Printable View
I don't know why our current gov doesn't understand this. It is taught to every child in this country before they leave highschool. It is covered pretty upfrontly in the chpaters about WWI and WWII.Quote:
Originally Posted by Biff_Pocoroba
If you beat down your enemy and treat them like dogs, they rise up and become worse.
If you let go of the past and help them rebuild and educate them, they become allies and friends.
How do you propose the West do this with radical Islam?Quote:
Originally Posted by buttcheeks
show good will to that part of the world, so radical islam has less BS to use in recruiting others?Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Meach
it is really important to radical islam to have a bad guy. Trying not to be that bad guy would do a lot.
There will always be something that someone will exploit, get people to join their cause, and still take as many lives as they can. That won't change no matter how much we try to educate people. Religion also makes it worse.
yes, that is why we are still at war with the English, Japan, Russa, and Germany.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
That has more to do with the changing of the times. Do you honestly believe every country that has been at war with each other will always be that way? Time passes and people move on. I don't see what this has to do with educating the people we were at war with.
And this is something different, it's an idea. That idea, save for creating the biggest genocide in human history, isn't going anywhere and will always be around. So go ahead and educate as many Muslims as you want but there will always be someone crying foul when religion is involved.
Quote:
Originally Posted by buttcheeks
The difference with those countries is that we beat them before educating them. This won't be so clear cut.
Nazism disagrees with you. So does commumism and racism(atleast in this country).Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
ideals can't be destroyed, but they can be beaten up and ridiculed to the point that they are a non-factor.
It's been done before. Take Turkey for example; After WWI Atatürk changed what had been the seat of ancient Islamic rule into what was essentially a full liberal democracy complete with humans rights, equality for the sexes, voting privileges for all (even women, which put them ahead of several European nations and only a little after the U.S.), abolishment or religious law in place of a Western secular legal code (Swiss to be exact), and total separation of church and state. All this in a predominantly Muslim country.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Meach
So, it can be done, but the key is you have to sell modernism to the right people. You have to get to the ones who have the ability, the charisma, and the connections to effect real change. Right now all we have in Muslim world are our puppet states (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq) or allies of convenience (Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait) and neither of those want to go whole hog and sign up for the Western ideal. Rather they either rely on or respect our strength as a world power enough to do our bidding when it suits them. This is not how you 'bring democracy' to the region.
There is a point to be made in that the best thing we can offer is education. Not to the wealthy or even the middle class, but to the poorest segments who now end up in these radical madrases. If we set up (and I hate to use an old Soviet program name) 'Friendship Schools' to provide basic education to these people, then we go a long way to 1.) helping them do something more with their lives so they don't feel compelled to such dead-end ideals as martyrdom and 2.) giving them a clear picture of what the West is and what it stands for, not the warped perception they get from radical clerics.
That's a very cynical way to look at things, and those who follow it tend to regret it. The best example would be Germany, after WWI the world left it to rot in debt, with a weak government, and a depressed populace. It was this kind of environment which led to the rise of Nazism. Now, by contrast, take Germany post WWII under the Marshall Plan. We built them back up, gave the people hope and a goal to work towards, and now look at what Germany has become. Twice they had been our enemies, now the thought of it ever happening again seems laughable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
There was a time when Americans hung people for witchcraft because of religion. Now we would consider that kind of behavior immoral and criminal. Even the strongest religious dogma can be chipped away when the people are enfranchised, when they are sold on a better idea. It can happen again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
True. If you're being put through an unbelievable amount of physical/mental torture, you'll probably tell the interrogators anything they want to hear just to make it stop. For example, the same shit happened at the Salem Witch trials.Quote:
Originally Posted by sethsez