It just dawned on me that while the conflict in Afghanastan against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda may be radicalising some elements of Islam, turning them against the West, the conflict over all is actually serving to draw many of the violent dangerous radicals out into the open.

Radicals from all over the world are being drawn to the bright blue ight of Afghanistan and Pakistan where they are being zapped. Its noisy and messy but probably better that they are going there and being killed in droves rather than floating around the world in anonymity striking at inocent civilians as they have traditionally done.

On this basis alone it is worthwhile continuing our involvement in the conflict.

Good point, though the counter argument  by the cheese eaters will be that by "occupying" Muslim countries the nasty West is radicalising more than it is killing. I personally don't buy that line as I suspect that the roots of Islamic radicalism have more to do with the particularily nasty strains of that religion that have been fomenting for a lot longer than the present conflict.

In any case, the real justification for continuing Afghanistan is that more than 100 Australians have died in the WTC and the Bali terrorist attacks, Afghanistan was the base, the Islamists aren't going to stop being Islamists and consequently Afghanistan will become so again if we leave. Its like the fight against crime ... its perpetual. You don't just tell the police to pack up and go home after eight years of effort, just because we are getting sick of having to wear the cost of protecting society against criminals.

You are absolutely correct, Volk, but I would also submit that this was the same strategy in Iraq as well.  Toppling Saddam Hussein was going to be the easy part.  By taking a rather central county in the Middle East we were choosing the field of battle and inviting our enemies to engage us there.  They obliged and died by the thousands in the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, among other places.  This is why I believe that history will probably judge George Bush and his coalition allies much more kindly than contemporary critics. 

 

Aussiegunner makes a number of good points, but for me the important lesson of 9/11 and the attacks on places like Madrid, London, and Bali was that this a war not against just the United States, but on all of Western civilization.  The Brits, Aussies, and Poles, among others, seemed to have recognized this, but others (including some Americans unfortunately) want to believe that we somehow provoked these attacks and by retaliating we are only inviting more attacks.  Sorry, but I subscribe to the belief that the best way to prevent terrorist attacks is to kill the terrorists before they have a chance to kill us. 

I read an article several years ago that theorized that Islamo-fascism actually has little to do with a hatred or fear of western society and culture but rather everything to do with the backlash of conservative Islam against the enlightenment of the majority of those in the faith.  Pretty much what Christianity went through from the 1600's, where the church attempted to maintain its authority (often brutally) over the masses. 

We (Western Society) are the fabricated threat the extremists and conservatives of Islam are using in their efforts to control the thoughts and lives of the average Moslem.  My only hope is they don't take as long to get through this upheaval as Christianity did.

The problem with this assumption is that it underestimates the enemy. People whose reasoning capabilites are limited to facing professional soldiers are not able to plan complicated terrorist attacks. Yet I agree for some part. Not all radical cells have a global agenda, some just want to go and fight.

 

I tend to believe that large scale radicalism is always the byproduct of having nothing to hope for. Clinical nutjobs aside. 

 

Just take the perspective of your average to-be insurgent. Be born and be raised in poverty. Look at misery, poverty for all your life. Have no education, have no hope for travelling. Don't drink, smoke or have flings. Always have a government or a warlord to be afraid of.  Look up in the horizon and be aware of the painful fact that there are people with cool stuff and possibilities. And yet know that it's something you will never be part of. Ok..

 

Then pick up the only ideology around. Become a warrior who travels and who belongs to a powerful movement. Have your horizon painted all over with a mission and a purpose. There you have it. Radicalism falls to your hands because there is nothing else in them but dirt. You start belonging to the world as its enemy, but belong to it nonetheless. 

It's just about uneven distribution of wellbeing. And fine, let it be. Its perfectly ok to smack around the poor bastards who try to come on our side of the world. I want to protect what we have here. Will to keep the ragtag posse at bay is just as human as is the will to try to even the difference. Just be happy you're on this side, keep on killing the ones who try to come over in a violent manner. But don't forget that in their pants you'd be the same as they are now; bugs, if you please.

Mikko, that would be accurate for the Taliban line-doggie, but the ones who fly airplanes into buildings, stick bombs in their shoes, and strap C4 to their undies tend to be well-educated, generally well-off people.  Osama's family is one of the wealthiest in the world, and he got a top-flight education, with plenty of the stuff we all like.  Yet he became very radical.  Why?

 

Ever read The True Believer?  The author had Osama and his bunch pegged back in the early 1950s.

 

Good point. Can't say right now. I think I might have an opinion - probably a totally pointless one - on this in 24 hours. I was only thinking about the muscle, not the ones like Osama.

Nope. What might this pegging procedure be like? (don't now the word in a context concerning Osama and authors..)

Poverty is undoubtedly a cause for young men in particular gravitating towards violence and might be valid for the poverty stricken Pashtun to join the Taliban, but it doesn't explain the behavior of all those arabs from the oil rich Gulf who go there to train and kill. It also doesn't explain suicide bombing ... there are plenty of poor people in the World but you don't hear of anybody but fundamentalist Muslims indoctrinating their kids to blow themselves up. It's their religion, nothing else.

there are plenty of poor people in the World but you don't hear of anybody but fundamentalist Muslims indoctrinating their kids to blow themselves up. It's their religion, nothing else.

 

The Tamil Tigers ae the only other I can think of.

 

I believe there are different motives for different people but one thing that does appear to be happening is an educated few are systematically keeping others ignorant and then sending them out to do the majority of the dying in the name of a cause they don't really understand.

 

Just look at Iran, it is the poor and uneducated keeping the government in power, same goes for most fascist, Marxist and quasi religious states through history, the educated and influential do most of the talking and least of the dying through convincing the unwashed masses that they are the only ones who love and care for them and that they will show them the way to get what is rightfully theirs, if not in this life then the next.

 

It is not dissimilar to child abuse, a perverted minority betray the trust of those who look up to them, using them and then discarding them once they have given all they can give.