OpieCunningham

If you want to discuss the spread of Wahhabism/terrorism as it applies to an apocaplypse of the civilized world, why did you effectively brush aside one of the causes of the spread of terrorism in your initial post?

In science, it is recognized that for every effect there is a cause. If you have AIDS, scientists understand that you will probably die from pneumonia. Scientists could focus all of their energy on treating pneumonia, but it is more prudent to focus their energy on understanding AIDS itself and attempting to treat that. AIDS is the root cause, pneumonia is a symptom. Other scientists go even further and attempt to treat social behavior that places someone at risk for contracting AIDS. Scientists understand that dealing with root causes is the only way of dealing with the overall issue because even if you can stop pneumonia, you still have AIDS.

Wahhabism is pneumonia. Almost every single ounce of the civilized world's energy is being focused on Wahhabism. Meanwhile, other viruses, such as Ingush and Chechen terrorists (likely more interested in being left alone as opposed to destroying the whole civilized world) sneak in by using terrorist tactics in the place of Wahhabists.

So we can sit back and research Wahhabism for days and discuss it on here for hours. Someday we might even be able to end Wahhabism. But in the end, the environment which feeds terrorism will still exist throughout the world.

Russia has a very localized issue. Chechen terrorists are not acting for the same reasons as Palestinian terrorists who are not acting for the same reasons as Wahhabist terrorists. Chechen terrorists are acting because of the methods used by Russia to quell a desire for indepedence. Palestinian terrorists technically have a localized issue as well, though it has become global as it has become the focal point of Middle Eastern and Western relations. Wahhabist terrorists have an inherently global issue.

If you're going to focus on Wahhabism, you must deal with the most important question. The question is not "What do Wahhabist want?" - that answer is easy: our destruction. The question is not "Who are Wahhabists?" - that answer is easy: a sect of the Muslim religion. The question is not "How are Wahhabists attempting to achieve what they want?" - that answer is easy: terrorism. The only important question remaining is WHY?

This is the question that no one wants to ask. It is the question that must be asked for any instance of terrorism. It is always dismissed and replaced with shock that the terrorist act took place. It is unimaginable that the terrorist act has taken place. The perpetrators of the act MUST be MAD. They're insane. There is no REASON they could have done this.

That is a completely false perspective. They are indeed mad people. They cannot give you a reason they have commited terrorism that would make any sense (Allah told me to do it!). But there is a reason for their actions. It is a flaw in our analysis of mistaking excuse (terrorists have no excuse) for reason (there is always a reason for any action). Their actions are not random events which come from an isolated bubble of maddness. But this is how we view it. This is how we avoid asking the question WHY.

In the case of Chechens, imagine it is just two people. They're having a verbal disagreement. Person A decides to slap Person B. Person B retaliates by slapping Person A. Person A punches Person B. Person B kicks Person A. Now Person A expresses shock and outrage that Person B would be so mad as to kick! We could dig deeper into root causes as do scientists who work with the social causes of contracting AIDS - Soviet control of the land for decades, the fall of the Soviets and the rise of religious freedom, etc. But a fundamental shift in the disagreement took place when Person A (the Russians) decided to physically attack Person B (the Chechens). That is the WHY - that is the event which changed the Russian-Chechen disagreement into a war of terrorism.

In the case of the Palestinians, it again comes down to a verbal disagreement between two parties (the people that live on the land and the pseudo-world government body who wanted those people to move away) that shifted into a physical disagreement when the new "owners" of the land started taking it.

In the case of Wahhabism the issues run much deeper. Essentially, the issues with the Middle East and the West go back to the time when the West shrugged off the oppression of feudalism. Feudalism had run its course and was holding back technological advancement. This advancement became a strength over the continued feudal society of the Middle East. The West was in a position of power. There was no longer much to fear from the Middle East - they were in a position of subservience to the West now that the military capabilities of the West were vastly superior. Instead of helping the Middle East break free of feudalism, which would help the Middle East advance technologically and increase in power, the West leveraged that feudalism. Once the industrial age hit the West, the ideal method of control of the Middle East emerged. Oil. The West wanted the oil. The feudal lords of the Middle East wanted money to control the serfs. A mutually appealing relationship between the West and the tribal lords of the Middle East was created. Since that time, the West has done everything in its power (which includes military incursions, colonization, coups, and full on wars) to ensure that the leaders of the Middle Eastern lands were as favorable to Western trade as possible - regardless of how those leaders treated the general populace of those lands. The West did not view the people as a concern. As long as there was a leader willing to provide oil, the West would provide money. That the people of the Middle East were living in poverty even as billions of dollars were being pumped into the hands of their leaders was irrelevant to the West. The West viewed itself as not responsible for the oppression of the people by the leaders in the Middle East - even as it provided the resources to the leaders to oppress the people. Occasionally, the suffering of the people in the Middle East would create a rebellion and the West would assist the leaders in quelling it - stability of the leadership was more important to Western need for oil than the oppression of the people. Decades of this went on. One day a Wahhabist (or someone very similar), oppressed by the leaders of the Middle East, displeased with their religious leniency and automatically unfavorable to West, realized that the ideal method of attracting attention (which would lead to followers and the resources necessary for waging a war) to his cause is to threaten innocent people. And it worked perfectly.

So. Why do these issues never get discussed? Why is our focus on stopping the pneumonia of terrorist attacks but not the AIDS of terrorism? I don't know exactly why we either brush aside the root causes ("Duly noted in advance" ... "Good vs. Evil, you're either with us or against us!") but I imagine it has to do with an exhorbitant amount of righteousness. We have convinced ourselves that we can do no wrong in the world, and by virtue, we place our enemies in a bubble. They are not from our world, and yet here they have come to attack us with no cause, no reason. We are pure and they are insane.

Now the question you need to ask yourself is - Are you going to continue to perpetuate this concept of an isolated bubble of maddness which unleashes terrorism on the world, or are you going to focus your energy on dealing with the root causes of terrorism?