Bigfoot is quite the story in the Arab world these days.
The “The Republic Of Cascadia, Bureau of Sasquatch Affairs”?
Methinks you need to check your link, Musicat.
You say militant, I say dissident…
I doubt if the dead know the semantic difference.
Let’s call the whole thing off, OK?
Just a litle levity injected into this serious discussion by mistake. Please forgive me if you’re offended, laugh if not. 
Here is the link to the Al-Jazeera english edition
Obviously, Chandeleur is paying attention, more than I can say for me.
I’ve bookmarked Iran Daily, since it gives a nice perspective on news stories, albeit heavily biased.
In today’s edition, there is outrage from official Iran (warning .pdf). The link won’t be valid by tomorrow, though.
Horrible as the attack may be, hopefully its targets might diminish “street” support for AQ.
True, but I am not entirely hopeful. If anybody couldn’t tell I am extremely fucking mad about this stuff (I used to be sad; the repetitiveness of it all has hardened me and changed sadness to anger), and while GoHeel’s Reuters article seems somewhat relieving at first, I realized two things after reading it:
a) there was a lot of such talk the last time when the assholes blew up the compound in Riyadh, about “now they have finally struck at home where it will get Saudis angry”, and yet I can’t see that all that much has changed
b) making general statements about popular anger based on a few “man-on-the-street” interviews (which there’s no guarantee are even representative of all the interviews they did) is silly; as much as I think the individuals cited in the article “get it”, I will change my judgment of Saudi and larger-scale Muslim cultural tendencies when polls and protests show that Muslims really are angry with al-Qaeda and committed to defeating them
It would seem that Alde is right that no true Muslim would kill another human being.
I wonder if that’s his reasoning. If AQ has declared a Holy War and these men were AQ then it would stand that the blood of anyone they killed wouldn’t be on their hands but Allah’s.
Of course, there’s that little problem about the victims not being “unbelievers”
Tomndebb, I’ve read enough Reuters’ articles and enough verbal gymnastics contained therein, to develop a healthy mistrust of most dispatches from them. I believe the term that most accurately describes the human waste that perpetrates these atrocities is “Muslim terrorist,” and hence my rolleyes.
But IMHO, Reuters has made an editorial decision to compromise the truth in the name of implied objectivity, thus drawing an inaccurate moral equivalence between between “us” and the “terrorists” and there’s nothing I can do about it except state my inconsequential opinion on these here message boards. For those of you who retort “What about Fox News?”, I can only state that I find its brand of reporting not all that much better
Reuters has done so many “man-in-the-street” bullshit articles like the one I linked to that purport to describe “opinion on the street” - in which they find a few people whose quotes fit in with their preconceived thesis (as Fang pointed out) - that I simply take what Reuters’ articles say with a healthy grain of salt.
I had pretty much the same reaction as Fang to the article. :rolleyes:
I agree with what Bernard Lewis said - the Muslim/Arab world has chosen bitterness, grievance, victimhood and conspiracy theories, and the cultural choice of whether to reform and REALLY condemn those among them who commit these fucked-up acts or to maintain the status quo is up to them.
I’m glad the Iraq war seems to have kicked the debate forcefully into high gear, but until I hear the “moderate” Muslims (especially in the Muslim/Arab intelligentsia, clergy, or journalists) come out in force against these acts NO MATTER WHO THEY TARGET, then you’ll excuse me if I remain skeptical.*
Lastly, I apologize to Testy for the hijack of his thread. I’m glad you’re OK, Testy.
*I am a frequent reader of MEMRI, and the site frequently links to liberal Arab writers who despise the terrorists AND don’t excuse their acts as legitimate resistance, so it’s a mistake to say or imply that they don’t exist, or that there are no reformers in their societies. But I think it’s also accurate to say they haven’t made much headway into the mainstream - and certainly not in Saudi Arabia.
Aldebaran,
As much as you might think I think what you think I think, I don’t think that. I do know that of the billion or so Muslims that live in the world most of them don’t go this route – blowing themselves up. Since I actually do have Muslim neighbors here in the United States of Diversity, I’m really glad about that.
Saudi Arabia is a pretty unique place, let’s say, not exactly like the United States. It’s reasonable that you could find people, self-described “devout Muslims,” to blow themselves up (suicide/martyrdom: your call) in Saudi Arabia. Or, import some. I could re-link UBL’s 1998 fatwah to re-chill my blood.
