Those despotic leaders are able to use a hatred of the U.S. on their people largely because our foreign policy in the Middle East has given them a reason to hate us, and they hate Israel not simply because the Israelis are Jewish but because it’s the prime example of Western policy in that region. Whenever we have an issue that arises that serves our short-term interest, we interfere in their internal affairs, we cause a lot of damage, then we leave them to clean up the mess. Whenever the locals don’t go along with a decision we make, we force them to accept it under the premise of the “rule of law”. There’s nothing moral or noble about using government institutions (such as the U.N.) to gift away land that doesn’t belong to you, there’s nothing democratic about using your military to force people who had no say in the matter to accept your decision. There’s a good reason libertarians usually hate our foreign policy.

Like I said before, I’m not at all in favor of the U.N. abolishing Israel and giving the land back to the Palestinians…same as I’m not in favor of our government giving the land we stole back to the native Americans. But before you dismiss the Middle Easterners’ gripes with the rationale that “It’s just because they hate the West and the Jews” you should keep in mind that this hatred didn’t start in a vacuum or at some Middle Eastern tyrant’s whim. This animosity was often well-earned.

Or, to quote Samuel Huntington from “Clash of Civilizations”:

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

Medical doctors view the world as their patient -and by golly, only they can solve the ills of the world.

As to why Muslim men (particlarly those of middle class upbringing) are more prone to become sucide bombers/ terrorists is very obvious: It is not that they live in repressive societies. It is that they live in societies where the ytranny of the mind is the rule of the day.

That means that they have been brainwashed by their Mullhas to think that the West id decadent.

The irony, however, to them is that they envy the wealth and the glitter of the West – and these men are unable to reconcile why the thing that they hate the most is the one that they get attracted to, in fact are so envious about.

To me it is nothing but Envy.

Can envy kill ? are you kidding? Isn’t that the story in the bible ? About Cain and Abel? About the angels and the archangels who fought against Lucifer?

Here’s the million dollar question, why do they fall for it?

The same reason the majority of Americans are more interested in Paris Hilton than they are about the government being a big crime syndicate? People in general are easily distracted.

Its about how the existence of repressive regimes creates a breeding ground for the kind of radical Islamists who would consider it to be somewhere even approaching rational to strap explosives to your chest, walk into a pizza parlor and blow you and everyone else inside to kingdom come.

Would you also argue that repressive regimes creates a breeding ground for the radical Christians like the KKK?

I think the answer lies in the fact that most of these repressive regimes use hatred of the West, and of the Jews, to distract their citizens from what’s really going on.

Here’s the million dollar question, why do they fall for it?

The million dollar question is: why are they lashing out at us instead of their oppressors and what, if anything, can be done to change that?

I think the answer lies in the fact that most of these repressive regimes use hatred of the West, and of the Jews, to distract their citizens from what’s really going on.

It is a standard part of the dictator’s playbook, really. Hitler told the Germans that all their problems were the Jews’ fault so that the German citizenry would stand by and do nothing while enslaved Europe and murdered millions. Stalin blamed the USSR’s problems on numerous ethnic groups.

The million dollar question is: why are they lashing out at us instead of their oppressors and what, if anything, can be done to change that?

Krueger’s position is that repressive government acting against the will of the people and stifling dissent is what causes violent acts by dissidents. So if we accept Krueger’s theory (which I do) it would indicate that Bush’s approach to liberty is one that will ultimately make the problem of terrorism worse because Bush’s approach merely replaces one repressive form of government with another. And that’s not what Krueger appeared to be in favor of, so the author’s comparison of Bush and Krueger’s philosophies is invalid.

I see your point and I agree with your assessment about terrorism being caused by repressive government, although I’d broaden that to say it’s applicable to all societies and not just Islam (citing as examples the IRA, the Basques, the Uighur, the Tamils, etc.). It’s become a common tactic by people in our society who don’t know much about the world (the key example of this being our current president) to associate terrorism exclusively with Islamic or non-Western societies, thereby labeling them an inherent threat, and to view actions by Western nations as inherently beyond reproach, and that’s a dangerous and ignorant mistake to make…as the events surrounding the creation of Israel clearly demonstrated. But I probably read more into your remarks than was there, I don’t think that’s the point you were trying to make, and I apologize for any misunderstanding.

I just thought that it was important to address and dispute that trend to label Islamic societies as the ultimate threat to freedom when really the issue of oppressive and overreaching government is something that encompasses all civilizations, even our own.

I think you and UCrawford are both completely misunderstanding the point of the post and the point of the WSJ article I quoted. This isn’t about Islam per se. Its about how the existence of repressive regimes creates a breeding ground for the kind of radical Islamists who would consider it to be somewhere even approaching rational to strap explosives to your chest, walk into a pizza parlor and blow you and everyone else inside to kingdom come.

I didn’t say anything about Islam being inherently repressive, I was pointing out the fact that repressive regimes create an environment that allows terrorism to grow.

And Israel is cited not to argue that it targeted because it is relative free, it is cited because it is the closes thing in the Middle East to a free society.

Turkey may be a member of NATO, but its hardly a free country in a Western sense. Outward expressions of religious belief are banned. Minority groups like the Kurds are repressed. And the military has more than once overthrown civilian governments.

As for the targeting of Israel by the terrorists, that’s got less to do with the relatively “free” nature of Israel today than with the U.N. dismissing Palestinian claims to title after World Warr II and giving the land away as reparations for the Holocaust (thereby essentially punishing the Palestinians for an event they had nothing to do with). The “freedom” of Israeli-style government is largely irrelevant to the conflict…the people who attack Israel do so because they see it as an invalid state created by Western tyranny (since Muslims weren’t particularly well-represented in the U.N. when the decision to gift Palestine was made). Although the Muslims’ tendency to adhere to the philosophy of collective rights (based around their religion) certainly plays a role, the conflict was largely caused by the U.N.’s land-grab of Palestine after WWII *

As for Islam being inherently repressive, you’re ignoring the exceptions of Turkey, pre-1973 Afghanistan, and Qatar (which has become significantly Westernized over the last decade). Islam is not necessarily incompatible with freedom or stable government, as long as those governments are willing to embrace the concept of individual (as opposed to collective) rights and freedoms. That’s the main sticking point for good governance in the Islamic world.

*Just to be clear, by attacking the U.N.’s decision to create Israel in 1948, I am not proposing that Israel should be abolished now (I think that would be as wrong as the 1948 partition) nor am I condoning the terrorist tactics of the PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah. I consider Israel to be a sovereign state and I consider their conflict with the Palestinians to be an internal matter that should be resolved between the Israelis and the Palestinians without the involvement of the U.N., the U.S., or the international community at-large. All those outside groups have done with their interference is prolong the conflict and usually make things worse for both sides.