She wasn't ignored, and it was an extremely arbitrary, loaded question. Even if they wanted to answer it, by, say, talking about Sayyid Qutb's philosophy and the many clashing movements in the Islamic world vying for power right now, it would be reduced to sound bites and nobody who listens to anything more than soundbites would believe it anyway...

The reason being, of course, that we deserve to be targeted because of our imperialistic activities and they are angry about how bad we are/were, right?

So the question shouldn't be asked because, gosh, you think you know what answer I'm looking for already. The fact is, our enemies are human beings and since we so happen to be the same species, perhaps knowing their motivations teaches us about our own. The United States is not abbreviated "US" because the rest of the world is "THEM." I personally think their motivations have a lot to do with them not understanding us as a people because they live halfway around the world and don't interact with us on an individual level. You don't want to be told you're one with the greedy imperialist America as an individual, so maybe they don't want to be told they're a part of the terrorist Islamic fascists as individuals either. We don't know their personal reasons any more than they know ours and that's a damned shame, especially when someone who asks about them is put down for it. Stop being so defensive for your country and try giving a fuck about your species for once, or, better yet, the right of an individual to be thought of as a human (should they happen to be one).

Or, you can just keep fearing the Decepticons in Congress and Al Cobra.

" I personally think their motivations have a lot to do with them not understanding us as a people because they live halfway around the world and don't interact with us on an individual level"

Oh my god you goofball

Why do terrorists want to attack people? Because they're evil!
Why are terrorists evil? Because they want to attack people!

It's only a loaded question if that's the only answer they can come up with.

I would genuinely like to know what question would be ideal for cornering the administration on the War on Terrorism™, so I apologize in advance for sounding like I'm baiting you into a flame-war.

Great Scott, Helen Thomas is getting old. I guess she's what... 90 now? She looks like someone who's sitting in the dining hall of a retirement center, trying to remember what she was complaining about.

She's a woman who believes that extremism has causes

Sit down and have a cup of juice, Batman.

You are correct on a lot of points. Their religion is far worse than your (still quite awful but let's be honest, it's not close) religion.

enjoy, what causes evil people? Do you think it's the devil, or just some kind of magic portal?

or is it just when sheltered white people don't want to keep thinking about things besides boats and how awesome they are?

We are born evil because of our adamic nature.

Dude, don't fucking talk about Adama. That guy... No, he wasn't perfect, but he still got the fleet to Earth--IN TWO SEPARATE SERIES

You fucking back-seat space-general. You're what's wrong with America. Why do you want the Cylons to win, Enjoy?

We are born evil because the first thing we ever smell is blood, and we want more of it.

A person who isn't completely retarded will want to understand what makes the enemy tick, because knowing how your enemy thinks gives you greater ability to deal with them. You might, for example, discover divisions in the enemy forces that can be exploited. Or you might discover you can eliminate big chunks of the enemy's support base at little cost.

One thing Bush deserves credit for is moving US troops out of Saudi Arabia -- that eliminated one al Qaeda grievance at essentially no cost to the US, which is to say, it removed one reason for a person to join al Qaeda. It was a smart move and I applaud it.

'Adamic nature', that's trying a hair too hard.

baumer: the biggest difference between Enjoy's religion and Islam is that the worst elements of Christianity are still basically the most privileged people in all of human history, so they're really not motivated to hide explosives in their underpants. On the one hand we've got Islam's bleeding edge (al Qaeda and the like) and on the other hand we've got Christianity's bleeding edge (white supremacists (and don't tell me they're not religiously oriented, what with those burning crosses)), and neither one has a problem with blowing up innocent people that they don't consider "their own".

Another difference is that the penalty for apostasy in Islam is death.

oh and

Guys, any one of us could juggle what Enjoy knows about religion or ethics. Giving him a response with any level of seriousness is pretty ridiculous. Even moreso cause it's Enjoy and he's long since bowed out of commenting on this video.

What you mean to say is, the most fucked up Muslims believe that apostasy is punishable by death. It's by no means a universal teaching.

Comparing fucktards to fucktards again ... until recently, the KKK went after Catholics too. And of course, you may have heard of some unpleasantness at a certain 16h Street Baptist Church -- so don't make like white supremacists are bastions of religious tolerance either.

Don't tell me what I mean to say, circus person. From Wikipedia: "Today apostasy is punishable by death in the countries of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Qatar, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan and Mauritania."

It should be stressed that that is Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan in the above list, not the Taliban's.

While you're drawing false parallels, do you want to compare opposition to abortion from Christians (up to and including the murder of doctors in the United States) to the way the majority of Muslim nations view gender issues?

