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Do militant islamic groups hate the west for what it is or for what it does?

Originally posted by GySgt:
One, his post had good questions.

Two, I speak on behalf of reality. You speak on behalf of mundane idealogue whines. Haven't we established this already?
The only we've established is that you are Alex lost in wonderland.
 
Billo_Really said:
The only we've established is that you are Alex lost in wonderland.



Oh, I believe we've established more than that. "Wonderland" is fantasy. It is the domain of the idealogue who reports the rights and wrongs of the world and how it should be without any real understanding of how the world is.

Damn, this is just too easy.
 
Oh, I believe we've established more than that. "Wonderland" is fantasy. It is the domain of the idealogue who reports the rights and wrongs of the world and how it should be without any real understanding of how the world is.

It seems the two don't necessarily depend on each other. I know how the world should be, why is it necessary to know how the world is to protest injustice? Or, more to the point, why would knowing how the world is change the rightness of protesting injustice?

Anyway, wanted to post this:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2103695,00.html

as evidence continues to mount that we do, in fact, kill people wantonly in other countries. We've been doing it for decades, and we continue to do it, and that's why people in those countries hate us. It's really that simple.
 
ashurbanipal said:
It seems the two don't necessarily depend on each other. I know how the world should be, why is it necessary to know how the world is to protest injustice? Or, more to the point, why would knowing how the world is change the rightness of protesting injustice?

Anyway, wanted to post this:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2103695,00.html

as evidence continues to mount that we do, in fact, kill people wantonly in other countries. We've been doing it for decades, and we continue to do it, and that's why people in those countries hate us. It's really that simple.

It's never that "simple."

What do you know about this incident other than what you read in this article? Probably nothing, yet you are celebrating the content and passing it on. Are you aware of the event a couple days ago where insurgents were being attacked by U.S. Marines and at the same time a block away, Sunni locals slaughtered a building full of Shi'ites? The Muslim world pinned it all on a U.S. military attack. Are you aware of the countless times an Iraqi will bring his wounded to a military hospital or an Iraqi hospital and report that it occurred in a U.S. military strike, but when the event is closer looked at it is discovered that U.S. military was no where near the location at the time and there was no attack? You've turned yourself into a Muslim puppet.


If we don't want people to die, don't send the military.:roll:
 
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Im amazed at how certain people can find nothing to argue about in a document accusing American soldiers of horrible acts, but show them a document that claims Saddam had ties to al queda and they can argue that for days.

a document thats AGAINST America is taken at face value.....but a document that is FOR America is claimed to be nonsense and partisan.

forgive me for loving my country, and its soldiers, but its going to take a lot more than a newspaper article to convince me we are the bad guys.

I wonder if Dan Rather had a hand in writing that piece.
 
It's never that "simple."

Seems like a pretty absolute statement...

What do you know about this incident other than what you read in this article?

Only what I've read about the same incident in other articles. I wasn't there, but (I would bet) neither were you. The point is that it's yet another in a long string of articles that establishes a pattern.

Probably nothing, yet you are celebrating the content and passing it on.

Celebrating? Hardly. Passing it on? Obviously.

Are you aware of the event a couple days ago where insurgents were being attacked by U.S. Marines and at the same time a block away, Sunni locals slaughtered a building full of Shi'ites?

Yes, I read about it.

The Muslim world pinned it all on a U.S. military attack.

That's a one-sided view. That's what our military says after their investigation. The Iraqi police are saying something else. I don't know which is the truth, but I see no reason to automatically prefer our version over the Iraqi version.

In the meantime, enough accusations have been levelled about us killing civilians, and more are coming it seems almost weekly, that its difficult to not lend them some credence, especially in light of our history in such matters. I've posted any number of articles and supporting documents to show that not only have we done some pretty horrible things in the world, the people we had doing them admit to it. So denying it is becoming increasingly difficult, which I think is a problem for you guys on the right. If we are just as bad as everyone else, then we lose any kind of moral impetus for our actions.

Are you aware of the countless times an Iraqi will bring his wounded to a military hospital or an Iraqi hospital and report that it occurred in a U.S. military strike, but when the event is closer looked at it is discovered that U.S. military was no where near the location at the time and there was no attack?

Again, the Iraqis (obviously) have a different version. It comes down to a case of one word against another, but one side is becoming increasingly vocal. Could they be lying? Sure. But as more and more people come forward to say that we're killing people for no particular reason, and as this dovetails with the evidence of history, of our shena****ns at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons, etc. it becomes more difficult to defend the notion that all such instances are lies. Some probably are, but just as probably, some are not.

