Here is a list of sacred sites in the middle east
Here is a list of sacred sites in Iraq. Whether or not the state of Iraq, as currently formed and boundaried, existed predicate to the existence of those sites is irrelevant if they are within the borders of Iraq today. Even if there is a fierce battle after Saudi Arabia for the title of “second most sacred” place/state in the Islamic world, Iraq is well up there.
The position of the cite in the OP was that ObL represents a large Muslim view point. The assertion in the cite was that ObL’s retoric is the truth, while the US is lieing…that ObL understands the deeper policies and strategies that the US is undertaking. Following this so far? Good. Now, lets take that and extrapolate some things based on ObL’s writings about the US, shall we?
Ok, so my assertion was that millions of Muslims believe that the US is out to destroy the Muslim world. You call bullshit on this. Fair enough. btw, do YOU have a cite listing millions of folks who believe that ‘they hate us for our freedom’? Its a ridiculous thing to ask you for a cite for, but you did it to me…I want to return the favor. What, you think a poll is taken in the ME asking “Why do you hate Americans” or something?
I’m not willing to go and look for poll data (which both of us know would be impossible to find…cite indeed :dubious: ), so I’ll fall back on a cursory search of ObL’s writings…as he represents the view point of millions of Muslims according the the cite in the OP. As its 1am and I have to work tomorrow before I fly to Japan, its going to be fairly cursory.
Of course, he’s talking about Iraq here, but the thrust is that the US is waging war not on Iraq but on Muslims…to annihilate Muslims as well as humiliate them.
More? Well, since you asked:
This seems pretty ‘systematic’ to me…we want to take out the strongest ‘muslim’ state (his inference, not mine) and then fragement the rest to destroy them.
More? Well, if you insist:
Its a holy war the US is waging to destroy Islam and the Muslim world. This is a constant theme in his writings. So, ObL DOES think that the US is engaged in a systematic destruction of Islam and the Muslim world (if you read his writings and go deeper into his philosophy, he’s actually partly right, though not as he’s saying here, and not as he means to be read. He’s right that western style democracy is the bane of fundamentalist totalitarianism that is his goal. One has only to look at Iran to see exactly what he’s seeing and why it IS such a problem for him).
I don’t have the time right now to dig through all his writings for you…you can look them up yourself if you like and draw your own conclusions. Certainly his SURFACE words speak constantly about the US systematically destroying the Muslim nations of the ME, for oil and for religious reasons. I think there is a much deeper fear and a deeper message though, but I’ll let you find that out for yourself.
Even a cursory look at his writings (he has LOTS of writings…go read some, its an eye opener) shows this. I really can’t believe you asked for a cite on this…though I know you expected me to look for non-existant poll data or some other, er…well, never mind. If the cite in the OP is accurate and ObL DOES represent the views of millions of Muslims (which I think he does) then its pretty clear that many Muslims DO have the opinion that the US (and perhaps ‘the west’) are out to destroy the Muslim world.
Now, if you want to argue that the US really IS out to systematically destroy the Muslim world, then my point about dippy and erronious things people believe would be called into question…and I’d have to ask for a cite from you on things the Clinton administration did (or Bush I) that clearly show a systematic approach to the US destroying the ME.
Are you seriously claiming that this simplistic view is NOT held by some unspecified but large number of folks in the ME (and elsewhere in the world)?? Do you REALLY think that everyone who hates the US has a calm and rational reason for doing so??
I should ask YOU for an impossible cite to prove this position, but it would be as foolish as your request of a cite from me on this. Just because a view is simplistic and even cartoonish doesn’t mean people don’t hold it…quite the opposite. A lot of people LIKE things simplistic and cartoonish (look how popular things like Fox News are in the US), with black and white and good guys and bad guys.
In addition not everyone in the world has access to multiple view points and news outlets…not everyone in the world can even read for that matter. It makes a bit of a difference DtC. I’m not saying that the more sophisticated Muslims think this (though I’m sure some do), but we are talking about the ‘average man on the street’ here. Think about it from your own perspective…what does the ‘average man on the street’ know or think about things in the US? Do you have some fantasy that the average man on the street in the ME is more sophisticated or knowledgable or has a deeper understanding of anything, let alone the foreign policy of a country halfway around the world from them??
Ya, I’m reading the same OP as you. Did you try and do some extrapolation on what the OP’s cite was saying in light of ObL’s vast amount of writings? I did.
-XT
For the last time, YES, there are a lot of holy sites for the Shia. But there are not any particularly holy sites for the Sunni, and the country is holy to neither. The guy got it dramatically wrong.
