OOOOOOOOOOK…
http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20050709-093506-6117r.htm
Of course maybe you are in pedantic mode and of course England is not UK, but the context here is England = UK. I will try to be more precise next time.
I’d say that the KKK stopped being a powerful force when the culture around them stopped supporting them. As long as their friends and neighbors thought they were hot stuff, the KKK kept on going in the face of laws and the police. But eventually it became very uncool to be a klukker, and at that point the KKK began to fade away.
The lesson in that is that as long as the people in the Middle East see al-Qaida as the homeboys giving a bloody nose to the evil outsiders, al-Qaida will continue. Once the locals get sick of them and start shunning them, al-Qaida will start to fade. That’s happening already in Iraq, but al-Qaida still has way too much support elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Or as Thomas Friedman said in the NY Times on Friday:
It’s not a matter of precision. It’s a matter of either being right or wrong.
The “context” England = UK is wrong, incorrect, factually flawed and nonsense. So I suppose using it is a matter of your regard for factual accuracy. Little things that matter. In the same way that Iraqi Nationals do not equal Al Quaida terrorists, Saudi Arabians do not equal Iraqis and Texas does not equal the USA.
As long as British soldiers are risking their lives, and dying, in Iraq I don’t think it’s too much trouble to get their nationality correct.
Why would you say that AQ “still has way too much support elsewhere in the Muslim World” ?
Because it does? As Friedman’s article points out, no magic religious figure has ever issued a Fatwa against Bin Laden. That’s rather disturbing. And there are different levels of support - one level is active support and cheering, and another is to simply excuse everything they do as being the fault of others. The KKK used to get a lot of that level of support. “I’m not a racist or anything, and I certainly don’t condone violence, but you can certainly understand why the KKK does what it does.” That sort of thing. Hell, there was a mainstream Muslim in London that I saw on TV a few days ago, who was ostensibly on the program to show that there are moderate muslims who don’t condone this violence. He paid lip service to that notion right off the bat, then immediately launched in to a long diatribe about root causes, why they had to resort to terror, how evil the U.S. was, how understandable al-Qaida’s hatred was, yada yada yada. He came *this close to saying, “Go team!”
“magic religious figure” Maybe a Freudian slip there. I meant MAJOR religious figure.
So support for AQ exists “because it does”? Come on Sam… a few of us clearly think AQ is cool for muslims… not many but more than a few. Then suddenly big bad ass Western President Bush comes along stepping on pride and conventions… and AQ is even cooler. Humiliated Arabs united.
Basically for the arab man if your against AQ your for Bush mentality. (Striking similarity no ?) At a root level most of them agree on AQ motives… if not their methods of course. How can moderates object to AQ without sounding like fans of Bush ? That is why the mainstream “launched in to a long diatribe about root causes”. I also bet they would like to see Bush and Bin Laden gone… both.
As for the lack of a Fatwa against Bin Laden I agree its disturbing. I guess Bin Laden's religious credentials are still intact.I’m not sure what you mean by this. ‘big bad ass Western President Bush’ didn’t even seem to notice AQ and was basically focused on other things…until AQ took it into its head to directly and spectacularly attack the US on 9/11. 'Course, they were planning this attack before GW was even president…and I can’t for the life of me think what Clinton did to piss them off enough to want to murder so many US civilians (not to mention the other escalating attacks AQ did during Clintons presidency). So, I’m not seeing how either big bad GW or big bad Bubba did jack shit to piss them off to the point they wanted to directly attack the US and murder our citizens. AFTER that, certainly we did some things that would piss them off…but its almost like, I don’t know, they MANUFACTURED this incident to give them, um, one of those excuse things. The only ‘root cause’ I’m seeing is that ObL and AQ want to sieze power in the ME…and the root cause is that some other group of thugs beat them too it and they want to rectify that situation ASAP.
I’m unsure what you mean by a few of you think AQ is cool for muslims. What does that mean exactly?
Horse shit. One can be against AQ and despise Bush…even if you are an ‘arab man’. Its not an either or proposition.
Its interesting to note that the ‘religion of peace’ doesn’t have one single prominent religion leader (afaik) come out and issue one of their Fatwa’s against a maniac who murdered 2000+ civilians completely contrary to their own holy books teachings.
-XT
You think that is horrid or terrible? Heck, I can do worse. Why the other day I thought Guiness beer was British! Even **Irishgirl ** here had to spank me for that one. 
I am learning here too so I have to say that you are killing a fly with a bazooka, I do see your point, but believe me: many in other countries would have seen your first reply as an attempt to mislead. Wrongheaded it is, but many in other countries do informally equate England=UK ever since the phrase: “When England ruled the seas”, I am guilty here of forgetting Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and many others *
So, lesson learned, I will never use England=UK again.
(I would hope that some people in America would stop assuming that Central America belongs to them too, but that is just me. 
)
- One reason for my previous ignorance needs to be clarified: am I wrong in the assumption that the majority of soldiers in the British Army are from England?
“Britannia rules the waves” is a safer bet 
No - but that’s only representative of England having the largest population. However, describing regiments such as the Black Watch or the Royal Scots as ‘English’ to their face would be a dangerous thing to do!
I guess the mainstream “liberal media” forgot to mention it:
Friedman’s article was on July 8, 2005 the fatwa was on March 11, 2005.
I know, I would prefer a spanking from Irishgirl!
And in Nov. 19, 1999, Muslim clerics issued a fatwa against Osama.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/revents/02/19990211.htm
Before 9/11 BTW.
Bah. Friedman is wrong. this was moderately big news recently. Just look at the number of Google results for “Fatwa against Bin Laden”.
I also found this, a “Rountable Discussion” dated November 7, 2001 (my bolding)
I remember this being pointed out almost constantly at the time - the facts of Bin Laden not being any religious authority himself and that of his issuing fatwas being therefore considered ridiculous by practically all commentators.
Oops, GIGObuster beat me
As the CIA itself says here
And again :-
You know the man, Tim Collins who wrote the eve of battle speech that’s now hanging in the George Bush’s office? He’s from Northern Ireland. His regiment was the 1st Royal Irish regiment.
So no, you are probably not wrong to say that the majority of soldiers in the British army are English, but as someone else said, it’s a numbers game and England has the highest population out of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
There are also regiments in the British army which are not from any of those countries, The Royal Gurkha Rifles and the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, for instance.
UK ignorance aside, I am disappointed that the original article I quoted was not commented on: it has one related bit of news that needs to be explained regarding what the UK is doing against TWAT (The War Against Terror)
http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20050709-093506-6117r.htm
I do think Bush will have to deal with timetables in Iraq, even though he does not want to deal with them.
You may also also like to thank Tony Blair for his support in joining the US in the illegal invasion of Iraq.