But to go a little deeper: I am also aware of a number of instances of intentional manipulation of the news on the part of large corporate/ government interests in this country. Note that I'm talking about actual memos from network execs to reporters leaked to the small press. The content of at least a couple of those memos concerned the war in Iraq, and told the reporters to specifically avoid casting the war in negative terms. These were memos that came out in 2004.

Obviously, something has changed since then, though I'm not sure what. I'm not aware of any major news agencies having been sold to anti-war interests, so there are a couple possible explanations for why these stories would begin to appear in the mainstream press:

1) They're posted as a limited hangout. The scenario would be that, at this point, unable to deny our killing of innocent civilians, the news media are cherry picking stories and reporting those that have some element of doubt to them.

2) They're posted as a means of further hobbling the neocons (I consider this the most likely explanation), who are simply mis-managing the moneyed interests that got them elected.

3) A loose cannon got the story out (not as unlikely as it sounds, but still not too likely).

You've turned yourself into a Muslim puppet.

Is that the right-wing version of "you've been brainwashed by Uncle Sam?" I don't really think so. Somewhere along the road, I've posted links to some middle-eastern news agencies and sources I pay attention to. One of those is www.uruknet.info. If you'll read the stories that get posted there, you'll find that some of them make far more radical claims than the ones I make. I don't post them, and frankly find some of them highly questionable. If I were a puppet, this would not be the case. Nor would I have made the claim, as I have, that OBL and Al Qaeda probably also serve corporate interests in the same way our military does. I don't idealize Al Qaeda or have any illusions that they are also just a bunch of killers, more or less a band of mercenaries well-funded by those who have an interest in keeping the ME unstable.

If we don't want people to die, don't send the military.

I didn't send the military. If it had been my choice, I'd have sent the military elsewhere.
 
ashurbanipal said:
Seems like a pretty absolute statement...



Only what I've read about the same incident in other articles. I wasn't there, but (I would bet) neither were you. The point is that it's yet another in a long string of articles that establishes a pattern.



Celebrating? Hardly. Passing it on? Obviously.



Yes, I read about it.



That's a one-sided view. That's what our military says after their investigation. The Iraqi police are saying something else. I don't know which is the truth, but I see no reason to automatically prefer our version over the Iraqi version.

In the meantime, enough accusations have been levelled about us killing civilians, and more are coming it seems almost weekly, that its difficult to not lend them some credence, especially in light of our history in such matters. I've posted any number of articles and supporting documents to show that not only have we done some pretty horrible things in the world, the people we had doing them admit to it. So denying it is becoming increasingly difficult, which I think is a problem for you guys on the right. If we are just as bad as everyone else, then we lose any kind of moral impetus for our actions.



Again, the Iraqis (obviously) have a different version. It comes down to a case of one word against another, but one side is becoming increasingly vocal. Could they be lying? Sure. But as more and more people come forward to say that we're killing people for no particular reason, and as this dovetails with the evidence of history, of our shena****ns at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons, etc. it becomes more difficult to defend the notion that all such instances are lies. Some probably are, but just as probably, some are not.

But to go a little deeper: I am also aware of a number of instances of intentional manipulation of the news on the part of large corporate/ government interests in this country. Note that I'm talking about actual memos from network execs to reporters leaked to the small press. The content of at least a couple of those memos concerned the war in Iraq, and told the reporters to specifically avoid casting the war in negative terms. These were memos that came out in 2004.

Obviously, something has changed since then, though I'm not sure what. I'm not aware of any major news agencies having been sold to anti-war interests, so there are a couple possible explanations for why these stories would begin to appear in the mainstream press:

1) They're posted as a limited hangout. The scenario would be that, at this point, unable to deny our killing of innocent civilians, the news media are cherry picking stories and reporting those that have some element of doubt to them.

2) They're posted as a means of further hobbling the neocons (I consider this the most likely explanation), who are simply mis-managing the moneyed interests that got them elected.

3) A loose cannon got the story out (not as unlikely as it sounds, but still not too likely).



