by Monica Joy

Created on: September 25, 2007

Last week I watched the movie "Team America," which actually served to provoke some good thoughts. When the old guy first finds the actor guy and gets him in the limo, he sits there and gives him this long dialog about how the terrorists hate him (the actor) and want him dead. He makes it very personal at first, and then the actor says something like, "Well what did I do?" Then the old guy explains that it's all of America they're after...

All I could think was "wow, look at all that propaganda..." It's true. We are told that the terrorists (the "bad guys" from the Middle East) want to kill each and every one of us because we're Americans. Well, my question is "What is THEIR reasoning?" We can sit around and say that it's because they're stupid, or they don't want anybody in the world to live in a free country, or they're their god's chosen people and they have permission to kill us, but I want to know what their honest thoughts are and why they thought it would be a great idea to fly planes into the World Trade Center.

Terrorists don't think they're terrorists, by the way. I've come to realize that "terrorism" is all due to interpretation. The insurgents in Iraq don't sit around a campfire saying "ok, they're the good guys, and we're the bad guys." They firmly believe that they are fighting for a good cause-their cause-and we are standing in the way of some fundamental right that they believe they have. So what right are they fighting for and why can't they see any of this from a point of view other than their own? We see ourselves as the good guys, and so do they, but we both see the other side as the bad guys. We call them terrorists, but couldn't they say the same about us?

They had their way of life. Yeah, compared to our standards, it sucked. (All hail Saddam...?) They were living in oppression and blah blah blah (compared to the Western world, right?) While many of them saw it as horrible and wanted out, many others agreed with it. I suppose those people would be the ones we see as terrorists or insurgents. They want to fight for their way of life just like we fight for ours. Does that make them bad guys?

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