Muslims

[inked]

Word, Spock! Word! ROTFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[inked]

An interesting take on how Muslims using "phobia" have rendered language impotent:

http://www.cwnews.com/offtherecord/o...ay&recnum=3452

and, in the USA, here's an interesting comparison:
- THINKING ELSEWHERE– There is a fate that no one deserves. “A tip for pro-Islam leftists: when next you feel the need to defend political Islam, just imagine you’re defending anti-gay, anti-abortion, Darwin-opposing southern US creationists. You may be surprised at the change in your thinking” … (lastamazon, timblair.net)
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/web...ance_provided/

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by inked

. “A tip for pro-Islam leftists: when next you feel the need to defend political Islam, just imagine you’re defending anti-gay, anti-abortion, Darwin-opposing southern US creationists. You may be surprised at the change in your thinking” …

I've pledged an oath to defend the rights of rednecks to make asses of themself by excercising their free speech. It's in the constitution.

My take on all this is that the cartoons represent an extremely uncomfortable truth that has scared an awful lot of Muslims.

In the minds of many, many, westerners, Islam and terrorism have become inextricably linked. It's understandable how that happened, since most terrorists claim to be killing in the name of Allah, in a holy war.

But anyone who sits back and looks at the matter quickly realizes that the majority of muslims also think that people who strap bombs to their asses are nucking futs...

And that individuals who target innocent civilians, especially women and children, are at the very least, not upholding the tennants of Islam. Especially when those women and children are often Muslim themselves.

But THERE ARE Islamic groups that support terrorism. Blaming the cartoonist for pointing this out via satire, and calling for his head, only makes more westerners think that.. hey.. there may NOT be all that much peace in the "religion of peace". It's counter-productive.

The fact of the matter is, the cartoons were not well thought out, and had too broad a target. Instead of saterizing islamic terrorists, they overshot their mark. Could I have done a better job? Maybe...

But they still have every right to print them. Calling for the suppression of the cartoons and the implementation of islamic law is a violation of another country's sovereignity.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Spock

http://www.danishmuhammedcartoons.com/Apology.html

Done in the style of "Apology to Americans" except a bit less funny because this one has more personal attacks and has a generally more angry tone.

I think I can cut Denmark a little slack in the angry department right now though.

[Grey_Wolf]

As long as young arab boys (and in a less percentage, girls) are indoctrinated with religious dogma many in the south will always hate the north.

And sometimes I feel frustrated at the mammoth task which it would be to educated these people in the principle of democracy and tolerance

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf

As long as young arab boys (and in a less percentage, girls) are indoctrinated with religious dogma many in the south will always hate the north.

What are you talking about? Northern and Southern Iraq?

Before the era of Saddam Hussain, Iraq was a functioning democracratic (constitutional monarchy) nation with a stable multicultural society...

The POLITICAL changes in the middle-east, especially Iran, were based on a facade of Islamic fundamentalism, but the real powers in the area were the US and the USSR...

Saddam was never a religious figure, like other leaders in the region, even though he had a cult of personality. The sad part is.. the Reagan Administration basically set him up, to oppose Iran.. who was getting aid from the USSR..

Religion enters the picture now about as much as it did then. It is a handy excuse for dissaffected, angry, impoverished or otherwise socially disconnected people to engage in violence. And a handy lever for power hungry demogogues...

Take the Taliban for example. Not an islamic society, but a theocracy, based so not so much for religious purpose, but for the purpose of controlling the populance.

It's not the religious dogma that's the real problem. It's the political dogma disguised as religious dogma...

[Grey_Wolf]

What i meant is that there are older men who teaches the young in RELIGION but sees no point in educating them about the rest of the world because that would erode their powerbase.

[Farimir Captain of Gondor]

When I think of all the violence in the Middle East and what to do about it one qoute comes to mind:

Thoeden-So much death. What can Men do against such reckless hate?

They have been fighting over land, religion, and power for as long as there as been people there. I don't think we could solve the problems there by simply changing the structure of the governments. To tell you the truth, I don't think we CAN solve the conflicts there. Their hatred for the outside world has only grown since we(the outside world) have tried to help. This may be something the people in that part the world will have to figure out themselves. IMO, the fighting and hatred will never end.

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf

What i meant is that there are older men who teaches the young in RELIGION but sees no point in educating them about the rest of the world because that would erode their powerbase.

That's what I mean by Political Dogma.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Farimir Captain of Gondor

They have been fighting over land, religion, and power for as long as there as been people there. ..... IMO, the fighting and hatred will never end.

Amen! Here Here!! Indeed!! Finally!!

[inked]

It is not constrained to there, however.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arson, rape, massacres ... and the strange silence of the archbishop

Nick Cohen
Sunday March 5, 2006
The Observer


Like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, the Islamists of Sudan claim monstrous liars are libelling them. 'You are terrorists,' Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, the regime's defence minister, screamed at journalists in Khartoum on Thursday. 'Any foreign correspondent from any foreign agency, get out - we don't want you in here.' His goons duly expelled reporters from his press conference for inventing the incredible lie that Hussein and his friends were responsible for the murder of around 200,000 in Darfur, the ethnic cleansing of two million, the arson, the rapes ... well, you know the story.

