[flagged]
The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
111–120 of 171 posts
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#112[flagged]
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm starting to think there needs to be a "born post 9/11' disclaimer, as I believe living through that period, while remaining acutely aware of what happened in the Middle East during that period, is where the nuance originates
There is a shocking amount of hindsight bias with the US war in the middle east which seems to entirely forget 9/11. Including those who remember 9/11.
If we go by the number of civilians who got killed and the loss of infrastructure, You can compare the impact of 9/11 and the so called counter operation. Assuming you consider value of civilian life is same for a US citizen and a non US citizen.
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same arguments can be made about terrorism. I'd argue that war was not the only choice in many instances it was used, just like terrorism wasn't the only choice. That may not be a popular opinion for either side. War is reactionary and somehow hasn't stopped terrorism despite its blunt usage. And terrorism hasn't stopped bombs from falling yet either.
War may be imposed upon you by one side, such as the invasion of a country. At which point, war stopped being a choice. Terrorism as far as we can see is basically incredibly ineffective for inspiring any sort of changes, and serves to enrage your enemy, much like indiscriminate mass bombing often strengthen the resolve of those who are on the receiving end of it.
But, circling back to 9/11, I often do wonder how the world would look like today, if America had found it within itself to not react with war to the attacks. There was such a broad outpouring of sympathy and support across the world: enough political capital for all kinds of projects.
If only a few of those hanging chads in Florida had hung differently, or if Gore had further pressed the issue...
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
One persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter. Your thought pattern only adds more fuel to the fire that there is wrong think.
No, I think it's pretty clear what a terrorist does - target civilians on purpose. But, terrorists can certainly be freedom fighters as well or vice versa.
I think it's pretty clear what a terrorist does - target civilians on purpose.
So Hiroshima: the US is terrorist, Gaza: Israel is terrorist, etc etc
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#116It's dangerous to allow people to read source content for themselves. You can't have them drawing their own conclusions!
oh well, this site's becoming unusable without enabling view of dead/flagged posts
Anti-mob-censorship bookmarklet:
javascript:document.querySelectorAll('.commtext').forEach(a => a.className = 'commtext c00');Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#117From Wikipedia: > Raymond Ibrahim, as a researcher at the Library of Congress, found a significant difference between Al Qaeda's messages in English directed to a Western audience and al Qaeda's Arab messages and documents directed to an Islamic audience. The Western-directed messages listed grievances as grounds for retaliation employing the "language of 'reciprocity.'" Literature for Islamic audiences contained the…
And what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general?
If I live under occupation, I don't need to constantly remind it to the locals. They get reminded each time they get randomly sent back at a checkpoint and miss work or cancer treatment, because the checkpoint occupant is frustrated today, or whatever. Western audience, which has no concept of day to day abuses, however, may need a different message.
(just an example)
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#118> The Guardian has removed a letter written by Osama Bin Laden, explaining his war against the United States is partly because of its support of Israel, after it had gone viral on TikTok. If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting ter…
They consider themselves freedom fighters, because the notion of freedom is totally different for them.
Freedom doesn't include being gay, a woman with actual rights, a minority that's not a muslim and so on.
Moreover, their historical narrative is twisted to fit their objective - the creation of a wold-wide califate.
So yes, when freedom is based and defined by this narrative, you could call them freedom fighters.
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
What nuance needs to be added to blowing up hospitals?
The nuance where disinformation and lies have convinced you the wrong people blew up a hospital [parking lot]? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio...
Re: The Guardian Deletes Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
#120> The Guardian has removed a letter written by Osama Bin Laden, explaining his war against the United States is partly because of its support of Israel, after it had gone viral on TikTok. If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting ter…
They consider themselves freedom fighters, because the notion of freedom is totally different for them. Freedom doesn't include being gay, a woman with actual rights, a minority that's not a muslim and so on. Moreover, their historical narrative is twisted to fit their objective - the creation of a wold-wide califate. So yes, when freedom is based and defined by this narrative, you could call them freedom fighters.
Sure, this describes the ideological core of Islamist groups like Al Qaeda. But this also ignores the power dynamics they exist and flourish in.
The problem with "freedom fighters" is that they can be both: they can be fighting for freedom while also fighting for the right to subjugate others. The latter is often accepted if the desire for the former is strong enough. Dropping bombs on people lowers the threshold for this radicalization substantially.
And if you want to be particularly uncharitable you could argue that as long as the US is not actively pivoting to isolationism (and especially so during the "world police" era until the late '00s) the US's objective was to maintain a world order with itself at the top of the hierarchy. "Liberating" other countries was historically more about making their economies accessible to US interests (and pre-collapse also shutting out the Soviet Union).
I'd take US corporate privatization over the caliphate any day but that doesn't mean the former represents freedom in a way I agree with, just that it is a closer match or more compatible.