Secretary of State - Have you learned the lesson of the Iraq War.

[Ddawg]

Quite hostile aren't you?

In case it's escaped your notice, I'm the one arguing against hostility.

I repeat - you are very aggressive and hostile with your opinions.

Again - what makes you the self proclaimed expert opinion here?

Please, impress me with your education and work experience in the field of terrorism.

[snoscythe]

Define "guerrilla warfare actions" as you are using it. Either we're talking about different things, or you aren't aware of the Moro guerrilla actions against the US in the Philippines ca. 1900.

That's what happens when you begin colonizing places. What's going on now is no different than Native American resistance to Christian settlers in the Americas. The point is that when you antagonize people in their ancestral lands they aren't going to like you very much and it has nothing to do with their religion.

So does the Moro resistance qualify as a "guerrilla warfare action", or not? Your deflective response seems to indicate you agree that it does, but you seem preoccupied with not giving an inch. I'm honestly trying to make sense of your argument, but it's a moving target.

Number of guerrilla warfare actions against the US prior to CIA interventions in the ME during the 1940-50s: Zero.

Number of guerrilla warfare actions against the US by jihadists prior to CIA interventions in the ME during the 1940-50s: Zero.

You still haven't defined what you mean by "guerrilla warfare actions" (or now "guerrilla warfare actions by jihadists") so we can analyze your claim. Care to clarify what your claim really is?

Rather than going back and revising your assertion without acknowledging it, you would have been better served with a response like this: "What I mean by guerrilla warfare actions is ___________________. That would include the Moro, of whom I was not previously aware. While that does change the dates in my previous assertion a bit, the underlying and more significant premise I was arguing remains intact, and is in fact supported by the example of the Moro -- Muslims have left the US alone when the US leaves them alone." Instead you panicked that you might look wrong on the internet and just muddled things for yourself.

[jvquarterback]

The people of Mindanao, Jolo, and Basilan are who I referenced initially when I mentioned parenthetically that some argue the Islamic resistance in the Philippines orginated in 1900s. Just as the Native Americans resisted colonial expansion, so have the the people of Mindanao, Jolo, and Basilan and it has very little to do with religion.

My point is that what people now like to call terrorism are no different than guerilla warfare tactics against colonizers/occupiers and since the US didn't occupy or support the colonization of anywhere in the middle east prior to WWII on any significant scale (US support for the house of Saud began in the 1930s), there were no attacks against the US by people from the Middle East. Use whatever definition of terrorism or guerrilla warfare against the US you like if you wish to argue that point.

Here's another fact for you:
Number of suicide attacks in Iraq before US occupation: 0.
Number of suicide attacks in Iraq since the US occupation: >1800, 92% of which were directed at US personnel.

[snoscythe]

Here's another fact for you:
Number of suicide attacks in Iraq before US occupation: 0.
Number of suicide attacks in Iraq since the US occupation: >1800, 92% of which were directed at US personnel.

This is one of Robert Pape's assertions that he has since had to qualify and walk back. The facts you present are true, but misleading without context.

Suicide bombing as a common tactic in terrorism did not exist prior to the 80s, less than a decade prior to the US involvement in 1991, so the "0" is only relevant in about a five-year span when the concept of suicide bombing was nascent, not for the centuries prior to 1980 when basically no one (other than Japanese in WWII) was using it as tactic.

As a new tactic, it is not surprising nor is there much to be derived from observing that it was absent in Iraq prior to 1991--it was absent in almost the entire world at that time. Furthermore, Iraqis were committing suicide bombings in Lebanon against US targets prior to 1991, so they were committing suicide attacks against US interests prior to the "occupation", just not in Iraq because we weren't there yet.

[hawkwing]

What about the relationship to guerrilla's performing suicide bombings prior to the moon landing vs after?

[jvquarterback]

Quite hostile aren't you?

In case it's escaped your notice, I'm the one arguing against hostility.

I repeat - you are very aggressive and hostile with your opinions.