Or maybe you don't. After all, it has not been in the news recently, and not only because Hussein is shutting out the journalists. Fashion matters and today the fashion is to ignore genocide. Quite rightly, the crimes of American, British, European and Israeli democracy are dissected and denounced. But an intellectual blockage - a Chinese wall in the mind - prevents the critics applying universal principles to far greater outrages.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, made my point for me in Sudan last week. Anyone who had heard the Church of England's censure of Israel might have expected to see a primate filled with righteous wrath. Consider his opportunities. While he was there, the genocide was continuing in Darfur. The victims were black Muslims, but strangely, the Muslim world has not revolted against the Islamist murderers and torched Sudanese embassies.

In the name of inter-faith solidarity, Dr Williams might have found the words of reproach they lacked. If he didn't want to talk about Darfur, there was the decades-long civil war, which has seen the enslavement of the Christian Dinka tribe in the south and two million dead, more than in Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo combined.

On a visit to a church in Khartoum, the fearless archbishop told the congregation: 'It will be a joy to share with fellow Christians in Britain what... I have learnt from you.' What he had learnt was a history of massacre, slavery and second-class citizenship, but he didn't mention it.

The next stop was the Sudan Inter-Religious Council in Khartoum. This might have been the place to lay into the dictatorship's murder and persecution of Sudanese Christians. Instead, he confined himself to saying: 'We are at peace with God when we face our failings with honesty.' And so it went on. He travelled through a country torn by religious mania and genocide without mentioning religious mania and genocide.

His office said he was picking his words with the care of a diplomat because his main concern wasn't the genocide in Darfur in the west of Sudan but the faint hope of a peace deal in the equally gruesome civil war between the Muslim north and Christian south, which he didn't want to jeopardise. In any case, his lecture to his Islamist hosts on facing 'our failings with honesty' was strong stuff by inter-faith standards.

It may be tough talk if Anglicans are talking to Catholic bishops, but I doubt very much if it would have reduced the psychopaths of Khartoum to trembling penitents. To me, the failure of the archbishop to speak plainly was not a sign of his diplomacy, but flowed from his row with the Jews. Before he escaped to Africa, he couldn't say why he wanted sanctions against Israel but not against countries that committed far worse crimes - China, Syria, Iran, North Korea and, indeed, Sudan - or give any indication that he was morally obliged to provide an answer.

A few of his critics just wanted to protect Israel come what may. Others were concerned about the retreat from universal principle into relativism. If you say there must be higher standards for democracies, you inevitably betray the victims of dictatorships by blocking your mind from thinking clearly and shouting loudly about their suffering.

The confusion isn't confined to the General Synod of the Church of England. The United Nations tried to suppress a report that named the alleged war criminals of Darfur, in a way that it would never have suppressed the names of alleged torturers at Guantanamo. On the blacklist was that friend of freedom, Mr Hussein. While he was ranting at the journalists, he said that if the UN sent troops to protect the people of Darfur, al-Qaeda would flood the country. 'Darfur will become the graveyard for the United Nations,' he promised with what sounded like inside knowledge.

Isn't that an extraordinary threat for a UN member to make? Why isn't every liberal newspaper and liberal party fulminating? Because genocide is out of fashion, dear. It may make a retro return in 2008, say, or 2009. Books called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed will win literary prizes. Lachrymose documentaries will appear on BBC2, probably narrated by Fergal Keane. The Church of England will apologise, as it invariably does. They will all cry: 'Never again!' And at that precise moment, it will be happening again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists...723793,00.html

but the ABC did pluck up his courage to complain about AMERICA:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...06/ncant06.xml

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Spock

Amen! Here Here!! Indeed!! Finally!!

A very odd reply to a grim comment .

[Farimir Captain of Gondor]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

A very odd reply to a grim comment .

It did sound kind of grim didn't .

I was just implying that with all the turmoil and fighting that's been going on there for over 2,000 yrs it's hard to see how changing a government structure or sending aid will help. They have been fighting over the things i mentioned for that long and IMO, I don't see an end to it, at least not in my lifetime. It's just hard to have an optimistic view about peace in the middle east.

[Spock]

FCOG & I just happen to see some things the same way....if that's grim, then it is but it is also facing reality.

[inked]

More news from the Danish paper that ignited the world.......or was it the Islamics who ignited the world, ....

http://agora.blogsome.com/2006/03/15...fore-religion/

[Spock]

Nope, it wasn't the Dane's fault at all:

[inked]

This one is rather frightening since it appears to be home-grown dhimmiwits that pose a problem ...

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/417984.html

Note the reasoning for the assaults....

[Spock]

Yep, and this kind of action can lead to even more reaction by the rest of society against innocent arab citizens and visitors.

[Spock]

How they vote in the United Nations:

Below are the actual voting records of various Arabic/Islamic States which are recorded in both the US State Department and United Nations records:

Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the time

Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time

Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the time

United Arab Emirates votes against the U. S. 70% of the time.

Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the time.

Tunisia votes against the United States 71% of the time.

Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of the time.

Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Algeria votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the time.

Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the time.

Libya votes against the United States 76% of the time.

Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time.

Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the time.

India votes against the United States 81% of the time.

Syria votes against the United States 84% of the time.

Mauritania votes againstthe United States 87% of the time.

U S Foreign Aid to those that hate us:

Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time against the United States, still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.
Jordan votes 71% against the United States

And receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

Pakistan votes 75% against the United States

Receives $6,721,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

India votes 81% against the United States

Receives $143,699,000 annually.

WAKE UP AMERICA

[inked]

follow up with further links on the crazed jihadi in NC on campus"

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/576

edit: here's Denmark's answer to calls for legal actions -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...087469,00.html

and, here's the Danish Muslim response....
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatc...ves/010630.php

which makes sense given your post above, Spock