How does the World view America these days?

  On 6/14/2016 at 5:30 PM, Alcofribas said:

what i take issue with is the simplistic reasoning that any time a muslim commits a violent crime it signifies something essentially wrong about islam against which the enlightened west must wage battle. in this thread Lane came in, cast shame upon people for not making a thread and then wrote a long post all about how this was a co-ordinated attack planned by islamic terrorist but he was hesitant to examine such facts on watmm b/c the status quo is somehow intolerant of this obvious truth b/c they are indoctrinated by sjw prejudices or whatever. mind you this is not even 24 hours after the event and even now we still really don't know a whole lot about this guy. then limpy comes out of his shell to offer up 2 factoids for consideration which are an opinion shared by the shooters father and an idea promulgated in a random local mosque. then he downplays the significance of the shooter's mental health...and then you consider this "nailing it." lol

I never said anything about 'nailing it', that was your phrase. There's nothing simplistic about my reasoning. I said nothing about waging a battle against anything either.

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i don't take issue with these ideas b/c i'm an apologist for islam. tbh i don't really know a great deal about islam, i've not read the quran, i've not studied the history of islamic civilizations nor have i done any considerable readings in the history of religion or anthropology really. thus i do not find myself competent to make claims about essential aspects of islam, to seriously and intelligently judge its teachings or appraise its history and role in contemporary society. and i've never seen any one on this forum speak of islam with any kind of genuine knowledge or personally experience, except usagi. so when i hear people here regurgitating really conventional stereotypes about islam, religion vs reason, clash of civilizations and so on i simply don't take it seriously. to be blunt it is a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

Well I do know quite a bit about it, I'm not an expert in Islamic theology or the history of Islam, but I have read more than enough about both to make me an informed observer.

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i mean, just take a look at this piece about the shooter:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/13/omar-mateen-pulse-orlando-shooting-what-we-know

 

we've learned that he was a pretty fucked up dude. we learn that his family is from a country ravaged by war, he worked for a security firm, he beat up his wife and held her "hostage" and after their divorce she refused to speak to him for several years, he is said to have espoused hateful views to coworkers against blacks, jews, gays, politicians, etc., that his sympathetic comments about the tsvarnev brothers got the fbi to look into him, etc etc. in the last 24 hours we've also had a variety of reports come in that point toward his very own homosexuality and a story has even run that he frequented the very club that was the scene of his slaughter. now, perhaps i'm an idiot but to me this portrait is quite complex. to me this guy seems deeply disturbed and i see nothing in particular that screams out "this is a specifically islamic type of violence." unfortunately, his islamic views (whatever they might have been) just seem to me to be icing on the cake of shit that was this person. so please, when some one pops into the thread to point out that this is just another example of bad ol' islam i just find it lazy, a comfortable way of reducing the complexities of the world into more comfortable and convenient stereotypes.

pointing out facts about the world isn't the same as reducing the complexities of the world into stereotypes. one fact doesn't necessarily negate another. I've already posted about the possibility that he might be closeted, the interplay between that and religious homophobia would obviously allow for there to be a psychologically causative factor at play here.

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from what i've read there are some incredibly fucked up ideas in islamic teachings and texts and i abhor them completely. but it is also undeniable that i live in a country who's leaders swear oaths to a christian god and drop bombs on thousands of innocent people and vow allegiance to places like israel that use disturbing readings of ancient holy books to justify the murder of innocents for ownership of some dust.

western leaders' religious beliefs are orthogonal to dropping bombs in the middle east, a Sunni radical suicide bombing a Shia mosque is not orthogonal to his religious beliefs.

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it seems a little convenient that the enemy that our political class has worked so hard to indoctrinate us into hating is just coincidently the same enemy as the chosen elite who have to speak out against the prejudices of misguided "left" who are not satisfied with that. don't get me wrong, there's a serious problem with softy liberals who adhere to their status quo and won't speak out against atrocities when they clash with their ideology but i don't really see much difference between that and promulgating superficial ideas about islam. it's all the same to me.

you're doing a lot of projecting here, and also falling for exactly the same thing you're claiming others of doing, namely your over-simplistic view of the motives of the west in its involvements in the middle east. it's important to also note that you can criticise one thing (e.g. religious fundamentalism, theocratic political fascism) while also criticising the bombing of civilians, theft of palestinian land, etc. they are not mutually exclusive.

