I want Biden to be VP to Obama

I'm getting a little tired of people saying that we have to be oh so nice to Muslims around the world just so they won't become homicidal jihadists bent on flying airplanes into our buildings. That sounds way too much like blackmail to me. We give economic aid to Africa and other regions around the world because it is the right thing to do, not because we think that in not doing so we'll be helping the next generation of Muslim terrorists. For centuries there have always been poor countries on this planet and their poverty never used to give them an excuse to kill Americans. But now some poor countries around the world (especially Muslim nations, like Pakistan) seem to be saying that "You'd better give us piles of economic aid because, if you don't, you never know where the next generation of Muslim terrorist may come from, so cough up the cash or we're heading your way." That is blackmail plain and simple and I reject that line of thought. The United States provides billions of dollars in financial aid to countries around the world (both through the US Government and through private organizations) and we never seem to get the recognition we deserve because of those actions. We have helped Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq avoid slaughter and death, yet I don't see a lot of gratitude from those Muslim populations. We've helped Muslims in Indonesia with massive tsunami relief, yet there are still Al Qaeda cells in Indonesia that actively plot to attack us. I am all for continuing our economic support for poorer nations, but I'm sick and tired of these nations thinking that they are entitled to it from us. And the support we do give them should be returned to us in the form of open and vocal political support for the United States and concrete actions against any terrorist organizations that are operating in those nations. Perhaps we should adopt a motto that the US Marines have, "No better friend, no worse enemy." If you are a friend to the United States, you will discover how generous and loyal we are, both financially and militarily. But if you plot to destroy us, you will discover just how harsh and cruel we can be. Winning "hearts and minds" never seemed like a good military strategy. The Iraqis who have turned against Al Qaeda now have finally realized that they can get a better deal from the United States than from Al Qaeda, which offers them nothing but horrible death and destruction. That is probably the best example of "No better friend, no worse enemy."

So Sandy,
When a Muslim country asks for aid to prevent the kind of cyclical poverty that has always bred violence, it is blackmail? You want the United States to simply base its aid on what is "the right thing to do"? And you suggest we should withhold aid until we receive certain concessions? Aside from being incredibly ignorant, your tirade is inconsistent and hackneyed. When will this country be rid of the kind of layman who actually feel confident writing the following: "I don't see a lot of gratitude from those Muslim populations."

Hey Russ, your comments are naive at best, foolish at worst. You say that, "When a Muslim country asks for aid to prevent the kind of cyclical poverty that has always bred violence, it is blackmail?" Well, in a word, yes. Cyclical poverty is common in many nations around the world, but when did that poverty become an excuse to kill Americans? What is the correlation between being poor in Pakistan and wanting to blow up a train in London? The people in London had nothing to do with the poverty in their country, yet now it's fashionable for terrorists in countries like Pakistan to use that as an excuse for their Jihad against the West. We could give a million dollars to every person in Pakistan and that still won't stop the jihadists. This is an ideological and relgious struggle, something economic aid isn't going to make any dents in. Remember, Osama bin Laden was one of the wealthiest and best educated people in Saudi Arabia, yet he was responsible for 9/11. So to imply that if we just give piles of economic aid to poor Muslim countries the terrorist threat will disappear is just stupid.
Americans are also very generous when it comes to economic aid and disaster relief. We do this on humanitarian grounds and we should be proud of that. But for countries to accept our aid and then, at the same time, not actively pursue terrorist groups in those same countries is just insulting, let alone dangerous. Indonesia is a good example of this. They freely accept our tsunami aid and economic and military aid, but, at the same time, they turn a blind eye to radical Muslim groups in their own country (some of them allied with al Qaeda, no less). So, what are we to do about this? Do we just say to these countries, "That's not nice, just try a little harder next time to capture these killers." Please, in some countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, economic aid should be tied to how much cooperation we get on the war on terror. If those countries are not willing to help us against the people who are plotting to kill us, then they are part of the problem and not part of the solution.
And as for you ignorantly stating, "When will this country be rid of the kind of layman who actually feel confident writing the following:" I don't see a lot of gratitude from those Muslim populations," I say hey, if you want to keep throwing money down a rathole on people who don't show either a lot of respect or gratitude after we've provided them with enormous amounts of military and economic support, then I suggest you do it with your own money and not Federal funds. Bleeding heart liberals like yourself are oh so generous when it comes to giving tons of economic aid. According to people like you and Biden, we can always buy the love of people in Third World nations, right? Once you get it through your thick and childish skulls that we're facing a religious war that has absolutely nothing to do with money, then you'll see that the dollars you want to spend to "prevent this kind of cyclical poverty" is just money thrown out the window. What I wonder is when are we going to be rid of your type of liberalism that thinks that every problem in the world can be solved if we just throw more money at it? Fools like you may want to pursue old and failed policies, but I'm sure the jihadists in countries like Pakistan are just loving it.

