Terror's Greatest Recruitment Tool

Arabs de-value Arab lives, it's not the West. Witness the brutality of Arab-ruled countries, how their own Arab governments treat their own Arab people.

The only way this will change is by imploring/cajoling/forcing Arab governments to respect universal human rights and individual freedoms, there is no other way.

Arabs know this but have yet to organize governments that are representative of them, that's why so many take the easy way out and flee to english speaking Western countries if they can.

Millions of Arabs have judged Western society and approved of it by voting with their feet to live in the West. Hopefully the fact that everyone agrees that Western society is better than what most Arabs have to live with now will lead to governments that respect and represent Arab peoples.

You're quite right that they are fleeing from these rulers but no matter how much you want to dance around the issue you can't away from the fact that it was the west who created and then supported the very rulers of which you speak. This includes the government of Iran and in fact started with Iran as far as the Americans go, as it is well-known that they, throught their CIA with their government's approval, destroyed a budding democracy in the region because they saw it as a political and economic threat. The resulting regime of Iran and subsequent regimes all over the region installed by the US have killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs (certainly millions if you count the wars the US fomented in the region) over the past five decades since the US involved themselves in the region after the UK was basically forced out because of their weakness after WWII.

In fact, this is what Arabs are pissed off at because they know that these people were killed by Arabs but in the name of western governments. It is indeed racial murder when 3000 people dying is counted as the biggest tragedy, and I'm not saying it isn't tragic, but the deaths of millions over decades doesn't prode citizens, media, and government in the west (especially the US and UK) to do some serious self-reflection about the role the west has played in these deaths. Thankfully, there are at least some individuals (I hope more and more) who understand this.

Perhaps what you as apparently so many in the west need most of all is a history lesson and then maybe you can begin to understand what is at issue here. Things aren't so simple as you think!!!!!

The above post is quite true, it even goes back before the americans to the British. People do not realize the extent to which the US runs the world. There is a reason they are called a "superpower". Nothing gets done without their approval.

There are tons of books on this, it's too bad so many buy the "too bad Arab countries have such terrible governments, if only they'd change" claims we hear so often. If you can't read then at least rent "Lawrence of Arabia" and it pretty much spells out how the political scenario-just substitute US for British. It works very simply, and the governments even acknowledge it publicly, although media keep it in the dark. You can of course find local thugs who will protect the interests of the ruling family, they might even be arabs, but at the next level you have what are called 'cops on the beat' which are usually security forces brought in from non-arab states like Turkey or Israel. Those two countries also will keep arab states in line at a national level, and in the past when they have done so-typically when the US didn't have the physical resources like during the Vietnam War- then they are amply rewarded with huge amounts of money and weaponry, which is why Israel, with a population a third of Canada's has weapons that could wipe out our military in a matter of days.

This is all well known, but not through the 'popular media' where people still think that somehow these nasty rulers grew out of the sand. For those grossly ignorant the current Iranian 'bad' government (by our standards, but of course we have pretty lousy standards too) grew from a popular revolt against the Shah, who was directly put in place by the americans and ran it far worse than the current administration by human rights standards. It's odd that most people still do not see that if a country puts in a government that is not supported by the US then they are 'evil' and must be judged by different standards. Pretty convenient.

Anyway, most that believe the media crap probably aren't going to change their minds based on such banal things as 'facts'. Why I really wanted to post this is that I wanted to make sure that everybody who reads this in the future knows to equate the "Norman Patterson School of International Relations" with The Fraser Institute and the CD Howe Institute, and Atlantic whatever it's called. While technically a university school, it is as right wing as they get, even far more than many of the previously mentioned institutes. If you ever hear "an expert" from there you can substitute "indoctrinated puppet boy"

Anybody who reads history with an open mind and from all sides, must come to the conclusion that the biggest oppressor and killer has always been religious propaganda.

Wealth and power can not be created, only taken from others.
The ruling classes, aristocracies, colonizers and dictatorial regimes of history have always been built on the conspiracy of three sectors:

The Merchants, who invent the demands for the taking of wealth. Now represented by the banks and multinationals.

The Priesthoods who invent the excuses and develop the theories to make the taking of wealth from others look like Divine Orders. Now represented not only by religious leaders, but also by neoclassical economists, the Priesthood of the Money God.

The Military, who does the dirty work, expecting divine absolution for their crimes from the Priests.

Never has this conspiracy been more obvious and better documented, than what we can witness today. Here in Central BC, I'm looking at the pathetic B52s on their training flights every day, obviously getting ready to bomb Iran, with the poor fools who fly them actually believing that they're doing "God's work" for "freedom and democracy". Just as the suicide bombers are on the other side for another illusion of "freedom". Just as Hitler's millions died fighting for "Freedom, Christianily and Western Civilization". Always, on all sides, blessed by the priests.

