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The alternative is to stop believing the west has all the answers and should impose them on the rest of the world, by force if necessary. We've been involved in

The alternative is to stop believing the west has all the answers and should impose them on the rest of the world, by force if necessary. We've been involved in countless wars, and few of them have resulted in the world being a better place to live.

dba7dba 11y ago
No west does not have all the answers. But war will be with us no matter what.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  Why? Your argument at first glance appears to be that there has always been war, so there always will be war. That isn't obligatory. We could decide that we're no longer going to engage in imposing our will by force, and our military will only be used in self defence. How long do you think extremists could keep up recruitment if we stopped pissing people off by killing their friends and family, often for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
  - dba7dba 11y ago
    It would be extremely naive to think that wars will stop once the conflict with or in ME goes away. Once that ME problem goes away (however unlikely), something ELSE will come up to cause wars to start. It could be water, economy, power.
atemerev 11y ago
So, female genital mutilation, sex slavery and stoning are all just cultural differences to be ignored? On some occasions, the West has the answers.
- asteli 11y ago
  Oddly enough, these aren't things that we've historically gone to war over.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  Not at all. They're abhorent practices that we should be campaigning to end. You don't change people's minds by turning up and dropping a couple of Hellfires on them. All that achieves is pissing off their family, and making them less receptive to your arguments. Would you be receptive to someone telling you they know better on matters of morality after they blew up your brother?
  - dba7dba 11y ago
    There will be wars. Not just over what West has done to ME. It will be over money, water, power, etc etc. And without those high tech weapons, a lot of warm bodies would be required to pick up a gun and shoot to kill. Close enough to see without the aid of zoomed image on a screen. I'm talking beyond just what West has done or not. Or what ME has done. It's terrible. But again, that's life.
- ljf 11y ago
  Are we are war or considering invading a country that practices fgm? As last time I looked we weren't heading to any African countries with our troops. And fgm is an African issue not a Muslim one... Ethiopia is one of the worst countries for it and is a Christian majority country http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23314088 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23314088
- DanBC 11y ago
  > sex slavery Non Muslims have considerable involvement in sex slavery and other forms of modern slavery.
- fit2rule 11y ago
  The West has more sex slavery going on than anywhere else. Genital mutilation is still a thing in the West. The only thing you've got left is stoning - well, we can counter that with the factoid that the US has more prisoners in its incarcerated population than the rest of the worlds prisons' combined, and most for minor offenses.. So? So what? None of this means you should support a government that wantonly kills people on the other side of the planet on a whim.
simonh 11y ago
When Al Qaeda attacked New York nobody was attacking Afghanistan. No western soldiers were moving in on Taliban territory. No American or European drones or bombers were flying over the tribal territories. We'd successfully defended and liberated some Arab lands in the first Iraq war but had launched no wars of conquest against any Islamic nations and only became involved when Arab leaders pretty much begged us to do so. We did not start these conflicts.
- partisan 11y ago
  We definitely didn't start these conflicts in the Middle East. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
  - simonh 11y ago
    A list of western abuses in the Middle East would be a very long and bloody one, that's fair enough. We have a lot to account for, and Iran in particular has plenty of very good reasons to be hostile to the west. But we are not fighting wars against Iran, instead we are negotiating treaties and slowly building trust. These terrorist attacks are not because we are in a war with Islamic nations. They are designed to create and draw us into wars with Islamic nations. They are provocations to start wars which ISIS and Al Qaeda want to have. They are as much a response to us withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as anything else. Check out ISIS and Al Qaeda's published literature. If we withdrew completely from the Middle East and all Moslem states the attacks would not stop, they would intensify because by deliberate policy they are dedicated to creating a situation in which conflict with the west is unavoidable. I'm afraid that anyone who thinks we can just walk away from this fight and everything will be fine, just doesn't have clue 1 why we are in this to start with. The Wahabi/Salafist world view is one of inevitable and necessary warfare with all non-Muslims, leading to global conquest and a worldwide Caliphate. It's non-negotiable and inimical to democracy, freedom and liberal values. You either convert or die and they way to achieve this is by provoking as much division and strife between westerners and Muslims as possible.
    - 11y ago

dba7dba 11y ago

No west does not have all the answers. But war will be with us no matter what.