  On 6/14/2016 at 4:06 PM, maitake said:

Maybe i'm just a pessimist but I don't see any solution really. You could eradicate Islam and a select few would still turn into murderous lovelies. Welcome to Planet Earth.

i agree with you completely. i also don't think this is a gun problem. america has always had guns. there weren't this amount of killings in the 50s or 60s and the ones that did happen were mainly connected with organized crime when the mafia was at the height of it's power.

the problem isn't guns or religion (these are just scapegoats). the problem is that people want to kill and they just find a way to do so.

  On 6/14/2016 at 3:45 PM, ambermonk said:

Sometimes I wonder if simultaneous multi-region secession from the Union is a more viable long-term solution if things continue to go the way they do. More or less like the USSR collapse in 1991. That way we don't have to associate ourselves with Bible Belt beasties if we don't want to.

that would literally split Texas into like 5 different countries whereas some others, Pacific Northwest or New England could easily merge.

the mid-west would be the 'stans. Kansastan.

  On 6/14/2016 at 6:28 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 6/14/2016 at 4:06 PM, maitake said:

Maybe i'm just a pessimist but I don't see any solution really. You could eradicate Islam and a select few would still turn into murderous lovelies. Welcome to Planet Earth.

 

i agree with you completely. i also don't think this is a gun problem. america has always had guns. there weren't this amount of killings in the 50s or 60s and the ones that did happen were mainly connected with organized crime when the mafia was at the height of it's power.

 

the problem isn't guns or religion (these are just scapegoats). the problem is that people want to kill and they just find a way to do so.

 

yeah I there's so many nuanced differences between gun ownership now and any other time period. the debate and discussion has changed so much even in the last 10-15 years. the amount of military grade guns out there has gone up though - not just in private ownership but in the police arsenals. Take the 1997 Hollwood shootout for instance - the LAPD literally went to gun stores with cash to buy AR-15s to fight the perpetrators because only a few officers, like SWAT teams, had access to such weapons. Now even small department have not just assault rifles but surplus armored vehicles designed to survice IEDs in Iraq.

like open carry for example. it was common for high school students to have shotguns and rifles in their trucks in rural and exburb schools in Texas without issue. but back then a lot of kids that age hunted after school and/or went back to ranch and farm job,

that's still very different than delusional self-important grown men walking into walmarts and starbucks with AR-15s on their back for no goddamn good reason.

anti-islam bigots share the quality with terrorists of being unwilling to discern into things and instead painting the world in grotesque, cartoonish swaths

@caze: to be sure i wasn't directing my rant at you. your post was linked b/c after i sarcastically noted that limpy "nailed it" with his super deep factoids you said "he did" and the conversation continued from there.

most of what you've posted seems reasonable to me and does not fall into line with the kind of weltanshauung i was beefing with.

btw, i haven't provided any motives for the west's involvement in the middle east so i'm not sure what you mean there. i was pointing out that crimes tainted by religion are repulsive to me whether they are carried out by people strapped with bombs or pulling a trigger in an air-conditioned room. i definitely disagree that religion is orthogonal to u.s. policy making or warcracft, and is clearly not so for israel. there certainly exists a broad scope of distinctions but not at the degree of right angles.

i also want to say, just to get back to what spurred this on and leaving aside broader discussions about policy or religion, that this is a really fucking sad tragedy. Lady Alcofribas works at a bookstore that has been a beacon for the LGBTQ community in the area and on sunday night the owner went in and put a memorial of 49 candles in the window and when i saw it that shit had me tearing up. no matter what kind of insights one might have or think they have about the workings of belief or war or whatever, on a certain level this is just unfathomable to me and just sits in my chest like a black, impenetrable stone.

  On 6/14/2016 at 6:47 PM, joshuatx said:

 

that's still very different than delusional self-important grown men walking into walmarts and starbucks with AR-15s on their back for no goddamn good reason.

correct, and this is why i said it's more to do with the mentality of the community. in the 60s there were television ads for toy guns. can you imagine that happening today, or the amount of warnings that would be included at the end to please certain groups that they're not promoting gun violence? and this is considering that america has been becoming less religious.

so if religion and guns were the problem of all the violence, they'd have been more shootings in the 50s and 60s (especially in schools) than today. the same with islamic terrorism since tsa security was almost non existent (starting in the mid 70s) and there were still radical terrorist groups

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:18 PM, Alcofribas said:

@caze: to be sure i wasn't directing my rant at you. your post was linked b/c after i sarcastically noted that limpy "nailed it" with his super deep factoids you said "he did" and the conversation continued from there.