Before Enola Gay took off to drop the A bomb on Hiroshima, Chaplain Downey said the following prayer to the crews: "Almighty Father, Who wilt hear the prayer of them, who love Thee, we pray Thee to be with those who brave the heights of Thy heaven and who carry the battle to our enemies. Guard and protect them, we pray Thee, as they fly their appointed rounds. May they, as well we, know Thy strength, and power, and armed with Thy might may they bring this war to a rapid end. We pray Thee that the end of the war may come soon, and that once more we may know peace on earth. May the men who fly this night be kept safe in Thy care, and may they be returned safely to us. We shall go forward trusting in Thee, knowing that we are in Thy care now and forever. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen".

Today, "peace on earth" means colonization under the guise of globalized market economy.

And they flew off to kill 150,000, just as now the suicide bombers of the "other side" are prayed over by their priests and sent off on their insane missions. So, what's the difference between one madness against another, all in the name of religions, but in reality for the benefit of self appointed aristocracies ? Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC

Secular propaganda has actually killed more people by volume than religious because there weren't that many people around to be killed by religious warfare in past centuries.

It's only in the past 100 years that there has been the number of people available to be killed and the means to do it - and the vast majority of those millions were killed in the name of communism, followed by fascism and then the miscellaneous ideologies of individual crackpot dictators murdering the people they own.

If the fanatical Islamics could do it, they would like to balance those numbers however.

The ordinary people incited to kill under "communism" and fascism did so with their god in mind, never mind what the leaders believed or were purported to believe. The average German, Russian, Italian, Japanese soldier was as religious as the average British, French, American, etc. Religion is indeed the "opiate of the masses", as it is the one thing the average person can "understand". Geopolitics is not at the top of conscious thought processes. <br />
For example the average Israeli is not fighting their Arab cousins over water issues, which is the real driving force of the conflict in the Middle East.<br />
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/Mideast/McCallin_blooms.cfm">http://www.zmag.org/content/Mideast/McCallin_blooms.cfm</a><br />
<a href="http://www.radioislam.org/historia/zionism/water_gol_stratfor.html">http://www.radioislam.org/historia/zionism/water_gol_stratfor.html</a><br />
They are fighting for Lebensraum<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum</a><br />
Likewise, the Arab leadership realizes that control of scarce water resources would put a stranglehold on Israel. But that is not a very effective rallying cry to get people to blow themselves up along with their enemies.<br />
<p>---<br>RickW

Naomi Klein’s article “Terrorism's Greatest Recruitment Tool” is breathtakingly twisted. The thesis of her article is founded in large part on the writings of Egyptian writer, Sayyid Qutb, who condemned America for its “evil and fanatical racial discrimination” yet in spite of that, America provided him with a Masters of Arts education.

Naomi Klein washes over Qutb’s misogynism as insignificant. Qutb, who was outraged at jazz and colourful clothing wrote in his book, The America I Have Seen (1949): "The American girl is well acquainted with her body's seductive capacity. She knows it lies in the face, and in expressive eyes, and thirsty lips. She knows seductiveness lies in the round breasts, the full buttocks, and in the shapely thighs, sleek legs -- and she shows all this and does not hide it."

Further to that, he wrote about a dance in a church basement: "They danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire..."

Qutb’s most popular work, that has provided guidance to the Islamic world, lies in his book, Milestones: “to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which is positive and constructive, and which is practicable…Islam is the only system which possesses these values and this way of life…”



“If we look at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that the whole world is steeped in Jahiliyya (pagan ignorance of divine guidance) This Jahiliyya is based on rebellion against God's sovereignty on earth… takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior, and to choose any way of life rests with men, without regard to what God has prescribed. The Islamic civilization can take various forms in its material and organizational structure, but the principles and values on which it is based are eternal and unchangeable. These are: the worship of God alone, the foundation of human relationships on the belief in the Unity of God, the supremacy of the humanity of man over material things, the development of human values and the control of animalistic desires, respect for the family, the assumption of the vice-regency of God on earth according to His guidance and instruction, and in all affairs of this vice-regency, the rule of God's law and the way of life prescribed by Him...”



Ms Klein concludes her article by asserting that if The West heeded the wailing and whining of the Ku Klux Koran followers of Qutb, “it would rob terrorists of what has always been their greatest recruitment tool: our racism.”



Bullshit. The greatest recruitment tool of terrorists is the proliferation of their own bigotry and racism, via snuff videos of decapitations and the writings of Qutb.