That list means diddly squat. The top 8 ones in your list are Shia holy sites, which I am not disputing. Some of the others are ridiculous - the ruins of Ur are a sacred Islamic site now? Screeds of googled stuff of indeterminate provenance does not constitute an argument.
I’m just going to address this because I want to go to bed. I’ll address the rest tomorrow:
I didn’t say that “millions of Americans” think that. I said, " I constantly hear alarmist rhetoric from Americans that Muslims want to destroy us because they (for some never expalined reason) “hate freedom.”
Saying that I “constantly hear” something from Americans (and I do- IRL especially but also in the media and online. I just listened to a radio show today in which some guy selling a book kep insisting that “we are in a fight for our lives” and “those people want us dead.” IRL, I get to listen to my brother-in-law talk about how we need to nuke the entire middle east) is not the same as saying millions of Americans believe it. I’m just saying it’s a trope that I hear often.
I think to some extent you are expanding beyond the notion (in the author’s opinion) that OBL is especially effective because he is focusing attention on US policy impacts, to the idea that OBL (and his large body of his associated rhetoric) effectively and truly represents Islamic “man in the street opinion”. That’s not really what the author said, even if you believe it to be the case. The point (IMO) is kind of the opposite, in that Muslims don’t have to buy entirely into OBLs world view and complex conspiracy theories, as long as he keeps focusing their attention on “the US says this, but their policy does that, and look at the result”. The basic antipathy toward the US policies that this generates is entirely sufficent for his purposes does not require people buying entirely into his revolutionary manifesto.
Excuse me, but did anyone say it was cool?
But I agree with you, it IS tripe…my point in fact was that because millions believe something doesnt make it true. I would say that millions of Americans DO believe that ‘they hate us for our freedom’ because its an easy to package sound byte. Its a vast oversimplification and a caracture of reality…but thats what people like. Its easy for them to grasp and they don’t have to think much about it. All I was saying is that American’s aren’t the only ones, and there ARE a lot of Muslims who believe the same kind of simplification, i.e. “The US is engaged in a holy war to destroy Islam and the Muslim world”. Much of ObL’s retoric revolves around this in fact. Now, I don’t believe that HE believes that, not in the way he’s saying it, though I do believe that he thinks western society is a threat to fundamentalist Islam. But the average man on the street takes things at face value, whether they are in the ME or in the US or Europe.
My appologies for the hijack then astro. I’ll cease and desist at this point. 
Its especially easy for me as I have a flight to catch in 5 hours.
Oh, come on…you know it was hyperbole on my part. But if you will feel better, I’ll retract it completely…no one said it was ‘cool’. 
-XT
Has anyone considered either of the following:
[ul][li]That this book is horseshit written by someone with an axe to grind[/li][li]That its disinformation, i.e. a planted story meant to confuse the enemy[/li][/ul]
Even accepting it at face value bin Ladin’s plan has failed and will continue to fail. The Muslim world knows the difference between true faith and radical extremism. The fact that they’re muslim extremists is, ultimately, little more than a technicality. We certainly have hundreds of thousands of muslims right here in America and there have been absolutely no ‘uprisings’ of any kind.
Seems millions believe the Muslims are trying to systematically destroy the USA… and this is justification for attacking them.
For some reason I can’t open the website behind that link, so I am very limited in my commenting on and can’t put the quotes posted here in their context.
This question is in my opinion an attempt to switch the discussion into making broad generalisations. As we see in the following answer, the “anonymous” falls into this trap.
Falls in the generalisation trap. No, Anon. That is not “exactly right” and brings all the rest of what you say in discredit. Such as this one:
“They” don not “know” let be “know exactly” what the US is up to. “They” do not undertake a study on US foreign policies which is, as every foreign policy ever was and is, only focussed on own interests.
“They” only rely on their perception of what they clearly can detect as the outcome of the US policies in the ME. (and yes, in a smaller amount in the question of Chechnya and other similar issues).
The “price of oil” in the US is the least of the concerns of people in the street when they see the moves the US makes to protect the flow of cheap produced oil. “They” only see the results of this, results that affect their own lives more or less directly because the US supports their oppressive regimes in order to keep its interests secure. The latest invasion/occupation of an oil producing country where the majority of the population is Muslim is just icing the cake.
Yet calculating how much a US citizen pays for his oil products does not come into this. I do not think many people are kept awake at night by making a calculation about oil prices worldwide.
