Originally posted by lukster
I think you're being very naive if you think Islam will settle for anything less than full domination of a weaker rival.
I'd have to agree with you on this point, but I also don't think that they see us as weak, necessarily. They know full well, or at least they should have some suspicion, that as far as this world goes, when it comes down to it, we have the option that they do not.
This is no longer the time of the Crusades, when they can match us equally on the field of combat. Those times are far gone. Their technological domination ended centuries ago, and besides their apparent willingness to act nutty and sell us oil, they have very little to turn to. When push comes to shove, as it did, we simply take the oil and they either die or surrender in droves.
We are not weak to them, what we are is bound, at least on the surface, by certain codes, be they moral codes, or codes dicated by international law, or, for that matter, by international opinion. For example, on 9/12, it would have been utterly inconcievable for us to pick a random target in Riyad and slam a couple cruise missiles into it. They are not bound by such codes. Attacks have happened and, likely, will happen, and all they have to do is officially denounce the act, all the while secretly supporting, perhaps even plotting such courses of action. By contrast, a group of our soldiers is accused of harming a civilian in a warzone and the whole world starts shaking heads, pointing fingers, demanded blood.
Fact is, the 'I carry a bigger stick, and I use it too' approach has worked. One of my childhood memories was of the nightly news reporting that US warplanes had bombed Quadaffi. A tit for tat strike and where is that camel ****er today? Not a peep. Immasculated, and silenced. Whatever he does today he does in secret, and certainly without the popular following he once had.
No, I do not think they see us as weak. They see us as limited by our own self-proclaimed civility. Unlike them, we have a vested interest in THIS world. We've built up a big, intricate, diversely-profitable society, and we'd like to continue for as long as possible. With the exception of pumping oil and constructing monuments to honor their god, their money and their excesses, they've built nothing,
done nothing to advance humanity. They're desperate, with nothing to lose, and a limited means of getting attention. They have not seen American desperation yet, and their leaders know it. Personally, I do NOT want to see it, because no bunker in the world will be deep enough for the day when we resort to 9/11 style tactics on a superpower scale.
