Don't expect to meet Americans in the Alps this winter...

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kuwait_ian, Apparantly there is a facility just inside the Kuwaiti border?

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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

One more thing to Masque, Half of the civilians that look like civilians on tv to you( women and Children) are firing at troops, building bombs, and blowing themselves up just to kill the Infidells. MOst abandoned towns , those civilians that look like civilians, will kill you as soon as turn your back. Hell with them , kill them all, and kick the scumbags out of the USA. Hows that you homo.

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huckingfellers, please join me for a cup of tea when you're next in London and we'll try and resolve everything. Have you seen the movie 'Fahrenheit 9/11'? It was made by Michael Moore and raises certain questions about the relationship of the Bush family with key interests in the Middle East. Whatever your views you should see this film. Michael Moore is not an anti-American.

Yes, Masque went O.T.T. So what? Believe me, here in London, we have a lot of worries about what is happening in the Middle East. Not to mention what is happening in London. These are issues with very ancient roots, and we wonder if the politicians fully understand them.

Fahrenheit 9/11 shows the utter despair of a mother (a one-time staunch patriot) whose son was sent to fight - and die - leaving her with questions she cannot find the answers to. A politician's gravest responsibility is to send an army to war.

The public were fooled about this war - there were no 'weapons of mass destruction'.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

And he's still hasn't a clue why he was there and why people were shooting at him! He certainly wouldn't see the irony of him being one of the first to take up arms against an invasion of Verona.

What's really disgusting is the abject stupidity of people who live by rhetoric and an unquestioning nationalistic devotion to an office and flag without regard to the actions taken by the people wrapping themselves in it. That in itself is huckingfeller's abdication of his personal responsibilities to the Constitution of the USA, a document written for the guidance and use by the people, not the politicians. In his own wilful ignorance he is as much a terrorist to his home as anyone else.

One and a half millennia of history leads us to where we are politically in the Middle East and five thousand years of religious intolerance takes us to where Americans think Jeazus(sic) was a white Anglo Saxon Protestant. Heaven forfend he might be a "scumbag" to be kicked out of the USA.

Goodbye and good riddance huckingfellers, you may be a skier but that only proves that you can stand upright. It doesn't mean that you have to go through life as a remora on a corrupt political ass. You demonstrate everything that is American and everything it was created not to be.

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In my job I meet people who have served in Iraq almost daily and I must say that the view generally comes down to oil being the reason for the invasion. The danger of collapse into funtamentalism of Saudia Arabia being the real reason for "aquiring" Iraq.

By observing the thread above it is obvious how wars start. They generally escalate from something trivial. What started as a debate now has an American Snowhead not only leaving SnowHeads but also wanting to deliver laser guided ordanance up the orifice from whence Masque claims he lives.

Why not show the world how its done and try to achieve a friendly but opposing position.

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huckingfellers, interesting to see the attitude of a 'typical' American soldier in Iraq. Therein lies America's problem.

After all it is free

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agavin, you would do well to actually read some history about radical Islam and its motivation for attacking America before posing questions like these. I think you'll find the answers to your questions won't support your criticism of huckingfellars (equally simplistic) analysis.

agavin, hopefully this will be helpful reading for you:

