[extropy-chat] POLITICS: terrorism and strategies

Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
Fri Jun 25 03:21:59 UTC 2004


On Fri, 25 Jun 2004, paul.bridger wrote:

> If you really want to solve the US problem with terrorism, change the cause.
> US foreign policy is the cause. Obviously.

Paul -- I will not hesitate to agree that U.S. Foreign Policy is problematic.
If I review U.S. history over the last 1.5 years it looks like the State Dept.
had many more correct calls than the Defense Dept. (even taking into account
when the State Dept. was being mislead by inaccurate intelligence information).

*But* your statement asserts that "US foreign policy is the cause".
I would assert that irrational thought patterns that are imbedded in
individuals in Arab/Muslim countries are the source of at least a
major part of the problem (these are explained in greater detail
in Friedman's essays in the NY Times regarding the madrassas).

One could extend the discussion to politicians in Latin or South
American countries who view graft as an acceptable part of the
political process in this discussion.  But politicians in Latin
or South American are not (generally) currently engaged in
violence which may terminate the lives of potentially extropic
or transhumanistic individuals.

I find it hard to believe you can blame U.S. foreign policy for
all of the problems that corrupt mind sets of individuals
around the world.  It seems much more probable that one is
dealing with simple human traits like greed or ambition.
Many of the people planting bombs in the Sunni triangle
in Iraq don't care about U.S. foreign policy.  They simply
only care about their own personal power.

So to sell the "obviously" point you need to (at least IMO)
throw more meat on the table.

Robert





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