That’s hardly a surprise :rolleyes:
Nice construction. So it was ‘the Muslims’ wot dunnit now, not ‘the terrorists’. Anyway, lets play the Milum Non-sequitur Game .
Milum thinks that Muslim culture is inferior to Western culture ("attempt to change for the better the Muslim culture’s sometimes barbaric ways.)
Milum says that Liberals “don’t think that Muslims are as good as we Americans and as such we can’t expect them to act as civilized as we.”
So we must presume that…Milum is a liberal :eek:
I see we’ve come to the point in the debate when pertinent questions are ignored, where pertinent points are ignored, and where silly and transparent attempts at projecting moral and intellectual superiority becomes the nature of the discourse.
I’ll take that as a win.
The above was in response to elucidator’s post. Avenger’s came in while I was composing it. It’s getting late however, and I’m sure Milum will have no difficulty in describing whatever it is he did or didn’t mean.
Since that’s as close as you’re ever likely to get - probably a pretty good idea.
That’s right I was. It is, as was said about another war, the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy.
I’m just sick an tired of you and those like you who seem to think that war is some sort of video game to be induged in on a whim. With the stated reason being, as Wolfowitz said, merely the one that would sell, and when that failed another reason was trotted out, and then another. If a witness at a trial did that he or she would be thrown out of court and maybe investigated for perjury.
And I’m also tired of those who are contemptuous of world opinion because the US happens to be domininent at the moment. You and others like you seem never to have heard of the maxim, “Be careful how you treat others on the way up because you are going to need them on the way down.” This is immature posturing fully compatible with old “Bring It On” George.
Oh, I recognized it as irony but I wasn’t in the mood for it after the bull-headed insistance on dragging in defending against terrorist attacks by invading Iraq. This thread was most likely started as a dig at those of us who think this war and its originators are bordering on madness and the thread seems to have attracted all the chicken-hawk warriers herein extant.
Sorry if I sounded out of sorts.
And besides that I’m still pissed off at Minnesota and all its inhabitants for beating Iowa at football in the 1930’s when Bernie Bierman was turning out national champions.
Don’t get on my bad side. I hold grudges.
Oh, geez, Dave. I’m sorry, I had no idea you were from Iowa. Didn’t intend to sneer at you. That would be, like, cruel, and stuff.
It is almost funny. One howl that the mangy left howls is “Where is the debate?”. Oh boy, that’s a stopper. The implication is that we are having a high school team debate and as such “truth and reality” doesn’t score points. Bummer.
Anyway my point is that you can’t have it both ways. Any discussion here is embedded (I like that word) in western culture of which we are all a part, and in the belief that all the people of the world have these same fundamental rights. This concept is embedded in our everyday thinking.
But these rudimentary rights are not yet imbued into the Muslim culture. Consider the vignette below…
Hans Beinz;: Order! The Ad Hoc Geneva Convention Investigaing Committee into the Mistreatment of Iraqi Prisioners by th Americians is now in session. Bring in the mistreated Iraqi prisoner- Mister Ali Abdul…
Hans: Good morning Mister Abdul, I trust you are doing well, Now please tell this commission why the Americans saw fit to arrest you.
Abdul : I do not know, Sahib, the Americans stopped my Taxi for no good reason and then they planted an explosive device in my cab, and then they took me to prison for having an explosive device. It is not right, your honor.
Hans: How long were you kept in prison and when were you released by the Americans?
**Abdul **: The Americans kept me in jail for six terrible months, Sahib, They released me only last Thursday, and they did not return the explosive device which belonged to my brother.
Hans : I see… (making notes) Now tell me Abdul, did the Americans commit any interesting atrocities on you while you were in their custody?
Abdul : Oh yes, your honor, they put ladies panties over my head and straddled me like a horse and pretended to hit me with a riding crop. (lowering head) They took pictures, your honor.
Hans : Now now, Abdul, you are safe here. Now tell me…did the Americans physically harm you in any shape, form, or fashion?
**Abdul **: Yes, your honor, I told you, they pretended to hit me with a riding crop.
You see, your honor, we Muslims are a face-saving lot. We had rather face the rath of Allah, than lose face amongst our family and relatives. Today if one of my many uncles or my sweet dear mother happens to see me walking down the the street they will turn their head in shame.
Sahib, to an Iraqi, it is a fate much worth than death.
Please, your honor, I respectfully request that this commission recommend that my American jailors be turned over to the Iraqi courts to be judged under our tried and true fifteen-hundred year-old Muslim form of justice.
Hans : (leans foward) And what might be the punishment for pretending to hit someone with a riding crop?
**Abdul **: May Allah be ever merciful, your honor, we will cut off the right hand of the man who pretended to hit me with a riding crop, and cut off the feet of the man who pretended to ride me like a pony, and put a pair of ladies panties on the head of the man who so disgraced me, and then chop off his head.
