Peanut Prez Strikes Again....

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by Judge

There is no contradiction.. .there's nothing in the article you posted that says reagan did it. B/c it was part of the terms carter agreed to... but the funds weren't released until the prisoners were set free - so it occurred while reagan was president, but he didn't negotiate it The house and Senate investigated, both agreed there was no involvement by Reagan in the deal.

Iran knew he would come after them and they folded.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that what you say in your first paragraph is right - that Carter negotiated the release of the hostages and that they happened to be released after Reagan was elected. I believe it occurred when it did as a result of several factors: 1) the death of the Shah; 2) the invasion of Iran by Iraq; and 3) the mediation by Algeria. The agreement included, according to wiki:

"Point I: Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs, "The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." Other provisions of the Algiers Accords were the unfreezing of $8 billion of Iranian assets and immunity from lawsuits Iran might have faced."


Although many credit Reagan's tough-guy image with the Iranian capitulation, I don't think that was a factor. After all, Carter attempted one rescue attempt and had planned another. It did add a lot to the Reagan luster though (and myth).

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by jmichna

So, this excuses the attacks? War zones in Israel or the US? Actually, most (way more than half) are not war zones. Struggles for power exist every where. I haven't seen the Democrat and Republican terrorists using IEDs or suicide bombers yet. And, what sort of struggles for power? Who is trying to gain?

You said:
"They WOULDN'T be attacking us if we weren't "over there." That's true."

So, did all these other cities, in all these other countries, also attack them? Occupy them?

Did you even bother to look at the records of attacks... thousands of attacks, almost every day of the year, each year, somewhere in the world, tens of thousands of casualties. Where are the Buddhist attacks? The Mormon attacks? The Lutheran attacks? The Shintoist attacks? The Hindu attacks? The Catholic attacks? These are all victims... they and many, many others. What is the common denominator in all these attacks? You just refuse to see, and insist on blaming your own culture. You act as a tool.

First of all, I am not blaming my own culture for any terrorist attacks. I AM blaming my government and its policies for attacks on Americans or American facilities.

Second, this website religionofpeace.com seems like more of a hate site than an information site. What is the purpose of accumulating all of these incidents other than to stoke suspicion and hatred toward a particular religion? I stand by my allegation that most of these attacks are in war zones or in struggles for conflict.

Also, according to the statistics I saw on the National Counterterrorism Center website, more terrorist attacks are secular than religious. I can't get the chart to paste here, so hopefully you can read it.

http://www.nctc.gov/

Number of Incidents, Dead, Wounded, Hostage, and Total from 01/01/2001 to 03/31/2008
Grouped By Perpetrator Characteristic

Perpetrator Characteristic Incidents Dead Wounded Hostage Total

Christian Extremist 88 726 348 236 1,310
Environmental/Anti-Globalization 9 0 2 0 2
Islamic Extremist (Shia) 325 850 2,670 353 3,873
Islamic Extremist (Sunni) 4,550 15,904 33,660 1,823 51,387
Islamic Extremist (Unknown) 580 1,548 5,479 350 7,377
Jewish Extremist 4 5 28 0 33
Neonazi/Fascists/White Supremacists 1 0 6 0 6
Secular Political/Anarchist 10,432 10,482 16,123 54,209 80,814
Tribal/Clan/Ethnic 244 1,165 633 327 2,125
Unknown 27,484 37,937 76,722 4,644 119,303

Total: 43,717 68,617 135,671 61,942 266,230

April

Also, did you know that something like 99% of Muslim-Americans disapprove of terrorism? They're Muslims too.

Regarding suicide terror attacks, another guy has compiled statistics about that.

The American Conservative: Your new book, Dying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Can you just tell us generally on what the book is based, what kind of research went into it, and what your findings were?

Robert Pape: Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources—Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others—so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.

This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers.

TAC: So if Islamic fundamentalism is not necessarily a key variable behind these groups, what is?

RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

TAC: That would seem to run contrary to a view that one heard during the American election campaign, put forth by people who favor Bush’s policy. That is, we need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don’t have to fight them here.

RP: Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism, the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us.

Since 1990, the United States has stationed tens of thousands of ground troops on the Arabian Peninsula, and that is the main mobilization appeal of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. People who make the argument that it is a good thing to have them attacking us over there are missing that suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics. It is a demand-driven phenomenon. That is, it is driven by the presence of foreign forces on the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. The operation in Iraq has stimulated suicide terrorism and has given suicide terrorism a new lease on life.