I didn't say "he did", I said "it was", and the only thing "it was" could have possibly been in reference to, given the rules of the english language, was:

"thanks for the thought provoking insight."

because it was though provoking and insightful, I mean it really shouldn't be thought provoking or insightful because this is stuff that should be super obvious to anyone who's even vaguely paying attention, but either lots of people aren't paying attention, or they're being willfully ignorant. failing to pay attention is how you get Trumps btw.

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most of what you've posted seems reasonable to me and does not fall into line with the kind of weltanshauung i was beefing with.

I'm not sure what or who you're beefing with then, because nothing Limpy or Lane has said falls into line with that either.

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btw, i haven't provided any indication of what the motives for the west's involvement in the middle east so i'm not sure what you mean there. i was pointing out that crimes tainted by religion are repulsive to me whether they are carried out by people strapped with bombs or pulling a trigger in an air-conditioned room. i definitely disagree that religion is orthogonal to u.s. policy making or warcracft, and is clearly not so for israel. there certainly exists a broad scope of distinctions but not at the degree of right angles.

I agree that there is definitely a religious aspect to the situation in Israel, but when I was speaking of the west I wasn't including Israel in that category (they exist in a category all by themselves imo, eurovision or not). I'd be interested to hear what justification you have for linking religion with drone strikes though, even tangentially. Do you think there was a religious aspect to the west's part in the overthrow of Saddam, the fight against the Taliban, or ISIS? If you do, do you really think it's in any way comparable to the part religion plays in radical Islamist terrorism? If you were to quantify the two would you really use a similar measure for both?

this is an interesting thread you're tracing, josh & nebraska.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:26 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 6/14/2016 at 6:47 PM, joshuatx said:

 

that's still very different than delusional self-important grown men walking into walmarts and starbucks with AR-15s on their back for no goddamn good reason.

 

correct, and this is why i said it's more to do with the mentality of the community. in the 60s there were television ads for toy guns. can you imagine that happening today, or the amount of warnings that would be included at the end to please certain groups that they're not promoting gun violence? and this is considering that america has been becoming less religious.

 

so if religion and guns were the problem of all the violence, they'd have been more shootings in the 50s and 60s (especially in schools) than today. the same with islamic terrorism since tsa security was almost non existent (starting in the mid 70s) and there were still radical terrorist groups

 

Reminds me...this is gonna sound pretty random, but I recall Autechre's MySpace page posting a link to a graph back in 2007 that showed a trend of actual overall decrease​ in global terrorism over the last three or four decades. The post was headlined "LOOK AT THIS GRAPH"

Of course I don't know where the hell the link itself is.

There really isnt an isis for christians or hindus, right now. Shit is kicking off constantly in the name of islam. There are theocracies that have incredibly politically incorrect laws with millions of people living under and preferring these laws. Isis, an extreme wing of islam seems to find guys exactly like this everyday. It is ramadan and they are calling for attacks on kufar. I follow about 500 isis members on twitter and they are all lost men and totally brutal. I think they must be on Meth or some speed to tolerate their own brutality. American soldiers are killing themselves from ptsd, i dont know how they live like that indefinitely.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:37 PM, caze said:

 

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:18 PM, Alcofribas said:

@caze: to be sure i wasn't directing my rant at you. your post was linked b/c after i sarcastically noted that limpy "nailed it" with his super deep factoids you said "he did" and the conversation continued from there.

 

I didn't say "he did", I said "it was", and the only thing "it was" could have possibly been in reference to, given the rules of the english language, was:

 

"thanks for the thought provoking insight."

 

because it was though provoking and insightful, I mean it really shouldn't be thought provoking or insightful because this is stuff that should be super obvious to anyone who's even vaguely paying attention, but either lots of people aren't paying attention, or they're being willfully ignorant. failing to pay attention is how you get Trumps btw.

 

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most of what you've posted seems reasonable to me and does not fall into line with the kind of weltanshauung i was beefing with.

 

I'm not sure what or who you're beefing with then, because nothing Limpy or Lane has said falls into line with that either.

