to A Ahmed
Reader comment on item: [William Blum and] Al-Qaeda's Leftist Brigade
in response to reader comment: ALL IN ONE

Submitted by Sidda (United States), Jan 26, 2006 at 10:04

Yes, I am way sure that the reason Osama declared war on the USA was because he was so infuriated by America's intervention in stopping the spread of Communisim. Wrong, you lose.

Bin Laden has stated many times over that his goal is to reestablish the Islamic Caliphate. He cannot do that unless he takes the USA down. After that all other countries would fall like dominoes. His main original target was the Saudi Royal Family in Saudi Arabia. To start off his Caliphate, he'd like to overthrow all secular "moderate" Islamic governments. This isn't what I think, this is what he states himself. The leftists are useful idiots to him. He even uses their own rhetoric to appeal to them. Of course, they in their own way are trying to use the Islamists. It's the people who don't really understand the giant chess game that is going on who are the useful idiots.

I am certain that the USA, especially in its fight against Communism, took some actions and formed some alliances that it would have prefered not to. Just as we did when we were fighting against Nazis during WW2, we allied with Stalin. And every country, I don't care WHAT COUNTRY, tries to follow policy that is in its best interests. So, we are not always altruistic, but we are certainly not always the bad guy either. And either way, even though we might not always have lived up to them, our values are still quite something to aspire to and many all over the world do and even risk their lives to come here.

You mentioned Vietnam and how many people were killed there. But I'll just take a wild guess here and say that the book didn't include the following information: after America withdrew its support from South Vietnam (after North Vietnam agreed to leave South Vietnam alone after our withdrawal) the Communists swept down through South Vietnam and through neighboring Cambodia and slaughtered about 2 million people. Does Pol Pot ring a bell with you?

My guess is that you already had preconceived negative view of America and bought the book to reinforce that negative view. But, I could be wrong.

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