Why Terrorist are angry with America!

[kingpin]

I agree, if your just gonna rant and bitch, then don't post, its unnecessary.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by GySgt:
We also know the numbers in Afghanistan. It's sad that "8-9 million" were dependent on foreign aid under the Taliban in the first place. All the more reason to remove them. They too, weren't going to be talked out of power.

I want you to know that I think your FOS on these "regime changes". We do not have, nor have we ever, had the right to go in unilaterally instigate a regime change in countries where we don't like the leaders. When we joined the United Nations, we declared that we would not do this. And now we are. How can anyone expect the United Nations to work when we won't work with the United Nations?

And stop with this mantra of ridding Iraqis of their bad leader. That's not why we went there. You know its not. So why keep bringing this bullshit up? You don't give a damn about Iraqis. You have that typical conceited arrogant narcissistic asshole attitude that we are big bad America and we are serving notice on this planet to anyone that's on our sh!t-list. The whole world is against us. But it doesn't matter what the whole world thinks, right? Because were god-damn Americans, right?

 

[wrath]

How can anyone expect the United Nations to work when we won't work with the United Nations?

This piece I found particularly laughable. So how exactly does the UN work? Of course we should have worked 'with' the UN as any smart UN country will tell you - there was MUCH more money to be made with Saddam in power than without. So lets stop pretending that the UN's interest in Saddam's Iraq was anything other than sweeping a few Billion under the rug!

So save your "big bad America" rants and "work with the UN" horse$hit unless you're willing to concede that the UN was serving up it's own kool-aid recipe.

 

[MSgt]

I want you to know that I think your FOS on these "regime changes". We do not have, nor have we ever, had the right to go in unilaterally instigate a regime change in countries where we don't like the leaders. When we joined the United Nations, we declared that we would not do this. And now we are. How can anyone expect the United Nations to work when we won't work with the United Nations?

And stop with this mantra of ridding Iraqis of their bad leader. That's not why we went there. You know its not. So why keep bringing this bullshit up? You don't give a damn about Iraqis. You have that typical conceited arrogant narcissistic asshole attitude that we are big bad America and we are serving notice on this planet to anyone that's on our sh!t-list. The whole world is against us. But it doesn't matter what the whole world thinks, right? Because were god-damn Americans, right?

I'm FOS? Can I count on you to change your mind in a few weeks when you read the right article that will sway your emotions? Isn't that the norm with you?

And this is why you have no credibility on this site. Anyone that believes the UN is an organization that we haven't worked with and pushed to do the right thing for decades is obviously clueless to anything real world. I've seen the UN's worth in Somalia. You've seen their worth through all of the scandel as they refused to take part in this war against Saddam, while it's highest leaders receieved under the table kick backs. You've seen the UN allow Saddam to smear his **** in their faces in front of the whole world. I'm sure the UN misses the Clinton years when we turned our backs on any corruption. Oh yeah...all fear the great and powerful UN.

On the contrary, anyone who believes that Iraqis deserve to live under Saddam is the one that doesn't "give a damn." Wouldn't this be you?

You are too obtuse to understand any of this. In your obvious impliance, it would be best to allow this civilization to digress and to withdraw deeper into their religion and we should continue to take terrorist attacks, because identifying the problem is not "politically correct."

 

[TimmyBoy]

And this is why you have no credibility on this site. Anyone that believes the UN is an organization that we haven't worked with and pushed to do the right thing for decades is obviously clueless to anything real world. I've seen the UN's worth in Somalia. You've seen their worth through all of the scandel as they refused to take part in this war against Saddam, while it's highest leaders receieved under the table kick backs. You've seen the UN allow Saddam to smear his **** in their faces in front of the whole world. I'm sure the UN misses the Clinton years when we turned our backs on any corruption. Oh yeah...all fear the great and powerful UN.

On the contrary, anyone who believes that Iraqis deserve to live under Saddam is the one that doesn't "give a damn." Wouldn't this be you?

You are too obtuse to understand any of this. In your obvious impliance, it would be best to allow this civilization to digress and to withdraw deeper into their religion and we should continue to take terrorist attacks, because identifying the problem is not "politically correct."