The young photographer, a mere boy, Praise be Allah the Merciful, will only have his eyes gouged out.
Hans : Thank you Abdul, we will take your request under advisement.
After all…its your country.
Hearing dismissed.
Milum, can you sum up, in one sentence, what is the debate?
An American got his head chopped off. <— does not equal a debate.
Ah! Zagadka, I am slow but now I get it…you don’t find anything here to debate!
Please,** Zagadka**, please think a bit and please come back to us when our opinions here can be understood by you as a proper debate.
Until then… we’ll miss you…somewhat.
That’s not an answer. What did you expect in response to your OP, “beheadings are good”?
RESOLVED: Such persons as disagree with Milum are sniveling, cowardly Quislings who deny the prescience and majestic vision of The Leader.
His next debate: Drop-kicking orphans into active volcanos: for or against?
Um, right.
When you figure out what we’re debating, gimme a ring.
Not you too Gobear? Maybe its me. Maybe I expect too much.
Maybe I’d best re-examine what I have said…
Let’s see… I said that some aspects of Western Culture were better at providing food and opportunity for the poorer individuals of this Earth and that the Muslim Culture was antiquated and not as well geared to do the same.
So ** Avenger** then said that I didn’t like Iraqis because if I did I wouldn’t say bad things about their culture, in other words…it is cool that their Culture causes them to starve, and to spend their time contemplating their navels, while a bigger world spins around them because this is diversity and diversity is good.
** * Have you not been to an African Village and watched their happy feet dance?***
I thought we were debating atomic bombs that behead everyone in a city?
Seriously, Milum? You attribute the greater success of America to our culture, not to the fact that, you know, we have a few trillion times more resources and farmland than Iraq?
2 + 2 certainly equals 4. However, when Bush and those who believe his rhetoric continue to add 1 + 3 and get 6, it is more than troubling.
Nothing in Hussein’s demonstrated personality suggests that he would have ever initiated any sort of attack on a superior enemy. He never has and his obvious desire to maintain power indicates that he never would. Even his purported intention to kill the senior President Bush was not planned (if it was planned) until after President Bush had left office and seems to have been more inspired by personal hatred than a desire to increase his power.
Given that following the WTC/Pentagon attacks, the U.S. clearly demonstrated a willingness to invade other countries that we perceived as a threat, there would have been less impetus for Hussein to have engaged in provocative attacks on the U.S. Joining with al Qaeda would have been counterproductive, not because of the secular/Islamist conflict, but because it would have clearly painted a bullseye on Hussein’s forehead (a bullseye that GWB apparently was painting for his own reasons, even without Hussein’s provocations).
Our invasion of Iraq, at a time when we had not yet contained al Qaida, simply recruited large numbers people to join our foes (including al Qaida) and opened the borders of Iraq, (that Hussein had clamped shut, fearing they might cause him troubles), giving them access to one more arena in which to attack us.
Iraq under Hussein was no threat to the U.S. and was only a small danger to the peace of the region as long as the U.S. continued to stand over him with the club of overflights, the Northern safe zone, and other impediments to his power.
Well, I’m certainly no fan of Islam or the Arabs (not that the two are not synonymous, but even I can find some problems with this statement.
First, you need to define “Muslim culture”–what is it? Is there some cultural connection that say, a Karachi rug manufacturer has in common with an Indonesian soldier? Do ethnicity and regional mores have nothing to do with so-called Muslim culture? And what of the denominational differences? Sunni, Shi’a, Ahmadi, Alawi, and Ismailis all have different views of their faith–what characteristic do they really share that you can point to as “Muslim culture”?
Then you have to demonstrate that it is religion holding back progress in Muslim nations and not, say, inefficient economies and kleptocratic leadership. Then you’re going to have to explain how a nation like Turkey can be forward-looking, modern, and Islamic at the same time? Can yiou demonstrate that suicide bombings are done in the name of Islam, or do you think it’s possible that they are more political in nature? And can your further explain how Islam is to blame for the present situation in Muslim nations when the nastiest dictatorships are secular and anti-clerical (the Ba’athist parites in Iraq and Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).
Finally, you’ll have to explain why the greatest tragedies in recent history have happened in the, in your view, comparatively more enlightened Western nations (the Holocaust, the slaughter in Bosnia) and in nations colonized by the West and presumably influenced by its culture (the genocide in Cambodia in the 70s, the massacre of the Tutsi in Rwanda).
Actually, he pointed out that you have contradicted yourself; first that you said that Muslim culture in inferior to Western culture, and that a grievous liberl asin is thinking that Muslims are inferior. Which is it, because they can’t both be true?
[/quote]
And I don’t even know where to start with this.
Oops, that should read: ** (the Ba’athist parties in Iraq and Syria, and the authoritarian regimes in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). **
Cripes, I’ve got to edit better. .
“Well, I’m certainly no fan of Islam or the Arabs (note that the two are not synonymous), but even I can find some problems with this statement.”