Is that the right-wing version of "you've been brainwashed by Uncle Sam?" I don't really think so. Somewhere along the road, I've posted links to some middle-eastern news agencies and sources I pay attention to. One of those is www.uruknet.info. If you'll read the stories that get posted there, you'll find that some of them make far more radical claims than the ones I make. I don't post them, and frankly find some of them highly questionable. If I were a puppet, this would not be the case. Nor would I have made the claim, as I have, that OBL and Al Qaeda probably also serve corporate interests in the same way our military does. I don't idealize Al Qaeda or have any illusions that they are also just a bunch of killers, more or less a band of mercenaries well-funded by those who have an interest in keeping the ME unstable.



I didn't send the military. If it had been my choice, I'd have sent the military elsewhere.


There's just nothing that you and I are going to agree with here, so what is the point? We are fooling ourselves.
 
Im amazed at how certain people can find nothing to argue about in a document accusing American soldiers of horrible acts, but show them a document that claims Saddam had ties to al queda and they can argue that for days.

When the document in question tells us nothing we didn't already know for a couple years, and the argument in question consists in one side insisting that's the case while the other side tries to deny it, then this shouldn't amaze you at all.

a document thats AGAINST America is taken at face value.....but a document that is FOR America is claimed to be nonsense and partisan.

My beef with the documents coming out now to do with Saddam and Al-Qaeda is neither their authenticity nor the motivation behind releasing them. It's that we already knew what they're telling us--that the two initially wanted to work together but found they could not do so, and so they parted ways. But on the basis of this, some are still trying to rally support for the war in Iraq. This would be like me going into business with someone, finding that I can't stand the guy, and then leaving the business to form a different business. If my former partner engages in illegal activities a few years later, am I somehow to be implicated? I think not.

In any case, these documents are by no means partisan, as parts of them show that the supporters of the war often got it wrong.

forgive me for loving my country, and its soldiers

Loving your country is understandable and needs no forgiveness, but thereby hating another is not understandable, and might take many centuries to forgive.

but its going to take a lot more than a newspaper article to convince me we are the bad guys.

How about a history lesson or two, along with dozens of such articles?

I wonder if Dan Rather had a hand in writing that piece.

It seems doubtful.
 
GySgt,

If you're asking whether either of us is going to go over to the others' side, the answer is probably not. You have convinced me that the difference in culture between Islam and the West is more deserving of weight than I had previously thought. But this doesn't really change what I've been saying, it adds some elements of nuance. In any case, however, I never enter into a discussion on this sort of board with someone I don't agree with on the notion that I'm going to change their mind. I argue with the idea that there are plenty of people who lurk (or who don't but who watch this conversation and choose not to participate) that may not be sure what they think. I'm not really trying to change their minds either, per se, but I am trying to make the best case I can for my opinions because I believe they are well thought out and worthy of airing.

I'd be somewhat disappointed and weirded-out if someone posted "I agree 100%" every time I said something. It's actually happened to me on another board; it's kind-of scary.
 
Its the history of man to have religion as a center piece for war. Every now and then a bad guy like BEN pops up to light the fires under religious claims.
 
When the document in question tells us nothing we didn't already know for a couple years, and the argument in question consists in one side insisting that's the case while the other side tries to deny it, then this shouldn't amaze you at all.

you are correct about the fact that I shouldnt be amazed. Liberals historically take the side of the enemy.

My beef with the documents coming out now to do with Saddam and Al-Qaeda is neither their authenticity nor the motivation behind releasing them. It's that we already knew what they're telling us--that the two initially wanted to work together but found they could not do so, and so they parted ways
great. but a vast number of leftists consistently say...."there has never been a link between saddam and al queda. clearly, that is false.

many on the left say they dont support this war due to that link never having existed, when clearly it did.

How about a history lesson or two, along with dozens of such articles?

for every article you show me stating we are the bad guys, I can show you two that say the opposite.

the sad thing is, that I have to have that debate with a fellow American. (an assumption on my part that you are American)

It seems doubtful.

yeah, but it was doubtful that he would retire in disgrace for lying to the American people....untill it happened.

however, I will concede that hes got nothing to do with it. It was an attempt at sarcasm. (a lame attempt maybe)
 
ashurbanipal said:
Again, the Iraqis (obviously) have a different version. It comes down to a case of one word against another, but one side is becoming increasingly vocal. Could they be lying?

Not only could they be lying, it is an active, the 'staging' of the results of skirmishes and firefights is an ongoing - and very successful - tactic of theirs. Repeating a post from another thread:

"We didn't find a mosque," says the Iraqi special forces commander, striking deep at the heart of the allegations against his men. "We only killed men who were armed and firing at us." Though the building has been through several incarnations in past years—from political party branch under Saddam to an office space to what is said to have been a school—local leaders claim it is now a hussaniyah, a Shi'ite mosque,and should have had protected status.

