The bigger picture

Submitted by chris (United States), Apr 11, 2003 at 01:27

First off the readers here need some facts. I think this next little bit ought to help you out a bit.

Muhhamad did do his share of attacking, he militarily took Mecca back.

Secondly, the statement by commenter MOI, "Islam has not taught any one to attack any one unless they are the ones attacking first" goes a little deeper than I believe you grasp. The Islamic word "Jihad" is most commonly defined as a holy war. This war can be for many different reasons however. Protecting the islamic empire, protecting islam itself, a war against unbelievers and even a personal struggle to commit yourself totally in mind and body are all different Jihads. Bin Laden hates America because he feels that his culture and way of life are being taken over by America. He lives in a city where tradition plays a key role in every day life. This city is full of Moscs, schools, and small buisness'. One day Coca-cola shows up in his city. This was alright by him, for it was just a tasty drink. Then came the Starbucks, McDonalds and Burger King. All of a sudden his little city was becoming huge, topped off with skyscrapers and smokestacks. Modernization the American way is what he hates. He would not mind it so much if these modernization advancements came from his brother muslims or from almost any other country.

Bin Laden sees the bigger picture, he sees that America is truly imperialistic. We don't call ourselves that and we don't call the countries we take over "little America" (Afganistan and the soon to be new Iraq), and that is why we are able to get away with it. Bin Laden understands that you don't need to put your flag down in a country to own it. It's all about money; money is what makes the world turn round. We trade with so many countries and our products and corperations are on every corner of the globe. It amazes me how much power this country has.

I am taking yet another tangent here... I feel that it is a bad thing that this country has as much power as we do. Do you realize what we have done with this war? We have messed up our foreign relations completely. By by-passing the UN, we basically told the world to take a hike and we are better than you. The rest of the world has to follow the UNs decisions, but no, America doesn't need to. We are better than everyone else, we are the only superpower. No longer do we have our Soviet comrades to deal with, we are the only significant player in this deadly game of poker we are playing.

But many of us realised, obviously not the president, that the little man can pack a hell of a lot of punch. 3000 dead and downtown manhatten still not recovered, our president should have realised that we cant throw our weight around anymore. There are to many people and countries out there that don't fight by the rules (as rediculous as war having rules sounds).

The Geneva Convention only works if both parties hold up their end of the deal. We could be taken out in a single day if someone had the money and really wanted to. It would take about 30 nukes, but you could destroy every major city in this country, easily. All you need is a van with the bomb in it, and the ease of that has been demonstrated several times(the first trade center attack). Getting ourselves into this war was a very bad idea and I can see it turning into world war three. This world war would be very different from the last two.

There are way to many nuclear weapons on this planet for a handful not to be used. I'm not implying total nuclear devastation and armaggedon, but we are going to really mess ourselves up as a race. .. I really, really hope that it all turns out well, but I just dont see it happening.

E-mail me if you want to further this discussion/debate; Conneryis007@hotmail.com Peace

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