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Originally Posted by Sun Tzu
What is the common thought on the reasons WHY the fight was brought to "our" doorstep?
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By 'our' doorstep, I'm going to assume you mean the world trade center and proceed from that premise:
From what I've read and heard others speak about, the WTC was a signifier of global capitalism. This economic force has been increasingly sweeping across the Middle East for the past few decades and forms the backbone of what some people refer to as neo-colonialism.
Neo-colonialism, as I understand it, is the use of economic might rather than military force to colonize foreign regions. This force is more strong and more insidious than military force since wraps various cultures in our Western, capitalist hegemon in ways that military battles can not do. That is, one can fight military forces, but not so readily ideology--especially when that ideology is infused in the ways we conduct ourselves in everyday life and appears to be part of the natural ordering of human interaction.
It would follow that people would want to strike a signifier of power that is warping their culture, economic structures, and everyday interactions into an alien and unwanted form. The 'freedoms' people refer to when they speak about our particular flavor of freedom are things like capitalism and individualism (as if those should be separated, given that one myth buttresses the other).
That would be my quick summation of why the site was chosen as well as what they mean when they fight against our 'freedoms' and what people are referencing when they want to defend those 'freedoms.'
What seems to be lost on many people is that our freedoms, in that respect, are not being threatened. They are the dominant cultural and economic paradigm. Our freedoms are on the offensive, not defensive, side of spread throughout the globe. Underdeveloped nations are fighting
against this movement in defense of their own, local patterns of interaction.
Interestingly, the main threat to whatever freedoms we conjure when we think of that signifier comes internally. As our nation's politics and organizational features slide rightward, we begin to align ourselves with the right-thinking radical muslims. Remember: their factions are so compelling and enticing due to the safety in maintaining status quo--just like we are experiencing now in our current cutural climate.
This would be the single most damaging blow to our system of governance and culture that I would point out--so far it's been extremely effective. I pointed out in some long-lost thread that I would be very surprised if we witnessed another large-scale, violent attack on our domestic soil very soon. If my analysis is even partially correct, any moves on their part would undermine the current slide our nation is engaging in--a slide toward increased centralization of government, increased scrutiny and observation of its citizenry, a plea to return into our body politic a fundamentalist strand of religion, and a type of funnel vision that has so far alienated us from some of the oldest (and arguably the most democratized) civilizations on the planet.