Now, you have actually made a solid argument instead of beratting Islamic civilization, you are actually making a decent case for getting rid of Saddam. I still question Bush's motives for oil though. The UN was ineffective in Bosnia as well, but the problem is that the US did not exert any influence and UN policy was controlled by the major powers.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by GySgt:
I'm FOS? Can I count on you to change your mind in a few weeks when you read the right article that will sway your emotions? Isn't that the norm with you?

And this is why you have no credibility on this site. Anyone that believes the UN is an organization that we haven't worked with and pushed to do the right thing for decades is obviously clueless to anything real world. I've seen the UN's worth in Somalia. You've seen their worth through all of the scandel as they refused to take part in this war against Saddam, while it's highest leaders receieved under the table kick backs. You've seen the UN allow Saddam to smear his **** in their faces in front of the whole world. I'm sure the UN misses the Clinton years when we turned our backs on any corruption. Oh yeah...all fear the great and powerful UN.

On the contrary, anyone who believes that Iraqis deserve to live under Saddam is the one that doesn't "give a damn." Wouldn't this be you?

You are too obtuse to understand any of this. In your obvious impliance, it would be best to allow this civilization to digress and to withdraw deeper into their religion and we should continue to take terrorist attacks, because identifying the problem is not "politically correct."

Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say we never worked with them. I said we didn't regarding Iraq by attacking without SC approval. Their highest leaders received kick-backs? Then why is our businessmen the ones that are indicted? Our government new about this for years and chose to look the other way. Stop acting like you care about Iraqis, because you don't. THAT, I have proven.

My opinion is constantly evolving as I go through my life. Just as your willingness to use your "old brain" when it comes to matters of intelligence and concience.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by Wrath:
This piece I found particularly laughable. So how exactly does the UN work? Of course we should have worked 'with' the UN as any smart UN country will tell you - there was MUCH more money to be made with Saddam in power than without. So lets stop pretending that the UN's interest in Saddam's Iraq was anything other than sweeping a few Billion under the rug!

So save your "big bad America" rants and "work with the UN" horse$hit unless you're willing to concede that the UN was serving up it's own kool-aid recipe.

Sorry, I don't drink kool-aid. It's convenient how your selective memory works. Choosing to forget ten years of UN Sanctions that were so harsh that they raised that countries infant mortality rate 50%.

It is also interesting to note that you choose to forget this country doesn't even have 24/7 electricity, even now. What a chuckle!

 

[MSgt]

Now, you have actually made a solid argument instead of beratting Islamic civilization, you are actually making a decent case for getting rid of Saddam. I still question Bush's motives for oil though. The UN was ineffective in Bosnia as well, but the problem is that the US did not exert any influence and UN policy was controlled by the major powers.

Berating? All I've done is seen it for what it is just like an untold number has done before me. There are books on this. There is official and consistent military analytical work on this. The argument is solid. People's understanding of what is going on is not.

Why do you question the motives for oil? It was very much one of the reasons. It's common sense.

 

[MSgt]

Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say we never worked with them. I said we didn't regarding Iraq by attacking without SC approval. Their highest leaders received kick-backs? Then why is our businessmen the ones that are indicted? Our government new about this for years and chose to look the other way. Stop acting like you care about Iraqis, because you don't. THAT, I have proven.

My opinion is constantly evolving as I go through my life. Just as your willingness to use your "old brain" when it comes to matters of intelligence and concience.

Why not? Putting words in people's mouths and exxagerating anything contriversal is what you do? You're right though. I shouldn't stoop.

We worked with the UN all through the 90's while they turned their backs and allowed Saddam to control the situation. We are also working with the UN and the EU with regards to Iran right now as Iran controls the situation. Let me guess...if Iran develops nukes under the watchful eye of the UN and the EU, it will be America's fault...right?

You have proven nothing. Prove again for all to see how you have proven that I don't care about Iraqis. C'mon....let's see it. I believe it was the other way around. Answer the question...Are Iraqis worth it? I say they are. I also say that Somalis were worth it as we tucked our tails and ran from Al-Queda. I also say that the Sudanese would have worth it as we turned our backs on their genocide. What do you say?

Your "opinion" (as much as that's worth), is constantly changing to the mood you are in or the emotion you are displaying. You are inconsistent. Oh how much easier life would be for you if you were to just realize the issues once and for all and stick by them as things unfold to prove you correct....like me.

