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single_skin

You misread.

I was simply stating, whether desirable or not, that USA could achieve peace IN THE USA by getting out of the Middle East and letting them get on with it themselves.

Of course we cant have Saddam Hussein getting hold of Kuwait, not because of the poor Kuwaities, but because it would make him too strong with coastal areas and eventually hed probably control all the oil.

We'd get none.

 

HappyMan

true, but Iraq still poses a threat to all of the middle east. They mantain an army that would give every near by country a run for their money. THey also have SCUB missles and an active nuclear program. As has been proven during the gulf war those missles can hit Isreal. If I Iraq develops a nuclear weapon, They have the capability and desire to attack Isreal. Would Sadam trade Bagdad for Tel Aviv (sp?), I think so.
The U.S. is in Saudia Arabia as a deternt to stop Iraq from attacking Isreal or S Saudia Arabia. With the prepositioned equipment we couldn't stop another invasion. As it was, Iraq could have pushed well into S.A. during the initital invasion of Kuwait.

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Niteshift

"Bin Ladens grudge with USA has to do mainly with USA's military bases in Saudi."

Huh? It's not about poverty?

Well, I agree that it's not about poverty, and he is pissed about the US bases, but the reason he wants them out is due to his religious beliefs.

Here are some other reasons:

Al-Qa`ida's goal, in Bin Ladens words, is "unite all Muslims and establish a government which follows the rules of the Caliphate."
He wants to topple all the governments in the ME and establish a single state, based on his hard line religious belief.

In Feb. 1998, Bin Laden formed the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. Islam, as you know is a religion and Jiahd is a holy war.

Bin Laden cites Koranic references to justify terrorism (the Koran being a religious book) and enlists the aid of Muslim clergy.

Is that enough religious connection or do you need more?

BTW, you can view an unclassified CIA document stating these facts and more here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/binladen1.shtml

"I dont see the current terrorist activities in USA to have ANYTHING to do with religion."

Then you aren't paying attention.

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Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is muzzle flash.

lxl Ash lxl

This is a bit aside the main topic, but I saw what single_skin said about us not getting oil if the US gets out of the Middle East.. do we really need their oil? Shouldn't we be figuring out a cleaner fuel ANYWAY?
I usually don't post in these slightly tighter threads, but I kind of wanted to say something there. What do you think?

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magicmoe

Yes we should find another economic way of energy besides oil, coal and nuclear energy.
And No, The US does not need the Oil of the Middle East, they have their own oil in Texas and Alaska.

 

Niteshift

You mean the same oil in Texas and Alaska that Bush takes heat over everytime he talks about drilling for it?

magicmoe

What you mean?

Mamabudz

...you left out drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the California Coastline...

Mama Budz
*I Toke & I Vote *

Niteshift

What do I mean?

I mean everytime Bush even talks about drilling for oil in Alaska or of the coast of Texas (or anywhere else for that matter) the Sierra Club and every enviromentalist in the country jumps on his a$$ for not caring about the enviroment.

Niteshift

Here are some excerpts from a Washington Post article:

"At the heart of the bin Laden opus are two declarations of holy war — jihad — against America. The first, issued in 1996, was directed specifically at “Americans occupying the land of the two holy places,” as bin Laden refers to his native Saudi Arabia, where 5,000 U.S. troops have been stationed since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The two holy places are Muslim shrines at Mecca and Medina.

In return for joining the jihad against America, bin Laden promises his followers an honored place in paradise, in accordance with the statement in the Koran that “a martyr’s privileges are guaranteed by Allah.” True Islamic youths, bin Laden argued in his 1996 decree, know that their rewards from fighting the United States will be “double” their rewards from fighting other countries. Their only aim in life, he has told Americans, is “to enter paradise by killing you.”



Bin Laden, along with an increasingly vocal Saudi opposition, saw the matter quite differently. In their view, the presence of foreign forces was an intolerable affront to 1,400 years of Islamic tradition, dating back to an injunction from the prophet Muhammad that there “not be two religions in Arabia.” They argued that responsibility for defending the kingdom should fall on the Saudi government, which had poured billions of dollars into the military, rather than on Western “crusader forces.”

In bin Laden’s war, the goal of expelling the “Judeo-Christian enemy” from the holy lands of Islam should be met first on the Arabian peninsula. His next priority is Iraq, which for 500 years was the seat of the most powerful Islamic state, or caliphate. A distant third on this agenda is Palestine, site of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which Muslims believe was the place from where Muhammad ascended to heaven.

Our religion is under attack.

Bin Laden’s declarations of jihad draw on a radical interpretation of Islam that is contested by most Muslims. In medieval times, Islamic jurists differed on the moral permissibility of using poisoned arrows and poisoning enemy water supplies, what Lewis describes as “the missile and chemical warfare of the Middle Ages.” But at no point, Lewis wrote in a 1998 article for Foreign Affairs, do basic Islamic texts even consider “the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders.”

That sure is a lot of religious references for something that's not about religion.