The young officer says his men didn't find prayer mats or books or any of the usual elements of an Islamic house of worship. Instead, he says, they found the instruments of torture: drills, electrical wires, and other "tools." "It is a place used by a political party," he says, having sustained intense, unrelenting fire from houses facing the building on three sides as his men entered. "Other rooms were offices." Based on the evidence his men retrieved—including weapons caches and bomb-making materials—it's clear the site was used by an armed militia, he maintains, with some of its members linked to security forces, and others to a notorious kidnapping ring.
...
The [hostage] freed [by this operation], the marks of his bondage still on his wrists, tells the same story as his rescuers. "It's not a prayer place," he says. Well,who controlled it then, was it a militia? "I can't answer because I'm scared. It's not just me, all Iraqis are scared [of the militia]," he timidly replies.
...
As an American officer conceded, echoing many before over the past three years, in the propaganda game "the enemy information operations machine is very sophisticated, they're constantly beating us to the punch". An American soldier who advised on the scene during the raid pressed the same point. "We could have come out with our side straight away too, but first it has to go up the chain and then come back down," he says. Such a careful, drawn-out process, it seems, may be a luxury the military can ill afford.

Note that this appeared in Time magazine, a source most would consider as relatively non-biased.

In another post, you wrote,

ashurbanipal said:
I've posted any number of articles and supporting documents to show that not only have we done some pretty horrible things in the world, the people we had doing them admit to it. So denying it is becoming increasingly difficult, which I think is a problem for you guys on the right. If we are just as bad as everyone else, then we lose any kind of moral impetus for our actions.[emphasis added]

But apparently it is no problem for you guys on the left. You, in particular, seem to derive great satisfaction from shouting from the rooftops (metaphorically speaking) about how bad, how awful, we are as a society. Wierd, IMO.
 
Do militant islamic groups hate the west for what it is or for what it does?

Most importantly, they hate WHERE we are...in the Holy Lands of Islam in body and in idea.

There is more to it than that, but the fact that we allow pornography and all the other immorals that will turn their oppressed daughters into western sluts should not be discounted.
 
BodiSatva said:
Do militant islamic groups hate the west for what it is or for what it does?

Most importantly, they hate WHERE we are...in the Holy Lands of Islam in body and in idea.

There is more to it than that, but the fact that we allow pornography and all the other immorals that will turn their oppressed daughters into western sluts should not be discounted.


Crudely put, but true.
 
Originally posted by GySgt:
Crudely put, but true.
It's nice to see there are some things we agree on.
 
Billo_Really said:
It's nice to see there are some things we agree on.

You shouldn't be surprised about how much you and I do agree on, but you probably would be. I just don't like how you present it.....

The Cold War deformed American strategic thought and our applied values beyond recognition. From the amoral defender of Europe's rotten empires, we descended to an immoral propping up of every soulless dictator who preferred our payments to those offered by Moscow. We utterly rejected our professed values, consistently struggling against genuine national liberation movements because we saw the hand of Moscow wherever a poor man reached out for food or asked for dignity. At our worst in the Middle East, we unreservedly supported--or enthroned--medieval despots who suppressed popular liberalization efforts, thus driving moderate dissidents into the arms of fanatics.

...You would certainly agree to this. The truth of this is absolute. However, where we differ is in the manner in which you would present it as compared to mine. It is too easy to declare what is "right and wrong" and leave it at that. It is something else entirely to further explain the events as they were conducted during the periods of time. With understanding of the times, it is easier to understand why events have occurred. "Right or wrong" we are not a perfect society. We just happen to be the most progressed and the most bold - they go hand in hand. Any individual who conducts his life in such a manner will make mistakes or choose the less desirable condition to achieve a desirable end. The same is true for governments and nations.
 
GySgt said:
We utterly rejected our professed values, consistently struggling against genuine national liberation movements because we saw the hand of Moscow wherever a poor man reached out for food or asked for dignity. At our worst in the Middle East, we unreservedly supported--or enthroned--medieval despots who suppressed popular liberalization efforts, thus driving moderate dissidents into the arms of fanatics.

...You would certainly agree to this.