I'm with you: Christian lunatics suck. I'll even do you one better and say without qualification that Christianity sucks. I'm just not willing to pretend that I don't find the cultish nature of Islam to be objectively worse.

Your second paragraph, in which you seem to be suggesting that I'm defending white supremacists, defies parsing.

Fine, under theocracies, deviating from the official religion can get you killed. That used to happen under Christian theocracies as well; there just aren't many Christian theocracies these days. In countries that operate a basically secular judicial system (such as the US), you'll find that Muslims don't feel entitled to kill apostates, almost like the apostate-murdering thing has everything to do with theocracy and not Islam itself.

I have to preach a sermon tomorrow on fear.

Enjoy, if you start it off by saying "Brothers and sisters, Fear is the mind killer, Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration." and then wrap it up by saying "may Shai-Hulud keep your water safe" *AND* videotape it and put it on POE-TV, I will PayPal you , because that would be fifty bucks worth of awesome

"we just need to sit down and talk with these men who want to kill us in order to work things out."

Well, that IS how you deprogram someone.

In countries that operate a basically secular judicial system (such as the US), you'll find that Muslims have no problem carrying out honor killings.

In countries that operate a basically secular judicial system (such as the US), you'll find that Muslims perform female circumcision.

Oh, and if we're restricting ourselves to Muslims in secular countries, let's not forget those Danish cartoons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_con troversy

I can almost sympathize with your intent, but you should try to recognize the possibility that some things may just be worse than some other things. I think all religion is bad, and would be happiest if every religion were abandoned, but that doesn't stop me from seeing some religions as more immediately harmful (or even more harmful by design) than others.

Really? Honor killings in the United States? Show me evidence this comes up a lot. I'm really hoping you're going to say something about that Muslim girl who converted to Christianity and fled for her life, because law enforcement can find absolutely nothing to substantiate the accusations against her parents. (It was even her dad, not her mom, who gave her permission to become a cheerleader -- I guess not all Muslims insist that their women wear burqas.) Unsurprisingly enough, most Muslims in the west do what most members of most religions do: believe as they believe but live in a fashion consistent with the society they're in.

I'll concede the point that some of the world's worst cultures are Muslim; but since Islam gets remarkably saner in other parts of the world, the problem with those cultures isn't Islam specifically, it's that they're stuck in Medieval times or even the Bronze Age. Your point all along has been that "Islam" is this or "Islam" is that, but it's nowhere near that simple, and the simpleton approach has led our country to make needless mistakes in dealing with terrorism.

You precious individual. I love that you have to add the "often" just like our friend Rudy had to add "major" to qualify whether there had been any attacks since 9/11. As for honor killings in the US, I trust you're capable of googling every bit as well as I am.

I wish you would quit telling me what I mean to say, and what my point all along has been. You are not very intelligent, Bort.

I'll try to sum up my point for you so you don't have to keep flailing:

Religions are bad.
Cults are worse.
Islam has some attributes which make it more cult-like than other religions of comparable size: the taboo on apostasy (never mind the punishment) and the in-group vs out-group dynamic (It's permissible to lie to an infidel, and it's impermissible to criticize a Muslim in front of an infidel).

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=25671

By "often" I assume you mean the "a lot" qualifier; I am not about to claim that there has never ever been a crazy Muslim doing a crazy Muslim thing in the United States, but neither am I going to insist a very small handful characterize the rest. Honor killings in the United States look to be extraordinarily rare (something like three a year, in a Muslim population of anywhere from 2.5 million to 7 million); honor killings are very much an anomaly rather than a norm.

I'm just waiting for Cena_Mark to come in a pwn all our asses with his rock solid chicken hawk bullshit.

Well, I think you hit on the main issue here. The government and a lot of the so-called liberal media doesn't care about the populace having an understanding of the situation in the middle east now or in the past. In fact, the more educated the masses become the more they will realize that this is an unjust, unjustified, and unwillable war. Therefore they show with relish the images of a would-be terrorist to use fear to their political advantage. Knowing the full scope of the mans plan would detract from this fear-based control.

They want to kill us because it gives their leaders political brownie points in a fight for power in the Arab world.

Helen: "They want to kill us for brownies?"

Yes, Helen. Delicious brownies.

They want to kill us because of this thread.

You say to me "I want to kill you" and the first word out of my mouth will surely be "That's what your mom said after the donkey punch"

but of course by that point I would have killed them first anyway

Respect.

It's a better answer than "Have you looked in a mirror?"