Wasn't it you among the many that displayed the voice of doom over the February elections?
Wasn't it you among the many that displayed the voice of doom over the elections last weekend?
I'm sure you will voice how December will be a disaster too, all the while dismissing 11 million voters by displaying the "evil" and "tyranny" of American action that freed them in the first place by parading around the same old tired pictures of "torture" and blown out buildings. The sad thing is that you are beginning to define America as it is today. Selfish, self-centered, "freedom for all...if you're American", apologizing, and self-blame. I still hold true to what it used to be.

 

[TimmyBoy]

Berating? All I've done is seen it for what it is just like an untold number has done before me. There are books on this. There is official and consistent military analytical work on this. The argument is solid. People's understanding of what is going on is not.

Why do you question the motives for oil? It was very much one of the reasons. It's common sense.

I haven't been to the Middle East, but one class I took, Middle East Politics, was taught by a professor who lived in the Middle East for a number of years. We had to study a little bit about Islam, because, according to her, before you can understand the Middle East politics, you must first understand Islam. However, I personally think you have very little understanding of Islam and you should study it more. Their are alot of bad things you might have seen in the Middle East that are not necessarily associated with Islam, but you might have mistakenly believed it was associated with Islam. So, perhaps if you took a serious study of Islam to understand it better, you won't be prone to misunderstanding. Saddam was not a Muslim by any stretch of the imagination and he never practiced Islam himself. So, when you talked about getting rid of Saddam and how those people who did not want to get rid of Saddam, didn't care, you actually started to make a good argument. I think you will find that Islamic civilization is not as bad as you think it is, if you give it serious study.

 

[TimmyBoy]

I personally don't mind getting rid of Saddam, but I have serious misgivings for our motives for getting rid of Saddam.

 

[TimmyBoy]

And believe it or not, the apathetic attitude of Americans not caring for the oppression and the injustice sufferred by other people of other nations is onen of the reasons we were attacked on 9-11. So I think, for the first time, I started to see a solid argument from you. My experiences in Bosnia is a prime example of that.

 

[TimmyBoy]

I mean me personally Gunny, if Bush Sr. or Clinton ordered an immediate intervention in Bosnia, instead of waiting 3 years to intervene and I died over their, the letter to my family would say: "My life was worth the cost, because my life is just as precious as the lives of 250,000 Bosnians. In my efforts, where I most unfortunately died, I saved an entire people from geneocide. If you want to honor me, consider all those people who are alive today because of my efforts and how they have so much to look forward to." It would have been well worth the cost and I would hate to lose my life, but would be willing to risk my life to save 250,000 Bosnians from a genocide.

I would really like to believe that Bush Jr. is not waging a war for oil and is rather doing it based on the principles of saving Iraqis from a dictatorship. Maybe he is waging it for oil, but at least the Iraqis don't have to worry about Saddam anymore.

 

[MSgt]

I haven't been to the Middle East, but one class I took, Middle East Politics, was taught by a professor who lived in the Middle East for a number of years. We had to study a little bit about Islam, because, according to her, before you can understand the Middle East politics, you must first understand Islam. However, I personally think you have very little understanding of Islam and you should study it more. Their are alot of bad things you might have seen in the Middle East that are not necessarily associated with Islam, but you might have mistakenly believed it was associated with Islam. So, perhaps if you took a serious study of Islam to understand it better, you won't be prone to misunderstanding. Saddam was not a Muslim by any stretch of the imagination and he never practiced Islam himself. So, when you talked about getting rid of Saddam and how those people who did not want to get rid of Saddam, didn't care, you actually started to make a good argument. I think you will find that Islamic civilization is not as bad as you think it is, if you give it serious study.

I understand plenty. I've studied and written about it for over a decade. Much more than "a class." Don't mistake my little deployments as being the epitomy of my studies....