You mean Washington-based, us taxpayer-subsidized, myth-advancing MEMRI?
Oops. “US taxpayer-subsidized.”
Jungian.
Testy, I guess I need to clarify my meaning. I am aware that these terrorists more than likely consider themselves devout Muslims doing the will of Allah. But the horrendous acts of slaughter that they perpetuate are far removed from religious acts.
They have taken the teachings of their religious faith and twisted them into hiddeous interpretations that don’t reflect the original teachings. The actions of The Spanish Inquisitors weren’t based in the teachings of Christianity. Those who kill abortion doctors aren’t acting from the teachings of Christianity. Twenty years ago a man in my neighborhood killed his wife because he thought she was a demon and that killing her was the will of God. Why blame it on the religion?
This is one example of religious and devout Muslims:
– from The Faiths Men Live By by Charles Francis Potter
These men also gave their lives for their beliefs. I am not convinced that they believed the same teachings as the man or men who broke Ramadan and did the car bombing.
Pax
Mr. B, I read both the Guardian article as well as the rebuttal letter and found no mention MEMRI “advancing” any myths- if you re-read the article, you’ll see that was al-Riyadh.
Oh, right. So if Al-Jazeera translates and publishes “Bat Child Anal Probe Frenzy Strikes New York,” I guess it’s not to blame. It’s the New York Post’s fault. :dubious:
Thanks for the good wishes and don’t worry about the hijack. Now that I’ve completed my bitching I would just as soon the thread was turned into something productive anyway.
Regards
Testy
Ridiculous. Al-Jazeera’s bills itself as a news organization, not as a translation outlet for American newspapers.
Also, calling it “taxpayer-subsidized” when you actually mean “tax-exempt” is a little bit disingenuous.
Obviously I meant “Al-Jazeera”, not “Al-Jazeera’s”.
Thank you for unpacking your views a bit for me. In turn, I’ll try to explain my own ideas a bit more clearly. (This may turn into a rant, sorry for that!)
There are things about religion, not just Islam but almost all of them, that I consider horrible. People do terrible things in the name of religion and are proud of it. It could be the Inquisition or driving a car full of C4 into a residential area and detonating it as was done last Saturday.
It would seem that there is nothing, no act at all, that is so despicable that it cannot be justified in the name of religion. As soon as some loon believes that the Creator, the Architect of the Universe has a personal message for him, any requirement for common human decency becomes null and void. The inquisitors lit the fires and justified their acts with pious words from the Bible. Last Saturday’s murderers believed they were killing the apostate to “purify” their religion and help spread its obvious message of peace and tolerance throughout the world.
Further, when some particularly horrible act is done (as in Last Saturday) people suddenly start claiming that the perpetrator isn’t really a “true” Moslem, Christian, Jew, fill-in-the-blank. The problem is that they were. The bombers were just as much a Moslem as Aldebaran, if not more. They would have despised him as being weak and lacking in faith. The monks that ran the Inquisition were also good Christians.
The various religious books seem so poorly written that almost any action can be justified by one passage or another. Invariably there is some “interpretation” required and that is where the problems creep in. To take a Christian example, how about the SDMB’s own “object of loathing” Fred Phelps with his persecution of gays. Fred claims he is simply reading the text and acting on it. He has the courage of his convictions. The killers last Saturday undoubtedly had their own Quranic passages to justify their actions. In both cases, more tolerant members of the religion claim that the loons are wrong but their own interpretations are simply that, interpretations, and no more or less valid than that of the frothing crazies.
Regards
Testy
I think there is a difference between this attack and the one in May. In May, they killed primarily Westerners and a (distant) member of the Royal family. Neither of those classifications gets much sympathy from “Abdullah Average” around here.
In this latest attack they killed a lot of their fellow Muslims, an obvious no-no. They also killed them in the middle of Ramadan while they were feasting after fasting all day, another obvious no-no.
If they were trying to gain converts and public support, this attack was a miserable failure.
Best regards
Testy
Hi, I’m back, as far as when the next attack will occure, it will happen when it happens and not before. lots of interesting discussion about the evil that people do in the name of this religeon or that. just have to start asking them all for the special clause that bypasses the do not murder part of their religeous text. (pic one, any one)
Latest from CNN, Saudi military is deploying forces to Mecca. Gonna make for an interesting weekend here.