I don’t. Please provide a few examples of:
1. genuine
2. national
3. liberation
movements which were not inspired or led by the hand of Moscow
and which did not go against our professed values.
Please provide a few examples of a pour man reaching for food and asking for dignity when Moscow did not try to jump ahead of US and did not try to convert the pour man against US, and when US was not in the competition with Moscow – who gets to the pour man first.

GySgt said:
We just happen to be the most progressed and the most bold - they go hand in hand.
Nothing just happen. It is mysticism. US happened to be the most progressed and the most bold because US adhered to its values. Try to prove me otherwise.
 
justone said:
I don’t. Please provide a few examples of:
1. genuine
2. national
3. liberation
movements which were not inspired or led by the hand of Moscow
and which did not go against our professed values.
Please provide a few examples of a pour man reaching for food and asking for dignity when Moscow did not try to jump ahead of US and did not try to convert the pour man against US, and when US was not in the competition with Moscow – who gets to the pour man first.

I don't frown upon it. I simply see it for what it is. After the "Cuban Missile Crisis," America was determined to repel any Soviet influence from our region. We saw this in South America, when our CIA did what was necessary to achieve that end. I applaud it, however, people were hurt.

Nations and super powers are bnot built solely on the basis of what is "right" and what is "wrong." "Necessity" will always trump a national interest.

justone said:
Nothing just happen. It is mysticism. US happened to be the most progressed and the most bold because US adhered to its values. Try to prove me otherwise.

Don't get confused with what I typed. Our morals and values have always been our compass and we have thrived upon these ideals. However, we have been less than perfect to achieve desirable ends and we have made mistakes - such is government.

From our diplomatic personnel held hostage in Iran a generation ago, to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the United States, we have suffered for our support of repressive, "stable" regimes that radicalized their own impoverished citizens. In the interests of stability, we looked the other way while secret police tortured and shabby armies massacred their own people, from Iran to Guatemala.

Democracy is a highly evolved mechanism for maintaining the society we have achieved, but it is not a tool for creating a society worth maintaining. Without good and respected laws, a commitment to essential human rights, and the willingness to honor differences of birth and confession, democracy is just a con game for bullies. Democracy as we know it also may require a certain level of popular affluence. But democracy alone will not bring affluence. Weak, new governments, or those transforming themselves, need training wheels on the bicycle of state, and we try to insist instead that every government should jump on a Harley (their are lessons to be learned from that most endangered state, Pakistan, that should be applied to Iraq). Far from building trust, democracy may shatter the remaining social bonds of weak or brutalized societies, dividing survivors into ethnic or religious factions. The over-hasty imposition of democracy can lead directly to a degeneration in the respect for human rights. Where citizens have not learned to value their collective interests, democracy intensifies ethnic and religious polarization. Democracy must be earned and learned. It cannot be decreed from without. We can only provide the opportunity. If the local culture cannot or are unwilling to step up to the advancements prosperous, and progressiveness that democracy can provide for them, democracy can destroy.
 
GySgt said:
"Necessity" will always trump a national interest.

.

Desagree. For me national interest=necessity.

(agree, though, - people who do things also do mistakes. People who don't do things, but just critisize mistakes - are a mistake of nature.)
 
justone said:
Desagree. For me national interest=necessity.

My sentiments as well.
justone said:
(agree, though, - people who do things also do mistakes. People who don't do things, but just critisize mistakes - are a mistake of nature.)

My sentiments exactly. The people of Europe are fond of snubbing their noses at us for our mistakes without any regard for what they do at all. It is easy to scoff at the "sole janitor." (An example today would be Afirca. We are there - where is the great humanitarians of Europe and the UN who whined about Africa at the start of Iraq?)
 
Even though the title of this thread suggests that somehow the west is culpable in the eyes of the Islamic world, with descriptions of US 'imperial' ambitions as the primary source of culpability, it seems that a review of Islamic history suggests that Islam has the longer history of imperialist ambitions, and those ambitions are very much alive today. A new book, "Islamic Imperialism: A History" by Efraim Karsh, head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London, made these points:

"From Muhammed to the Ottomans, the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of an often astonishing imperial aggressiveness and, no less important, of never quiescent imperial dreams. Even as these dreams have repeatedly frustrated any possibility for the peaceful social and political development of the Arab-Muslim world, they have given rise to no less repeated fantasies of revenge and restoration and to murderous efforts to transform fantasy into fact. If, today, America is reviled in the Muslim world, it is not because of its specific policies but because, as the preeminent world power, it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of regaining, in Zawahiri's words, the "lost glory" of the caliphate.