Our focus on the Middle East over the decades has been so exclusive that the majority has come to see Islam as defined by the Arab. But the Islam of the Middle East is as fixed, as unreflective, and ultimately as brittle as concrete. People don’t realize that Islam is the youngest of the world’s great religions, that it is still very much a work-in-progress on its vast frontiers, and that its forms are at least as various as the countless confessions and sects of Christendom. Islam is a vivid, dynamic, and vibrant religion of changing shape and potential. But Islam’s local identities are far from decided in its struggling borderlands, and, in times of tumult, any religion can turn toward the darkness as easily as toward the light. Religious intolerance always returns in times of doubt and disorder. This struggle between religious forms and between prescriptive and repressive doctrine of faiths, is one of the two great strategic issues of our time—along with the redefinition of the socio-economic roles of women, their transition from being the property of men to being equal partners with men (which is the most profound social development in human history).

The ease with which today’s Americans of diverse faiths interact in social settings has allowed us to forget that our ancestors, in their homelands, massacred one another over the contents of the communion cup, or slaughtered Jews and called it God’s desire, or delivered their faith to their colonies with Bibles and breech-loading rifles. Some even brought their hatreds to our shores, but America conquered their bigotries over the generations—although even we have not vanquished intolerance completely. Still, for most contemporary Americans, religion has become as comfortable as it remains comforting. But human history is largely a violent contest of gods and the men who served them, and our age is the latest, intense serial in a saga that shaped our earliest myths.

Religions change, because men change them. Fundamentalists insist upon an historical stasis, but evolution in the architecture of faith has always been essential to, and reflective of, human progress. Certainty is comforting, but a religion’s capacity for adaptive behavior unleashes the energies necessary to renew both the faith and the society in which it flourishes. On its frontiers, Islam remains capable of the changes necessary to make it, once again, a healthy, luminous faith whose followers can compete globally on its own terms. But the hard men from that religion’s ancient homelands are determined to frustrate every exploratory effort they can.

The general truth is that Arabs do not target children, however, there is enough of them that do and enough of them that support the murderers throughout the Middle East that have followed in their teachings. Corruption and hypocrisy may be elements of the human condition, but Arab elites have developed them to a superhuman extreme. The House of Saud have used the Koran and it's clerics to keep their people in line as they horde all of the money made by selling their people's energy resource to the world. If they could, they would steal the air itself and charge the poor for breathing. They are to blame for much of the perversion of the Islamic faith in the Middle East. The Arab clerecs, especially, will remain guilty-in great part-for every murder committed by Muslim extremists from all over the region. They created the monsters who now dictate their version of Islam. In the Middle East, blaming others for every problem is the narcotic of choice.

Islam certainly is not hateful in its essence—but a disproportionate number of its current adherents in the Middle East need to hate to avoid the agony of self-knowledge. Religious intolerance always returns in times of doubt and disorder. Fundamentalist terrorism has not arisen despite the progress the world has made, but because of it. Were it not for oil, the Middle East would have no competitive front with the world. They oil barrons have sealed their fate and married it to their depleting oil supply. In times of trouble, men and women cling to what they know. They seek simple answers to daunting complexities. And religious extremists around the world, in every major religion throughout history, have been delighted to provide those simple answers. It does not matter if those answers are true, so long as they shift blame from the believer’s shoulders and promise punishment to enemies, real or imagined. This is where terrorism has been bred. The basic problem is daunting: We face a failing civilization in the Middle East. But if we have the least spark of wisdom, we will do all that we can to ensure the failure does not spread from cultures that have made socioeconomic suicide pacts with themselves to lands that still might adapt to the demands of the modern and post-modern worlds.

For decades we have downplayed—or simply ignored—the hate-filled speech directed toward us, the monstrous lessons taught by extremists to children, and the duplicity of so many states we insisted were our friends. But nations do not have friends—at best, they have allies with a confluence of interests. We imagine a will to support our endeavors where there is only a pursuit of advantage. And we deal with cynical, corrupt old men who know which words to say to soothe our diplomats, while the future lies with the discontented young, to whom the poison of blame is always delicious. The futureless masses yearn to excuse their profound individual inadequacies and to explain away the prison walls their beliefs have made of their lives. But it is time to shift our focus and our energies, to recognize, belatedly, that Islam’s center of gravity lies far from the Middle East. The United States will never be the decisive factor in the struggle for the future of Islam. That role is reserved for Muslims themselves. So far, they have not lifted a finger, but we can play a far more constructive role than we have yet done also. While Pakistan has been wracked with phenomenal corruption and suffers from a ravaged education system that opened the door for the expansion of fundamentalist religious schools, and even though its economy is in shambles, that most-endangered state still has not strayed irretrievably into the extremist camp. India and Indonesia are the two countries with the largest Muslim populations. Each state presents a reason for hope in the world of Islam. Muslims in India mirror Muslims in our own country. They are both faced with living in different cultures and compete for religious identity. The West’s liberation of women is the essential element that renders so many Muslims irreconcilable to us. This particular set of freedoms threatens not only the Muslim male’s religious prejudices, but his central identity. Until it successfully addresses the issue of women’s rights—full rights—Islam will not compete successfully, in any area, with the West. In that regard, Indonesia offers a hopeful example among foreign states.

