Hey looks like the pope was partially correct

[Agent-X]

The fact of the matter is that the terrorist end game is to conquer the world and conver t or kill all who oppose them. THis means you atheist also. So instead of railing on and on about why this is happening, what do you think should be done about it?

/not a bush supporter, hes a moron.
//So are liberals
///remember extremist of any kind ignore the logical steps in favor of thier own agenda.

I don't agree with that. I've always seen the whole radical Islamist movement as a nationalist movement as much as it is a religious movement. As in, the religion is probably more a way to rally the masses behind their cause than it is the very essence of their cause.

Personally i think that if you take away all the injustice we put them through, if you treat them fairly and if you stop sponsoring their dictators, you take away the major reasons for them to blow themselves up in our subways.

It seems to me like you're buying into the 'they hate us for our freedoms' bit, and that's far too short sighted.

No no I see your point. I try to be objective no matter how mad I get. Im just trying to imagine how what you suggest would happen. If you take any system and remove part of what makes it up there would be alot of chaos because youve left a vacuum. Again im not saying GO KILL EM ALL. If we could all just do business together and treat each other fairly, that would be the most rational solution. But unfourtunatly we do not have rational leaders.

[busetibi]

"We are a nation that God banned from lying and stabbing others in the back.

but apparently he didn't ban different sects from killing one another
re: sunni, shi'ites(shi'a) :icon26:

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

I know about the truce offer. Do you really believe it was sincere? I myself have considered what would happen if someone tried to reason with al-queda. Could a truce that would benefit both parties be agreed upon. Probably not because of the existence of israel. Maybe in the future though. I bet at the beginning of the cold war no one thought there would be any end but through conflict. Also bin ladens talking about polls. Thats a laugh. Tell me you dont believe every poll that comes out? Americans(well the american middle class) will not care about any of this until it is at home, that is true. But to trust bin laden on an offer of truce...I dont think so. Although if I were Bush I would have asked what those "just conditions" would be. Maybe that would of been a first step.

well good luck to you.

[Ryoki]

If you take any system and remove part of what makes it up there would be alot of chaos because youve left a vacuum. Again im not saying GO KILL EM ALL. If we could all just do business together and treat each other fairly, that would be the most rational solution. But unfourtunatly we do not have rational leaders.

Yes, if we change what upsets them so much there will be a period of chaos as the old powers will fight to remain in power and the popular (islamic) movements will try and take over. Is this bad? That depends on who you ask.

If you ask me, i'd say 'its a good thing, probably'. I mean, we'd probably have to start paying more for our oil, but then again we could cut the military budget in like, half

[Agent-X]

If you take any system and remove part of what makes it up there would be alot of chaos because youve left a vacuum. Again im not saying GO KILL EM ALL. If we could all just do business together and treat each other fairly, that would be the most rational solution. But unfourtunatly we do not have rational leaders.

Yes, if we change what upsets them so much there will be a period of chaos as the old powers will fight to remain in power and the popular (islamic) movements will try and take over. Is this bad? That depends on who you ask.

If you ask me, i'd say 'its a good thing, probably'. I mean, we'd probably have to start paying more for our oil, but then again we could cut the military budget in like, half

Agreed. We could also put that money into technology to ween us off of oil. I think the west has the resources of its own to wait out al-queda. We build up tech to get off oil. Develop fusion, Hydrogen power and tell all the oil nations to go fuck themselves.

Not gonna happen though.

[Dave]

Islam - the religion of peace?
A MASSIVE oxymoron...

All this does is reduce Islam to the sole cause for animosity between us and them. Basically what I'm getting from you here is that Islam = evil and all the other things that go on behind the scenes like imperialism, oil hoarding, economic depression and so on don't factor into the violence. But fuck all of that... It's us against them after all. They want to take away our freedom.

did u read any of the linkage from Jules post Dave? It makes a compelling case that violence is inherent in how islamists see themselves, their history, and their future...

