This Week in The Fall of the Empire News: We are Fucked.

[evildevil]

Political System Beyond Saving. Nation is Done Forever.

Why Do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial About America’s Role in the World.

There’s been lots of attention-grabbing opposition to Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive order, from demonstrations to court orders. But polls make it clear public opinion is much more mixed. Standard

Comments

[golden_bastet]

Sorry, started writing this last night but had to put it down.

Nah, don't quite agree, because there are at least two ways to read that article.

I don't see the article as saying that all terrorism in the world is about "getting America." What I pick up is that the West's treatment of the Middle East plays a critical role in getting us to where we are today. If the British and French hadn't decided to carve up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after WW I the way they did; if the CIA hadn't banded with the British to overthrow the legally elected Mossadegh in the 50s; if the US hadn't decided to buy off the Saudi Royal Family in the 1970s - at a number of key points in the last hundred years, after something of value (oil) had been discovered in the Middle East (note I'm *not* saying it's 100% about oil) the Western powers spent an inordinate amount of time preventing the people of the region from practicing self-determination in a number of directions. The US, as the largest, most powerful economy / military power after WW II, would have been the main face of Western policy (one reason why Israel changed its main diplomatic efforts from France to the US in the 50s).

Is racism a part of that? Yes, most definitely. As are power, and money, and the Cold War and its remaining power structures (among other things). Taking racism out of the picture doesn't fix everything else.

Lastly, you're right: the US hasn't had any real externally-based terrorist attack since 9/11. That's not from lack of trying, especially since one successful incident would put those groups back on the map. Faisal Shahzad and Richard Reid failed because their bombs failed. And today we have kids who get radicalized and go over to join ISIS.

On 9/10/01, you could have just as well have said that Al Qaeda was some two-bit operation that didn't stand much of a chance of mounting an attack in the domestic US. The main difference is they weren't caught in time.

So yeah: badly written article, definitely an internal threat from unstable people. But that's a different issue from external groups looking to score points.

[amw]

Urgh, it has been a crazy week, sorry I didn't get back to you on this, and now I kinda lost the thread of where I was going with it. Thanks for the thoughtful response.

One anecdote on Al Qaeda - I found out about 9/11 from an early morning phonecall from my mom ~6-7 hours after the towers fell because I was in Australia at the time, and one of my first questions was if it was bin Laden. He was definitely understood to be more than just a regional thug in 2001.