The action of the diverse range of groups who have embraced militant Islam and those who have taken a step beyond that to embark on jihadist-salafist terrorism is not solely a response to the invasion of Iraq, or to the Gulf War in 1991. History shows otherwise. It is the consequence of a the politicisation of a minority and fundamental interpretation of Islam. In modern times it has its roots in movement like the Muslim Brothers in Egypt (which began in the 1920s, and was broken apart by Nasser in 1954), the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate by Ataturk in 1924, both of which represent a fracturing between those who want Arab/Muslim nationalism (i.e. a secular state, with Islam as the national religion, with powerful advocates among Arabs, Turks, Iranians, North Africans, Pakistanis, Malaysians, Indonesians and other)) and those who want Islamic states (where all laws flow from the Sharia, e.g. Taliban-controlled Afghanistan). Gradually this fracture led to revolution and to terrorism, driven by Islamic thinkers such as Qutb (hanged by Egypt in 1966), Mawdudi (died in 1979, published his first book Jihad in Islam in the 1920s) and Khomeini (died in 1989, led the Islamic revolution in Iran). All of these, and many other leaders of radical Islam, have issued calls or religious guidance that distinguish between true followers of Islam and everyone else (whether Muslim or not). They describe Muslims who are outside of their political/religious movements as takfir (a declaration of impurity, in which you no longer benefit from the protection of Sharia law - i.e. it does not matter if you are killed). Traditionally takfir was a sentence of last resort, but the gradually step towards extremism meant that this became broad policy rather than an individual sentence. Much of the second half of the 20th Century saw a bloody struggle between Middle/Far Eastern Muslim states and home-grown proponents of political Islam, often manifesting itself in brutal oppression by the States and terrorism from the jihadists. Saudi Arabia prohibition of Muslim brotherhoods was stricter than most Muslim states, and the conflict between Saudi Wahhabism and Sunni Islam from thinkers such as Qutb and Mawdudi is far more fundamental than what happens to the oil. In Pakistan, the Madrassas (Islamic schools) have done much to create a flow of extremists and terrorists (e.g. the name Taliban means pupil of the Madrassas) where formed by the Deobandi movement which dates from 1867.

The growth of political Islam's hatred of the West, focused on the USA reached new heights during the 1970s. It has many justifications, one important aspect being the fact that Saudi Arabia became immensely powerful because of its new found petro-wealth (it used this money to influence the political/Islamic situation across the Middle East using finance derived from trading with the West). This close alliance, based on petro-dollars, between the Custodian of the two Holy Places and the impious West became the most important point of criticism, and to this day it still is for many Islamic extremists. This is at the heart of anti-American sentiment, emphasised more so by the US and coalition forces using Saudi Arabia as a base for the 1991 Gulf War (at King Fahd's request, and now that arrangement is ending). In addition to this, hatred of America and the the West was bolstered by the fact that typical Western values are diametrically opposed to the values of fundamental Islam, The West's support for Israel and its ongoing occupation of Palestine, the festering sore that stems from the West's colonial adventures in that part of the world and the ham-fisted attempts to influence stability in the region by America and others (seen by some as Imperial interference and by others as a sensible response to an increasingly unstable part of the world). The 1970s also saw a further complication, with Arab nationalism splitting into two opposing camps: progressive States such as Nasser's Egypt. Baathist Syria and Iraq, versus conservative States such as the monarchies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia in which their version of Islam played a more important role. The defeat of the Arab nationalism States by Israel in in 1967, and the apparent victory for Saudi Arabia in 1973 stengthened the hand of those who argued that Islam was more important that statehood, particularly in Egypt where many Egyptian students in opposition to Nasser would eventually drive the thinking, and in some cases terrorism, of radical Islam. The Iranian revolution became a focal point for hatred of the West, with "death to America" being a favourite rallying call. The Revolution plus the invasion of Afghanistan ensured that the stability of the Middle East became a high priority for any country that relied on oil as its principal energy supply (i.e. just about everyone).

The growth of Islamic militant movements (which preceded Islamic terrorist movements) was at its most rampant in the 1970s, and the response of Governments in those countries was to either contain (e.g. Saudi Arabia) or clamp down (e.g. Egypt). Neither policy was entirely successful, not least for President Sadat who was assassinated. Similar tensions were growing in the Far East in Malaysia and Indonesia, and in the North and the Horn of Africa. The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR in 1979 provided a new and more urgent focus, both for Islam and for Cold-War western countries. The USA saw that supporting local resistance fighters was the only was to repel the Russians, and countries like Saudi Arabia saw this as a great opportunity to export all their most militants opponents to another country and be rid of many 'turbulent priests'. It was this that led to the establishment of an extensive infrastructure to recruit, politicise and train thousands of new jihad-is. Recruitment took place from across the world not just Muslim countries, and when the Afghan war was over many of these people returned, complete with a new religious/political justification for militancy/terrorism and newly acquired warfare skills. People like bin Laden, who had been expelled from Saudi Arabia, and came via the Sudan to Pakistan/Afghanistan were fundamental in establishing the infrastructure to recruit and train the jihad-is. These people already had a hatred of the West and moderate Muslim States, and were now acquiring the network of fervent jihadists who would carry out the Islamic terrorism seen in the next two decades.

