Reading Michael Scheur’s Imperial Hubris at the moment. Combined that with Rothbard and I now understand that Michael Moore was right to compare the resistance in Afghanistan and Iraq to the American revolutionaries. They’re obviously not the same, but they’re both rebelling against a stronger occupying power brutalizing the people.
but Al-Qaeda want to be the ones brutalizing people. they would surely brutalize you if you were a resident of that piece of earth.
to some extent the yanks wanted to be the brutalizers too, but my personal subjective judgement call, is that one is worse than the other.
How were the british brutalizing americans?
Rothbard explains it here:
“The central grievance of the American rebels was the taxing power: the systematic plunder of their property by the British government. Whether it was the tax on stamps, or the tax on imports, or finally the tax on imported tea, taxation was central. The slogan “no taxation without representation” was misleading; in the last analysis, we didn’t want “representation” in Parliament; we wanted not to be taxed by Great Britain. The other grievances, such as opposition to general search warrants, or to overriding of the ancient Anglo-Saxon principle of trial by jury, were critical because they involved the power to search merchants’ properties for goods that had avoided payment of the customs taxes, that is for “smuggled” goods, and trial by jury was vital because no American jury would ever convict such smugglers.”
Rothbard writes: “My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination.”
Aren’t al-Qaeda (and other “terrorist” groups like them) merely trying to overthrow an existing domination? I’m not arguing that they are “better” than the revolutionaries - I think they’re both human beings, and therefore capable of being equally bad. Even libertarians with power are dangerous individuals.
no.
in point of fact, they brutalize what civilians they can,(murders, destruction of schools, intimidation of women) even as they fight against The Great Satan
That is the same Washington does to Nebraskans today. So unless he connects american troops in Afghanistan to federal domination of Nebraska, he is just bullshitting.
He does, don’t you know Rothbard is an anarchist that hates the state?. That includes the American one.
I was talking about Moore’s comparison.
lol, then we agree, [:D]hurray!.
that doesn’t happen often [;)]
Shouldn`t conflate Al Qaeda with the resistance in Afghanistan and Iraq.
You mean just like the revolutionaries brutalized Loyalists?
ok
Al Qaeda does not exist.
It’s an idea based on a very weak premise that there is a linked network of international terror - a government-sponsored conspiracy theory. If you are a skeptic and believe in evidence, you will not find much evidence for Al Qaeda. I am sorry.
Even people closest to bin Laden and turncoats to him have no idea about the Kenyan embassy blasts or other such isolated incidents which are mystically tagged to this evil international conspiracy network. The remnants of mujahideen which fought in the Soviet-Afghan wars have absolutely no organization whatsoever.
Tony Blair once even foolishly thought that Chechens are also part of this international Islamic terror network, when Chechens are just anti-Russian dissidents and have absolutely no connection to Islamists in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.
Even the people involved in 9/11 attacks were sons of wealthy and secular Arab families, several of whom lived and studied in the West. They hardly strike me as Islamic fundamentalists. I seriously think it is more likely that a group of brilliant aeronautical engineers and pilots simply got frustrated with US/Israel policies and their own life, and took out their hatred on this long-sketched out plan to do this. None of them strike me as people with religious motivation, so much as just sporadically violent youth. I doubt they had any connection to some international terror organization.
maybe arguing from ignorance here?
Mohamed Atta - well-educated Egyptian from a wealthy family, who studied in Germany, and lived in a westernized urbanized surrounding in a metropolitan part of Egypt.
Marwan al-Shehhi - Lived in Germany as well, not known to have heavily strong religious inclinations
Hani Hanjour - born to rich family, lived in Arizona and Florida
Ziad Jarrah - born in Lebanon, which is full of nominal Muslims who live secular lifestyles, and his family was reported be exactly that
Just of the top of my head. What I see here is simply a case of anti-US anti-Israeli youth rather than some case of a Muslim jihadi cause. They grew up in secularized western surroundings, and it was just their anger and anguish at Palestine and other such issues which pushed them to do it. It doesn’t necessarilly admit of some internationalist Islamic conspiracy.
But but but that’s not what they taught us in highschool…
in Hamburg, began to regularly attend Al-Quds Mosque.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Quds_Mosque_Hamburg
you think because his family had westernised therefore he wouldnt find an ugly sect of islam to be attractive?
Have you not met people who are ‘born agains’ ?
They are as ruthless as uncle sam. I have seen this. The power drill is a favorite tool of theirs.
They are the old mujahadeen and some new recruits. They exist. They aren’t a dire threat to our way of life though.