Again - what makes you the self proclaimed expert opinion here?

Please, impress me with your education and work experience in the field of terrorism.

In 1991 my father had just retired from the army, he told me my buddies and I who were thinking about joining the military so we could go kill ourselves some Iraqis to save some helpless Kuwaiti sheikhs were a bunch of idiots. I can't even remember what book or pamphlet he gave me but I read a little about the history of US intervention in the middle east. Not a lot but enough that I didn't join my buddies and was later skeptical of the motives of both civilian and military leaders during the Clinton subsequent Bush administrations.

After 2001 I began to regularly read antiwar.com which my Dad suggested (I haven't found a better collation of events whether you agree with them or not). I've probably spent at least an hour or two (often more) every week for the past 15 years reading that site as well plenty of other books (if I were you I'd start with the 9/11 report, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Carson Chalmers, and Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It by Robert Pape) and following military conflicts the US participates in around the world.

I'm no Justin Raimondo, Ron Paul, or Glen Greenwald, but I've tried to study "things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations." I'd invite you to do the same. BTW I have a great testimony of that scripture, obeying it just a little back in the early 1990s helped me a lot.

[jvquarterback]

Here's another fact for you:
Number of suicide attacks in Iraq before US occupation: 0.
Number of suicide attacks in Iraq since the US occupation: >1800, 92% of which were directed at US personnel.

This is one of Robert Pape's assertions that he has since had to qualify and walk back. The facts you present are true, but misleading without context.

Suicide bombing as a common tactic in terrorism did not exist prior to the 80s, less than a decade prior to the US involvement in 1991, so the "0" is only relevant in about a five-year span when the concept of suicide bombing was nascent, not for the centuries prior to 1980 when basically no one (other than Japanese in WWII) was using it as tactic.

As a new tactic, it is not surprising nor is there much to be derived from observing that it was absent in Iraq prior to 1991--it was absent in almost the entire world at that time. Furthermore, Iraqis were committing suicide bombings in Lebanon against US targets prior to 1991, so they were committing suicide attacks against US interests prior to the "occupation", just not in Iraq because we weren't there yet.

Pape doesn't use 1991 as his start point, he uses 2003 (for Iraq) so how would you say Pape has walked back his assertion? The US kept no permanent occupying force in Iraq prior to 2003. How many suicide bomb attacks were perpetrated by Iraqis during that time? 0. How many afterward? >1800, greater than 90% of which were directed at an occupying force.

The previous statistic citing the lack of any attack on the US by anyone from the ME prior to US intervention beginning in the 1940s still stands.

[SpiffCoug]

So you're an isolationist who thinks the government oppresses and robs its citizenry. What a depressing world view.

[jvquarterback]

So you're an isolationist who thinks the government oppresses and robs its citizenry. What a depressing world view.

Me and these other guys are so depressing.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other… No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

and

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.

peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none

[Cougarfan87]

So you're an isolationist who thinks the government oppresses and robs its citizenry. What a depressing world view.

I wouldn't classify JV as an isolationist. I don't think he is saying withdraw from foreign affairs completely, as an isolationist would. I think there is a lot of merit to his arguments that our Middle Eastern actions, specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have brought more heat on us by Jihadists. I had my doubts about those interventions in the first place. However, I do not believe that the attention of Jihadists is only as a result of those wars, though I have no doubt that, because of our geographic isolationism, if we packed up and stayed out of the Middle East, we would not have the same attention from extremists.

However, I don't think that completely solves the problem. As long as the U.S. supports Israel through foreign military sales and otherwise, we will have extremist attention to some degree or other. So, I guess my question is, do you, JV, think as part of the withdrawal from Middle Eastern affairs the U.S. should abandon any involvement with Israel? Or to what extent should the U.S., if any, be involved with Israel?

I don't think you are isolationist. I think what you are saying is that we should not meddle in other countries affairs, but trade with other countries is fine. But, I don't want to speak for you.