Have you had any updates to your opinion on the in efficacy of sanctions in the light of the Duefer report? This might be your sterling opportunity to establish a reputation for integrity.
Well, hey, we’ve got ourselves a new justification:
I’m holding out for when they come up with the justification that Saddam was abusing his dog. Then, I’ll bite. 
Hasn’t Iran been systematically gaming the oil sanctions for the last couple decades? Don’t they actually have some semblance of a nuclear weapons program? What’s stopping us?
No one with any shred of knowledge on the matter would claim that the Iraq war was the original cause of hostility, merely that it has been the most severe propaganda blunder in recent history. Anti-americanism has been a growing force for decades, and militant Islamic fundamentalism is one of its vectors – one that the US helped set up and fully encouraged when it suited American needs against Communism. So we know this problem has been in existence for a while, and we know, roughly and generally, its causes. You list a number of them above, but seem to be implying that just because problems existed prior to the Iraq war, then the Iraq war must necessarily be of lesser significance, or eclipsed entirely. Of course, this is not at all the case.
Nowehere near it. You have today sentiments against America that are considerably more severe than the situation three or four years ago (and possibly ever), as I have also argued.
Ah, yet more reaching spin on this tired topic? Iraqi sanctions were a small element – I would not say a cause – employed by some Islamist propagandists to incite anti-americanism. The anti-americanism itself was fueled rather more by American interference in the region, the whole Israel problem, US troops stationed on land considered holy, etc. These are the issues of particular import. Iraqi sanctions as I said were of far lesser relevance and quite a recent development, on top of which it was aid agencies and human rights groups who seemed chiefly concerned with such; that some Islamists employed sanction-related propaganda can’t be denied, but this is hardly that relevant.
Here you go again with your customary claims – the above generalizations are actually contributors to the situation, you know. Islam doesn’t have “dubious moral teachings” per se any more than any other religion, nor is it monolithic to the extent that you can speak of it as you do. It is certain suspect, extremist forms of Islam that are the problem, the state support granted them for a variety of reasons, and the popular support engendered by a mixture of Islamist propaganda and foolhardy American foreign policy. So in Saudi Arabia you have Wahabbism and even more extreme forms such as al Qaeda’s creed, which comes from the Ikhwan, the rabid assholes that the house of Saud defeated when they founded the kingdom. That said, I have already linked materials showing how some Saudi elite view America, and it is hardly an unreasonable view with regards to the Iraq war, which is but the latest and greatest in a series of clumsy foreign policy blunders. There are genuine grievances involved along with the ones whipped up by frothing Islamists, and there are issues of systematic humiliation and dishonour…
A complex situation, and summing it up with convenient capsules like “dubious moral teachings” is facile and wrong.
And if you think that things were already as bad as they could be by 9/11, you are deluding yourself. As we have seen, anger has risen considerably since then, and it has the potential to rise further still.
Relax! I say that some of the sentiments you quote – I don’t dispute them because I know very well they exist – are among the more extreme ones.
Well, al Qaeda (and related organizations) do appear responsible for a fair share of atrocities, although I try not to base such assesments on US intelligence when there are alternatives, given how open to manipulation we have seen US intelligence agencies are.
They’re consistently ignorant and arrogant about everything they do, but they’re just Neocon idiots, not demons, nor do I think they have especially bad intentions other than greed, Israeli bias, and a few other assorted tidbits. What can we realistically expect when the way Bush defines “steady” is to refuse to admit mistakes, refuse to consider alternative opinions, refuse to take into account all the factors, etc.?
That is “steady” indeed. You know, the Bush campaign should use that line from Shakespeare, though I don’t expect an illiterate would be familiar with it:
“I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.”
–Julius Caesar (III, i, 60 – 62)
That was the beginning of the speech with which Caesar sealed his fate, as senators were begging him to reconsider an issue or two; but he would not change his mind, he was right regardless of anything at all, and he was the best. By the end of this speech Caesar is self-importantly comparing himself to a god and his audience, having had enough, sets on him and stabs him to death.
One wonders whether the same could happen to our Misleader in his presidential campaign, of course with his “death” being a political rather than a bloody one, the weapons ballots rather than knives. I suspect that may be asking too much from the average voter though.
Third post in a row, sorry.
This spanking new “justification” is probably the most amusing development in this entire sorry affair. The NYT has an editorial about the Duelfer report that is right on the money:
Of course, the disingenuous and the propagandaphagi will insist – in the mistaken impression that they have a point – that this is proof that Iraq wanted WMDs and all that cagal. Well, of bloody course it is! The sanctions were there precisely because Saddam wanted these weapons and the international community decided he should not have them.
It’s the sanctions that prevented Saddam from obtaining and developing the weapons, the same sanctions that the uninformed claim shrilly and repeatedly were not working. As mentioned previously, the evidence suggests (and has suggested for years) that Saddam appears to have been willing to abandon the unconventional weapon programs he craved so much rather than have longer or harsher sanctions levvied against him.
