Sorry for the late reply - I don't often come into this forum.
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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Sorry, but this outlook - and it's widespread - betrays a woeful ignorance of history. It's fundamentally wrong on two fronts:
1) If foreign imperialism and meddling in itself gave rise to radical terrorism, why aren't we seeing terrorism in all the other destabilized parts of the world? Vietnam was colonized and brutally exploited for centuries, and less than 50 years ago being bombed into the stone age by Americans. Where are the Vietnamese jihadis blowing themselves up at restaurants and pop concerts? Or the Congolese terrorists? Or the Hondurans?
2) How does it explain that everywhere Islamic societies borders with non-Islamic societies we have radicalized violence? Not only in the Middle East, but in Nigeria, Chad, Kenya, India, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines? Why aren't the Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists in those regions blowing themselves up and slaughtering civilians?
There is a political dimension to this issue. But religion is the catalyst. And certain strains of Islam have proven remarkably effective agents for radicalization. Far more effective than any Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or secular ideology today.
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First off, it isn't a woeful ignorance of history. What you are showing is a woeful ignorance of Islam and a Muslims in general.
Why didn't those countries you listed lash out against the west like the middle east are?
Aside from the fact that Vietnam won the war, Vietnam became a socialist state where religion was not encouraged. Now, before you connect the dots here and say: "see! Religion!", consider this.
In how many of the above countries you listed have the USA and/or Britain gone in and removed responsible and representative governments and replaced them with religious zealots? Yes, that's right - ZERO. Those nations were all coup targets - even South Vietnam during the Vietnam war - but they were replaced with puppet regimes that were controlled through financial rewards.
The Middle East was different. The Russians were moving in. The USA tied its' currency to Oil, rather than Gold. They could not lose the middle east to Russian influence. They found through trial and error that the middle east was difficult to control and have Oil flowing steadily and cheaply into the USA and into Great Britain with simple bribery. After the second world war, the west fanned the flames of religion, citing that if Russia came in that their communist philosophy was a danger to Islam.
The 60's and 70's saw an uptick in the USA training and radicalizing the middle east, and the results were easy to see. Russia couldn't take Afghanistan.
You have to remember that this is now a few generations of disenfranchised people living in the middle east, living mostly under fear of the people in power, and constantly being bombarded with this radical ideology - one that only existed as all radical ideologies exist in the other parts of the world - the fringes of society.
Another example getting out of the middle east altogether can be found in Cambodia. What happened there? Cambodia officially took a stance of neutrality in the Vietnam war, never bending under the US pressure to enter it. So, with the US under Nixon and (more importantly) Kissinger, they made a plan to leave Vietnam and show Russia that although they lost, they were not to be pushed around. They developed the Man Man plan - to show Russia that its' leaders were crazy and willing to destroy a nation when said nation did not want to support the USA.
What did they do? More bombs were dropped on Cambodia than they were on Vietnam. Cambodia - the real "Pearl of the Orient" at the time with their high quality of life - was bombed to the stone age. The USA (partnering with China, who were uneasy with Russia's influence on Vietnam who they considered a province of China) worked to put into power a fringe radical group into power there. Funny thing was, they were communists. Not just communists mind you, but the worst, most radical form of communism ever seen to this day - the Khmer Rouge. You might have heard of who their leader was? Some guy named Pol Pot? Well, he marched everyone out of the cities. Everyone with education was pulled away and shot. Doctors. Lawyers. Teachers. Professors. All shot dead. All the books in all the libraries were burned. They were intent on returning Cambodia to a completely agrarian society.
Now, what does have to do with the topic at hand? Well, the USA formally made peace with Vietnam and surrendered. Why then, did they support Pol Pot and encouraged excursions into Vietnam? They were very much 'terrorizing' Vietnam, and it lasted right up until Vietnam marched into Cambodia. Vietnam - just finishing a long and difficult war - commanded every household to contribute one bowl of rice to the people of Cambodia. Many millions of lives died because of the USA's decision to conduct a secret and ILLEGAL bombing campaign in Cambodia, and millions of lives were saved by the Vietnamese coming in and putting a stop to the Khmer Rouge.
Look, I am not defending these idiotic terrorists who heinously murder the innocent. I am Catholic by the way, in case you are wondering if I have some personal agenda here.
Those Islamic terrorists need to be stopped. ISIS needs to be stopped. I think it is a mistake for any nation in the world to withdraw from this war at this point. The world needs to deal with this.
However, I do think that it is extremely hypocritical to point at Islamic Terrorists and say "Only them!!" when the country who for a very, very long time has exported more terrorism than any other country in the world is absolved. If you are going to cite Islam as the reason that terrorism exists, then you should also at least stop being hypocritical and cite Captialism as being terrorist by nature as well. I mean, that's exactly what has been happening for a very long time, isn't it? Or doesn't it count because who cares about the people they are destroying 'over there somewhere'?
Lastly, I want to touch-upon your last point. "
And certain strains of Islam have proven remarkably effective agents for radicalization."
How on earth do you think these 'strains' of Islam gained enough power and sway to radicalize so many?
Wait... what do you even mean by 'strains'? I think you will have to be more specific with regards to 'strains'. Sects? I was going to start answering your question there, but I don't really know what you are referencing. I assume you are referring to sects of Islam, rather than pockets of radicals in certain mosques, but I am not sure.
The most remarkable agent for radicalization is for a radical organization (sect, strains, pockets - whatever you want to call them) to gain control through force in a region. That is how they radicalized more and more people. Then they use propaganda in order to further their beliefs. Guess where a lot of that propaganda is coming from?
You see Islam and believe that correlation is proving causation. Well, I see one (or two or three) nations destabilizing other nations and propping up Islamic radicals. It was simply the west using religion like they did in the last crusades, or against the Ottoman Empire, or against those dirty non-believers Russian Commies who won't let you practice your faith. Now everything is out of control.
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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
So you don't agree with my theory but you do.
Look its easy to blame the West and they need to take a big bite of a blame sandwich, but it goes far beyond that. Groups like ISIS and Al Queda are all about charismatic leaders who want to acquire power and wealth.
ISIS their leaders wanted to form a caliphate, their own nation of basically slaves, kept in line by terror and a f'd up interpretation of their religion.
Al Quaeda wanted to basically purify their holy lands, and not for all of Islam, but the more radical interpretation,
Leadership in these groups is no different then Hitler or Stalin or Mao with the exception that they didn't have a country to to subvert, they had a hypothetical, a religion without borders.
So yeah, their message was blame the West and strike back from our umbrella of righteousness. But I'm pretty convinced that even without interference from the West we would have seen the rise of groups like this anyways.
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I don't think that they would have gained any sort of relevancy if it wasn't for the west's involvement.
Just like in my example above, there would have been zero chance for the Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge to take control of Cambodia if it wasn't for the USA's (and China's) assistance. It is just like expecting the Montana Freeman to take over the USA with their radicalized viewpoint. However, if Russia had worked with the USA, helped to conduct a coup and bombed the crap out of the USA overnight, well... who knows then, right?
That's what I think happened in the middle east. That is what I think IS happening all the time. Unfortunately, the world has no choice but to go in and completely root out ISIS and all the other radicalized groups, but they also need to work at the grassroots level and actually help build these countries up for a change. That's the only way you can defeat a radicalized group once they take over, in my opinion, and the more generations worth of radicalization, the more difficult the task is going to be. I definitely agree with you that there needs to be a sustained globally coordinated military action against ISIS and all like groups. I just think that these groups wouldn't have gained such prominence without the help of the west to begin with.