No slogan, that's the fact. They do what they do because they decide to do it.
It is also a slogan that has exactly nothing to do with this debate.
I'm sure "their" motives are complex, and some of "them" don't need any excuse to kill people different from themselves. However I do believe the vast majority of Muslims, even those in Middle Eastern countries, would rather not trouble themselves to attack the USA if we didn't act like we had some authority to run their countries.
On what do you base your belief? Hope? "The vast majority of Muslim" line is misleading anyway. It doesn't take "a vast majority" of true believers to wage war on us. It takes a moderate minority, and a sympathetic or passive majority.
And you still have to deal with the long-term consequences of leaving the World a Jihadi playground.
I don't give a damn what the jihadist want us to do. I want us to do what is best for the USA, and that doesn't include trying to take over the entire Middle East. We don't have the political will or the military might to do so, and the path we are currently on is costing trillions of dollars we have to borrow from foreign governments. This will eventually bankrupt our country, as the continually falling dollar is telling us every day.
Pray, do tell, how are we trying to take over the entire Middle East? We have taken over a country, Iraq, and we have a strong presence in another, Afghanistan. How is this taking over the entire region? This is rather weak, even for a strawman.
No, let's not. Tell us the future as you see it should the USA stop occupying foreign countries.
We weren't occupying any countries before 9/11.
Well if history is any guide they will start killing each other if left to their own devices. Seems to me the Shittes and Sunnies aren't all that fond of each other to begin with.
That is not history, but pseudohistory.
The killed innocent people. They raped their women, and raised their children as muslims in some instances, like they've done in southern Sudan (the US's fault I supposse.) In other instances, they subjugated the populations, and the populations slowly faded away under the restrictions, the sporadic violence, the humilliation. What you say happenned only happenned in your dreams. The civil wars of Islam did not stop the Jihad.
The USA prospers as it hasn't since just after WWII, we pay down our national debt and make our economy stronger, and we once more set the example of freedom and liberty that the rest of the World used to look to us for. Better cooperation with Russia and China wouldn't hurt either, they live a lot closer to the radical Islamists than we do. So long as the three of us are in agreement vis-a-viz military matters the peace will be kept.
Let me get this--you expect us to be that shiny city upon the hill the rest of the world imitates? Things do not work that way. Both rulers and peoples are corrupt. They desire power as well as wealth. Reason is not exactly what rules them, and imitating us is but unthinkable, since that would require to recognize we are superior. They'll try to overtake us.
We were a target of the Soviet Union for 50 years and we seemed to have come out of that on top.
No thanks to isolationism.
Whatever. If any Islamic country is stupid enough to actually attack us or be directly linked to a terrorist act, then we should declare war on them and bomb them until they are no longer a threat to Angola, much less us.
What if they decide to undermine us instead? Do you expect the enemy to conform to your expectations of him? What if they opportunistically reach an agreement with powerful countries, and begin to conquer the smaller ones? Do we stay behind your shores as the Philippines and Thailand fall? Do we wait until a resurgent Islam is powerful enough to challenge us?
We'll kill their horses too if they are stupid enough to attack us. Seriously. Dead people threaten no one.
What ignorant arrogance. They are human beings like you and I. You cannot count on us maintaining our military advanrage indefinetely.
Perpetual war? Against whom? Ashes?
Again, you seem to mistake non-interventionism for pacifism. They are not the same.
I most certainly do not; I have criticized non-interventionism because it is, well, a stupid policy. I do not confuse it with the even more stupid policy of pacifism.
Then they will die. As many of them as care to make their jihad the basis of their religion. I just don't think we need to make it easier for them to kill us by occupying their countries in the mean time. Let 'em do their jihad thing on China for a bit, they're right next door.
They are already in Jihad with China. One thing does not preclude another. Cowardice does not help either.
For those Muslims able to interpret their Islamic Law to live in peace then they won't have this problem. Seems to me the majority of Muslims aren't war-mongering jihadists, just normal people trying to live their lives the best they can.
What seems to you is not particularly important if it is divorced from reality. Jihad is well established in Islamic doctrine and practice. Your policy, by rewarding Jihadists with victory, makes the ideological victory of Jihad ideology more likely, not less so.