Tell me again how you "personally" think I should study more on the subject.

 

[TimmyBoy]

I understand plenty. I've studied and written about it for over a decade. Much more than "a class." Don't mistake my little deployments as being the epitomy of my studies....

Our focus on the Middle East over the decades has been so exclusive that the majority has come to see Islam as defined by the Arab. But the Islam of the Middle East is as fixed, as unreflective, and ultimately as brittle as concrete. People don’t realize that Islam is the youngest of the world’s great religions, that it is still very much a work-in-progress on its vast frontiers, and that its forms are at least as various as the countless confessions and sects of Christendom. Islam is a vivid, dynamic, and vibrant religion of changing shape and potential. But Islam’s local identities are far from decided in its struggling borderlands, and, in times of tumult, any religion can turn toward the darkness as easily as toward the light. Religious intolerance always returns in times of doubt and disorder. This struggle between religious forms and between prescriptive and repressive doctrine of faiths, is one of the two great strategic issues of our time—along with the redefinition of the socio-economic roles of women, their transition from being the property of men to being equal partners with men (which is the most profound social development in human history).

The ease with which today’s Americans of diverse faiths interact in social settings has allowed us to forget that our ancestors, in their homelands, massacred one another over the contents of the communion cup, or slaughtered Jews and called it God’s desire, or delivered their faith to their colonies with Bibles and breech-loading rifles. Some even brought their hatreds to our shores, but America conquered their bigotries over the generations—although even we have not vanquished intolerance completely. Still, for most contemporary Americans, religion has become as comfortable as it remains comforting. But human history is largely a violent contest of gods and the men who served them, and our age is the latest, intense serial in a saga that shaped our earliest myths.

Religions change, because men change them. Fundamentalists insist upon an historical stasis, but evolution in the architecture of faith has always been essential to, and reflective of, human progress. Certainty is comforting, but a religion’s capacity for adaptive behavior unleashes the energies necessary to renew both the faith and the society in which it flourishes. On its frontiers, Islam remains capable of the changes necessary to make it, once again, a healthy, luminous faith whose followers can compete globally on its own terms. But the hard men from that religion’s ancient homelands are determined to frustrate every exploratory effort they can.

The general truth is that Arabs do not target children, however, there is enough of them that do and enough of them that support the murderers throughout the Middle East that have followed in their teachings. Corruption and hypocrisy may be elements of the human condition, but Arab elites have developed them to a superhuman extreme. The House of Saud have used the Koran and it's clerics to keep their people in line as they horde all of the money made by selling their people's energy resource to the world. If they could, they would steal the air itself and charge the poor for breathing. They are to blame for much of the perversion of the Islamic faith in the Middle East. The Arab clerecs, especially, will remain guilty-in great part-for every murder committed by Muslim extremists from all over the region. They created the monsters who now dictate their version of Islam. In the Middle East, blaming others for every problem is the narcotic of choice.

Islam certainly is not hateful in its essence—but a disproportionate number of its current adherents in the Middle East need to hate to avoid the agony of self-knowledge. Religious intolerance always returns in times of doubt and disorder. Fundamentalist terrorism has not arisen despite the progress the world has made, but because of it. Were it not for oil, the Middle East would have no competitive front with the world. They oil barrons have sealed their fate and married it to their depleting oil supply. In times of trouble, men and women cling to what they know. They seek simple answers to daunting complexities. And religious extremists around the world, in every major religion throughout history, have been delighted to provide those simple answers. It does not matter if those answers are true, so long as they shift blame from the believer’s shoulders and promise punishment to enemies, real or imagined. This is where terrorism has been bred. The basic problem is daunting: We face a failing civilization in the Middle East. But if we have the least spark of wisdom, we will do all that we can to ensure the failure does not spread from cultures that have made socioeconomic suicide pacts with themselves to lands that still might adapt to the demands of the modern and post-modern worlds.

