Joe,

No-one is disputing that there is an unacceptable level of carnage caused by terrorist acts. But it is not enough to point to Muslim acts of terror as if that is the beginning and end of the issue. To take three brief examples, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the first case there is obviously a campaign being waged by some western powers to remove the Assad regime in Syria. To that end a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, the UK and the US are financing and arming jihadis, many of them foreigners. As Nafeez Ahmed among others has pointed out in a number of excellent studies, the West uses jihadi extremists when it suits them. Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya are among the documented cases.

In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, both were invaded by the US and its allies, causing enormous carnage and disruption to the civilian population. Again, extremist groups have been used to pursue western aims.

But as appalling as the deaths are they are but a tiny fraction of the deaths caused by the US in more than 50 countries since WW2. Again this has been exhaustively documented, but a useful overview is in William Blum's book, Killing Hope. The US has been responsible for the civilian deaths of more than a million people each in Iraq and Vietnam alone. It is going to take more than a century of Muslim suicide bombers to even remotely approach this level of carnage.

Decry Muslim violence by all means. But do not fall into the trap of thinking that only "they" are the terrorists and not take a long look in the mirror of western violence.

Here's an interesting take from the man who symbolised the toppling of Saddam's statue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/09/saddam-hussein-statue-kadom-al-jabourir-sledgehammer

Hi James,

Perhaps it's a case of whether the glass is half-full or half-empty.

Yes, Islamist terrorist acts are not the complete be-all and end-all, but by Christ, they take up a lot of the space.

But I would disagree that the West is opposing Assad in Syria and supporting Salafists - that is precisly the point of the dilemma facing the West - it, especially the US,doesn't want to support EITHER Assad OR the Salafists, but - more in hope - is striving to find ways to boost the secularists and democrats, who are probably the weakest party in a three-way tussle, more's the pity.

And that's the major problem in the Arab/Muslim countries - that political struggles are usually THREE-way, not a nice, neat TWO-way tussle - they usually degenerate into brutal dictatorship vs Islamists vs democrats.

In those countries, central power is usually inherently weak, central government pulls in little revenue so can do little on behalf of the people or infrastructure or welfare of the people, so brute force has to be used to hold the country together.

This is opposed by local grievances, disempowered local forces, mainly religious, and much more weakly by secular, democracy-oriented forces, and even more weakly - and incredibly courageously - by Left-wing, secular forces.

There are some struggles which are odds-on doomed, but which people have to fight. The secular democrats, including the Left,are up against both brutal dictatorships and their armies and secret police, as well as the backward-looking Islamists.

Sometimes, I don't think we have a clue how lucky we are here, in Lotus Land.

Joe

I am adding this brief post in case anyone might think that my non-response to Cohenite's questions suggests that I accept his view. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is pointless responding to what he says because he clearly does not accept what Darwin said; i.e. "a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments of both sides of each question."

For those readers who might be interested in a scientific approach to the unresolved questions of 9/11 a useful website is 911debunkers.blogspot. This is a UK website that is the epitome of Darwin's approach quoted above.

A systematic demolition of Popular Mechanics and others purveyors of misinformation can be found in David Griffin's book Debunking 9/11 Debunking.

Just for the record I do not believe that "the US government did 9/11". But equally I do not believe the official conspiracy theory that 19 Muslim hijackers did it either. To swallow either version undigested is to ignore the enormous complexity of the operation, and the wealth of data that has become available in the past 11+ years.

I draw a parallel with the Kennedy assassination. To swallow the Warren Report is again to ignore the huge amount of material declassified in the past nearly 50 years, and the findings of, inter alia, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (who said it was a conspiracy) or the Assassination Records Review Board who declassified nearly 2 million documents, including crucial medical evidence and the Lopez Report.

There are of course those who prefer to ignore evidence and cling to their naive assumptions about the world we live in. They are also the ones most likely to label people with whom they disagree "conspiracy theorists". We now know that was one of the major objectives of the CIA to deflect legitimate concern about the Warren Report. Insofar as the term regularly crops up in these pages one would have to say they have a ready audience of dupes.

Hi James,

Drawing parallels is one thing, connecting the dots is another thing entirely.

As it happens, I believe that Stalin ordered the murder of Kirov in 1934 and Dimitrov in the late forties - I don't have any evidence, at this distance in time and space, but that doesn't stop me suspecting.

I also believe in the Grassy Knoll Theory of Kennedy's assassination. Who actually ordered it, I wouldn't have the foggiest.

I also believe that Arafat was probably assassinated, most likely of course by SB or Mossad. And maybe King George V was knocked off by his doctors. And that Plato was involved in the murder of Socrates.

So my credentials for paranoia and conspiracy are fairly respectable. But after 1800 attacks over 11 years, I'm pretty convinced that al Qaida was responsible for the four plane hijackings and their crashing into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Take it on-board and move on :)

Cheers,

Joe

Joe hi,

I don't believe now, and I didn't believe then, that Plato was involved in the death of Socrates, outside of reporting it first hand, since he was in the room.

There was a lot to their relationship, outside of what was held up as the example he (Socrates) provided to the young men and boys he mentored, and for which he was tried.

I was always disappointed by the lack of coffee at the time, which would have made the discussions at least palatable IMHO, since many discussions were most dry.