 

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btw, i haven't provided any indication of what the motives for the west's involvement in the middle east so i'm not sure what you mean there. i was pointing out that crimes tainted by religion are repulsive to me whether they are carried out by people strapped with bombs or pulling a trigger in an air-conditioned room. i definitely disagree that religion is orthogonal to u.s. policy making or warcracft, and is clearly not so for israel. there certainly exists a broad scope of distinctions but not at the degree of right angles.

 

I agree that there is definitely a religious aspect to the situation in Israel, but when I was speaking of the west I wasn't including Israel in that category (they exist in a category all by themselves imo, eurovision or not). I'd be interested to hear what justification you have for linking religion with drone strikes though, even tangentially. Do you think there was a religious aspect to the west's part in the overthrow of Saddam, the fight against the Taliban, or ISIS? If you do, do you really think it's in any way comparable to the part religion plays in radical Islamist terrorism? If you were to quantify the two would you really use a similar measure for both?

 

my bad for misquoting you. i entirely disagree with you in any case, his post hardly rises to the level of observation let alone "thought provoking insight."

both limpy and lane, who introduced the focus on islam in their posts, have filled many threads with their ideas on the matter so if you want to know what i have a beef with feel free to look them up. i was also speaking more generally about a trend that exists outside of watmm. surely this can't be news to you.

that's fine if you'd like to leave aside israel as a unique case, i agree the country is an anomaly in the west.

i don't know that i'd be able to provide a truly insightful analysis of the role religion plays in the minds of those who make the decision to wage war on other countries, i'm not an expert. but it is perfectly evident that those who do so quite uniformly espouse christian beliefs which clearly underpin their fundamental worldview. even the muslim obama has talked of how he is doing "god's work." this is nowhere near the level of some one who straps a bomb on their chest in the name of jihad but it is also not a completely orthogonal relationship. i mean, you do recall that bush said he was on a mission from god, right? this does not describe an orthogonal relationship between religion and war in the u.s. sorry. so yes, there is a religious aspect.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:26 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 6/14/2016 at 6:47 PM, joshuatx said:

 

that's still very different than delusional self-important grown men walking into walmarts and starbucks with AR-15s on their back for no goddamn good reason.

 

correct, and this is why i said it's more to do with the mentality of the community. in the 60s there were television ads for toy guns. can you imagine that happening today, or the amount of warnings that would be included at the end to please certain groups that they're not promoting gun violence? and this is considering that america has been becoming less religious.

 

so if religion and guns were the problem of all the violence, they'd have been more shootings in the 50s and 60s (especially in schools) than today. the same with islamic terrorism since tsa security was almost non existent (starting in the mid 70s) and there were still radical terrorist groups

 

this is some seriously dodgy reasoning.

America as a whole may have been getting less religious (though it's still significantly more religious than Europe, and for the majority of the country it hasn't really been getting any less religious at all, it's only big cities where you see any real growth in irreligious attitudes), and many of the religious people that are left are getting more religious if anything. I'm not sure what point this has to what we're talking about anyway, because there's never been much of a history of christian terrorism in the US, with the exception of some small scale anti-abortion stuff in recent times, and historically with the KKK and it's founding principles of anti-catholic and anti-jewish hatred (the klan are pretty much an irrelevance these days though - certainly in terms of their founding religious principles, maybe replaced with anti-muslim bigotry and zionist-conspiracizing now, but their influence is pretty tiny regardless).

the fact that there were radical terrorist groups who weren't fundamentally religious isn't proof that religion isn't a causative factor in terrorism today. the ideology at play back then was more nationalist and socialist, anti-colonial before that, today it's religious, maybe in the future it will go back to being nationalist again, who knows? you might have a point if anyone was saying that religion is the only cause of terrorism, but the only point you would be making in that case would be that that person was an idiot, not that religion is incapable of fomenting terrorism.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:43 PM, marf said:

I follow about 500 isis members on twitter

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:43 PM, marf said:

I think they must be on Meth or some speed to tolerate their own brutality. American soldiers are killing themselves from ptsd, i dont know how they live like that indefinitely.

