Surprise, surprise.
Imagine this amazing concept- we do things and, like, the Middle Easterners want to do things back! It's like, totally weird.
In all seriousness, I don't understand the surprise here. We did things- pretty big things. Like, oh, messing in the politics of the region, keeping bases open all over the Middle East, invading two of their countries, threatening to invade two more, fanatically upholding a nation that has done some pretty horrid stuff over the years...
But all that has nothing to do with our current situation. Oh no. Our bombing of their countries has nothing to do with the current soaring recruitment numbers, not at all.
And this is what we call Doublethink, children.
What we do has an effect on what they do. What we do always has an effect on someone else's actions. The same principle applies here. (It's called blowback, BTW, if you were wondering...)
Oh and another note- Obama is going to get us all killed. He's so soft on those evil terrorists, after all.
"His first year in office he authorized more Predator strikes — more than 50 — than President Bush did in his last four years in office. In December, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama stated that sometimes peace requires war. “I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” he said. Negotiations “could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.”"
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I think that disdain for negotiation comes from a couple of sources.
First, we have been indoctrinated to believe that negotiation equals weakness and/or cowardice. We are so convinced of our own rightness that we simply expect other countries to do what we tell them. If they don't, we take it as proof of their evil and aggressive intentions against us.
Second, we regard certain policies as non-negotiable. We will continue to occupy parts of the Middle East, maintain 700+ military bases around the world, and set up client governments in countries that have resources and strategic locations we want. If those policies cause Al Qaeda and other groups to attack us, and those policies are non-negotiable, then war is the only option.
That this is not merely a matter of Obama or Bush being "bad guys." Americans want to believe that they are a moral people, but they do not think about the hard choices that might require.
Getting our troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the countless other countries we occupy would be morally right, but what if it meant losing resources and influence that the American economy needs? What if it meant that Americans had to face higher prices and higher unemployment? Doing the right thing usually isn't free, for nations as for people.
I believe that's the main reason it's so hard to get the government to change those policies.
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