Mindmeld, it's a good idea to put radical before the word muslims as you almost did, because it's truly only a radical person that would think it's okay to kill 3000 innocent people.
I am able to read the newspapers from one of the countries you mentioned and am reasonably certain this country would like to see stability of the region and doesn't want to see people killed.
RE: "They say Muslims are peaceful and the terrorists are a fringe group, but the polls tell us a different story."
People that are into killing innocent people are a fringe group.
Are you certain the polls are telling you they support his action, rather than his message?
Do you know what his message is? (This is a sincere question - our media doesn't spend a lot of time explaining it, while in other countries they do)
The media in the USA mostly talks about his action, not about his message. Meanwhile, the media in Saudia Arabia tends to talk about his message, not his action. Thus the disconnect between the two countries in interpreting each other, whether that be interpretation of polls, etc.
On a different note, when Steve Jobs got ill, Yahoo had an article on his illness and provided a message board specifically associated with the article. You would expect the messages to be very sympathetic, right? Many of the messages were shocking to me. It seemed like 60% of the messages said, "you are a selfish baby boomer, you suck." They were basically 20-year-somethings cheering over his illness. I found that incredibly disturbing. There is something very disturbing about people expressing themselves so nastily especially about someone who is ill - it was truly disturbing to see it. And there were so many of them. He certainly doesn't deserve it. After reading some of the posts, I could see their anger had absolutely nothing to do about him, but more about a few structural problems we have in our society that these particular 20-year olds apparently perceive and resent to an unhealthy degree with nearly borderline hostility. There are some things that Steve Jobs represents that doesn't wash well with some of the 20-year olds. They reminded me of the nasty behaving Cairo students that were cheering over the news of 9/11. It is sickening how the human race can be sometimes.
RE: "It tells us that the majority of Muslims support Osama and think he's a hero."
The message that gets reported in their news, is not fringe and it is mainstream, and it's a perfectly normal message that's not scary - it's about not wanting military bases in their holy land. It's perfectly normal for people to wish USA would not maintain military bases on their holy land (amongst other things). I'd be a bit annoyed if mainland China had their military bases in the USA.
What is scary is the action he takes. This is scary.
It's concerning there's a huge gap in focus between what our media reports to us, and what theirs reports to them. Our media doesn't report to us about the pain other countries experience due to the USA, so we are uninformed about how our actions hurt other countries. Meanwhile, their media focuses on the benign aspects of his message which is a empathetic and seductive message for them because it focuses on their concerns, while our media doesn't explain this at all, so we are unaware of the negative impact of our actions or our words.
RE: "what is scarier to me is that the majority of civilized people don't realize the danger we face, because they assume this is a fringe phenomenon"
Killing 3000 innocent people is done only by a fringe ill person. Something like 15 of the terrorists had isolated themselves from their families prior to 9/11 and were loner types from the same oppressed region in Saudia Arabia.
The danger is if more terrorists are recruited. Like the 9/11 commission stated, I believe most muslims are probably afraid the USA govt (and USA media) is accelerating the recruitment of more terrorists through its actions and choice of words (and lack of presenting certain educational things), and this combined with Saudia Arabia's oppressed conditions that create a lack of tolerance to different societies, both of these when taken together are a recipe for danger.
RE: "I refuse to be politically correct in the face of the biggest danger this country"
But you also don't want to create a war by the wrong choice of words that doesn't accurately represent the picture. If our govt incorrectly said, "we are at war with all Muslim countries", that would have a completely different interpretation than, "we are at war with all terrorists and those countries that support terrorists, and we are also focused on rooting out all educational material that your countries uses that creates a culture of hate towards the USA, etc."
At the end of the day, Saudia Arabia's govt barely has control of its own country because conditions economically and socially are so oppressed, so there are a lot of angry people that like to vent it out our way. We of course flame the fires by preferring to remain ignorant to how we incite terrorists. The 9/11 commission said it well, that it's better to understand the mind of the terrorist, so you can unlock it and disengage the weapon.
Does anything in my post resonate or make sense?
Regards,
Amy J |
