe that you do not understand this because you believe "The interesting thing about deadly conflict is that it self perpetuates and escalates on its own, once the killing starts.". I consider that a show of a lack of understanding. We are actively helping to escalate it, it is NOT self perpetuating, but rather perpetuated in this case by decisions made by radicalized people that use terrorism and current actions that inspire their hatred (by using state sponsored terrorism in some cases). An eye for an leads to an epidemic of blindness, it is not spontaneous or merely self perpetuating but rather by conscious and deliberate actions by the parties involved. The blindness epidemics are not caused by the nature of blindness itself

"It is comfortable to believe that if we stop shooting, they will reciprocate." many will if someone begins to break the cycle. No sane person by the way thinks that a unilateral end of violence will solve the problem, certainly not ME but an end to terror tactics on our part will end a great deal of it.

My main disagreement with you is that you believe that grounding the drones will make little difference, I feel it would make a really large difference. We do agree that we must combine it with a radical rethink of 50 years of destructive foreign policy however.

I also think it isn't difficult to discern what started it (our insistence on interference did), created it (50 years of destructive foreign policy did), or sustains it (both the radicalised and we who insist on continuing to radicalize them).

The end of a cycle of violence must begin somewhere no matter how long that road is, the US doesn't get to decide what terrorists will do, the US does get to decide if it uses terrorist tactics that throw huge amounts of gasoline around an inferno tho, a good start would be for us to stop using tactics that kill and terrorize civilian populations, a start we could begin tomorrow.


(as a side note I owe you a rather large apology for the motor oil comment, I was mistaken in my belief you condoned those tactics, I will edit them out, I mention it here for any that don't check my edit as they deserve to know I owe you that apology and why. I am very sorry, I was way out of line and you did not deserve it)