And what about your unsupported assertion that 100% of them were, as you so quaintly put it, “Muslim fundamentalist fanatics”?
Cite?
How about we try it this way, mod? I readily admit that I consider those Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan to be fanatic fundamentalist.
Yet nowhere does that even imply that I consider them guilty of a crime for simply being fanatic fundamentalists.
But we are not talking about all those who are fighting in Afghanistan now, are we? Are 100% of the prisoners we have “fanatic fundamentalists”? Is there no chance whatsoever that there might be a few innocents who have been locked up unfairly?
While I appreciate the distinction you’re making between ideology and guilt, your logic is very circular. As you just demonstrated you wouldn’t have assumed they were fundamentalist fanatics in the first place if you hadn’t assumed they were fighting the U.S. in Afghanistan (or wherever).
In other words, you could not have assumed they were Muslim fundamentalist fanatics without having already assumed their guilt. *That’s * the point. And that’s why I said you were assuming their guilt. I didn’t say you assumed their guilt because they were Muslims - that was either a serious miscommunication or pulled out of thin air, as far as I can tell.
Miscommunication. It’s not circular. I’m not saying anyone’s guilty of anything until they’re convicted at some kind of court. I’m just saying that, AFAIK, all the detainees, as in 100% of them, are Muslims.
And as far as I know 32.5% of them are Orthodox Rajneeshis. And neither of us are lying, because nobody knows who these people really are or why they’re there.
And it occurs to me me - since it’s late at night when I’m all open to conspiracy theories - that the Pentagon wouldn’t mind at all if we did assume that they’re all uniformly one-dimensional religiomaniacs who think of nothing but reciting the koran, praying to Allah and blowing up buildings. Maybe all this going on about Korans and prayer beads and mats etc. helps fortify a caricature.
…Or maybe they’re just being considerate.
Since you admit that you are pulling the “100%” out of thin air, lets address the other half of this little logic problem: are you claiming that all Muslims are “fanatics”?
What I’d like a cite for is that the detainees are given Korans without being asked whether they want them, or without being asked whether they would prefer alternative religious literature. Lots and lots of assumptions going on in this thread.
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I’m not pulling it out of thin air. However, I do admit that it is the number I recall hearing, so I guess you can say, if you wish, that the sound waves are thin air.
Sorry I couldn’t find an online source which stated the religious makeup of the incarcerated population at Gitmo. -
How do you figure that I’m accusing all Muslims of being fanatics? I did not.
You made the (still)baseless claim that all of the prisoners were Muslim, and described all of those imprisoned as “fanatics”.
Czarcasm: Please settle down and read my last posting above. I admit that I don’t have an online source for what I heard. Got it? I merely recall hearing that the population of the incarcerated population at that particular prison is 100% Muslim. Got it? I said that in my posting above. Got it?
Now just because I said that that one particular population is composed of fanatics does not mean that I said that the entire world population of Muslims is fanatics. I may have pulled my earlier assertion out of thin air but you’re pulling out the idea that I’ve called all Muslims fanatics out of your butt.
FWIW: Now that this discussion has gotten around to the religious makeup of said prisoner population, I’ve been trying to find out exactly what it is. Yes, that does mean I’m looking for online sources. So far, I’ve only found about a gazillion sites that talk about flushing religious books down toilets, so apparently I’m not all that hot at googling. I shall, of course, continue searching and if I find such a breakdown, I’ll post it here.
My comment in the posting above about thin air refers to my previous comment about the same: that’s what I recall hearing so I referred, as said, to sound waves being thin air.
Czarcasm: What the heck is your current problem? No way can a sane view of logic indicate that I have accused all Muslims of being fanatics.
I am objecting to your refering to all of the prisoners as “Muslim fanatics”, understand? You have no knowledge as to the makeup of the prisoner population, and you have no knowledge as to the depth of belief of those who are Muslim.
Even so, your postings on this issue are now jerkish, Moderator. Just because I characterized one small population as being fanatics does not mean that I characterized all Muslims, as you are jerkishly pretending I did, as being fanatics.
Get someone who’s capable of paying attention to what’s actually written to read to you my last few posts in this thread.
Okay, I’ve taken a step back from the keyboard. All is peace & calm.
Czarcasm: I did not accuse all Muslims of being fanatics. I’m done defending myself against a claim that I made an accusation I didn’t make.
All: I’m now interested in the side issue of what the sectarian makeup is of the prisoner population under discussion and will post whatever results I find. I’ll even post them if it turns out that the prisoners are all as far from Muslim as they can be!
I think I can explain how Czarcasm got the impression that you’re saying all Muslims are fanatics. First you basically said that all the prisoners at Gitmo are “Muslim fundamentalist fanatics”. In response Czarcasm asked for a cite and I complained that that statement assumed their guilt. Your response was:
I took that to mean you were backing off the fanatic part and sticking to the Muslim part. (Still no evidence to support it, but a more reasonable position.) But Czarcasm took that to mean you were defending your statement that they were all fundamentalist fanatics by saying that as far as you knew they were all Muslims. Which would imply you thought all Muslims are Fundamentalist Fanatics.
So if you want to clear this up just say whether you were retracting the fundamentalist fanatic part or not.
I think the question of who the prisoners are is a hell of a lot more interesting than the constitutional issue, too. I’m mostly interested that everyone’s knee-jerk reaction (mine too) to the constitutional issue was roughly “you can’t impose religion on people who are champing at the bit to have a Koran in the first place.” Well maybe they all are, but how would we know? And doesn’t our reflexive certainty mean we have a caricature in our heads about who the prisoners are and how they think?