Is that the link that said that Al Quaeda doesn’t mean “the database”, but Al Qaida Ma’lumat means “the database”? Yeah…
Wrong.
Credibility is, by no possible rational interpretation, fallacious.
Of course, you still haven’t advanced a cogent argument which will stand up to the slightest breeze of casual scrutiny without being scattered like so much dust. Now’d be a good time to start.
Absolutely, he’s important. My question is, do you think that the emphasis on attacking the United States above, say, Sweden is due to our high level of freedom here as compared to, say, Sweden?
In this case you do.
Talk about insults :rolleyes:
LHoD: I think it’s due to an entire constellation of reasons, including but not limited to…
-America’s massive cultural influence (Coke, Mcdonalds, Hollywood) which is viewed as a threat by those who want to confine culture to medieval norms
-the fact that America very loudly sets herself up as the champion of Western Values and has done so for decades now
-that America’s influence, both cultural, political and military has been strong enough to set up a loose coalition of regional actors who are more concerned with appeasing or opposing The Great Satan than in hewing to strict Islamic fundamentalism
-that America is a strong backer of “The Zionist Regime Occupying The Waqf, Palestine”
-the fact that America, western countries in general and most Arab regimes do not pay ‘proper’ respect to the ‘proper’ mode of Islam and America happens to be the world’s only remaining superpower and thus a lightning rod for all sorts of ideologies, deserved or not.
But as pointed out, Sweden, despite being really fairly innocuous all in all, still has local Jihadists and Al Quaeda has advised Jihadists to strike at their home countries if possible.
Fair enough.
Where are the militant Muslims?
Right here.
“Religious opposition by Muslim fundamentalists is a major factor in the failure of immunization programs against polio in Nigeria (2), Pakistan (3) and Afghanistan (4). This religious conflict in the tribal areas of Pakistan is one of the biggest hindrances to effective polio vaccination. Epidemiologists have detected transmission of wild poliovirus from polio-endemic districts in Afghanistan, most of which are located in the southern region of this country bordering Pakistan, to tribal areas of Pakistan (4). This transmission has resulted in new cases of polio in previously polio-free districts. The local Taliban have issued fatwas denouncing vaccination as an American ploy to sterilize Muslim populations. Another common superstition spread by extremists is that vaccination is an attempt to avert the will of Allah. The Taliban have assassinated vaccination officials, including Abdul Ghani Marwat, who was the head of the government’s vaccination campaign in Bajaur Agency in the Pakistani tribal areas, on his way back from meeting a religious cleric (5). Over the past year, several kidnappings and beatings of vaccinators have been reported. Vaccination campaigns in Nigeria and Afghanistan have also been hampered by Islamic extremists, especially in the Nigerian province of Kano in 2003, which has resulted in the infection returning to 8 previously polio-free countries in Africa (2).”
LHoD: my entire point was that RNATB’s declaration that no Muslim in the history of spacetime had ever hated “us” for any of the freedoms we enjoy, is absolutist bombast which doesn’t serve the debate. A non-zero percentage of Jihadists, partially due to Qutb’s legacy, are willing to kill Muslims and non-Muslims alike for the mere exercise of religious freedom. Many of “them” do hate “us” for our freedoms, just as they hate other Muslims who are “practicing Islam wrong”.
It’s pat, overly simplistic boilerplate to claim that Jihadists “hate us for our freedoms” or “hate us because of our foreign policy”. Things are rarely that simple, especially at the intersection of religion and politics. And ignoring that there is an actual cultural component to some strains of Jihadism is willful ignorance.
Great job trying to condense my post down to “the jews did it” tin foil hat type nonsense. I’m black, so jews are white to me. I don’t try to break it down any finer than that, so don’t try to put that jew hating stuff on me.
I didn’t bring up George W. Bush because I thought it was pretty well known that he was a puppet, just as every president since at least 1981 has been.
Cheney and the others are a part of that kabal, but they are more like enforcers.
I think it’s pretty clear that everything that has has happened in the past 12 years or so follows Strauss’s ideology.
The board is the perfect example of how much all this has become myth, and that you don’t dare speak against it.
Ah, a secret “kabal” controlling the United States government, only you and fellow travelers know about it while the rest of us sheeple see it as a myth and dare not speak against it and men like Cheney are just “enforcers” while those you name are the shadowy masters of the “kabal.” Ibn can probably be forgiven for jumping to conclusions given your choice of who you named as ringleaders, especially coupled with the fact that within certain circles, “neocon” was a dog-whistle word for “Jews”.
This sounds a bit different to me from your last post, in which you talked about a combination of factors. Granting that the Taliban and cohorts are totally willing to murder folks for not being sufficiently Muslim-by-their-rules, are there any folks who’ve planned or carried out terrorist attacks in the West who appear motivated merely because of the exercise of religious freedom?
I’d characterize what RNATB said initially not so much as absolutist bombast but as imprecise phrasing. While I could be wrong, my impression is that the number of folks who have planned or carried out terrorist attacks against Westerners merely because of the exercise of religious (or other) freedoms is zero. Every terrorist I’ve heard of is motivated, even primarily motivated, by other things as well, such as a hatred of the West’s interference in middle Eastern politics.
In other words, if RNATB reworked “The number of Muslims who “hate us for our freedom” is zero.” to “the number of Muslims who’ve committed to terrorist attacks on US soil solely because of a hatred of our freedom is zero,” I think he would have been accurate.