If you’re invading Iraq for that reason, you’d have to ask a really unfortunate question: “why now?” Meaning 'if we were worried about Iraq’s people, why not go in during the Gulf War or when the Kurds were being slaughtered after it? And you’d also have to ask “why Iraq?” In what way was that ruthless dictatorship worse than other ruthless dictatorships so that an invasion was required, and required now? You’d also have to wonder “why should we” - we meaning the United States, or the world at large if you think this line of argument would be any more credible - “divert resources to Iraq now, especially when we have this more pressing terrorism issue to deal with?”
I’m inclined to agree with conservatives that sovereignty goes out the window when you’re talking about dictatorships. But no matter how you frame it, I don’t think you can make it sound like this matter was so urgent that Iraq had to be invaded, and quickly. Human rights was not a pressing issue in Iraq because, like I said, those had sucked for decades. If we had said we wanted to invade Iraq because Saddam was an evil dictator, if anything, it would have been LESS credible than the WMD argument. It would have been obvious bullshit. Nobody had paid anything other than lip service to human rights in Iraq prior to that point. If we had said in early 2003 that this was an urgent matter we cared so much about that we were willing to go to war over it, everyone would have known it was just a pretext. Weapons of Mass Destruction and links to terrorism are pressing issues and that’s why they were at the forefront of the case for the invasion.
Drastic times call for drastic measures. War is a drastic measure, so if you’re arguing for one you need to prove it’s a drastic time. Iraq’s human rights situation continuing to suck is not drastic, and Iraq having WMDs and giving them to terrorists is. That would represent a serious threat to the United States and other countries. Or at least it would’ve, if any of it had been true. Oops.
Domestically, maybe, because this was supposed to be an easy war with minimal costs, and the Iraqis were supposed to welcome American troops and thank them for freeing their country. Internationally I don’t think it would have made this course of action any more credible.
As propaganda, you are correct. Obviously the war would not play well, wars rarely do. However propaganda is not the most important factor, eradicating anti-western terrorism is.
There are other causes aside from those mentioned by me or you. Al Qaida’s aims can be divided into two parts - pro-islam and anti-west. The pro-islam side is more important and concerns the desire of these groups to overthrow regimes in the middle east and elsewhere and replace them with fundamentalist, taliban-style regimes. This is more of an internal problem and explains the bombs in Saudi, Morocco etc.
True but I would argue that these sentiments will die down as the years go by and Iraq becomes more stable and richer - something that could not have happened with the sanctions in place.
What are the sanctions if not American interference in the region? In fact, what American interference are you referring to (if not the sanctions)?
I think you are underestimating the effect they were having. Islamist propaganda made a huge deal about the half a million dead children, all muslim political demonstrations in the 90s had the sanctions as one of their main rallying calls, Osama cited them as one of three ways in which America is harming muslims in his fatwa against the US.
The sanctions were put in place after GW1 in 1991. The first al Qaida attack on America was in 1993 (the first World Trade Center bombing) - see this timeline of islamic terrorism against the United States.
The evidence that the sanctions were a major factor is pretty overwhelming really. By claiming that they were not an important factor, you have to ignore:
a. what the terrorists said themselves
b. what the general muslim population were saying through the 90s
c. the practical fact that islamic attacks on America (in terms of al Qaida) began two years after the sanctions were imposed
d. the increasing numbers of people travelling to training camps in Afghanistan during the late 90s
What evidence do you have that they were not a major factor? So far you have offered up none. The only evidence you have provided is that the Iraq war has pissed people off - no one disputes that, we all know that.
Really?
Well this isn’t strictly a thread about islam so we don’t need to rehash all those arguments again. But in islam it is the case that jews and christians are offered dhimmi status (whereby they pay a tax to muslims so that the muslims don’t kill them). Those people who are not jews and christians don’t even get the chance to pay the tax. I would argue that this (and many other things) can create an impression that non-muslims are of much lesser importance (sub-human?) in the minds of people who wish to hold such views. Add to this the profusion of quotes in the quran about killing or subjugating the infidel, waging jihad against them etc
“ye do not like fighting but it is prescribed for you” etc
As for your remark that:
Well diddums, I don’t give a shit if muslims are offended by anything I say, just as I don’t care whether communists or fascists are offended by anything I may say about them. If people don’t want to get offended then they shouldn’t have ridiculous, supremacist, authoritarian belief systems. Their belief system is their problem not mine.
I know it is not monolithic but there are things that are common to all forms of islam. It’s lack of monolithity does not mean that there is nothing you can say about the subject as a whole.
But anyway, I only cited islam as one of a number of reasons why extremist muslims find it easy to hate infidels. It provides scriptural justification (if they wish to find it).
I certainly wouldn’t defend American foreign policy in general. My view is quite simple:
The sanctions caused massive and increasing affront in the muslim world. This affront was exploited and magnified by the extremists. This situation was only going to get worse so one way or another the sanctions had to go.