Of course he does. Everyone who has similar goals does. Yet to limit this to the USA is limiting your view on reality. The US leads for being pictured as the enemy, yet why do you think there are so many terrorist attacks in Muslim nations themselves? And why do you think that these days every single idiot with suicidal ideas who blows himself and some innocent people up makes sure it is “claimed to be AQ” ? Jump on the wagon to get your thing done and claim immortality as member of the OBL clique.
The more the Western media – and now more recently even the Arab media – fall into that trap of blaming everything on AQ or “linked with AQ” the more such little groups of a few lunatics will jump on that wagon. With of course the danger that such local groups effectively come in direct contact with AQ members and get more organized.
Heil Bush! Thank you for making such promotion for our friend OBL and his clique. ! Thank you for bringing them daily in the focus wherever you can.
I just cannot get enough of this, you know. Please proceed with advertising for lunatical suidcidal idiots who thanks to your stupidity came to inspire so many others to cover their actions with the in the West so visibly higly estimated A.Q. flag.
Stupid question, once again a try to derail the conversation into making stupid generalisations.
I couldn’t have said it better. It is exactly to the point.
We all know that the US is not such a winner when it comes to the skills of diplomacy. We all know that the US diplomacy has still no clue about the ME and its populations, their cultures, sensitivities and even their religion (I can relate to several personal experiences and if I start telling about it, you wouldn’t know if this was to be taken serious or as a joke) .
May I ask you US’ers to vote the lying murderous president and crew out of office so that there (hopefully) can be made a fresh start in trying to resolve the mess?
I would love to have Clinton back. Nobody is perfect but in contrast with the See My Testosterone Building Up-Cowboy(s) you have now he comes almost across as a genius and a saint. In addition, he had the great advantage that he knew the world was larger then the USA alone long before he made it into the White House.
If I were US’er (shiver) I would have hoped for Dean running for presidency. You shall have to do it with Kerry… I have no idea about this man but in any case: Everyone is by default better Little Bush II.
Thank you for giving it a thought.
Salaam. A
I’m sorry but you are wrong here and this has nothing to do with the current name or borders of the country where they are located now. It is about the locations themselves.
It is not because ‘Ali and Husseyn play a very particular role in Shia Islam that their shrines are “of no importance” for Sunni Muslims.
Their life stories are of equal importance in the history of Sunni Islam and hence their tombs have their importance for Sunni Muslims and for the history of Sunni Islam and for the history of Islam in general. (Side note: They are even in particular important for the claimed bloodlines of many Sunni and Shia Muslims equally. Today.)
Or why do you think I was so enraged about US military (and the Mahdi Army idiots equally) for bringing them in any danger at all? Do you think that is only because I admire their historical and architectural merits? Do you really have the impression that no Sunni would care if something happened to those places?
As for some of the other locations mentioned in that list: It is not because the Shia have an other look at the religion and especially on the leadership’s matters, that their scholars are disregarded by the Sunni scholars.
I also gain the impression that you seriously underestimate the Shia population in the larger picture of Muslims when you say that certain cites are “only" considered "holy” by the Shia.
Looking at it from an other angle: The architectural uniqueness alone of all these locations is enough to make every historian occupied with Islamic history concerned about their safety.
And when it comes to the ruins of Ur:
They should be sacred to the whole of humanity.
Yet we have witnessed what the US culture-ignorant-conquerors did there and what they still do there, no?
Salaam. A
Thanks for the analysis .Much appreciated. The above quote you are referring to BTW is lambchops response to my post and not mine -
If your link to the article isn’t working (it still does on my end) I have posted a good chunk of it below (not all of it)
ow… Sorry about that.
That comes as the result of copy/paste work to Word in a desperate attempt to get my English at the level of coherent/ a bit understandable/less cripple
I vote in vain for a spell check on websites like this, since the very first post I ever made on them.( There is something completely wrong with my lobbying techniques here.)
Salaam. A
Part 2
Thank you. I shall come back to this this later (today or tomorrow).
Salaam. A
Alde,
That much of an article will get pulled off of here for copyright reasons.
If you will send me your email address, I will send you a copy of the enitre article.
Sincerely your interested acquaintance,
Simon
Thank you for the offer SDimon. Yet I received a seldom flash of geniality that made me expect the harsh Mod reaction… Hence the beauty got copied into Word, waiting for my reading.
I’m aftraid the result of this is completely negative for this idiot who obviously thinks he has written a sensational book.
First of all:
An idiot who starts calling OBL a genius is really what the world needs today. Really.
