Quote:
Originally posted by nexxo
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Rather than focussing on the whole WMD issue, perhaps we should focus on just how entire societies get to be screwed over so badly that they're driven to that utterly insane state of mind where people want to just hurt/kill entire populations. Perhaps we should focus on why those with real power let it happen. Perhaps, just perhaps, we should focus on why the Western world frequently ends up being the target of this insane rage.
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The "Western World" (per se) represents the antithesis of every rationalization of terrorism: reason. This one concept so completely tears asunder their world view that they would seem to have no choice but to attempt its destruction. It is no accident that the one non-government target of the 9/11 terrorists was the World
Trade Center.
While the root of this hatred is the denial of reason, its emotional manifestation is that of envy. Notice that the choice of targets made by UBL were all symbols of America's power and wealth (WTC, Pentagon, USS Cole, ...), while Israel (hated on religious principle alone) gets pizza places and buses blown up.
Much of the "Western World" has been on a flight from reason as well (witness Kant, Hegel, Nietzche and their bastard child Hitler, also many of the French "thinkers" a la gmat, Sartre and Camus). The difference is that our Renaissance came earlier than that of Islam and the East (they are still waiting), and they have not yet discovered its efficacy vis a vis religious revelation (try to eat while following
every nuance of
any religious doctrine). The same is happening here in America with the rise of the "Religious Right" as well as the "Greens" (2 sides of the same coin).
Gotta go!
Bob