Nor is the vision confined to a tiny extremist fringe. This we saw in the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, in the admiring evocations of bin Laden's murderous acts during the crisis over the Danish cartoons, and in such recent findings as the poll indicating significant reservoirs of sympathy among Muslims in Britain for the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July. In the historical imagination of many Muslims and Arabs, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of Saladin, defeater of the Crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem. In this sense, the House of Islam's war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over.

To the contrary, now that this war has itself met with a so far determined counterattack by the United States and others, and with a Western intervention in the heart of the House of Islam, it has escalated to a new stage of virulence. In many Middle Eastern countries, Islamist movements, and movements appealing to traditionalist Muslims, are now jockeying fiercely for positions of power, both against the Americans and against secular parties. For the Islamists, the stakes are very high indeed, for if the political elites of the Middle East and elsewhere were ever to reconcile themselves to the reality that there is no Arab or Islamic "nation," but only modern Muslim states with destinies and domestic responsibilities of their own, the imperialist dream would die.

It is in recognition of this state of affairs that Zawahiri wrote his now famous letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, in July 2005. If, Zawahiri instructed his lieutenant, al Qaeda's strategy for Iraq and elsewhere were to succeed, it would have to take into account the growing thirst among many Arabs for democracy and a normal life, and strive not to alienate popular opinion through such polarizing deeds as suicide attacks on fellow Muslims. Only by harnessing popular support, Zawahiri concluded, would it be possible to come to power by means of democracy itself, thereby to establish jihadist rule in Iraq, and then to move onward to conquer still larger and more distant realms and impose the writ of Islam far and wide."
...
"Something of the same logic clearly underlies the carefully plotted rise of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority, the (temporarily thwarted) attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to exploit the demand for free elections there, and the accession of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. Indeed, as reported by Mark MacKinnon in the Toronto Globe & Mail, some analysts now see a new "axis of Islam" arising in the Middle East, uniting Hizballah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, elements of Iraq's Shiites, and others in an anti-American, anti-Israel alliance backed by Russia.

Whether or not any such structure exists or can be forged, the fact is that the fuel of Islamic imperialism remains as volatile as ever, and is very far from having burned itself out. To deny its force is the height of folly, and to imagine that it can be appeased or deflected is to play into its hands. Only when it is defeated, and when the faith of Islam is no longer a tool of Islamic political ambition, will the inhabitants of Muslim lands, and the rest of the world, be able to look forward to a future less burdened by Saladins and their gory dreams. "
[emphasis added]

This is the larger picture in the GWOT. Though Iraq is the centerpiece, it is much larger than Iraq. Those who assert that the American precence in Iraq is creating terrorists might well consider the points made by Professor Karsh. Those who attempt to put forth moral equivalence arguments about our involvment in Iraq might well consider the same points.
 
The desire of Muslim radical fundamentalist terrorists to return Islam to some seventh century mythical stage of purity may not be the same thing as a world wide plot to enslave the world and make it Muslim. Isn't it obvious that the cultural and economic influence of the U.S. leads the Muslim world towards the liberalizing and democratizing of Muslim attitudes. Osama Bin Ladin is not against modernization! He just wants his moderization done with a berka and seventh century dictatorial fundamentalism! Bin Ladin is like most radical far right religious fundamentalists. He's in favor of a space shuttle, but there will be no gays or string bikinis on it or somebody's going to get fried!
 
oldreliable67 said:
"Islamic Imperialism: A History" by Efraim Karsh, head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London, made these points:


I like that guy he really tries to point out facts and tries to keep away from bs.

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples
by Ilan Pappé



a review by Efraim Karsh.

I dig the way he makes statements then supports them with why he just said that.
 
Mr. D said:
The desire of Muslim radical fundamentalist terrorists to return Islam to some seventh century mythical stage of purity may not be the same thing as a world wide plot to enslave the world and make it Muslim. Isn't it obvious that the cultural and economic influence of the U.S. leads the Muslim world towards the liberalizing and democratizing of Muslim attitudes.


I dont know. This lady had quite a bit to say about it on arab television. Im surprised it even aired.
 
akyron said:
I dont know. This lady had quite a bit to say about it on arab television. Im surprised it even aired.
That was wonderful!...

She probably lost a lot of viewers in the Middle East the second she said she was secular and didn't believe in the supernatural, but her logic of how Muslims react to other religions was spot on...

She probably had to leave the studio with a police escort...
 
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