Every day it seems I hear about another car bombing, or suicide bombing, or insurgent attack, or this, or that, or the other, in Iraq. Muslim-on-Muslim violence, not American or Zionist on Muslim violence. There’s no outcry over it; I don’t hear the Muslim community in America condemning it; I don’t hear American liberals whining about it.
What, precisely, is the number here? I remember the killing of 93 police recruits in Iraq by insurgents, which came and went seemingly in one day. There seems to be a few each week; who’s keeping count?
For all the complaining that Muslims and Muslim supporters do about innocent Arabs being killed by the Zionist pigs, you don’t hear much about the far higher number of Muslims killed by other Muslims. What about Sudan? I suspect more Black Africans have been killed by Arab Muslims in the Sudan than have been killed by Israel: On the walls of my own Synagogue there are flyers condemning this very real genocide (not the “Palestinian Genocide”, REAL genocide with people being killed for the sake of killing, bands of mercenaries hacking whole villages to death with machetes.) I don’t hear a peep from Muslims. I see Ibrahim Hooper and Abdullah this and Muhammad that on CNN and Fox talking about Israel and America: what about the constant killing of Muslims by their brothers in the faith?
PF: *Every day it seems I hear about another car bombing, or suicide bombing, or insurgent attack, or this, or that, or the other, in Iraq. Muslim-on-Muslim violence, not American or Zionist on Muslim violence. […] What, precisely, is the number here? *
Well, you doubtless realize that it’s hard to get precise casualty numbers for every conflict currently going on in the world. Here are a few stats about some of the ones you mentioned:
However, I’m not quite sure I get what you’re trying to say about these numbers. Are you suggesting that more Muslims worldwide are killed by Muslims than by non-Muslims? That’s almost certainly true, but it’s only what you would expect in situations of civil war or territorial struggle between neighbors, where many of the warring individuals share a culture and/or religion.
Similarly, in the Rwandan conflicts in the mid-1990’s, many more Christians were killed by fellow Christians than by Muslims or other non-Christians. (And at about two million casualties, it was an extremely deadly conflict even by today’s standards.) I don’t really see what that proves, though.
I know that this is a subject near and dear to your heart - that everybody complains about America and Israel and gives anyone else a free ride. But you are wrong. Liberals will complain over human right abuses anywhere. Part of the problem is that the public goes by what they read or hear in the media, and media headlines leaves us with an unbalanced & distorted picture on what goes on in the world.
A couple of examples: Everybody knows about Rwanda, but few know that a similar conflict left more than one hundred thousand dead in the Caucasian region. We’re obsessed by the insurgency movement in Iraq, but almost nobody talks about the infighting in Columbia. And have you ever heard about Western Sahara?
Western media prefer events involving Westerners over a story where members of tribe A attacked and killed members of tribe B. Add in the fact that the media will report stories from places where they are deployed, not from places they are prohibited from visiting. You wont see western media teams report from the heart of Iran or Tibet, but from on location in Iraq and Israel.
Secondly, there’s the double standard rule. We in the West believe we’re so advanced and rarely do anything wrong. So when we do get it wrong that gets a lot more attention than places where identical abuses are part of everyday life. Think Abu Ghraib.
Thirdly, as media whores we will always lend more attention to events where we can put the blame on somebody reachable to our concerns. A central government will always be held to a higher standard than an insurgency movement.
Finally, you’re so simplifying it by calling it Muslim-on-Muslim violence. There’s more than one billion Muslim on the planet, most of them in turbulent undeveloped countries. It goes without saying that Muslims will clash with Muslims. But if you try to claim that Muslim = violence then your attention span is severely limited. Just think about some of the larger conflicts we’ve witnessed during the last century, and you’ll see just how few were initiated by Muslims.
Will liberals ever whine about Muslim violence? They will when they know about it. There’s a small movement in France and Spain trying to attract attention to the events in Western Sahara. Many groups are concerned about the development in the Democratic Republic of Congo/Rwanda/Burundi/Uganda, though not Muslim countries it’s a conflict that has left more people dead (3 million) than in any other conflict since WWII. And finally, I know that among some there’s a lot of concern and discussions about the infighting between Kurdish groups in Kurdistan.
I would also like to add that domestic violence is often the subject of stories in local media in predominately Muslim countries. So just because it isn’t on CNN or Fox, doesn’t mean it doesn’t get any traction elsewhere.
A question for you Paul (or anybody else): Why is it that conservatives appear not to care more about human rights abuses than they do?