jon-wood 11y ago
Why? Your argument at first glance appears to be that there has always been war, so there always will be war. That isn't obligatory. We could decide that we're no longer going to engage in imposing our will by force, and our military will only be used in self defence. How long do you think extremists could keep up recruitment if we stopped pissing people off by killing their friends and family, often for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
- dba7dba 11y ago
  It would be extremely naive to think that wars will stop once the conflict with or in ME goes away. Once that ME problem goes away (however unlikely), something ELSE will come up to cause wars to start. It could be water, economy, power.

atemerev 11y ago

So, female genital mutilation, sex slavery and stoning are all just cultural differences to be ignored? On some occasions, the West has the answers.

asteli 11y ago
Oddly enough, these aren't things that we've historically gone to war over.
jon-wood 11y ago
Not at all. They're abhorent practices that we should be campaigning to end. You don't change people's minds by turning up and dropping a couple of Hellfires on them. All that achieves is pissing off their family, and making them less receptive to your arguments. Would you be receptive to someone telling you they know better on matters of morality after they blew up your brother?
- dba7dba 11y ago
  There will be wars. Not just over what West has done to ME. It will be over money, water, power, etc etc. And without those high tech weapons, a lot of warm bodies would be required to pick up a gun and shoot to kill. Close enough to see without the aid of zoomed image on a screen. I'm talking beyond just what West has done or not. Or what ME has done. It's terrible. But again, that's life.
ljf 11y ago
Are we are war or considering invading a country that practices fgm? As last time I looked we weren't heading to any African countries with our troops. And fgm is an African issue not a Muslim one... Ethiopia is one of the worst countries for it and is a Christian majority country http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23314088 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23314088
DanBC 11y ago
> sex slavery Non Muslims have considerable involvement in sex slavery and other forms of modern slavery.
fit2rule 11y ago
The West has more sex slavery going on than anywhere else. Genital mutilation is still a thing in the West. The only thing you've got left is stoning - well, we can counter that with the factoid that the US has more prisoners in its incarcerated population than the rest of the worlds prisons' combined, and most for minor offenses.. So? So what? None of this means you should support a government that wantonly kills people on the other side of the planet on a whim.

simonh 11y ago

When Al Qaeda attacked New York nobody was attacking Afghanistan. No western soldiers were moving in on Taliban territory. No American or European drones or bombers were flying over the tribal territories. We'd successfully defended and liberated some Arab lands in the first Iraq war but had launched no wars of conquest against any Islamic nations and only became involved when Arab leaders pretty much begged us to do so. We did not start these conflicts.

partisan 11y ago
We definitely didn't start these conflicts in the Middle East. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
- simonh 11y ago
  A list of western abuses in the Middle East would be a very long and bloody one, that's fair enough. We have a lot to account for, and Iran in particular has plenty of very good reasons to be hostile to the west. But we are not fighting wars against Iran, instead we are negotiating treaties and slowly building trust. These terrorist attacks are not because we are in a war with Islamic nations. They are designed to create and draw us into wars with Islamic nations. They are provocations to start wars which ISIS and Al Qaeda want to have. They are as much a response to us withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as anything else. Check out ISIS and Al Qaeda's published literature. If we withdrew completely from the Middle East and all Moslem states the attacks would not stop, they would intensify because by deliberate policy they are dedicated to creating a situation in which conflict with the west is unavoidable. I'm afraid that anyone who thinks we can just walk away from this fight and everything will be fine, just doesn't have clue 1 why we are in this to start with. The Wahabi/Salafist world view is one of inevitable and necessary warfare with all non-Muslims, leading to global conquest and a worldwide Caliphate. It's non-negotiable and inimical to democracy, freedom and liberal values. You either convert or die and they way to achieve this is by provoking as much division and strife between westerners and Muslims as possible.
  - 11y ago