Next he starts playing the religious card as if he made The Great Discovery that fanatics/terrorists all over the globe play the religious card (no matter which religion is theirs or that of their target audience) as good as they possibly can to put oil on the fire.
Over to the dissection of a few of his Remarkable Points:
Thanks for this information but no need to tell us that. It shows in everything. Yet confirmation of this by yourself surely makes me feel a lot better.
Rejoice! That one has obviously some truth in it. People who run around carrying pictures of OBL have often even no clue what that “genius” stands for. They only hear about him as someone who stands up against the Great Satan (=the West) as it is pictured to them.
Am I stunned by this insight… Incredible.
Whoo… Do you have to be a genius to come to such a conclusion?
I am a genius. Applaud please people. (Eum… No… Bow and kiss my hand to keep it in a more familiar style).
Wha… Wha???… Whaaat?
Can someone wake this idiot up with a cold shower? (preferable with gletscher water)
Makes me suspect him from having some real valuable shares in Haliburton and C°. And some landmine manufacturers. He does not explain in detail where he is going to plant these in order to kill terrorists. Probably the Great Plan for this is detailed in his Book of Wisdom.
Raises the question about what he did want to see in Iraq and Afghanistan. My suspicion is he dreamed of a little genocide. Following the logic that when you kill all of them Muslims there, obviously some terrorists or potential terrorists die with them. Maybe instead of landmines splinter bombs would be a better idea. Question of also getting the children that are left over after the attacks.
Next he starts once again arguing a bit against himself, to come then to the following
Has he ever looked at a world map? I suspect he doesn’t even know such a thing exists.
Makes me question if he ever even has read one single book about the region.
Invading Afghanistan was just as offensive for those who wanted to see it as a war against Islam as the invasion of Iraq is.
Iraq is the “second holy place in the Islamic world”? I really must seek for an updating of my general education.
”Your” goals are most certainly not the goals of these countries populations. Yet if we speak of the governments, all they want is to stay where they are. The USA walked with open eyes in the trap that was set up to let the cowboys do the dirty work. Think the Saudis as first to set /encourage this clever trap, permitting to make it look as if Bush The Conqueror was behind everything ever plotted.
It is not difficult to come to embrace such a conclusion. Yet I have doubts about the realisation of this and even doubts about it the AQ has made it its goal at the present.
I also doubt up to this day that OBL himself plotted the whole 9/11 scenario. The US has made him the hero of it even before there was anything really clear about this in the eyes of the USA. (In my eyes there is nothing clear at all. Which is the always sceptical historian speaking).
Does he really thinks he comes here with a novelty, a really truly miraculous flash of Great Insight? Where does this person live? In a Great Vacuum?
Little detail he overlooks here: Nobody is even certain about OBL being still alive yes or no. (I checked my basements and secret caves before writing this).
This is a real joke. I would suggest him to bring this message to the Great US Leader who seems to have claimed that God wanted him to become president of the USA, while still Texas governor. God save Bush! (free variation on God save the US-slave Queen).
He obviously overlooks that you first must find them. And if they are really not even up to discussing the real scope of the problem… Do you people even have an education system in the USA that teaches student to think and reason…or is this man representing those who fell out of it ?
Is this man for real? It is because OBL managed to bring the religion into play that he managed to appeal to Muslims all over the globe.
Has he also no idea that for example Zionists can be found all over the world, supporting the Zionists in Israel by all means and emigrating to Israel to defend their cause.
Has he no idea of it that for example the IRA is famous for its ability to mislead people in the USA, gathering money and support for their organisation?
And has he really no idea that whatever extremist/fundamentlist/terrorist group always has the tendency to seek links and connections with other terrorist groups, no matter the difference in ideology behind all of them?
And what on earth have the Palestinians to do with this? He shows that he even has no idea how the whole intifada business came to existence, was and still is fuelled and organized and how this largely escapes the control of the Palestinian people themselves.
What for an absolute clueless idiot is this man?
./…
./…
What a novelty and Great Insight once again. I suppose he never heard us screaming (oh well, whispered, I ** can** be the calm pokerfaced one if it is required) in all the US ears that came across, where ever and whenever we could. While they were building up their war machine against Afghanistan seeking the so greatly needed “coalition” both in EU and Muslim world. And again while they were already bombing Iraq, killing thousands of innocents.
Well, the message was delivered. Loud and clear. Over and over again by everyone who had a shred of insight in this matter. Of course Bush can play the blind and deaf when he wants to play the blind and deaf. It is a very safe position to take.