As a practical fact, the west were never going to get rid of the sanctions while Saddam was there. So the only way to get rid of the sanctions was to get rid of Saddam. An extreme measure, I know, but it was the only option open to them.
In any case, the Iraqis hated Saddam and so most of them were up for it and (far as I can tell) the vast majority are still glad it happened. In a sense, what the muslims in Egypt, Saudi or Pakistan think means nothing - they didn’t have to live under Saddam. The resistance we are seeing now is no more than was to be expected. The foreign fighters are irrelevant since they are just al Qaida trouble makers. The Falluja lot need to be treated with more respect since they are espousing Iraqi (and arab) nationalism and their opposition is entirely understandable but, even so, they don’t represent more than a small minority.
If that happens. And everybody will overlook the American military bases in Iraq and have no concerns about America’s future in the region and not blame America for civilian casualties in this war.
I see. So you’re now arguing that the war and its results are going to generate less hatred than the sanctions? I’ll take that bet any day of the week.
This seems totally backwards to me. The whole point of having sanctions was to keep Saddam from having weapons without invading the country. Now you’re saying we had to invade the country to get rid of our own sanctions? The US invading a Middle Eastern country is aggressive and definitely caused more of a stir than more sanctions would have. The problems with justifying the war made it even worse.
This is confusing to me. The war is a good thing that will reduce hatred, but you have to ignore the opinions of most Muslims?
Thanks, marley23. Getting carpal-tunnnel syndrome here.
Jojo, I’m not going to get bogged down in another multi-page discussion in which I demonstrate repeatedly why certain of your generalizations of Islam range from forced malicious interpretation to the wildly inaccurate. But I will mention this one time that dhimmi refers to a minority individual of protected status in a Muslim country, and is not “a tax to muslims so that the muslims don’t kill them” as you allege. The word itself means literally “protected individual”, and extremely few countries today apply this otherwise theoretical concept.
Now, in the hope of illuminating you on yet another aspect of Islam you seem to have picked up from god knows what scrofulent ultra-biased source, here is the Wikipedia entry on dhimmi. Relevant citations:
I hope this explains why your interpretation of dhimmi is just plain wrong, and I would strongly suggest an expansion of your reading list. Dhimmi is actually – like much of Islam – a complex piece of social engineering with some admirable aspects. That a few countries and peoples abuse this concept is undeniable, but then again (as you ought to remember) I have spoken out before against the revolting and fundamentalist official religions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, which abuse in an outrageous manner the basic tenets of Islam, often towards goals that are xenophobic, paternalistic, intolerant, and misogynistic. You can abuse anything at all in religion, as we established in our discussion on honour killings.
Regarding the sanctions, let me repeat my point, indeed the very reason I joined this discussion: the sanctions were perceived in MENA (and by Muslims in general) as tender loving care when contrasted to the Iraq war. There are a number of reasons why.
First, they were international sanctions. They were not American sanctions as you keep implying, they were imposed by the UN Security Council in Resolution 661. This differs drastically from the diplomatic and military offensives against Iraq, which were overwhelmingly American.
Second, the sanctions bore a high degree of legitimacy, granted thanks to the leading international diplomatic forum – the very same the Misleader was forced to evade with low-brow macho bluster because he didn’t have the necessary evidence to argue his case.
Third, the sanctions had a clear, evidenced purpose, as described in the document itself and approved by the Council 13-0 with two abstentions. The sanctions were not perceived as unneccessary, outrageous, and unfounded acts of aggression the way the Iraq war was.
Fourth, opposition to the sanctions was mostly limited to comparatively few sources, whereas the war on Iraq has been almost universally (and certainly fairly thoroughly in MENA) condemned, including by states in the region, not just thundering clerics. Leverage that!
Your thesis on the sanctions’ impact (like your thesis on dhimmi) hinges on a set of fundamentalist interpretations of specific concepts; I have already said the sanctions were leveraged by agitators and fundamentalists, and condemned by human rights organizations, but by and large they bore the gravitas and legitimacy conferred by international consensus in response to a clear threat. The sanctions have been justly and unjustly criticized, sure, but – once again – they were simply not comparable with the Iraq war in terms of stirring anti-american sentiments (not just among Muslims or in MENA, but across the globe). Their impact compared with that of the Iraq war may be somewhat magnified by their greater length, but that’s about it. I’m not sure if many people properly understand yet what a frightful development this war was in terms of image and similar currencies, specifically in MENA.
I’ll add as coda that I hope the best scenario somehow results for Iraq and this whole thing repairs itself, but I have not been discussing optimism/pessimism for the long term, I have been referring to the damage done to date (which doesn’t bode very well for the present and immediate future).
Hm, I seem to be developing a penchant for trios of posts. I have to add:
Interesting. In this self-righteous little outburst you are calling Muslims ridiculous, supremacist, and authoritarian, and equating them to communists and fascists. I should point out that communist and fascist ideologies are ALSO subject to various interpretations, so your outburst seems more silly than bigoted, but I’ve heard this kind of intolerant, egocentric bullshit verging on hate speech from you before, and all I can say is take it to the Pit where similar output belongs… or not “belongs”, but “is most tolerated”.
