First of all, the notion that any of us are terrorist sympathizers is just laughable, and every word that followed in that post was therefore suspect. In fact, it betrays the bankruptcy of an arguement to have to invent the qualities of opposition you intend to debate. I believe "straw man" is the proper term for the fallacy.
It would be nice to say that 100% of the people here condemn terrorism, and the taking of innocent lives. Except that the US has killed thousands of innocent children, women and men in Iraq in order to prosecute our war against that country. Not only do they not want us there, and I mean virtually unanimously, not just "terrorists", but they posed no threat of any kind to the US. They were NOT training terrorists, as commonly alleged, and had absolutely NO connection to the attacks on 9/11. This is the conclusion of the Republican-controlled Congressional report, not some liberal invention. Read it if you don't believe it.
It is similarly beyond debate that the war on Iraq was not supported by the greater international community. Not only were the justifications for the war (changeable as they apparently are) proven to be deliberate lies (Downing Street Memo, anyone?), but even if true don't justify an invasion. For example, there are many countries with unelected leaders with whom we have extensive relationships. We are not threatening to attack any of them, becarse that's just absurd. So now we're reviled not just by Muslim extremists, but by everyday Muslims, and by, frankly, Europeans among others.
Such is the unpopularity of our aggressions in Iraq that an enormous insurgency has developed that never would have otherwise existed. They are honing their techniques in daily clashes with "Iraqi" security and US troops, especially in the area of IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices. Guess what was used in London?
Finally, it really serves nobody to demonize and dehumanize your opposition. From a military standpoint, it's just dumb because it's a distortion of how they actually think, and the lack of understanding of your enemy makes it harder to predict their actions, and harder to win the hearts and minds of those "on the fence." Our arrogant beligerance has tipped a lot of those fence-sitters into full-bore America-haters. Honestly, how much reason have we given them not to hate us? Fewer than 20 people, unorganized and secretive, took part in the 9/11 attacks. Yet we effectively declared war on a Muslim country that had nothing to do with it as a result. Given their paranoia that we are a threat to the region and their way of life, how smart does that seem? How is the average non-terrorist middle-easterner supposed to view that, much less the average Iraqi?
The world stood behind us as we struck back at the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We've taken that support, and arrogantly thrown it away, derisively referring to our longest and best allies as "old Europe" and alienated many of those who previously stood behind us. What used to be a pretty easy good guy/bad guy scenario has become blurred. And it angers a lot of us to have our President lying through his teeth, arrogantly casting our allies aside, and leading us into a hornet's nest with no real plan, no laudable goals, and no justification for the thousands of deaths that result.
And now Iraq is a quagmire just like Vietnam became, and the "terrorists" have a new training ground to learn how to effectively fight US troops and explode busses.
None of this had to be. We could have just kept fighting against those who engage in international terrorism. The President didn't have to lie and get us into an irrelevant quagmire in Iraq (which while following the "rules of engagement", still kills thousands of innocents who are just as dead as anyone.) We could have a real world-wide coalition fighting terrorism in all corners of the world. We could be winning the hearts and minds of peaceful Muslims around the world.
But we chose a different path. One of division, demonization, aggression, invasion, imperialism, oil-mongering, and deception. Pointing that out, and being angry about it, doesn't make us sympathisers. It just means we're all about solving this problem, not simply indulging in self-righteous bloodlust, ranting about "killing them all."
Capslock
