I don’t see it that way. You have your churches, I have mine.

My initial thought was on the line of “That’s just a bad idea. It’s sort of offensive and kind of seems like a slap in the face.” After reading Hemant’s post however, I think my mind was changed. Similarly, I don’t support the building of any houses of worship because of my dislike of the whole lot of them. However, I also think that this is an exercise in allowing our freedoms to remain unhindered.

Still, I worry for the safety of those involved.

Like it or not, you/we are in a WAR WITH ISLAM, all over the globe. Their primitive pedophile Mohammed wrote the Koran to conquer you! Read, study, think!!

I’m not agreeable to such arguments when they are used on me to jrationalize the acts of those who hate people like me to kill people like me. Especially when I knew people who died, and when done with an air of superiority and the assumption that I’m less educated then a bunch of backwards 7th century worhshiping Muslims.

Why don’t you stop and think carefully?

For example your sentences, “For decades we have helped to establish and prop up despotic and corrupt tyrants who oppress their people, so that we can profit from their physical or strategic resources. They hate us because we paid for the boot that is on their neck.”

Do you only see things from the hate-the-US perspective? Did we pay for the boot or did we pay for the resources and the four-fold expansion in Muslim populations with our trade, technology, and medicine?

Do you think it would be reasonable for me to claim that I own the oil that has been extracted from Texas over my lifetime? How about the rest of the natural resources in the US? Where’s my cut?

The only idiots I hear calling for nationalizing BP are on the left, like Janeane Garofalo.

Lots of the trouble in these countries were fomented by communists and socialists. They are the ones that got it into the minds of many individuals that somehow they own other peoples resources just because they happen to be within the borders of their countries. That’s not the case. They no more own the oil than I own the oil in Texas, or the minerals in Utah.

Many Latin American and Islamic countries invited in western companies to develop those resources. What is happening in Venezuala right now has happened in the past. Nationalization was in fact theft of the property of the stockholders in the oil companies. Now when they steal western resources we just shrug, but in the past we actually handed a bit of justice on them. They didn’t like that.

Thousands died in some countries because of screwed up communist ideas about property rights. Hundreds of millions died in others, even when we were not involved.

I don’t think you understand how this works. The West developed the technologies for finding and developing natural resources, looked for those resources, found them, bought the leases, provided the capital to build the equipment that extracts those natural resources, provided the actual labor (workers imported from the west) to work the equipment, and paid the taxes, and so on.

What exactly did the terrorists do to deserve even one drop of that oil? Nothing.

Should I hate and kill the British because they are “profiting from our physical and strategic resources?” What about the other and numerous countries that have companies in the US that profit from “our” physical or strategic resources.

You don’t think that those foreign companies aren’t also buying influence with the politicians that are exploiting us? You don’t think that it was always a two way street, our politicians scratching theirs backs as their politicians scratched ours? We have a long history of exploitative politicians here in the west that worked with those foreign despots to screw up our country.

Should I be able to murder British citizens because their politicians managed to get our politicians to help them with their wars? What about the South Koreans? My Uncle died in South Korea. Can I chop the heads off a few Koreans over that? Their politicians interfered in the politics of my country in a way that got my relative drafted, by force, and then killed.

FDR did a very good job of messing up and exploiting the country (and involving us in foreign conflicts). For example, during the Great Depression his policy was to cult pigs and destroy the meat while people were lined up at soup kitchens. What foreigners were supporting him as he had his boot upon our necks? I’d say plenty, from Churchill to Stalin.

Bush himself got support from the Saudi’s is it that he who keeps the Saudis in power or was it vice-versa? It’s not at all clear when they cooperate.

Where is your sympathy for white supremacists and southern racists? Didn’t the north put it’s boot upon the neck of the south in order to stop slavery? Do they get to kill Yankees now for as long as they hold their grudge? Do I have to be understanding about it? Do I need to see things from their perspective?