Marley:
Yeah, insane isn’t it? Don’t blame me, I didn’t start all this shit. Maybe they should have just got rid of Saddam in the first gulf war but there wasn’t the international consensus for it at the time.
Abe:
What muslim countries do or don’t do is not the issue. Islam is a theory. Islamists will be the first to admit that they are engaged in an ideological struggle. Most muslims will say that there is no true islamic society currently on earth ie that there is no country that is implementing islam in it’s true form.
You’re right about dhimmi meaning “protected individual” - the jezyah is a protection tax (or racket, if you prefer). Problems with the dhimmi concept abound. Aside from the idea of having a theory of taxation that is connected to what religion you are, there is also the fact that the only people who are granted “protected” status are jews and christians. Occasionally zoroastrians and very rarely hindus (in some interpretations). Atheists, buddhists, animists etc are not included.
The reason it only extends to jews and christians is because they are considered to be followers of revealed texts. In other words they follow some of the same texts as muslims. In other words only people who follow texts that are in some way connected to islam have any worth. So once again it all comes back to islam and the primacy of islam.
I also don’t particularly want to get into an in depth discussion of the dhimmi concept. My main point is that, amongst the militant islamists, a dhimmi person is a second class citizen. With rights not equal to those of a muslim. And that this is just one concept in islam that lends itself to a supremacist interpretation.
And that wikipedia article does not give a full picture. Try to build a new church in Egypt - you need permission from the President himself and there are other restrictions (there must be a certain number of christians living in the area, there must not be a mosque within a 5 mile radius etc). In the dhimmi concept espoused by the more conservative muslims, a non-muslims word is worth half that of a muslims in a court of law and many other things.
I don’t think I’ve ever discussed honour killings with you. You must be thinking of somebody else. I’ve certainly never claimed they are a part of islam.
True but they were perceived as American imposed by most, and they were being most vigourously enforced by America, and they certainly would have never been removed without American say so.
This legitimacy was being eroded by the day as more children died and as the impoverishment in Iraq grew.
Maybe they were not perceived as such by you but then you’re not an aggrieved young muslim. Whatever purpose they may have had at the start, by the end they were being perceived as an example of American imperialism in the middle east and an attack on an islamic country by the west.
Poppycock, balderdash and horse manure of the finest quality.
If 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq had never happened, Aldebaran would be in this forum constantly complaining about the sanctions. I’m not picking on Aldebaran, just using him as an example of an average muslim.
No, I’m calling islam ridiculous, supremacist and authoritarian. Unlike you, I can differentiate between an ideology and it’s adherents. Muslims themselves are great. In many ways I prefer them to christians. Of the many muslims I know personally, I can only think of maybe one or two I don’t much like (and that is for reasons unconnected to islam). I even like the extremist, militant ones I know. As far as I’m concerned, they’re enslaved by an ideology - I don’t hold it against them.
But then I’m an anarchist - I think almost everybody is enslaved by an ideology (except other anarchists). I don’t hate anybody, I don’t even hate any ideologies - I just think that some are more mistaken than others. When you’re an anarchist, you kinda get used to disagreeing with people’s ideologies - it comes with the territory.
I probably used bad examples. I wasn’t equating them to communists and fascists, merely to holders of any ideology. Why should I care what a holder of an ideology thinks? If I don’t agree with that ideology then I can’t be expected to worry overmuch about whether they are offended or not when I disagree with them.
Of course, but likewise this does not mean that one is unable to make any remarks at all about, say, communism in general.
What you say here actually raises an important issue but it’s a bit of a hijack from this thread. There’s lots of concepts in islam I could criticise - the brotherhood concept, the “apostacy is bad” concept, the place of women, the position of non-muslims, the legal system, the logical contradictions that occur within the ideology, the lack of historical evidence for some of it’s claims, even circumcision. But according to you, any criticism is “hate speech”.
Weird.
Would you take a similar view if I criticise aspects of national socialism, or democracy, or christianity? Do you then take the view that there should never be any criticism of ANY ideology ever? What a strange soulless world you must inhabit. And what a dangerous one too, if you think that criticism is a bad thing. Personally I think it’s a good thing, the more the better.
Anyway, let’s not lose sight of the original point I was making - that islam is one factor (amongst others) that is responsible for the resentment AQ (and the muslim world in general) bear towards the west. I’m not saying it’s the only factor. If you are denying that then you are being wilfully blind.
Of course there’s nothing we can do about islam. All we can do is remove any other things that are pissing them off, things we actually might have some control over.
Well, what a surprise, jojo drops a load of false and unsubstantiated claims in the thread. Ask him to clean up and he just brings more. After a clear, factually-supported response showing very clearly why Jojo’s definition of dhimmi was severely flawed and embarrasingly simplistic, this is what he regales us with. For anything on that particular topic, I refer you to my existing analysis.