Libertyship, all the circumlocution and obfuscation in the world can't hide the fact that one cannot simultaneously claim we should give aid to countries based exclusively upon what is right and who is neediest while also attaching stipulations to the money outside of how it may be used. I thought this point to be self-evident. It is indeed insulting when a country takes our aid and refuses to be cooperative. Those are the risks one necessarily runs by so generously giving money on a solely humanitarian basis.

You did notice an important omission in my first post; indeed, nearly your entire rebuttal revolves around it. In the sentence that begins, "When a Muslim country asks for aid to prevent the kind of cyclical poverty" my intention was clearly not to imply that any amount of aid from the United States could entirely curb poverty, eradicate extremism or somehow make the terrorist threat "disappear", as you interpreted it. No government or institution has ever been able to achieve even one of these goals in full. Give me a break; seizing on this point as if I was implying something that is clearly outrageous speaks volumes about your arguments' merits. Perhaps my meaning would have been more precisely conveyed had it read "aid to HELP prevent the kind of cyclical poverty...".

I don't know whether you are prejudiced across the board, or just one of those Americans who have swallowed Bush's terror tactics whole and are so bewildered by this foreign religion to which they were largely ignorant or indifferent before 2001 that it seems reasonable to generalize nearly a quarter of the world's population. It is amusing that you answer my question about how you could purport to assess "Muslim gratitude" as a whole by reiterating your assertion that Muslims have not shown "either a lot of respect or gratitude" even after the truly magnanimous gesture of providing "enormous amounts of military and economic support". Let's forget entirely about what our country is responsible for in Iraq: the unjustified war of not just preemption but prevention, the damage done by de-Ba'athification and the actions of the Provisional Government and focus solely on how it is that you have the ability to gauge the feelings of the Muslim community as a whole. You mean you haven't received your Christmas card yet? Are you really so dense as to not see that it is exactly this focus on Islam as a whole and not on its extremist agents that itself fuels the hateful rhetoric that radical mullahs use to recruit the young and disillusioned to attack our country? This is what bewilders me about people of your mindset. Do you even see the irony?

Not everybody who disagrees with your racist, fearful policies (and the exorbitant wars that follow) is a bleeding-heart liberal, although your presumption of such is telling. I am a fiscal conservative, and I would still rather throw money out the window in the form of aid than burn it at an unprecedented rate on an unnecessary and protracted war that is likely to breed further hatred. And the part that makes me sick is that next time Bush holds a press conference about a foiled terrorist threat, people like you are going to point to it and say, "You see how much these cowardly Muslims envy our freedom?" as if it were proof your rhetoric is right and my alleged bleeding-heart compatriots must surely see they are naive fools. Terrorism is too nebulous and unpredictable to merit the kind of fear that politicians instill in the public these days to further their political goals. I am not claiming terrorism or hatred for America is non-existent, but when a politician defines something like terrorism a constant, tangible threat he gains disproportionate power. For another attack will only prove the veracity of the threat, and a lack of attacks will prove his methods have been effective. Left by the wayside is any sense of accountability. It is time for you to see through this nonsense and take a lesson from Hitler: you can't eradicate an idea no matter how many of its followers you seek out and execute. I'm not asserting that unconditional aid is the panacea; just that a comprehensive long-term solution will require more flexibility than is allowed for in your narrow minded approach.