For decades we have downplayed—or simply ignored—the hate-filled speech directed toward us, the monstrous lessons taught by extremists to children, and the duplicity of so many states we insisted were our friends. But nations do not have friends—at best, they have allies with a confluence of interests. We imagine a will to support our endeavors where there is only a pursuit of advantage. And we deal with cynical, corrupt old men who know which words to say to soothe our diplomats, while the future lies with the discontented young, to whom the poison of blame is always delicious. The futureless masses yearn to excuse their profound individual inadequacies and to explain away the prison walls their beliefs have made of their lives. But it is time to shift our focus and our energies, to recognize, belatedly, that Islam’s center of gravity lies far from the Middle East. The United States will never be the decisive factor in the struggle for the future of Islam. That role is reserved for Muslims themselves. So far, they have not lifted a finger, but we can play a far more constructive role than we have yet done also. While Pakistan has been wracked with phenomenal corruption and suffers from a ravaged education system that opened the door for the expansion of fundamentalist religious schools, and even though its economy is in shambles, that most-endangered state still has not strayed irretrievably into the extremist camp. India and Indonesia are the two countries with the largest Muslim populations. Each state presents a reason for hope in the world of Islam. Muslims in India mirror Muslims in our own country. They are both faced with living in different cultures and compete for religious identity. The West’s liberation of women is the essential element that renders so many Muslims irreconcilable to us. This particular set of freedoms threatens not only the Muslim male’s religious prejudices, but his central identity. Until it successfully addresses the issue of women’s rights—full rights—Islam will not compete successfully, in any area, with the West. In that regard, Indonesia offers a hopeful example among foreign states.

Tell me again how you "personally" think I should study more on the subject.

hmm, I don't know, talk to my former professor of Middle East Politics. She used to work for the CIA. She is very knowledgeable on the Qu'ran and Islam. I think you will find that some of these clerics are like some Christian preachers. They will preach evil, but that is not necessarily Christanity or Islam. I think the extreme corruption of the Saudi government and how they use the clerics is not the way of Islam. It is one of the reasons why Al-queda wants to overthrow the Saudi government, because they know exactly what they are doing. That of course doesn't make Al-queda "freedom fighters" by any stretch of the imagination. Poverty, corruption in government and a lack of freedom, in my view is the cause of this extremism you talk about in Islamic civilization. Many Middle Eastern societies are based on injustice, not due to Islam, but in spite of it. Islam teaches people to fight for their freedom, to fight for justice and believe it or not, Islam has given more rights to women long before Western civilization.

 

[TimmyBoy]

Islam has been perverted by corrupt Arab leaders and clerics and extremists who feed off the injustices that the people of the region suffer under.

 

[MSgt]

Islam has been perverted by corrupt Arab leaders and clerics and extremists who feed off the injustices that the people of the region suffer under.

Dude, what are you doing? Reading my commentaries and then throwing them back at me, like you're enlightening me?

 

[MSgt]

hmm, I don't know, talk to my former professor of Middle East Politics. She used to work for the CIA. She is very knowledgeable on the Qu'ran and Islam. I think you will find that some of these clerics are like some Christian preachers. They will preach evil, but that is not necessarily Christanity or Islam. I think the extreme corruption of the Saudi government and how they use the clerics is not the way of Islam. It is one of the reasons why Al-queda wants to overthrow the Saudi government, because they know exactly what they are doing. That of course doesn't make Al-queda "freedom fighters" by any stretch of the imagination. Poverty, corruption in government and a lack of freedom, in my view is the cause of this extremism you talk about in Islamic civilization. Many Middle Eastern societies are based on injustice, not due to Islam, but in spite of it. Islam teaches people to fight for their freedom, to fight for justice and believe it or not, Islam has given more rights to women long before Western civilization.

No ****. Where have you been for the last few months that I have been writing this on this site?