Allow me to quote from the discussion you fail to remember, where I addressed at least four or five times very similar points you repeat here. I described your methods thus:
The citations you are ignoring in this case, of which I have provided rather more than my share, are already in this thread. Read them, put aside your tattered copy of White Nile (the entertainment book presenting biased accounts that was the one single “historical” source you cited in the linked discussion) and read up on something worthwhile.
Since I have already addressed your obvious personal problems against Islam in that last thread (and elsewhere if memory serves), and I have likewise clearly identified your bias, and I am ignoring the token claims of “some of my best friends are Muslims”, I won’t bother with the assertions (of the same structure as our other discussions’) that you provide here on religion. But I do note that you backtracked and specified that you were referring to militant Islamists rather than insiting on your previous blanket statements.
Well, perhaps that may have something to do with what you wrote, which I quote again:
In context of your record of cheaply fallacious anti-Islam jabs, this makes perfect sense, and I note at least two direct and rather negative references to “Muslims” as opposed to one vague one on “Islam”. In the highly unlikely eventuality that I am wrong on this matter, I will retract my objections on this paragraph, since you already admitted you were incorrect to generalize, and that you used poor examples.
Now, there isn’t really anything of substance in your reply and I’ve spent my time in this thread batting down objections that have become increasingly silly, so I will move to just a few excerpts:
I find it fantastic that you are telling me what happened in a region the people, cultures, and religions of which you have not demonstrated understanding of. I have already addressed the issues with the sanctions, and you haven’t provided any arguments or support to invalidate what I stated, explained, clarified, repeated, etc. Again, here we have a reiteration of the pattern established in previous discussions.
But I will emphasize again: Iraq war > UN sanctions in terms of impact on terrorist activities, recruitment, etc. The evidence of the severe impact of the Iraq war etc. is here in this thread, including a report by the highly respect IISS. Unless your contention is that UN sanctions were more relevant than the war – also already addressed – why and what are you arguing?
Interestingly, I have already outlined and shot down the bigotry/bias/misinformation that you express among your arguments on brotherhood, apostasy, the place of women, the position of non-Muslims, the legal system, female circumcision, etc., in Islam. Read up on our past exchanges, it might jog the memory a bit.
Your consistent pattern of using deliberately twisted “information” is already addressed, here and in the older thread I linked. So, perhaps you simply don’t remember the times when someone has gone to considerable length to expound arguments following your little snipes at Islam, only to have you reply with non-arguments and worse. But it has happened, rather more than once.
As for the sensitivity you allege I have towards Islam, well, I have a history in MENA and actually know what I am talking about, so when someone like you throws their putrid little venomous darts at a people, culture, or religion, I happen to have the tools for the job. I am certainly no authority on Indian politics or Mormon ideology, so you won’t see me address those topics with quite the same level of confidence.
I do happen to believe, with ample reason, that understanding is a better factor in multireligious or multicultural relations than the uninformed and inflammatory commentary you regularly provide to the accompaniment of abundant hand-waving. Particularly at this particular time, where, as I have argued, it is quite possible for things to get a lot worse. I have actually worked to foster multicultural and multireligious understanding, and it is particularly galling to witness insistent biased and inaccurate proclamations in GD.
You, speaking of sensibilities, seem to focus intently on denigrating Islam using any desperate measure, so spare me the talk about your even-handed approach to all ideologies.
And here we have another important component of your technique: the resort to absurdly reductionist interpretations of complex situations so that they may fit a prejudice, in this case your need to link, wholesale, Islam with the evil of terrorism. More mature and informed analysis would read that some forms of Islam have been co-opted by specific tribes of extremists to serve relatively recent anti-American purposes, just as they and/or others have throughout history co-opted Islam towards existing primitive xenophobic, misogynistic, patriarchal, etc., tendencies diffuse in specific ethnic and tribal groups. Of course, saying this doesn’t allow you to vent quite as much poison or utter your usual sweeping indictments, so I can see why you would avoid analysis of any meaningful depth.
Al Qaeda now has a life of its own, as is discussed in one of my cites from an earlier post. 1) Capturing all their leaders and 2) mitigating the factors that drive up terrorist recruitment, thereby crippling the movement, is shortly going to be the only hope left, if it isn’t already. In a sense, Al Qaeda has become its own religion, and the Iraq war has proved valuable fuel for its exponents and recruiters. In fact the Iraq war proved the most combustible fuel in al Qaeda and militant Islamic history, if you link the Iraq war to the spate of terrorist attacks the world has endured since the thoroughly (and with good reason) poorly-perceived invasion (this material and related claims are also cited and discussed in previous posts).
Abe:
Why not drop the personal attacks and concentrate on dealing with the points I make?
If I say something that is wrong then please feel free to try to explain why I am wrong. See, I have no problem with criticism.
Far as I can work out:
a. I haven’t actually said anything that’s wrong
and
b. if I have, you haven’t made any attempt to correct me
Personal attack with no real point to it.
