{"id":344,"date":"2004-02-08T08:30:43","date_gmt":"2004-02-08T12:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=344"},"modified":"2004-02-08T08:30:43","modified_gmt":"2004-02-08T12:30:43","slug":"what-makes-a-man-a-terrorist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=344","title":{"rendered":"“What makes a man a terrorist?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re a news junkie and haven’t found this site<\/a> yet I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

The scope and number of links compiled there are amazing.<\/p>\n

I found this link there which takes you to The Nation<\/a> and the article “The New ‘Great Game’<\/a>” by Lutz Kleveman. <\/p>\n

Kleveman integrates the past and present geo-political factors at play with details of his journey to research ” the potential links between the “war on terror” and American oil interests in Central Asia.”<\/p>\n

In my opinion, one of the most important observations in it, written after describing the brutal governing methods utilised by one of “Washington’s newest allies”, “Islom Karimov, the ex-Communist dictator of Uzbekistan”, is the following:<\/p>\n

What makes a man a terrorist? On my travels, I met countless angry young men who, with nothing to lose but their seemingly valueless lives, were prepared to fight for whatever radical Islamic leaders told them was worth the fight. As in the Middle East, lack of democracy is one of the root causes of terrorism in Central Asia: The young men’s anger is primarily directed against their own corrupt and despotic regimes. As Washington shores up these rulers, their disgusted subjects increasingly embrace militant Islam and virulent anti-Americanism.<\/div>\n

It’s an important wrinkle in the usual fare imparted by the illustrious liars who would like to keep you just stupid enough to believe there are people out there who hate us because we’re ‘free’.<\/p>\n

On the subject of Iran “Iranians don?t want nuclear weapons whatever the officials say<\/a>” by Karim Sadjadpour offers insight into how the Iranian people feel about U.S. interest in their nuclear capabilities and how military intervention at this point would likely change their opinion on whether Iran should pursue a nuclear weapons programme:<\/p>\n

Western and Israeli diplomats and analysts should know that the ability to solve the Iranian nuclear predicament diplomatically has broad implications for the future of democracy and nonproliferation in Iran and the rest of the Middle East. The goal is to bring the Iranian regime on the same page with the Iranian people. A non-diplomatic attempt to destroy Iran?s nuclear facilities could do precisely the opposite.<\/div>\n

That link comes from today’s The Daily Star<\/a>‘s Headline News and Analysis Alert Mail.<\/p>\n

“The Wrong Side of History<\/a>” by Daniel Patrick Welch offers more thoughts to ponder on the subject.<\/p>\n

Update: A prerequisite for moving forward should be an honest assessment of the past, not made-for-tv films. “McNamara: The Sequel<\/a>” by Alexander Cockburn. You can find part one here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re a news junkie and haven’t found this site yet I highly recommend it. The scope and number of links compiled there are amazing. I found this link there which takes you to The Nation and the article “The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-5y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}