Despite success in the Iranian Revolution and in capturing Afghanistan (subsequently overturned post-9/11), the politicisation of Islam has failed in its principle objective of ensuring all Muslim States operate on a strict Islamic basis, governed only by the Sharia. It has therefore turned to terrorism, domestically and internationally, as a way of trying to keep pressure on Muslim countries everywhere. Terrorism in the West has, in my opinion, been motivated by either hatred of its values and its relationship with Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, or as a rallying call/provocation to Muslims elsewhere to rise and and reclaim their countries in the name of Islam. The current level of terrorism in Iraq is more to do with destabilising a fledgling country which will not become an Islamic State of the kind that the terrorists would like to see, and in which they would have little influence if the country ever achieves stability. The fact that they can also attack Americans is welcome benefit because of (a) their hatred, and (b) its a useful rallying call for other Muslims who might not by instinct be likely to offer their support for an Islamic-run Iraq. In this sense it mirrors Islamic terrorism in other Muslim countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Algeria, Pakistan, etc.) but writ on a much larger scale because of a general lack of security in Iraq and the fact that it is a rallying point for jihadist-salafists from across the region.

All of this predates by considerable time the invasion of Iraq by the US and a small coalition of other countries. It mostly predates the Gulf War in 1991. To argue that it is simply a response to either of those two events is to ignore or misread the history of the politicisation of Islam in the last 100 years. I have no doubt that these events, and UK/US foreign policy generally, will have helped recruit more radical Islamists to their cause, but those who control the terrorism we are seeing now do not need these actions to justify their aims or their means. Unfortunately this means we have a much larger problem than the fact that US foreign policy is driven by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

You know it makes sense.

rob@rar.org.uk, Hope that was a cut and paste, otherwise I shall have to report you to the "too much time on my hands" police

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Frosty the Snowman, I'm afraid to say, but I took an extended coffee break this morning. It's been a quiet week! I've been meaning to write it for some time, and this morning I was motivated to do so.

A snowHead

rob@rar.org.uk, Nice and concise, an informative read, bravo. I think you may have understated the way that the West (over the last century) has continually played to whichever faction it has deemed useful at the time. The continually changing allegiances has contributed to an overall distrust of the West and its motives by the peoples of the region. A prime reason that there's so little sympathy in the general population to support efforts to find a peace.

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Masque, thank you. I agree I understated the West's shenanigans over the last Century, although this was done deliberately because I wanted to focus on the core religous/political motivations of radical Islamists (which I don't belive are in respnse to any action the West has taken). This might be unfair, but as I have more sympathy with the West's pursuit of stability in the Middle East than I do with the introduction of a religious perversity I hope you'll forgive my failing.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

rob@rar.org.uk, good stuff. The only thing I'd add is that Iran had a democratically elected popular Prime Minister. Who's only error was to nationalise the oil company. Prompting a British and CIA engineered coup in 1953 (the PM was executed) and the establishment of the Shah's regime. Which eventually led to the Iranian Revolution. Yes the West was ultimately responsible for that too.

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kuwait_ian, that's right. I'm not saying that the West is entirely innocent in the Middle East, far from it. Both policies and implementation have from time to time been ham-fisted. However, I think it is important to not lose sight of core values and motivations. There is a difference between being stupid and being evil.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Hi rob@rar.org.uk - my view on radical Islam (anti-western militant Islam) is that it arose as a direct response to the waning dominance of the Islamic empires that once dominated so much of the middle East and Southern Europe. I have seen evidence myself of christians and their Muslim rulers living side by side in peace even at the height of the Muslim imperialism. Obviously the Islamic empires have collapsed and the response was the rise of anti-western (militarism) both resenting being conquered/longing for power again - as well as a perception of Western values destroying their heritage. I guess it could be described as a mixture of what once drove Western imperialism and what motivates the Amish in America to cut themselves off (with added militarism Sad

).

My questions to huckingfellers had very little to do with why the US was attacked. They were more focussed on the resultant mess which was predicted (even by the US and UK security forces), was probably unavoidable once war commenced and the sad brainwashing that has dehumanised the Iraqi's (and apparently anyone from the middle East) to sanitise war.

However, based on my understandings of the origins of radical Islam, I find this whole Iraq debarcle very sad and I definitely don't think it was ever going to be a solution to the problem (assuming it was meant to address terrorism and not something else!) - and at worse has escalated the problem making the world a more dangerous place.

