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0 pointsmattmaroon9mo ago0 comments

Islamism != Islam. Plenty of Muslims (most, thankfully) are not Islamists, including Pakistan. Pakistan also does not fund terror globally (though India says they do it locally) because they do not believe they go to heaven for killing Israelis. There are a number of Muslims, including the Supreme Leader, who do. My contention was not that any muslims would nuke Israel if they had a chance, most surely would not, but it's reasonable to believe Iran would. Hamas and Hezbollah would, and Iran would love to give them the opportunity.

South Korea was never going to attack North Korea because, as I mentioned, they had plenty of conventional weapons they could easily deliver to South Korea. They had mutually assured destruction before they even tried to get nukes, that's why they succeeded. Iran does not have that yet, and must be stopped before they do.

I do now know whether this was the right way to do it by any means, and I think it's a shame that the Obama-era deal was abandoned. I think we could possibly have gotten here through peaceful measures. But we did need to get to here.

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somenameforme9mo ago

Pakistan was historically one of the most active sponsors of terrorism worldwide. [1] Their activities over time have moderated, but again exactly as I was suggesting would happen with Iran - this is likely in large part because they're not a target of various offensive activities, precisely because they have nukes. Each time you attack a country and kill people, those friends, relatives, and parts of the unconnected population do not forget nor forgive. You create the radicalism you claim to fight against.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t...

mattmaroonOP9mo ago

Historically yes. They’ve since renounced it and seem to keep it confined to their region.

I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that fighting terrorism creates more terrorists than it kills, that’s just a thing people say and reality seems to show the opposite. We haven’t had waves of terror since gutting Al Queda, ISIS, etc. There’s neither research nor data to support it, people just like the way it sounds so they repeat it.

somenameforme9mo ago

And Pakistan has also historically had nukes - they were first obtained in 1998. This [1] page offers a variety of data on terrorism. I recommend selecting the "terrorist attacks by region" graph as it illustrates it most clearly. At the time of 9/11, global terrorism was in its death throes. 9/11 was a Hail Mary by Bin Laden and it's been a resounding success. Global terrorism has exponentially skyrocketed since the war on terror.

And on top of this terror groups are now growing powerful enough to fully control their own countries. The Taliban now has rock solid control of Afghanistan (before the war on terror they had majority control, but were struggling against a powerful insurgency), Abu Mohammad al-Julani controls Syria and US propaganda is framing him as a moderate or reformer, but he's not. He had a $10 million bounty on his head as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, even as we started running propaganda for him, exactly as we did for [de facto] Al Qaeda(from which he came) before they came back to bite us later, exactly as he will. Then there's the Houthis who went from a political movement to an insurgency to now having near complete control of Yemen in spite of ongoing conflicts with Saudi Arabia and the US.

[1] - https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism

goldfishgold9mo ago

What about the Taliban? Fighting them for 20 years seemed to achieve absolutely nothing.

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0 pointsmattmaroon9mo ago0 comments

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somenameforme9mo ago

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t...

mattmaroonOP9mo ago

Historically yes. They’ve since renounced it and seem to keep it confined to their region.

somenameforme9mo ago

[1] - https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism

goldfishgold9mo ago

What about the Taliban? Fighting them for 20 years seemed to achieve absolutely nothing.

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