Well most die or leave before they get in really dangerous battles. I don't follow any of daesh or other Islamic stuff on twitter or FB but I do admit frequently watching stuff in r/combatfootage which unsurprisingly is heavy on Syria/Iraq and, when it was more active, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. the thing about many if not most Islamic extremist fighters as well as many middle eastern government forces is they are sloppy as hell and lack tactical skills, so for as much as they go all in and get killed they also endlessly waste ammo on each other without gaining ground. if you watch Kurdish militia or Syrian units or Iraq spec ops, US/UK advisors, etc. though it's a completely different tone and pace.

Most US military personal do not see direct infantry level combat and/or are not primarily trained for it, PTSD levels are high because so many soldiers, including non-combat personal, were exposed to IEDs and other surprise attacks. Just as many Americans were killing themselves from PTSD from 'Nam, especially since so many were conscripts and not volunteers...people forget too a lot of grunts in the US infantry know exactly what they signed up for and why many then go on to PMC work after getting discharged. Now that we have "left" Iraq and Afghanistan the government has put upon the US special forces an unprecedented level of combat deployments and missions. In the past they'd mostly train and be used for surgical attacks and select missions as absolutely needed. Now they compliment drones in the work normally reserved for CIA or proxy states.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:38 PM, ambermonk said:

Reminds me...this is gonna sound pretty random, but I recall Autechre's MySpace page posting a link to a graph back in 2007 that showed a trend of actual overall decrease​ in global terrorism over the last three or four decades. The post was headlined "LOOK AT THIS GRAPH"

A decrease in global terrorism maybe, unfortunately for the people living in the middle east there has been a rather significant increase in local terrorism. The vast vast majority of the victims of Islamist terrorism are other Muslims. We really should be grateful* over here that these fucks are both incompetent and more worried about their own tribal hatreds than attempting any kind of sustained attack on the west. If they ever did end up being victorious over there though that state of affairs wouldn't last very long, these aren't people that are fighting for legitimate political grievances which they'll be quickly satisfied with if they achieve their immediate territorial goals.

* not that grateful, the fact that it's happening obviously isn't anything to be happy about.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:43 PM, marf said:

i dont know how they live like that indefinitely.

maybe the answer is related to why they're willing to live like that indefinitely.

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:26 PM, Nebraska said:

 

so if religion and guns were the problem of all the violence, they'd have been more shootings in the 50s and 60s (especially in schools) than today. the same with islamic terrorism since tsa security was almost non existent (starting in the mid 70s) and there were still radical terrorist groups

 

yeah 9/11 overshadows the fact that hijackings and aircraft bombings were occurring all the time in the 70s and 80s and by nationalists and far left groups in the middle east of all entities. the switch to Islamic militant terrorism really didn't occur until the 90s

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:38 PM, ambermonk said:

Reminds me...this is gonna sound pretty random, but I recall Autechre's MySpace page posting a link to a graph back in 2007 that showed a trend of actual overall decrease​ in global terrorism over the last three or four decades. The post was headlined "LOOK AT THIS GRAPH"

 

Of course I don't know where the hell the link itself is.

 

 

a decrease in terrorism in general or in the West? I would believe it. That's why there's such a different tone about terrorist attacks in Europe than in the US. 9/11 was immense in scale but the EU had been dealing with a plethora of perpetual terrorist attacks in the 60s. I don't think many Americans save those who lived or worked over there in that era really grasp that.

EDIT: caze brought up what I was wondering, because terrorism for the most part occurs locally in the same warzones that global terrorists the west fights emerge from

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:43 PM, marf said:

There really isnt an isis for christians or hindus, right now. Shit is kicking off constantly in the name of islam. There are theocracies that have incredibly politically incorrect laws with millions of people living under and preferring these laws. Isis, an extreme wing of islam seems to find guys exactly like this everyday. It is ramadan and they are calling for attacks on kufar. I follow about 500 isis members on twitter and they are all lost men and totally brutal. I think they must be on Meth or some speed to tolerate their own brutality. American soldiers are killing themselves from ptsd, i dont know how they live like that indefinitely.

You don't need meth when you're possessed with the absolute certainty that you're going to paradise when you die, that you're actually doing good deeds when you murder children - because if you didn't murder them they'd grow up to be kuffar and wouldn't be able to get into paradise. It's madness to downplay the extent to which extreme ideological conditioning plays a role here. We're often talking about people who come from very stable and privileged backgrounds as well, well educated, wealthy, disproportionately so in many cases (lots of the frontline soldiers are just fighting for a paycheque and some sense of security, food, but the upper echelons - and the foreign recruits in particular - are filled with the former).