Besides ... did you ever see that article saying that the US army were reclaiming Howitzers used for avalanche prevention from various ski resorts for the Iraq war? Cannot have misguided politicians messing with skiing! wink

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agavin, that's all well and good, but bears no relationship to the rhetorical questions you posed at Q1, Q2 and Q3. As for Q4 I whole-heartedly agree with you. I wish that more time had been spent at the UN Security Council about what would happen after the invasion rather than all the arguing with France and Russia about whether there should be an invasion or not. But all that is besides the point - Islamic terrorism does not have its roots in either of the two US-led wars in the Gulf. Any discussion which centres on current US foreign policy is only dealing with a very small part of a hugely complicated jigsaw.

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rob@rar.org.uk, Ooops had started to post got distracted (work Sad

) and missed your followup ... will read and see if it is the same as I just wrote.

After all it is free

rob@rar.org.uk, I think we are in agreement that Islamic fundamentalism is not to be understood as a response to US foreign policy in the last few years and that it predates that. I think you also happily agree that the West has done nothing to help the situation in the past century in Iran, Afghanistan etc. I would like to add that the first gulf war was also a hash - the US should have finished the job properly when they had some support instead of pursuing a duplicitous (sp?) path which has subsequently backfired.

As for my questions, I don't think I made myself clear Puzzled

Qs 1,2 & 3 were not referring to 9/11, but the disturbing statements made by our American friend which totally seem to ignore any feel as to how people of a sovereign country may react to being invaded (and I am not even talking about Islamic fundamentalism) when there is power vacuum (Q4). My comments about being attacked were referring to his statements about the 'civilian' Iraqis and not 9/11! I don't believe that the attacks on the troops in Iraq can all be attributed to Islamic fundamentalism - there is a healthy dose of banditry, patriotism, internal power struggle (some religiusly motivated - and other clearly over oil!).

I think I'm going to be forced to re-title this thread "Don't expect to meet Americans in snowHeads this winter" ...

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agavin, who mentioned 9/11? I assumed that your comments at Q1-3 were all about the US invasion of Iraq, which I think is not an unreasonable assumption given that all three questions use the word 'invasion' or 'invaded'. I suppose at a stretch it could mean the invasion of Afghanistan, but as huckingfella had talked about the time he had served in Iraq I kind of discounted that option. If you belive that Islamic fundamentalism is not a response to US foreign policy, I can't understand what you were trying to get at in your response to huckingfella.

As for 'finishing the job' in 1991, the coalition of Western and Muslim countries only just held together to eject Iraq from its occupation of Kuwait. Any whiff of regime change would have brought down the entire diplomatic process that led to that coalition. That would have further fractured the relationship between moderate Muslim states and the West.

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You know it makes sense.

There.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

and Everywhere

A snowHead

If only the energy used to slag each other off, was chanelled into something more positive.... ohh the possibilities.

A snowHead

Nadenoodlee, some of us are trying to be positive, even when we disagree strongly with other posts.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

rob@rar.org.uk,
I too am confused by what you think I said and what I think you said? My qyuestions to our American friends comments were in direct response to what HE had SAID.

Q1 - was aimed at the vast discrepancy between his original justification of the good that has been done i.e. there to liberate them vs. his subsequent post of wanting to kill them all (as quoted)? I genuinely wanted to know how he reconciled these?
Q2 - as to why he thinks the 'civilians' are trying to kill him - he clearly has classified them all as terrorists - as per my points above it probably doesn't have a huge amount to do with fundamentalism - think banditry, internal power struggles and probably some plain patriotism! Yet he has classified them all as terrorists. We all know that any links between Saddam and Islamic fundamentalism is extemely tenuous (even christian minorities were protected under Saddam)!
Q3 - related to Q2. Clearly those shooting at him now would not have been shooting at him if he had not invaded their country.

I am afraid that sabre-rattling, kick-ass comments of somebody glorifying a war over nothing in which innocent peoples are now arguably worse off and have been dehumanised was a little bit too much to take.

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agavin, my apologies if I misread your post. To my reading Q2 and Q3 in particular seemed to conflate a whole range of complex issues into a simple assessment of action and reaction. I'm sorry if that wasn't what you intended.