What? You mean that Wikipedia article? You think that that Wikipedia article says all there is to be said about the subject of dhimmitude within islam?
I think you’ll find there’s a bit more to it than that but in any case, I think you fail to understand where I’m coming from. I don’t like the whole idea of discriminating between people on the basis of religion. Even using the article which you cited, I can find something I would object to. Immediately after the bit you quoted comes this:
First of all I can tell you that that article is incorrect. There IS a hadith that says that non-muslims should be forced to wear something to show that they are not muslims and, further to this hadith, the taliban started making hindus wear yellow armbands.
So straight away, on my first brief glance at your cite, I can tell that it has made a mistake. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence does it?
Secondly, I’m not really interested in how well or badly dhimmis get treated. I don’t approve of the whole idea of religious discrimination. It can very easily (and often does) get used as a basis for persecution of religious minorities.
Thirdly, the phrase in your quote that dhimmis are “protected citizens under Islamic law, allowed the rights listed below on condition of loyalty or acquiescence to the government” is problematic and can cover a multitude of sins. I don’t “acquiesce” to any government. In an islamic state the government will (presumably) be islamic. Well it just so happens that I don’t agree with various islamic beliefs and so, if I lived in such a country, I would probably want to change various laws. However this could be interpreted as not showing “loyalty or acquiesence to the government”.
I remember the discussion. I just don’t remember ever saying anything about honour killing. In fact, I don’t think I have ever said ANYTHING about honour killing being part of islam to ANYONE ever on this message board. Why would I when I don’t think it does have anything to do with islam?
You are trying to attribute to me an irrational hatred of islam which I don’t have. I have certain rational criticisms (which I’m not afraid to bring up) but I don’t hate islam.
The quote you give is just you dishing out more personal vitriol which doesn’t really address any point in particular. Please understand you can dish out all the vitriol you like, I don’t mind.
I didn’t really present the White Nile as a “cite” I just wondered what you thought of it. Remember, I wasn’t doing cites in that thread. I’m not really doing them in this one either because I think they can get used as a substitute for critical thinking.
Since we both seem to be fairly up on islam, I don’t think we need to worry particularly about them, unless someone makes a remark that is completely bizarre.
Well I wouldn’t say I backtracked. What I am saying is that the things that are in islam are imprecise enough to allow militants to draw extremist conclusions from them. So it is definately islam that’s at fault, even if most muslims are perfectly nice people.
If islam comes from God then it is presumably perfect. And yet how can it be perfect when it seems to be so easy for people to draw horrendous beliefs from it? Personally I think that if God gave us a religion then it would be so perfect that it wouldn’t be possible for organisations like al Qaida to exist, or extreme forms of the wahabbi, or the Iranian mullahs, or the taliban. A perfect religion would be just that, perfect. If the religion is not perfect then it can’t come from God. QED.
Well I didn’t particularly intend to get into an argument about it. You just have a tendency to bring that out in people with your endless personal attacks and abrasive style.
My point (which I’ve explained numerous times) is that, yes, the Iraq war will have an impact on terrrorist recruitment and increased hostility. I have no doubt of this. I thought this would happen long before the war but we’ve just got to ride it out.
I am saying that the sanctions had to go.
Politicians do not have the luxury of political commentators (like yourself). It is very easy for you to sit there and be critical but imagine that you are the President of the US and have to decide what to do to lessen muslim hostility toward the United States.
You know that the sanctions are in place and are causing increasing amounts of hostility. You know that something has to be done about the sanctions. The hostility of al Qaida is already at the point where 9/11 happened so I would say that we had reached crisis point where something drastic was required.
You said earlier:
Unfortunately, as a politician, the future IS your concern. You have to make decisions about the future. There’s no point in sitting around worrying about the past. Yes there is clearly a problem in that there is resentment of the islamic world toward America and the west. The ONLY relevant question to a politician is “What do I do about it?”
It’s easy for you to sit around bemoaning the current situation but if you are going to be a proper politician then you need to consider what is the best thing to do next.
The hatred of some sections of the muslim world had reached the point where they had formed terror groups that were flying planes into buildings. God knows what they are going to do next. As a politician, you need to look at the things that may be causing resentment in the muslim world and do somethng about them.
What may be causing resentment? Well there’s Israel but that’s a complicated intransigent problem that only obliquely involves America anyway. But in any case you do what you can and hence we saw the introduction of the Road Map.
There’s the troops in Saudi. It’s understandable that infidel troops in the muslim holy land may cause offence so you get rid of them and hence they have now all been moved.
Then there’s the sanctions. They need to go but the problem is you (as President) still don’t trust Saddam. How do you get rid of the sanctions while still containing Saddam? The answer is you can’t. Thus Saddam had to go. This wouldn’t be all bad news since the Iraqis hated him anyway (and few muslims had much love for him). And getting rid of Saddam opens the door for a new era in Iraq. New eras are always a good thing (if the last one was shit).
