For the second time, I never said you were ignorant, I just said that perhaps it wasn’t terribly productive or flattering to boast about your lack of knowledge. I’m starting to think you don’t understand English, either.
Ummmm, and Swahilian is neither a nationality nor an ethnicity. Swahili is a language.
This snippet talks of a Swahili people, are there none left ?
**The Swahili language, is basically of Bantu (African) origin. It has borrowed words from other languages such as Arabic probably as a result of the Swahili people using the Quran written in Arabic for spiritual guidance as Muslims.
**
I was just going on info from the father of a friend, a native Swahili speaker and Ph.D. in African Studies. He always described Swahili as a contact language for several African peoples. I’d be interested to know your source so I could evaluate it in context.
Yeah, that was pretty much the first one that came up when I googled it. I have no idea about the authenticity of anything on that site, but here’s the link. http://www.glcom.com/hassan/swahili_history.html
And, here’s another site that mentions the Swahili people.
http://endor.hsutx.edu/~obiwan/profiles/swahili.html
Now, they may not be called Swahilians, as I described them, but there seems to be a Swahili people at least according to some sites.
anyway… back to the thread!
The American administration is waging war and killing freedom fighters/terrorists/babies (future freedom fighters/terrorists) in the names of freedom and security and justice and what not. Is it really that good, as James Brown would have it, living in America? How much freedom, security, and justice do you think you have these days? - A general question to the masses.
Funny enough that he Daisy Cutter is talking about rabid and religious regimes… fits the Bush gang pretty well the description. Its ok for the US to be turning into some religious holyland and not for Iraq.
Well, of course you have to understand that theirs is the one true, right, and fully validated religion.
Sorry, I thought that “niveau” was a word which made it from French into English 
By the way, Daisy Cutter, just in case you wanted to insult me with your statement with “insignificant foreign languages”: I am not French and French is not my first language.
That is, of course, your right. I for myself am not very interested in learning, let’s say, Swahili, or Hungarian. At least at this point in my life, one can never know ones future needs and desires. But I would not boast with the fact, that a language does not interest me. That only shows that you hate the people and the culture.
Perhaps you could tell us which languages you do speak, so we can get an idea which cultures you like? That could be more interesting than the other way around.
Anyway, I take the risk of being impertinent and ask you again: Why did you choose a bomb for your nickname? I am really interested in the answer because I just can’t find a suitable reason myself…
Interesting point of view.
How would you characterize someone who said "Some people do not seem to understand that the Muslims have no other choice but to learn to live with the US whether they like it or not. "?
In other words, why do you presume that all the concessions must come from a country in which support for Islamic terrorists is extremely low, and political and economic freedom is extremely high?
I have to say that I also don’t think the connection between US popularity and terrorism is as close as seems to be assumed in the thread. 9/11 happened during a time before our popularity in the Muslim world dropped. But there have been no such major attacks since, and the ability of al-Queda to threaten us (and Iraq to threaten its neighbors) has been significantly decreased.
I wouldn’t say that this drop in the polls for the US is insignificant. I do expect the artificial drop after the Iraq war, which pissed off most Islamic extremists (and the French) to be as short-term as the artificial bounce after 9/11.
On the other hand, perhaps the message “We intend to do what we believe is right, and we don’t intend to say ‘Pretty please with cream and sugar’ beforehand” is not the worst thing in the world to convey.
Machiavelli said that it was better to be feared than loved, because men were more ready to anger those they loved. It is easier to get forgiveness from them, after all. Does anyone doubt that the North Koreans, and Iran, have noticed what happened to Saddam Hussein and the Taliban?
Regards,
Shodan
Your reaction reminds of a little kid.
Of course, if you wish that the world applies the same standards to the US government than to muslim extremists… Perhaps we should.
My point is, yes, “Muslims” as you call them in a very generalizing way, “Muslim extremists” as I call the people we actually talk about, should learn to live with other people.
But what should be demanded from the extremists should - even more - be demanded from a people who sees itself as the saviour of the world, and claims to bring freedom and democracy.
Interesting point of view. But then, live with it and don’t complain when airliners crash into skyscrapers.
I’m not sure that Machiavelli’s theories are all that relevant nowadays - unless, of course, the US actually does want to establish a dictatorship over all the world, which I’m sure it doesn’t. As I mentioned earlier, experience of places like Northern Ireland show that the “tough guy” stance fails miserably. People DON’T cower with fear, they simply get pissed off and start making petrol bombs and acquiring sniper rifles. (Unless I’m missing something, I haven’t noticed North Korea backing down much.) Ian Paisley has advocated “killing them all” in Ireland for years, and look at the international respect he now commands. Sooner or later, one way or another, there’s going to have to be some dialogue, unless people are willing to accept a steady trickle of murdered US soldiers as a “victory.”
>> Some people do not seem to understand that the USA has no other choice but to learn to live with the rest of the world whether they like it or not.