  On 6/14/2016 at 8:13 PM, joshuatx said:

the switch to Islamic militant terrorism really didn't occur until the 90s

except by the PFLP who managed to do 4 aircraft hijackings in 1970

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:26 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 6/14/2016 at 6:47 PM, joshuatx said:

 

that's still very different than delusional self-important grown men walking into walmarts and starbucks with AR-15s on their back for no goddamn good reason.

 

correct, and this is why i said it's more to do with the mentality of the community. in the 60s there were television ads for toy guns. can you imagine that happening today, or the amount of warnings that would be included at the end to please certain groups that they're not promoting gun violence? and this is considering that america has been becoming less religious.

 

at some point guns went from being tools to weapons, and then subsequently to perpetuate their ease of access and availability, they became coupled not as a privileged necessary to some but a god-given right to all. kids with guns in the 50s and 60s were seen as espousing the ability to hunt and carry the responsibility of handling such a powerful tool which in decades past was a necessity for those living off the land. in the 20th century it went hand in hand with driving back when cars were more dangerous and harder to drive and probably seen to many as an extension of driving a tractor or handing a horse.

that's why the NRA went from a pro-regulation gun sporting and gun education association to a gun manufacturing lobby after the 70s. they've distorted the 2nd amendment to become an 11th moral commandment instead of an outdated and vague part of the bill or rights because that's the only way to argue for the status quo. It used to not be that way. George H Bush literally resigned from the NRA publicly in 1995 but now even some Democrats are afraid to challenge the group.

Some equivalent of nuclear disarmament with gun ownership will happen. It will have to anyway. I just don't know when but I can only say it will have to be after the GOP loses majority votes. Right now they can't even vote to ban people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns nor agree to focus on mental health...because the latter would involve expanding budget spending.

it is dangerous for people to perpetuate the myth that any encroachment on limitless firearm access is an encroachment of tyranny.

rome fell apart because of political disputes and political violence.

the main thing we need is background checks. misrepresenting that kind of gun control with strawmen and slippery slope arguments is incredibly more wreckless than people realize

the rest of the world is doing alright with the no guns thing so it's just a matter of doing what everyone else does, they don't even have to come up with anything just copypaste the laws duh

  On 6/14/2016 at 7:58 PM, Alcofribas said:

my bad for misquoting you. i entirely disagree with you in any case, his post hardly rises to the level of observation let alone "thought provoking insight."

 

both limpy and lane, who introduced the focus on islam in their posts, have filled many threads with their ideas on the matter so if you want to know what i have a beef with feel free to look them up.

I'm well aware of them, but I'll have to disagree with your characterisation of their ideas.

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i was also speaking more generally about a trend that exists outside of watmm. surely this can't be news to you.

well there are at least two trends that exist outside of watmm, there's the trend of actual anti-muslim bigotry, and there's the trend of falsely labeling liberals who have perfectly justifiable grievances with Islamism, and even - to a lesser degree - with broader mainstream conservative Islam, as bigots.

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i don't know that i'd be able to provide a truly insightful analysis of the role religion plays in the minds of those who make the decision to wage war on other countries, i'm not an expert. but it is perfectly evident that those who do so quite uniformly espouse christian beliefs which clearly underpin their fundamental worldview. even the muslim obama has talked of how he is doing "god's work." this is nowhere near the level of some one who straps a bomb on their chest in the name of jihad but it is also not a completely orthogonal relationship. i mean, you do recall that bush said he was on a mission from god, right? this does not describe an orthogonal relationship between religion and war in the u.s. sorry. so yes, there is a religious aspect.

I'm pretty sure Obama is an atheist (or agnostic at a minimum), read his autobiography if you doubt me. You might have a point re Bush, if it weren't for the fact that he had very little to do with the foreign policy implemented under his presidency, and the ideological underpinning of neoconservatism was liberalism, not christianity.

  On 6/14/2016 at 8:30 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 6/14/2016 at 8:13 PM, joshuatx said:

the switch to Islamic militant terrorism really didn't occur until the 90s

except by the PFLP who managed to do 4 aircraft hijackings in 1970

 

what josh just said is correct, they were socialists, not islamists.