Reply #92: You really have a very loose grasp on current realities, don't you? [View All]

[IrateCitizen]

Do you honestly think that Western nations, the US in particular, have truly changed their ways? Hardly. Western civilization has just modified them.

It used to be outright conquest and extermination, as in how the Europeans overwhelmed Native Americans or Native South Africans and took their land. They'd enslave all they could, working them to death, imposing harsh punishments (like cutting off a hand or foot) for any acts of rebellion.

Then, it moved up to colonization through occupation and the buying off of the native upper class, as the British did in India and the French in Indochina. Of course, even this kind of arrangement soon drew resistance that could overcome it, so methods had to be changed again.

So, the strategy switched to one of neocolonialism. Mountains of debt were coupled with harsh "structural adjustments" on "developing" countries (read: former colonies of European powers) in order to force their fragile economies to open up to Northern exploitation. Those who dissented would be subject to either consignment as a global pariah, or military "intervention" to maintain "order".

In all these cases, people have been killed for the benefit of those in richer nations, like you and I. We may not have seen people starving for lack of food because Monsanto took over their food supply, or dying of dysentery due to water privatization that benefitted Bechtel -- but they suffered and died nonetheless. And many of their disaffected countrymen see exactly where to place the blame for this continual injustice -- at the feet of the Western Powers (i.e. the US, today), and the pliant puppet regimes in their own countries.

You do realize, of course, that the views of Bin Laden and his ilk represent less than 1% of the Muslim population in the Middle East, right? But American injustices are the common thread that unite them together. Al Qaeda is not some global conspiracy, as you envision, but prior to 9/11 was a disintegrating fringe movement. It's still a world in which the industrialized "north" -- particularly the United States -- still holds the real power. Therefore, if there is to be a real shift, it has to start with a sea change in OUR policy toward THEM. When that happens, you'll see support for Bin Laden and his ilk dry up like a mirage in the desert.

Wishing for an Arab Gandhi or MLK is a complete waste of time, because that's not where the solution to the problem lies.