Really? 40/50 countries in 1996 under AQ Infiltration Flag? Can I have a map to fill that enormous gap in my documentation?
Let me give you some info you seem to lack:
By 1998, that is 2 years after your claim “40/50 nations” had “structured AQ operatives” it was estimated that there were around 10000 fighters, who were all trained in camps located in Eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to Egyptian Intelligence this included an estimated of 177 Algerians, 594 Egyptians, 410 Jordanians, 53 Moroccans, 32 Palestinians, 162 Syrians, 111 Sudanese, 63 Tunesians, 291 Yemenis, 255 Iraqis, and some others from the various GulF States. Other reports bring all those men togethers under the word: Afghan Arabs, who are said to be member of what is called the Armed Islamic Movement (AIM). The amount of them varies between 2830 and 3000.
The rest of the estimated 10000 are from Bangladesh, Chechnya, Pakistan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan and some other nationalities.
The cold but clear reality is that they thought in their typical US arrogance that information coming from outside the USA and especially when coming from the brownies in the Arab and other Muslim lands didn’t need to be taken serious.
In fact, Mr. Blindfolded Living in a Vacuum, the US under your current Great Leader made it very clear that the word “diplomacy” does not exist for them. They even never heard of its existence.
Really… To be able to bring it on as if the US does not support these regimes, does not support Israel in complete disregard of the Palestinian issue… Makes me speechless.
Yes, really we do need some more of the CIA terrorist actions.
Oh great. Thank you Mr. Potential Murderer for considering my life absolutely worthless.
How touching. He plays the Innocent Benevolent Good USA Card. Is there such a vast ignorance in the USA about the crimes committed by the USA’s very own terrorist organisation named CIA?
Of course. They even largely support a murderous lying president and government that invaders and occupies a sovereign nation killing thousands of its citizens. Obviously you do not question how those you plan to kill or wound “must” take this.
Wake up call: The reaction of the vast majority of the world’s population was negative. In my opinion he really lives in a vacuum.
What a wisdom. What a great analysis. I fall backwards in front of this enormous self-esteem that makes him think he offers an impressive new look at the situation.
Conclusions:
- If that man is a CIA operative, it surely is no miracle at all for the reader of this nonsense why, whenever something explodes making a lot of victims while the “target” is not even in sight kilometres away from the location, people in the M.E. immediately start to make jokes about it that “this must have been the CIA”.
No other state funded terrorist organisation is so clueless as the CIA when it comes to kill people while missing the one they want to kill. Despite the smoke screen they try to hide behind, like the names of formerly completely unknown “terrorist groups” or individuals popping up like mushrooms, there is no way to hide the clumsiness showing their lack of every shred of insight. (Why oh why they still haven’t learned much from the Mossad, while they so much need it, is in my opinion a matter of the well known US arrogance combined with the also well known US ignorance leading to overrated self-esteem. But that is an other topic) - I suspect him to have some shares in innocent companies like, say Haliburton.
- He really is convinced that the vast majority of the US citizens and the rest of the globe have no clue about the crimes committed by their very own terrorist organisation named CIA. He pictures the CIA and its leadership and the USA in general as oh so committed to “spare the lives of non US’ers”. Which he claims to find nonsense in the light of US’ers being worth the life of every single innocent citizen on the globe who is lucky enough to not be part of the US citizen club.
- If I would meet this murder advocating person face to face, I’m rather convinced that he would find himself in a very difficult position to hold on to his disgusting racist views. I don’t think Mr. Thinks He knows It All Yet Shows To Know Nothing would come out of such a personal confrontation with his US Flag Coloured blindfold still covering his eyes and ears and his brain functioning limited to the reciting the slogan “USA Number 1, Kill all the Muslim Scum”.
- He obviously has even never read one book on the ME, obviously must live in some sort of vacuum far away from reality but he certainly would make an excellent US Mercenary Rambo.
- He has really no clue about 90% of what he claims to be so Really Exceptionally Well informed about.
- Is there really an editor who was seduced to print the “book” of this idiot?
Innocent question: Is this person follower of a particular religious sect?
Salaam. A
IIRC, in context, Anon’s quote refers to a situation where the US chooses not to change polcies. The implication being that if we were to change policies, then we would have options besides just the military ones.
While this may be obvious to you, as far as it is useful info, it bears repeating over here.
This pertains to two totally different types of careers. One bureaucratic and appointed, and the other political and elected.
It’s not much of stretch to say that what kills one may enhance another.