--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Because, among other things, I bother to read what
> they say. Have you read, for example, bin Laden's
> statements, or the Islamist propaganda and policy
> analysis? They want a lot more than US OUT of some
> recent places they've invaded, and a lot more even
> than Palestinian nationhood and the elimination of
> Israel. They want to establish Islamic Republics of
> Virtue throughout the Muslim world,w hich extends
> from
> Morocco to Indonesia and parts of the Philippines
> and
> the former USSR, not to mention bits of China, and
> they want to eliminate all Western influence from
> this
> greater Islamic world. And they've been talking this
> way for over 70 years.
>
>
Right. They have an extremely maximal, aggressive, and dare I say it imperialist agenda that they have thus far been able to temporarily implement in only two places -- Afghanistan and Chechnya -- both of which were used as bases to build the Caliphate.
Saying that their belief system and actions are based in part on legitimate Muslim grievances may be true, but it is fatuous. The horse left the barn long ago on that one. The are rooted in things such as the plight of the Palestinians in much the same way as the rise of Hitler was connected to the plight of post-Treaty of Versailles Germans. Addressing the Palestinian issue is not going to take the wind out of the Islamists' sails any more than readdressing the terms of the Treaty would have appeased the Nazis. In fact they would probably see it as a victory and confirmation of the effectiveness of their methods.
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