"Islam" and "terror" are facades over-simplifying the heart of the M.E. struggle

"I fail to see how a private individual represents the Bush administration." Excuse me for my lack of clarification. James baker is a co-chair of the Baker-Hamilton Commission, appointed by congress to assess the current situation in Iraq and compose a report full of recemondations to handle the situation. James Baker is one of George Bush's closest advisors. Don't get me wrong, I am a proud American patriot, And I agree that it is necessary to rid the world of radical Islam. You say your angry because my countrymen died and my country was attacked. I feel the same way, but listen to me when I say that relaliation was not the only logical response...... in the 1920s my grandfather escaped from Mardin, Turkey as his family was butcherd by Muslims during the Armenian Genocide. My family had lived there for almost a millenium. He escaped to Syria with nothing. somehow he became one of the richest men in Syria, the American dream in a country that dispises it. Than the Bathist Islamic government took it all away, just because they could. I hate radical Islam. Attacking Afghanistan and Iraq was completely uncessary if the true goal was ridding the world of radical Islam. George Bush was either a complete genius or a complete idiot in making the decision. I hope he was genius, because I would like to think that the man running our country isn't an idiot. Recognizing 9/11 as a horrendous tragedy and acting on it was exactly what Osama Bin Laden wanted. In the Middle East, were terrorist attacks happen daily, the telivized American response made us look weak and helpless. This fueled Radical Islamic nationalism. Then we declared war, fueling the nationalism further, when you keep in mind that our enemy only cares about making our life hell and has no fear of death, nationalism is all that matters. If you are trying to rid the world of radical Islam, this is the complete opposite of what you must do. When you say that the main objective is oil, it begins to make sense. outside of the obvious large oil reserves. the discord that a national army fighting guerilla militants would cause would be great global cover for oil agendas. during the early stages of the War in Iraq, the U.S. had an uncessary amount of troops gaurding oil platforms across the country. If this was really and idealogical war, why then haven't we recognized the Armenian Genocide, a mass killing of Christians by Muslims double the size of the Rwandan Genocide? instead we opt to use Turkey as base camp for many of our military operations. " just find it hard to reconcile with the stories I hear from troops, in interviews with Iraqi citizens, of schools being built, improved healthcare, cleaner water. If Middle Easterners hate Americans so much, why were the citizens of Iraq so eager to remove Saddam Huesein from power?" It's all false hope. The middle east has been a battle ground since the beginning of cvilization and it will continue to be. America was founded as the home of the free and other countries followed suit. It is a grave mistake to think that we can bring it to the middle east. It is survival of the fittest over there. Saddam is gone, yes. But somwhere in Iraq there is a child who will one day fill much of the same roll as him. Is this war justifable on the basis of 9/11? -no Is this war justifiable on the basis that it is in America's best interests? -yes This war is about oil, not idealogies. Survival of the fittest is all that matters. and that goes for absolutly everything. the evolution of civilization has moralized and hid the fact that everyone does everything for their best interests. Oil and power fit the bill in this case, while Islam and Terror simply do not. We are fighting a war against a whole culture for what one man did. Which only makes sense if it is in the interest of attatining influence. You say you got angry when I said we had 9/11 coming....here is what I meant: In 1979, during the Soviet-Afghan War, Osama Bin Laden was recruited by the CIA (covert)to fight Soviet invaders. The war, was publically called a "jihad" by the muslims involved in protecting afghanistan. the "jihad" was supported by the United States. CIA sponsored guerilla training for recruits, was integrated with the teachings of Islam. The Pakistan's Inter-services intelligence served as the middleman between the CIA and the islamic soldiers. Through doing this, the U.S. was able to hide their main objective, which was using Islamic troops to defeat the Soviet Union. CIA's Milton Beardman confirmed that Osama Bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. "Neither I, nor my brothers saw the evidence of American help" Bin Laden is qouted as saying. These Islam warriors were motivated by nationalism, and religion, yet they were being tricked into fighting for the benifit of the United States. With the backing of the CIA, and massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI became a tremendous force, composed of 150,000 Afgani and Pakastani Millitants. With their new power, they became more agressive. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980 (war started in pakistan), The CIA and the ISI chief both agreed to decieve the world, they publically vouched for negotiating a settlement, while privatly agreeing that military escalation would be the best course. To gain funds for military operations, the U.S. and the CIA turned its heads and allowed the Drug trade, which they had been fighting, to resume. what was once a regional drug hotspot, become the the number one supplier to the United States, the Pakastani Herion-addict population went from almost none in 1979, to 1.2 million in 1985. All of this due to the U.S. interest of wiping out the Soviet Union. After the cold war, the ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled, the CIA continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of Pakistan. Despite its Anti-american idealogy, Islamic fundamentalism was serving Washington's strategic interests in the former Soviet Union. In 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued, the Taliban were being supported by the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), which in 1993, would establish connections with the ISI (the U.S. funded and trained Islamic coalition). in 1995, the Taliban was given all the training camps. At this point, the Taliban and the ISI were basically indistingushable. In 1996, Osama Bin Laden attended a summit led by rebels Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab (both trained in CIA sponsered camps during the war). the summit was sponsered by HizbAllah, in which they planned a war in Chechnya. Despite the U.S. condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the eventual beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the American oil conglomerates, vying for control of oil in the Caspian sea. So why did Osama Bin Laden kill innocent people on 9/11? Because the United States manipulated and used him and his people like they were an expandable resource. The U.S. used them to fight a war for us secretly, they thought they were dying for a cause, but that cause was U.S. gain. then we left the mess for him and his people to clean up. Then in the Gulf War, we go and ride tanks all over his homeland, with his people dying, from mortars and stray missles, and we won't even aknowledge him, yet 6 years later, he inadverntally, helps the U.S. again, we turned the other way, he got us oil. Your rebutle was by far the best I have had on this site. The only reason I was angry earlier was because of the briefness of your response on what I felt was an important issue. I too am searching for the truth. I am not pro-war this, or anti-war that, I want to know why it happened. I feel the whole system of politics has grown to the point where it oversimplifies things for citizens because of the growing ambivelence to realpolitks. I am not afraid to admit I am wrong. I am out of room, good luck in the next round.