I never said or implied that all the concessions must come from the USA. Just look at what I posted a bit further up:
The USA and the Muslim world have no othe option but to share this Earth and must find the best way to get along. The best way to start getting along is to not attack each other. Muslim terrorist attacks against western countries will harm everybody. Western attacks against Muslims harm everybody. Both make the world unsafer for everybody. The fact now is that the USA has attacked a country without any valid justification. The USA invading a country which was no threat and imposing its system of governmet (while taing the spoils) is no worse than binLaden trying to do the same on the USA. No wrose. And it does not help things at all. If you want to influence other countries it should be done by peaceful means. Brute force is not a valid option for anybody.
We are not attacking “Muslims”. We are attacking terrorists who pretend to be Muslim.
I will have to disagree with drawing these kinds of moral parallels between Muslim terrorists, and the US overthrowing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. And I would expect that much of the alleged unpopularity of the US is based on members of other nations who insist on making such parallels. Which, in my view, shows that they are not people on whose moral judgement we can, or should, rely.
In other words, anyone who thinks that Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein is less of a threat to the world than George Bush is either engaging in some grotesquely exaggerated rhetoric, or is simply a moral idiot.
Some forms of thought are beneath contempt, and therefore not subject to rational discussion.
By which, I mean this sort of thing:
If the above is an example of the kind of thinking engaged in by those who now dislike the US, I find it very difficult to worry about gaining their good opinion.
Regards,
Shodan
A threat? If you just count the dead, then I’d say OBL killed less people than GWB.
OBL: roughly 5000 in New York + Washington.
GWB: We will never know the real number, but if you add the confirmed dead civilians in Afghanistan and in Iraq you are already well over the 5000.
Considering that most of the Iraqis fought in order to defend their country against an illegal invasion, we should add the dead of the Iraq war (Iraqi and American soldiers).
If you say it’s the intention that counts, then I’d say OBL and GWB both think that they fight for justice. Both are wrong.
IMO, GWB is at least a comparable threat. At least as many people will die or did already die because of him than because of OBL.
You know that, and I know that, but do they know that? That’s the crux of this biscuit. It seems that they do not.
If you’ll read the report from the State Dept that I posted a link to earlier, you’ll see that they raise this crucial question.
In addition to having good foreign policy, we must also be able to make known that we have good foreign policy.
Take a look.
It’s from the govt, and it’s here to help.
Right, and if that nasty Roosevelt hadn’t fought back after Pearl Harbor, the body count in WWII would have been a lot lower. So I guess you would have to say Roosevelt was worse than, say, Tojo.
And obviously, since both thought they were fighting on the right side, they must both be wrong.
And that darn Lincoln could have reduced the body count by a lot by not fighting the American Civil War. Ditto for his intentions vs. Jeff Davis’.
And those damn Kuwaitis, bumping the body count up during the first Gulf War by fighting back. They are just as bad as Saddam, right? Because a lot more Iraqi soldiers died than Kuwaiti soldiers.
This is what I meant by moral idiocy. Someone who argues that killing thousands of civilians in an unprovoked attack is no worse than fighting a war to liberate Kuwait, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, is not really someone who thinks in the same moral terms as normal people. And therefore also not someone who I would go to a lot of trouble to cultivate friendship with.
Is this kind of thing the price of friendship with the rest of those who hate us? Because if it is, you can keep your International Good Citizenship medals.
Regards,
Shodan
to save time:
*Originally posted by flonks *
**
[/QUOTE]
That is, of course, your right. I for myself am not very interested in learning, let’s say, Swahili, or Hungarian. At least at this point in my life, one can never know ones future needs and desires. But I would not boast with the fact, that a language does not interest me. That only shows that you hate the people and the culture.
I know my future needs and desires, and it is hardly boasting to state that I will never, ever have any use for the French language. And no, I don’t hate the people or culture, I despise their govt, and political motives. Seeing as hardly any Americans even bother to visit France anymore, I would think that French is not high on other people’s priority list either.
Perhaps you could tell us which languages you do speak, so we can get an idea which cultures you like? That could be more interesting than the other way around.
I’d rather not get into specifics about myself on the net, let’s just say I am multilingual.
Anyway, I take the risk of being impertinent and ask you again: Why did you choose a bomb for your nickname? I am really interested in the answer because I just can’t find a suitable reason myself…
Perhaps I like bombs and military hardware. Perhaps I cut through terrorist supporter arguments like a knife through butter. Bombs are good, especially when they kill the “bad” guys. At about $27,000 a pop, I hope we’re mass producing these like crazy, and stockpiling them for future uses.
Liberate? I thought we were talking about fighting terrorism. Where did this “liberate the Iraqis” come from? I mean, Bush and Cheney and Powell and Rumsfeld were, just six months ago, urging the world towards war with Iraq because – they claimed – Iraq possessed mountains of WMDs and posed an emminent threat to everyone else. Just because we now know the WMDs are nonexistent doesn’t give them the right to revise history and claim the war was about liberation.
No reasonable person, Muslem or otherwise, would begrudge the United States for attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan, because that was a retaliatory attack against the terrorist strikes of 9/11. But even though tbhe Bush Administration kept trying to sell the raq war as a continuation of this retaliation, the evidence shows that that was a separate, unrelated, action, and cannot be morally justified as any part of a “war on terror.” To claim otherwise is to be either a liar or a fool, neither of which have any place on a board that’s devoted to fighting ignorance.