Hey Russ, bigoted and narrow-minded people such as you are always on shaky ground whenever they start quoting Hitler to make a point. But more about that later. It is interesting that you admitted, "It is indeed insulting when a country takes our aid and refuses to be cooperative." Gee, ain't that the truth. Too bad we see so much of it in the world today. If you're one of those typical liberals, like Obama and Clinton, that say that the main war on terror is in Afghanistan, then why don't we see truck loads of volunteers from Kuwaite, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Indonesia helping us in our battle with al Quaeda? We've poured billions of dollars in aid into those countries and fought three wars (one to liberate Kuwaite in 1991 and then the air wars that were fought under the Clinton administration over Bosnia and Kosovo to stop the slaughter of MUSLIMS there), yet do we see any, any, of those people openly helping us in the war on terror? Even the people in Kuwaite begrudgingly let us base some troops there, but that's about as far as they're willing to support us. I may not have gotten a Christmas card from any of those countries (as you so happily put it), but a couple of battalions of volunteers to help us fight terrorists in Afghanistan would be nice. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought they were our friends, our allies. I'm glad our help was so appreciated by them that they won't help us in our time of need.
Then you go on to blithely say, "Those are the risks one necessarily runs by so generously giving money on a solely humanitarian basis." Well, that's mighty big of you, especially when it's not your money you're sending. I just don't see what's so terrible about people helping us out when we need help, as in the war on terror, after we've helped them out. Or, why don't these countries give more vocal support to our cause against Muslim jihadists by denouncing them in their mosques or in their press? I guess that would be too much for them too. Yep, glad to see all that foreign aid was so well spent. Yet those same countries don't seem to have any problems accepting money from the Saudis so that they can build more madrassas that can be used to educate yet another generation of Muslims to hate the West (the entire West, by the way, not just the United States; the bombings in England, Spain, and the terror arrests made in France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and Holland show that this just isn't our problem, bud). Yessir, it's nice seeing that all this foreign aid has convinced those young Muslim jihadists that the West really just loves them, right Russ? And please stop those tired old arguments that it's all Bush's fault. That type or hysteria is just boring. If everything in the Muslim world is Bush's fault, then why are terrorists still actively plotting attacks all over Europe? Even Spain, which tried to distance itself as much as possible from the US, is still battling terrorists that are coming in from Morrocco. Yes, appeasing jihadists sure makes them love you, right Russ?
As for the rest of your arguments, they are so convoluted and illogical that I have neither the time nor the desire to address them. But when you quote Hitler and say, "You can't eradicate an idea no matter how many of its followers you seek out and execute," well, you certainly are NOT going to eradicate any ideas by throwing money at it, especially radical religious ideas. You're one of those "Blame America First" type people. Everything would be wonderful in the world if America simply stayed home and gave lots of money to those "poor, deserving, misguided" Muslims in places like Pakistan. Well, I'm still waiting for all that gratitude to come pouring out of the mosques that's going to convince all those young Muslims that the West is just a swell place to live in. What, you're telling me you don't hear anything? You won't. It's a relgious war and the United States, along with Western Europe, isn't going to be able to buy its way out of it with endless foreign aid. Deal with it.

This exchange has gone too far. You have not addressed any of my points. I already said in my last post that throwing money at the problem would not eradicate radicalism; I was simply pointing out that you make little sense in your arguments. Look, I know Rush Limbaugh tells you that people like me want to "Blame America First" as if blaming some of America's specific past actions were blasphemy. It is not; questioning whether the actions of our government are in accord with our values and Constitution is one of the most patriotic lines of thought possible. I know it would be futile to keep trying to convince you; if you were logical enough to see that your arguments are repetitious and skirt all of my pointed questions, you would probably have made at least one decent response by now. I love a contentious, stimulating debate, but this is like debating a child.
Anyway, for future reference, my drawing a parallel to a famous event in history in my own words has absolutely nothing to do with "quoting Hitler". But I guess I'm just a bigoted, narrow-minded liberal. Oops. I'll leave you to ponder the irony.

Russ, you have no "pointed questions," just a lot statements that add up to the United States always being wrong when it comes to babying Muslims around the world (a problem that, according to you, could be solved by simply dumping money or, excuse me, "foreign aid" on it). You have not cited one piece of evidence that has shown how our billions of dollars of foreign aid to a country like Pakistan has reduced the number of radical jihadists coming out of that country. And you never will, because as I've said many times before, this is a religious war, one that cannot be stopped with foreign aid. All your foreign aid will guarantee is that when the jihadists come to attack us they'll be healthier and better educated (we just love building hospitals and schools, it's what we do best). If you don't believe me, just look at the young Pakistani men who blew themselves up in the London subways and on one of their buses. They were British born, well educated, and a byproduct of the British social welfare system. And what did these fine young men do? They blew themselves up in the name of Allah. If you think you're going to eradicate hundreds of years of hatred of the West and Christianity simply by building a new road or a water treatment plant in Pakistan, you really are nuts. But of course, don't place the blame where it belongs, which is on the Muslim jihadists. We must be to blame, right Russ? Simply by existing on this planet the United States is wrong and deserves to be attacked, right Russ? Isn't that the Liberal view of things, that we're always bad and the poor, downtrodden terrorists always have a legitimate reason to fly planes into our buildings, right Russ? And all we have to do to stop all of this hatred for the West is to build them a school, or a hospital, or a road, or provide them with military aid that they'll probably use to attack us with in the long run. Yep, I don't know what came over me, Russ. You keep sending them the cash and they'll just fall in love with you. And if you believe that I've got a mosque to sell you in Islamabad.