And anyway the Iraqis will have a democracy after the war. If they decide they don’t like democracy, they can always elect a dictator back into power. That’s the thing about democracy - if you don’t like it it’s very easy to get rid of. Unlike a dictatorship - if you decide you don’t like a dictatorship then you’ve got a problem. They are almost impossible to get rid of.
So the arguments for getting rid of Saddam are pretty good, the arguments for keeping him there are not so good (what with increasing muslim resentment and all). As President you need to decide what to do next. Obviously a war will piss people off but then people are already pissed off. And as wars go, wars to get rid of dictators are the best.
Now I’m not defending Bush’s prosecution of the war, or what has happened since the war. I think he’s made some major mistakes. But I can see why he did it and even sympathise with his reasons.
You, Abe, are just some anonymous chatterer like me. It’s easy for us to provide running commentaries but as a politician you have to actually decide what to do based on the facts available at the time.
I also think that I am more optimistic than you. Whilst I think Bush has made a bit of a mess of the whole thing, I haven’t seen anything yet to make me think that Iraq has a bleak future. Once they get themselves sorted out, I think they will do just fine. But I think America has to get out asap.
I admit this is just my own impression but the Iraqis strike me as being more like the Turks than the Saudis. I don’t think they will go the way of religious fundamentalism unless something goes seriously wrong. America being too heavy handed could drive them in this direction though.
Left to their own devices, we’ve got the kurds in the north who have already set up their own secular democracy, we’ve got the shia in the south who traditionally keep religion out of politics (the current Iranian bunch being an exception), and the sunni in the middle who are pretty sophisticated and well educated.
Then we’ve got the second largest reserves of oil in the world and a people who are not afraid of hard work (unlike the Saudis). I can’t see how Iraq can fail unless something goes badly wrong.
They just have to sort out this temporary terrorist problem.
Anyway, back to your arguments:
You ain’t shot down shit. For one thing I’ve never mentioned female circumcision, ever. This, like honour killing, is another attempt by you to portray me as an irrational muslim hater. I don’t think female circumcision is a part of islam and I never have thought this. I was talking about male circumcision (which I don’t agree with).
In the thread which you linked to in your last post I was arguing about Quran 4:34 which says that a man can beat his wife for being disobedient, nothing to do with honour killings or female circumcision.
And I’m not sure you answered any of the other points because I don’t think I raised them in that thread (although I just quickly scanned it so I may have missed it).
I agree totally. But the difference between you and me is that I want to understand people’s motivations so that I can disagree with them, you seem to want to kow-tow. Understanding other people does not mean you have to necessarily agree with them.
I’m just as argumentative with muslims face to face as I am here (honest). I think it does them good to meet people who disagree with everything they say, since they are used to only hanging out with people who agree with them (on fundamentals at least).
See, I think multireligious relations are better served by people being honest with each other rather than by people being too scared to say what they think. This is one of the problems with most muslim countries - criticism of islam is either officially banned or socially disapproved of.
If I think something’s horseshit, I just come right out and say it. I haven’t been killed yet and I think most muslims I know like me in spite of it. But then I have a winning smile. At least they know where I stand. With you they wouldn’t be so sure.
You once went on holiday to Tunisia?
I don’t have a prejudice. If I am factually wrong about something, how about pointing it out?
I didn’t make the link. Al Qaida did.
Look there is, for example, the concept of jihad. Now I am aware that the concept of jihad has been misused by these groups in the sense that they use the concept to justify any perceived affront. In truth there has not been a valid jihad since the time of Mohammed (when there were attempts to wipe out the tribe of islam). This is the belief of the vast majority of muslims.
BUT these groups do use the jihad idea to fight against anyone and everyone. And the jihad idea IS unique to islam. SO therefore it is possible to lay some blame at islam’s door for even having the concept of jihad in the first place. Since this concept is obviously open to abuse.
Thus islam is not entirely innocent in the existence of terrorist groups such as al Qaida. If islam did not exist then al Qaida would not exist. The quran is so full of anti-infidel quotes that it is not particularly surprising that such groups spring up from time to time.
While you see a future where all religions live together in harmony, I see a future where all religions cease to exist under the weight of their own ridiculousness. But then I’m not just an anarchist, I’m a revolutionary anarchist. This doesn’t mean I support the use of terror just that I think ideologies have to be confronted at every turn rather than appeased.
Ah well, this post is far too long but then I had nothing better to do tonight.
Of course, it wasn’t there this time either.
Jojo, the points you make have already been demonstrated to be the rubbish you have already demonstrated to be particularly fond of. I am not interested in educating or debating with someone who displays wilful and vulgar ignorance at every turn, and whose memory and reading skills are obviously highly selective. Since it’s obvious you have nothing better to do than bog down these discussions when you feel you must pipe up and let the world know about your idiotic prejudices and baked arguments, take it to the pit where your bullshit belongs and I may deign to address your silliness there as it richly deserves.