Nah, it’s not. There’s still a combination of factors within and between Jihadist groups. But by the same token, speaking of “Jihadism” as if it was a reified entity is a fool’s errand in and of itself. Some Jihadists have gone out of their way to target other Muslims, specifically, over doctrinal matters, for instance. Some are motivated solely by dislike of American actions in/around their nations. And so on.
As for murders carried out in the west solely due to religious freedom, I’d say that the murder of Theo Van Gogh was due to freedom of religion and freedom of speech and the Cartoon Riots were, likewise, due to religious freedom and freedom of speech. While I don’t recall if there were any deaths in the west due to the Riots, there were certainly western targets in largely-Muslims countries which were targeted.
Posssssibly true. But people very rarely act solely for one reason or another, especially when we’re talking about premeditated murder of multiple innocents. After all, even in Bin Laden’s proclamations it’s clear that in addition to political concerns, that there were moral/religious reasons behind his hatred of the US.
For starters it’s “Jew” not “jew”.
Secondly, I didn’t accuse you of “jew hating”. I merely noted that all the low level flunkies in the Bush administration whom you claim were the leaders of this “kabal” that has, according to you controlled every US President since at least 1981 just happened to be Jewish while the people in the Bush administration who had more power and influence and were of higher rank, weren’t really leaders of the “kabal”(Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft etc.) but were merely enforcers, were gentiles.
Anyway, I think referring to them as “enforcers” shows a real lack of flair.
Why not have some fun and instead refer to them as “Shabbas Goyim” who did all the stuff that their masters didn’t dare be seen doing.
BTW, what’s the point of your “I’m black and Jews are white to me” comment?
Yes, Ashkenazis are “white” but what’s the point of your comment?
Hmm. I see what you’re getting at with that, but this sort of seems to me like folks who say rape is about power, not about sex. Rape is, I believe, often about power to the victim and about sex to the rapist (who is willing to use power to get sex).
In this case, while Van Gogh was drawing the cartoons to exercise freedom of speech, I think the hatred of the murderer wasn’t, “I hate that your government gives you the freedom to do that!” so much as it was, “You’re a total asshole for doing that!” It was his deeds that led to his horrifying murder, not a hatred of the concept of freedom. To the victim it was about freedom; to the murderer it was about something else.
But that may be splitting hairs.
If the 9/11 hijackers are any guide, they’re at strip clubs. And probably drinking beer and getting lap dances from infidel houris to not arouse suspicion.
To be fair, a more apt analogy would be that someone said that rape is never about sex, or what have you. As for incidents like the murder of Theo Van Gogh, it was the exercise of his freedom of speech and religious freedom, specifically criticizing Islam, which ‘earned’ him his fate. Just like how the Cartoon Riots were a violent reaction to the fact that the west allows freedom of speech and permits people to violate Islamic precepts about depicting Mohammed. I suppose we can split the hair and say that some-but-not-all Jihadists, to a certain degree, are violently enraged by our exercise of certain western freedoms rather than their mere existence, but I’d also argue that our freedoms are their exercise, for all practical purposes.
And that interpretation was so obvious that I have a hard time believing that FinnAgain didn’t intentionally avoid that so he could attack RNATB. No one who deserves to be on this board is stupid enough to think they can attack someone and not think they will be attacked back.
In other words, I really wish FinnAgain would stop trying to make people attack him. It’s a detriment to this board.
That may be the most retarded and yet simultaneously smarmily self righteous bit of bullshit I’ve ever seen on the Dope. Naturally, if you want to accuse me of trolling, report me to the mods or pit me.
Of course, as you just admitted that I was right, RNATB was using bombastic absolutist nonsense rather than a nuanced position in accordance with the facts and he was letting his verbiage get away from him (and so I was right to call him out for such sloppy rhetoric) … might I suggest you procure a fainting couch and whine at me from a proper position of breathless repose? That’s a good chap.
BigT, post this kind of stuff in the Pit, not in Great Debates. You don’t have to like anybody else’s style of argument, but this kind of personal commentary isn’t appropriate for this forum- particularly the comment that FinnAgain’s behavior is a detriment to the board.
Tone it down. This also belongs in the Pit, as you said, not in this forum.
Thanks, Marley. This is an interesting thread when it’s not full of snide snippy snark.
It seems to me that RNATB was incorrect in his phrasing, but not deliberately or horribly so; he was trying to get at a valid, defensible idea, but just didn’t include enough qualifications. It’s perfectly appropriate to correct such statements when they appear.
As for whether hating someone for a particularly obnoxious exercise of their freedoms is the same as hating them for their freedom? I don’t really know.
Take a different example: imagine a grieving widow at her husband’s military funeral, and the Phelps clan out front with signs rejoicing in her husband’s torment in hell. The widow punches one of the clan. Would you say that she hated them for their freedoms?
I wouldn’t: I would say that the Phelpses were exercising their freedoms in a way that provoked the widow, and the widow responded to that provocation in a totally inappropriate manner.
Similarly, Van Gogh was exercising his freedom in a way that provoked certain hardline Muslims, and a certain hardline Muslim responded to that provocation in a totally inappropriate manner.
(Please note that I’m not connoting a moral equivalence between Van Gogh and the Phelpses–it’s just that the latter was the best example I could think of in which Americans have felt a lot of ambivalence about freedom of speech, and in which readers might feel more sympathy for the attacker than the attacked).