I also didn't easily stomach huckingfellas comments, but I get depressed when this kind of debate turns into a pro-American versus anti-American rant, with a few sideswipes at the UK thrown in for good measure (although rarely is there any criticism of the people who are perpetrating the terrorist acts Puzzled

). As far as I'm concerned this is an important issue which deserves a bit more thought about why it is happening and how best to make it all stop.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

rob@rar.org.uk, No problems - my overhasty typing ... always up for a good debate ... gotta keep onself amused in other ways when it is summer Cool

Certainly my apologies too if it was interpreted as an anti-American slagging match. Not what I intended. I work directly with 2 Americans and a few others on the client side and they definitely do not share huckingfellas views.

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Have we been had? Surelyhuckingfellers, isn't really a real person. You could so easily swap the 'h' and the 'f'. Do you think someone is taking the mickey? Puzzled

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erica2004, he posts on epic with the same name.

After all it is free

erica2004, Yes, he's a real person and unfortunately represents a sizable chunk of my county's population and attitudes. But not all of them. It's a big country and many are starting to see the damage that's been done in their name and taking the choices and steps to change that. The next couple of years will be crucial to our World's future. I don't want minds like his and in that I equate his attitude to be the same as any fundamental extremist, to be the architects of that future. Sad

edit 4 spulleng

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We are all entitled to our own views . Am I not correct ? I have never went with the grain my entire life, and it has carried me far. I was an army ranger and I owe alot to the army for what it has done for me. I am now a successful busisness man and owe part of that to army and the lessons I took from there . We were one of the first in country. I am now honorably discharged! Main reason being after seeing some of the poo-poo I have seen and doing some of the things i had to do in country has completely turned me off from military action to be honest with you. My combativeness here i guess is a way to cope and try to justify what happened there in my own little world. I cant count how many times Iraqi civillians have thanked us for doing what we did. Granted they want us out now, and really, I think we should get out as well. Cause this is gonna go on for a long long time and it is a shame for all the people who have died and are about to . Micheal Moore is a piece of poo-poo! He has been booed off stage all over the US and farenhiet 9/11 was nothing more than a bunch of lies and a way to try and get Kerry in office. When i joined the military I did not expect any of this to happen nor did I want it to. But it was my job and duty to go and there was nothing I could do about it. I am a very oppionated person, if ya couldn't tell. Masque sorry for any harsh words towards you.
David Goldsmith I will actually be in London this winter on my way to St. Anton in Austria. London then amsterdam, the ski train into austria, after skiing to Paris. Then home. 4 of us are gonna be traveling together so a cup a tea I will pass on. But I'll buy you a beer. Travel agent is still working out our details.
One more thing, to be honest with you, certain miltary personell knew we were not going there for WMD. My honest view of this war goes like this. We went to Iraq as a retalitory strike, the administration knew what was gonna happen with the terrorist BS and them all migrating to iraq to kill the infidells (Americans). Our time there has killed a whole crap load of terrorists compared to our casualty rates. Our casualty rate is very acceptable to the american military and the dumb Fitzwilliams are looking at it as a small victory or at least thats the feeling I got when I was in country. Should we of even went in the first place, no! Can we get out right now? No, not even if we wanted too because the country is way more unstable now that it has ever been and yes that is because of us. Sad to say but we will be there for at least 4 to 5 more years. Many more people will die and probably not for much good. I don't know what to really think, and I try not to think much of it. It was no fun there for me at all. I did not get joys from killing, but you have to do what you have to do. This post may not make much sense because I am still trying to make sense of what happened. To be frank with yas I have a hard time still, and I have been home for a while now, dealing with what happened there. But Be Nice please!

it. Its over with for me and I thank god every day I made it out of there alive!! Cause a few close friends of mine did not and that is not easy to carry with you. So lay off me and let me be please! Skiing is all I have that I really enjoy in life now. The only thing that really takes my mind away from horrors that go through it every damn day. There so now you know, I am a real person, I can stand up straight, and i really am not for this war anymore! i may not deal with these issues the correct way( what is the correct way) but the way I do it works for me. I am a respectable person if ya got to really know me you would not think I am a bad guy. pe@ce

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Don't expect to meet Americans in the Alps this winter...

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