I’m not really sure. The positions of “liberals” and “conservatives” on human-rights abuses and foreign intervention have shifted around a lot because of the Iraq war. Conservatives, generally, have been of the traditional isolationist mentality when it came to foreign intervention, at least the way I see it; yet, American conservatives are now justifying the invasion of Iraq as a humanitarian mission (now that nobody can find WMD.) Liberals, associated during the Clinton years with foreign activity (intervention in the Balkans, in Somalia, and foreign aid and peacekeeping missions) are now condemning the needless Iraq war and calling for a more isolationist policy, or at least wanting other nations to share more of the burden.
Why isn’t there a bigger voice among American conservatives about human rights violations? I don’t really know, although I definitely agree that it is true. Maybe more conservatives are stuck in a narrow worldview and can’t see the big picture; maybe they only care about themselves. I think the organized condemnation of human rights abuses is closely tied to the peace movement, and the peace movement is closely tied to the left-wing of American politics.
I think it’s more Israel, and less America, that they’re complaining about. Part of it is the double standard. Take the assassination of Hamas leader Yassin- condemned on a large scale by anti-Israel voices and by fairly neutral peace-movement voices. Do you think ANYONE would complain like that if it was a US gunship launching a missile at Osama Bin Laden (even if he was in a wheelchair?) I don’t think so, but the situation is analagous: both leaders of big terrorist groups, both with blood on their hands, both considered threats by the powers-to-be.
America probably wouldn’t draw much criticism if it blew Bin Laden away. Likewise, America doesn’t draw much criticism from all the foreign aid it gives to Egypt, but it catches hell for helping Israel.
Here’s my take: I think the relationship between the US and Israel should not be as close as it is. Foreign aid to Israel should be reduced, and eventually ELIMINATED. I am NOT in favor of Israel being a protectorate or a colony of George Bush. This will allow it more self-determination, and hopefully not become so much of an issue among Americans (no more ‘America supports the genocide of the Palestinian people’ rhetoric.)
Slight quibble - you wouldn’t stand a chance of getting permission from the Chinese to broadcast from Tibet. And there’s frequently broadcasts from Tehran, although they’re closely monitored by the authorities there.
Oh boy. Is that a loaded question or what? Perhaps most conservatives think injustice and human right abuses are best dealt with by open trade and capitalism and more wealth for all and not so much by banging on drums in the town square and marching in support of totalitarian regimes and world communism.
Not so much loaded as meaningless; you could ask the same question of anyone, however passionate they were about human rights. Sure, Amnesty International gets quite worked up about human rights abuses, but why don’t they get even more worked up?
Another slight quibble, but I would say that liberals are calling for a more internationalist foreign policy and want the involvement of other nations in part to shore up the moral authority.
Personally I don’t give a shit about Yassin being bumped off. I do, however, condemn the action, since it’s likely to lead to more terrorism against innocent Israelis, and a further whipping up of fervour amongst fanatics, and worsening of conditions for innocent Palestinians.
Muslims have been killing Muslims ever since the death of Mohammed. Christians have been killing Christians at least since Christianity became the state religion of Rome. BFD.
Yeah, Paul - I heard that the evil liberal conspiracy is having an awards ceremony tomorrow night where they will give a medal to every Muslim who has killed another Muslim. :rolleyes:
You’re making happy orthodox Jewish man cry. ;j
Now that you mention it… That must be it. I never new what I was looking at when staring at myself in a mirror.
It is really a dirty trick of the Godess Fortuna that the OP has no magical-see-through kind of PC screen that gives him a reflection of my Satanic-Psychopathic-Killer self when he reads my posts. I can easily imagine how scary that would be for him.
Yet I would also not exclude the remark of Mr. Niceguy as an option to come in to the mindset of the OP.
All the threads and posts of the OP that I came to read so far are for me really fighting my ignorance at the highest possible level.
Salaam. A
I really should invent a signature that pre-emptively kills all the doubt about my Truly Satanic Terrorist (and fill in at will) Endorsing and Applauding Self.
Maybe I could ask the OP to make it.
Oh wait…
Oh, forget it… I keep what I have. I’m kind of e-motionally attached to it.
Salaam. A
If I was a member of a Colombian paramilitary squad and defended the actions of the same, that’d be one thing. Having no connection to Colombia and not making any mention of it in a post about the Muslim world is another.
The point is that if I had posted this to General Questions, it would have been moved here anyway, so I eliminated the unneccessary work on our mods’ part.
If anyone else would like to make fun of me without addressing my point, feel free. Just know that you’re not contributing.
