harrogate has left a new comment on your post "harrogate claims but doesn't prove":
(I had written.) "Why no consistent "thundering" condemnation from the American media, or for that matter from politicans, Democratic as well as Republican?"
Well, we can disagree about how much coverage and attention should be given the domestic abuses of these regimes. But it really is in bad faith to explain it as a tacit approval, which you seem to be doing.
Me:
I haven’t limited what the Left can condemn to just domestic abuses. For example they could condemn Syria and Iran for attacking Israel via their surrogates. They could attack SA for funding schools in the US that teach hatred. They could condemn Pakistan for not running al Qaeda and the Taliban back into Afghanistan. Iran for sending fighters into Iraq. Etc., etc., etc…… It is a rich target environment.
harrogate:
I would say that the reason we don't see more rhetorical focus on these problems is that inevitably, for all the global dynamic of our world, our media and our politicians are STILL going to focus the most on what is happening here in this country.
Me:
Oh really? All I heard about for 7 years was how we shouldn’t be defending ourselves.
harrogate:
And, Jim, there is a capitalist reason for it as well. I'm sure you know this. I mean, consumers of media and voters writ large want most of the news and most of the rhetoric to be about things that are happening in this country, and that immediately affect their lives.
Me:
So that’s the reason MSNBC exists?
harrogate:
That being said, I think there is broad awareness and condemnation in America, across the political spectrum, of the human rights abuses thattake place in these Islamic regimes.
Me:
Then the President should be talking about that. We will either convince by talking or by killing.
harrogate:
On what to do about it all. You brought up Japan. But Japan, the NATION, had attacked us and declared war against us. While Islamic terrorists are indeed eager to commit violence against us and others today, the nationlesness of it makes things fundamentally different. A different proposition entirely to bomb the hell out of a Country like Iran or Saudi Arabia b/c we are repulsed by how their governments treat their own. I think I speak fo the majority when I say, I'm not remotely sanguine about going to war for such a reason.
Me:
If you let your enemy set the terms of the fight you will always lose. It is past time we told the Muslim world that if they harbor terrorists, knowingly or not, it is likely they will see more and more cruise missiles dropping out of the sky. That is what they will understand.
In the meantime we have this from bin Ladin himself in a 3/97 interview with Peter Arnett, then with CNN.
REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, will the end of the United States' presence in Saudi Arabia, their withdrawal, will that end your call for jihad against the United States and against the US ?
BIN LADIN:….. So, the driving-away jihad against the US does not stop with its withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula, but rather it must desist from aggressive intervention against Muslims in the whole world.
Link
In case you can’t figure that out he was saying 12 years ago. It was: “Don’t interfere with Muslims and Sharia law.”