I don't need to read it because the problem here is how people take one broad ideology, Islam, and ascribe to it en masse the attributes of one of its radical subdivisions, Islamism in this case.

Why is so hard to understand that by assuming all Muslims and followers of Islam are "Islamists" (negative sounding shorthand for Islamic fundametalist or today's Islamofascist) a person ignores that all Muslims don't all think alike? All this does is reduce Islam to Islamism.. These aren't the same things. All we get from these assumptions are damaging, sweeping, broad generalizations that Muslims are Islamists. Few Westerners ever assume that all Christians or Americans have the same point of view on every issue because we know that we aren't all the same.

One simple fact that never gets pointed out is that Islam unites many parts of the world that have struggled to regain power in the post-colonial era. Islam is a transnational force that ignores national borders. Even Kissinger recently brought up this fact that nations are beginning to lose power in the face of transnational associations. Proactive radical Muslims combined with a lot of negative Western attention drown out the voices of moderate Muslims who just want to live life peacefully like you and I.

[[xeno]Julios]

I don't need to read it because the problem here is how people take one broad ideology, Islam, and ascribe to it en masse the attributes of one of its radical subdivisions, Islamism in this case.

this is one of Amis' points. I don't know why S@M didn't catch onto this.

[Dave]

I told you I didn't need to read it

I will later though. I started to, but I've got to do some actual work at work

[R00k]

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

great post dave

[ek]

dave thats because being accused of islamism is a popular thing at the momemnt, just like communism was

[tnf]

Christians are no different, what about all of the crusade wars?

And the little Pope living in his little city where he can pretend he matters.
Guess what, the dark ages are over, people VOTE now...

ahhh...the typical go-to of the crusades when it really doesn't apply to the situation at this time and when you probably don't even understand the entire situation behind the crusades (it wasn't just a one-sided deal...and no, I'm not covering for the Christians here, but I tire of people pulling the typical WHAT ABOUT THE CRUSADES? card everytime.)

So yea, Christians are very different in this day and age regarding this type of thing.

Christ that was a stupid statement.

not sure that i agree with you here.

i guess i'm neglecting how many christian suicide bombers there are.

And I'm not applying the idea to the entire Islamic faith. Again, I've said many times - the only thing that gets me is the relative silence of these billion or so 'moderate' Muslims. If the radicals are such a small minority, why are they not controlled better?

There are obviously radical Christian wackjobs who ascribe Biblical principles to their violent behavior, but to try and say that the frequency with which this type of stuff occurs is no different than what is going on with terrorism and Islam right now, or to try and bring up the Crusades, just isn't accurate.

[tnf]

"the crusades were the long-term result of the rise of Islam. Within the space of a generation, Islam had developed into the third of the world's great monotheistic religions, rivalling Christianity and Judaism. It also became an aggressive and successful military movement. When its founder, the Prophet Mohammed, died in 632 he controlled the Hijaz (the western coast of the Arabian peninsula) and his role as a leader was acknowledged by most of Arabia. A decade after his death, his disciples had conquered Iraq and Syria, and tend years after that Egypt and most of Persia had fallen to their swords. By teh end of the seventh century, Islam had conquered the whole of the North African coast. Islamic forces invaded SPain in 711 and within 2 decades had overcome all but the mountain fastnesses of the north. In the ninth century, Sicily also fell to the Muslim troops.....

There is much, much more to this, from a book I have, "Chronicles of the Crusades" edited by Elizabeth Hallam...

the bottom line is that Islam used violence to take land, the crusades used violence to take some of it back. Either way...the religions used violence....

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

did you see my post two down from the one you're quoting here?