You're last sentence is BS by the way. What "Islam" prescribes and what is practiced are two different things.

 

[TimmyBoy]

No ****. Where have you been for the last few months that I have been writing this on this site?

More rights to women? Where?

I haven't read all of your posts. But I have read some of your posts where you seem to have racist views on Islam and Muslims in general.

 

[MSgt]

I haven't read all of your posts. But I have read some of your posts where you seem to have racist views on Islam and Muslims in general.

...and this is where I always have to defend my thoughts and re-invent the wheel by posting otherwise, because someone joins the game late.

The problem isn't about Muslims. It isn't about Islam. It is about the perversion of Islam in one region where the Arab has distrorted it into what he uses to control and oppress. The enemy is Muslims and Islamic, but the majority of Muslims are not among them and all of Islam is not the problem.

Clear? Or will you simply subscribe to the obtuse views of people like "billo" who can not live without the pretension that everything must be "politically Correct" and "Clintonesque", otherwise, it is bigotry and racism?

Maybe I should start all my commentaries with a disclaimer before hand that is a page long. Nah, screw that. Think what you want.

I do, however, have issues with Sunni.

 

[TimmyBoy]

...and this is where I always have to defend my thoughts and re-invent the wheel by posting otherwise, because someone joins the game late.

The problem isn't about Muslims. It isn't about Islam. It is about the perversion of Islam in one region where the Arab has distrorted it into what he uses to control and oppress. The enemy is Muslims and Islamic, but the majority of Muslims are not among them and all of Islam is not the problem.

Clear? Or will you simply subscribe to the obtuse views of people like "billo" who can not live without the pretension that everything must be "politically Correct" and "Clintonesque", otherwise, it is bigotry and racism?

Maybe I should start all my commentaries with a disclaimer before hand that is a page long. Nah, screw that. Think what you want.

I do, however, have issues with Sunni.

Ha ha ha, well you know Gunny, I would have issues with the Sunnis too if I was you. They are after all the majority of the ones shooting at you in Iraq. I think I would have issues with them, if I was in your shoes too. But I don't "the Arab" is the one responsible for twisting Islam as it is the commonality in many different civilizations and socities that use relgion as a means to control people, make money and this is the ultimate perversion of any religion. It happens with Christanity here in the states too.

 

[MSgt]

Ha ha ha, well you know Gunny, I would have issues with the Sunnis too if I was you. They are after all the majority of the ones shooting at you in Iraq. I think I would have issues with them, if I was in your shoes too. But I don't "the Arab" is the one responsible for twisting Islam as it is the commonality in many different civilizations and socities that use relgion as a means to control people, make money and this is the ultimate perversion of any religion. It happens with Christanity here in the states too.

The current situation in Iraq is just one place where the Sunni have proven to be the deep rooted problem in the Middle East. Their oppressive needs are historical. I didn't need Iraq to show me this.

 

[oldreliable67]

Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” and Thomas Barnett’s “The Pentagon’s New Map” are excellent sources for pragmatic non-ideological examinations of the rise of Arab-Muslim radicalism. The thoughts which follow draws heavily from those two sources.

Iraq is a war within a war. The larger war is the war against terror, which Thomas Friedman calls ‘the war against Islamo-Leninists’. This war transcends Iraq -- it encompasses the entire Arab-Muslim world, which is a vast, diverse civilization, encompassing over one billion people and stretching from Morocco to Indonesia and from Nigeria all the way to the suburbs of London. Unfortunately, the relationship between the Arab-Muslim community and the world at large today is being dominated by, and defined by, religious militants and extremists.

When Muslim radicals and fundamentalists look at the West, they see only the openness that makes us, in their eyes, decandent and promiscuous. They see only the openness that has produced Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. They do not see, and do not want to see, the openness – freedom of thought and inquiry – that has made us powerful, the openness that has produced Bill Gates and Sally Ride. They deliberately define it all as decadence. Because if openness, women’s empowerment, and freedom of thought and inquiry are the real sources of the West’s economic strength, then the Arab-Muslim world would have to change. And the fundamentalists and extremists do not want to change. To them, openness is a threat.