I think you need to learn a lot more about Muslim history and it’s attacks on the west that preceded anything we did to them. If they can blame colonialism on their bad behavior then we can do the same. The Spanish Inquisition, whose fault was that under such thinking? Seems like the brutal occupation of Spain by the Muslims might properly be blamed for their radicalization.

Maybe it’s the Muslims that have a much greater deal of learning to do to see things from my perspective instead. Maybe that’s the real road to peace.

England itself saw wave after wave of both colonizers, slavers, raiders, and conquests coming from the east. Don’t you think that just might be a reason why they would turn to force to expand in the other direction?

Are you aware that Muslims were raiding Europe (including England) for white slaves, and raiding American shipping well into the 18th century? Are you aware that the Ottoman’s got involved in WWI and sided with the Germans, that many Muslims sided and worked with Hitler? Are you aware that the Turks practiced genocide on the Christian Armenians?

It’s not like the Muslims had some Utopian democracy before the West started trading with them either. They already were ruled by despots, and the way they vote it seems they like it that way (voting in Fatah and Hamas being examples). Turkey is moving that direction also. Look at Iran.

Nor did the West invent slavery, colonization, empires, or any of the rest of it.

The reality is much more complex than you or they make it out. It wasn’t a matter of the Arabs having their own oil and using it peacefully in some commie utopia. First, there is nothing to use the oil with in those countries. Oil isn’t valuable in itself. It’s valuable only in combination with other resources. Resources they didn’t have. Second, they were so backwards they didn’t have the means to exploit it (and in fact the Saudis are still too stupid to do it themselves). Third, many of those countries came to be ruled by the British because the prior rulers of the area attacked them. Fourth, many sided with the Nazis (or later Soviets) because they wanted to exterminate Jews. Fifth, because of the above it was often a case of either the British or US developing their oil or the our enemies the Nazis and Soviets.

Nor were the Soviets and Nazis playing nice. They would practice assassinations and install their own dictators, or get backing for politicians that would violate treaties, contracts, agreements, and leases they had with the west.

I think it was pointless and stupid for Pres. Carter to apologize to the Iranians. Especially since the Iranians in essence stole the oil resources from the British. Factions in Iran had murdered the pro-western politicians, and then they voted in a guy who was taking advantage of the weakened British to steal the oil leases from them via nationalization.

It’s not like the Iranians didn’t have their own history of conquest in the past, and one that they look back upon longingly.

So I see absolutely no reason why any of them can sit back and bitch about what our ancestors did in the past to them in order to justify the murder of 2000 innocent people. On the issue of ancestor guilt they are just as, if not more guilty than any Westerner.

Nor can they complain about stealing resources, since we openly allow foriegners to explore for and develop our resources, buy our land, and so for.

Nor can they complain about us not getting rid of their dictators, because when we do (like Saddam) they bitch, and often we don’t have a choice but to work with the rulers that they sanction. We are omnipotent, and have powerful enemies we must operate against, which in fact the Muslims play off against us. Just like Venezuela is doing now.

History is messy and you act like the US is and has always been omnipotent, and working in a vacuum.

The laughable thing is you sound a lot like Sean Penn. I’m sure he’d have Obama working with Chavez. You want peace with Chavez right? If Obama started trading with Chavez, supplying him with arms to protect himself from the scary libertarianish Hondurans, then would you be stating that we had our boot on their necks? I doubt it.

They hate us? I say they should get the hell over it. If it wasn’t for us they’d be exploited (not merely traded with) by the Soviets or the Nazis in a way that was much less understanding that what we’ve done.

The real reason the Muslims hate us is because their religion teaches them to hate both infidels and Jews. You don’t see them looking back on the Ottoman’s as occupiers of Arab countries even thought that is exactly what they were. No they look upon that as a golden age. The reason is religious bigotry, and little more. The Palestinians were treated far worse by the surrounding Arab countries that the Muslims in Israel were ever treated by Israel. It’s not about how we treat them. It is about the issue of honor and the belief that only Muslim should rule infidel by order of Allah, not vice versa.