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

"the crusades were the long-term result of the rise of Islam. Within the space of a generation, Islam had developed into the third of the world's great monotheistic religions, rivalling Christianity and Judaism. It also became an aggressive and successful military movement. When its founder, the Prophet Mohammed, died in 632 he controlled the Hijaz (the western coast of the Arabian peninsula) and his role as a leader was acknowledged by most of Arabia. A decade after his death, his disciples had conquered Iraq and Syria, and tend years after that Egypt and most of Persia had fallen to their swords. By teh end of the seventh century, Islam had conquered the whole of the North African coast. Islamic forces invaded SPain in 711 and within 2 decades had overcome all but the mountain fastnesses of the north. In the ninth century, Sicily also fell to the Muslim troops.....

There is much, much more to this, from a book I have, "Chronicles of the Crusades" edited by Elizabeth Hallam...

the bottom line is that Islam used violence to take land, the crusades used violence to take some of it back. Either way...the religions used violence....

lol I guess the Jews really had it coming too eh?

[tnf]

I'm not saying anyone had it coming puff. I'm just saying that people who generally throw out the crusades argument have no idea that there was a violent rise to power and land grabs by Islam as well.

Don't try and spin this into something its not...i.e. 'jews having it coming.'

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

I'm not saying anyone had it coming puff. I'm just saying that people who generally throw out the crusades argument have no idea that there was a violent rise to power and land grabs by Islam as well.


Don't try and spin this into something its not...

no offense but you seem to be the one trying to spin it. the point is that the Judeo-Christian Western culture is as violent as Islam if not more (comparisons are silly seeing as the scope of the violence is huge despite different manifestations)

your original post said,

ahhh...the typical go-to of the crusades when it really doesn't apply to the situation at this time and when you probably don't even understand the entire situation behind the crusades (it wasn't just a one-sided deal...and no, I'm not covering for the Christians here, but I tire of people pulling the typical WHAT ABOUT THE CRUSADES? card everytime.)

So yea, Christians are very different in this day and age regarding this type of thing.


but the crusades are a good comparison to today and judeo christian society isn't different in this day and age i.e. imperial wars on muslim lands

[tnf]

no, I wasn't trying to spin it because I was talking about a much narrower issue - the rage, suicide bombing, etc. etc. that occurs in the Muslim religion every time someone criticizes it...

On the scale of imperialism, I agree, and I've made the point in the past that the people running this nation basically have an imperialistic worldview and if you want to compare that to the imperialism of the Crusades, go ahead...I'm not disagreeing in principle there.

But the run-of-the-mill Christian on the street is not going to blow up an outdoor eatery because some Islamic leader makes a comment about Christianity being evil. Nor are they going to stand in the streets and burn someone in effigy...nor are they going to put a hit out on a Muslim cartoonist who makes a joke about Jesus.....

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

i agree with you about the run of the mill Christians but the vast majority of Muslims are the same way too.

[tnf]

Obviously, but their silence is deafening to me...think about it...if there are 1.5 billion or so of them, and 250,000,000 are extreme (I have no idea if that is accurate...) that is still 1.25 billion voices to rise up against extremism and to voice support of peaceful solutions to some of these problems (notice I said some...if there is voilence against them, then they have some right to violence for defense against the aggressors). But why aren't there so many voices saying 'calm down man' regarding the pope's comments? Why aren't there people saying 'hey man don't kill that guy that made a cartoon about mohammed'? I'm sure they are out there, I just don't hear much from them...and why are they letting their faith be hijacked by radicals?

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

how do you think the silence of western Christians in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan etc make Muslims feel?

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php

also there are many voices in the Muslim world who condemn violence and radicalism but lets face it you probably aren't going to hear it on the news no matter how many times they speak out.

that's my take anyway

[SplishSplash]

Is there any doubt that it will end up as "us against them" sooner or later?

I am undecided.

[tnf]

how do you think the silence of western Christians in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan etc make Muslims feel?

Because I'm guessing most Christians are going to have a difficult time accepting that the military has been intentionally targeting civilians, etc. While they probably feel for the innocents who are killed, they don't equate it with a suicide bomber killing a bunch of people who are at a bar dancing.