The Logic of Suicide Terrorism

[Etta Place]

Suicide attacks have definitely increased in Iraq though since 2003. I wonder why??

The most shocking thing perhaps is the extent to which suicide bombings have increased exponentially in the years since Pape’s book. Robert Fisk has a piece on the sheer scale of suicide bombings in Iraq in the UK Independent newspaper:

“…a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and—given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people—the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six—even nine—suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper…Never before has the Arab world witnessed a phenomenon of suicide-death on this scale. During Israel’s remarkable occupation of Lebanon after 1982, one Hizbollah suicide-bombing a month was considered remarkable. During the Palestinian intifada of the 1980s and 1990s, four per month was regarded as unprecedented. But suicide bombers in Iraq have been attacking at the average rate of two every three days since the 2003 Anglo-American invasion.”

Israel, Sri Lanka, and the War on Terror (Prospects for Peace)

[FrankRizzoXD40]

Is what you posted supposed to make us feel safer or that the islamofascists really aren't as dangerous as they seem?

I AM blaming my government and its policies for attacks on Americans or American facilities.

Brilliant.

You could start by blaming the people who carried out the attacks first. Then you could say that a different American policy might have helped prevent them.

Why on earth would you blame our government first, as if to say that something we have done somehow justifies terrorist attacks?

Perhaps we have meddled too much, perhaps we have done things to make the islamofascists angry, perhaps our policies could have been different....

Even if that is true, how does it justify or how does it earn our government the right to be blamed for attacks that murder innocent civilians

Frank

[FrankRizzoXD40]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

Suicide attacks have definitely increased in Iraq though since 2003. I wonder why??





Israel, Sri Lanka, and the War on Terror (Prospects for Peace)

At least you are posting sources this time.

Frank

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by FrankRizzoXD40

Is what you posted supposed to make us feel safer or that the islamofascists really aren't as dangerous as they seem?



Brilliant.

You could start by blaming the people who carried out the attacks first. Then you could say that a different American policy might have helped prevent them.

Why on earth would you blame our government first, as if to say that something we have done somehow justifies terrorist attacks?

Perhaps we have meddled too much, perhaps we have done things to make the islamofascists angry, perhaps our policies could have been different....

Even if that is true, how does it justify or how does it earn our government the right to be blamed for attacks that murder innocent civilians

Frank

Nothing justifies attacks on innocent civilians - in the United States or anywhere else. Obviously, people who commit terrorist attacks are desperate or severely deluded.

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by FrankRizzoXD40

At least you are posting sources this time.

Frank

Oh, give me a break!! You get on my case for posting too many articles, and now you're on my case for finally doing so??

[FrankRizzoXD40]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

Nothing justifies attacks on innocent civilians - in the United States or anywhere else. Obviously, people who commit terrorist attacks are desperate or severely deluded.

Then why did you say that you are "blaming our government for attacks"

Why not blame those who committed the attacks (terrorists)?

Frank

[FrankRizzoXD40]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

Oh, give me a break!! You get on my case for posting too many articles, and now you're on my case for finally doing so??

I am wondering if it is accurate!..about Obama

Frank

[jmichna]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

...Second, this website religionofpeace.com seems like more of a hate site than an information site. What is the purpose of accumulating all of these incidents other than to stoke suspicion and hatred toward a particular religion?...

You mistake reporting facts (numbers of terrorist attacks, numbers of killed and wounded) with a "hate site." So, in your world, cataloging and reporting actual incidents, facts, real things that happened - not opinions - are "hate"? And you ask "What is the purpose?" Could it be to inform, to make people aware of what is happening all over the world, because nearly all of these incidents are NOT covered by the MSM? Could it be, because if people understood the frequency and magnitude of all these incidents, they would be truly alarmed and up in arms? Could it be we are intentionally being kept in the dark, because if we truly knew and understood what is happening, the self-blamers, the self-haters, the moral relativists, would have to be open to changing their minds? Could it be because there is ONE common thread, ONE common denominator in ALL the incidents, ALL over the world, in dozens and dozens of countries, and people would prefer to ignore what is happening around them? Or, prefer to ignore this common factor (HINT: it is NOT Israel, and it is NOT the US), and instead look to blame themselves, their culture, their government? Anywhere, but where the blame truly lies? Sorry, I'm not a passenger on the SS Titanic.