The founders of al-Qaeda are not religious fundamentalists per se. That is, they are not focused simply on the relationship between themselves and God, and on the values and cultural norms of the religious community. They are a political phenomenon more than a religious one. As al-Qaeda’s chief ideologist, Ayman al-Zawahiri has put it, al-Qaeda is the ideological vanguard whose attacks on the United States and other Western targets are designed to mobilize and energize the Muslim masses to rise up against their own corrupt rulers, who are propped up by America. The Islamo-Leninists (as Thomas Friedman calls them) are certain that the Muslim masses are deeply dissatisfied with their lot and that one or two spectacular acts of jihad against the “pillars of tyranny” in the West will spark them to overthrow the secularizing, immoral and unjust Arab-Muslim regimes that have defiled Islam. In their place, the Islamo-Leninists, however, do not want to establish a worker’s paradise. They vow to establish an Islamic state across the same territory that Islam ruled over at its height, led by a caliph, a supreme religious-political leader, who would unite all the Muslim peoples into a single community.

Unfortunately, Bin Laden and his colleagues have found it all too easy to enlist recruits in the Arab-Muslim world. This has to do in part with the state of half-globalization that many Arab-Muslim young people are living in, particularly those in Europe. They have been raised to believe that Islam is the most perfect and complete expression of God’s last and most perfect messenger. This is Islam’s self-identity. Yet, in a globalizing world, these youth can and do look around and see that the Arab-Muslim world, in too many cases, has fallen behind the rest of the planet. It is not living as prosperously or democratically as other civilizations. How can that be? these young Arabs and Muslims must ask themselves. If we have the superior faith, and if our faith is all encompassing of religion, politics, and economics, why are others living so much better?

This is a source of real cognitive dissonance for many Arab-Muslim youth – the sort of dissonance, and loss of self-esteem, that sparks rage, and leads some of them to join violent groups and lash out at the world. It is also the sort of dissonance that leads many others, average folks, to give radical groups like al-Qaeda passive support. Accelerating globalization only sharpens that dissonance by making the backwardness of the Arab-Muslim region, compared to others, impossible to ignore.

This dissonance, this frustration and humiliation is not confined to the Islamist fringes. The reason why the Islamo-Leninists have become the most energized and pronounced opponents of globalization/Americanization and the biggest threat to the globalizing world today is not simply their extraordinary violence, but also because they enjoy some passive support around the Arab-Muslim world.

In part, this is because most governments in the Arab-Muslim world have refused to take on these radicals in a war of ideas. While Arab regimes have been very active in jailing their Islamo-Leninists when they can find them, they have been very passive in countering them with a modern, progressive interpretation of Islam. This is because almost all of these Arab-Muslim leaders are illegitimate themselves. Having come to power by force, they have no credibility as carriers of a moderate, progressive Islam, and they always feel vulnerable to hard-line Muslim preachers, who denounce them for not being good Muslims. So instead of taking on the Muslim radicals, the Arab regimes either throw them in jail or try to buy them off. This leaves a terrible and spiritual and political void.

Unfortunately, there is huge resistance to modernization from the authoritarian and religiously obscurantist forces within the Arab-Muslim world. That is why this part of the world will be liberated, and feel truly empowered, only if it goes through its own war of ideas – and the moderates there win.

Where does the US fit in to all this? Our job is to export security, sufficient security that the Arab-Muslim world can go through its own war of ideas, hopefully without the whole Arab-Muslim world erupting in flames instead of ideas. Thomas Friedman argues for what he calls “The Golden Arches Theory”, which observes that no two countries that both had McDonald’s had ever fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s. McDonald’s will follow security.

Instead of taking the Muslim world forward with the rest of the economically integrating world, the Arab-Muslim radicals want to take it backward, into the ways of caliphate.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by GySgt:
Clear? Or will you simply subscribe to the obtuse views of people like "billo" who can not live without the pretension that everything must be "politically Correct" and "Clintonesque", otherwise, it is bigotry and racism?

Did you know you are the first person that has ever accused me of being PC?
"Gy and the PC virgin", where the hell is Aaron Spelling?

 

[MSgt]

Did you know you are the first person that has ever accused me of being PC?
"Gy and the PC virgin", where the hell is Aaron Spelling?

I find that hard to believe. Your posts reek of its stench.