And read the thread instead of (yet again) gesticulating that you are right. You have wasted thousands of words and demonstrated nothing, just as you have routinely failed to successfully argue your inane preconceptions or support them factually.
That’s why I don’t have to address your points (if cheap, forced rhetoric may be called that) yet again. You provide no material whatsoever against the existing arguments and evidence in this thread (or the other ones where you were thrashed for that matter), no support for your many flawed claims, and no good faith whatsoever given that this is hardly the first time you raise very similar points with your trademark pretense at false innocence and carefully channelled bias. Nor do you appear to have any idea what a debate is, since you just nitpick (without factual support, let’s remember) and hijack at every opportunity when you think you may demonstrate your agenda. Who needs this? Certainly not me, certainly not GD.
To summarize. Iraq war = more severe impact than Iraq sanctions, certainly today, and I provided evidence and arguments in support of the severity of impact of the Iraq war. In your various dances on this subject you have, true to form, failed to demonstrate any of your claims. I have shown why your concept of dhimmi was plainly, maliciously, and factually wrong (the best you can do in response is provide your usual unsupported allegations and sidewinding). I have showed why your understanding of apostasy, status of women, etc. in Islam are systematically biased and wrong (I did so most thoroughly but it appears you lack the good sense to know when your arguments have been destroyed). I have shown why your arguments hinge on speaking out against Islam by taking the worst extremist representatives thereof and then generalizing like a three-year old about a sizeable chunk of the world’s population. In the previous discussions, since you have resorted to outright lies in an attempt to defend yourself, you employed only a couple of inaccurate and highly biased cites, including your chief citation White Nile, which, you will remember, you brought up as a historical reference to make an ignorance-based claim on the spread of Islam in North Africa. In fact, let me post again what I said before about this source you now seem to want to distance yourself from (after posting hundreds of words from it in an attempt to fortify your crumbling contentions):
“A book that treats Africans in general as backwards primitive savages, Islam as a loose religion not demanding of any effort or honesty (unlike, surprise surprise, the Christianity of the writers), and its audience as historically uneducated. Somehow I am really not surprised you have brought this forward, Jojo. The other points of view you have espoused also seem to come from equally questionable sources of historical information.”
Your other cite was a rabid anti-Muslim web site that I also strongly criticized. You have provided no cites here, of course, so we can’t even discuss that this time round. You don’t demonstrate the basic understanding to know when your arguments have been laid to rest, or, for that matter how to conduct such arguments in an honest and informed manner.
If my style is abrasive it’s because I am tired of playing table-tennis with a barrage of spin-crap. And I can safely say that, unlike yours, my style is not malicious and insidious, and does not need to rely on bias, inaccuracy, and falsehood.
Incidentally:
I should thank you for posting this, so as to give me another opportunity to mention that maturity in arguments thing I brought up earlier. The above, properly, is an unsubstantiated personal attack. You whine that when I point out your evident bias and flawed arguments, indeed, your basic techniques, I am attacking you personally, but I am not dismissing your arguments because you are ignorant (which would be a personal attack); I am dismissing them because they themselves are of manifest ignorance (and already largely addressed to boot).
I have indeed been on holiday in Tunisia. Beautiful, as is Morocco. I have also travelled quite extensively in the region, learned to read and write Arabic, and spent years in total either living in or visiting extensively (for a variety of reasons) Egypt, Dubai, Lybia, Israel, etc., before I ended up in Hong Kong. I also lived in the US and Canada, as well as a fair number of European countries, learned six languages, and found myself several times in the UN head offices of Geneva, Vienna, and New York. Not to make a point of it, I bring this stuff up only to highlight why it is a choice of questionable wisdom for you to impugn my credentials of international awareness, particularly when you yourself express unsupported, often provincial and parochial opinions.
Huh?
You’re bizarre. That was just a barrage of waffle. Let’s try and dig out the one or two concrete points you make:
Waffle. Can be safely ignored.
You provided some cites as to the severity of the impact of the Iraq war yes. I’ve never argued against this. Your statement that Iraq war = more severe impact than sanctions is just your opinion. Not supported by your cite.
I (and pervert) pointed out that the sanctions were one of the three things cited by osama in his fatwa against the us. I pointed out that through the 90s every single muslim political demonstration had the sanctions as one of their main rallying calls. I pointed out that the anti westren feeling was increasing through this time as evidenced by the increasing numbers heading off to Afghanistan to train in camps. I pointed out that al Qaida’s campaign against America began in 1993, two years after the sanctions were imposed.
What is all this if not evidence to demonstrate my claims?
Now maybe you don’t think that evidence is good enough to demonstrate that the sanctions were a major problem. That’s fine, I have no problem with that. But to say that I have produced no evidence to support my claims is just plain wrong.
Huh? No you didn’t. I showed you that your cite was factually wrong. You haven’t dealt with that.
Destroyed? guffaw.
You haven’t done any such thing. I don’t think I’ve ever even talked about the apostacy issue with you so you’re just plain wrong there. And women, I think we discussed this to some extent. I mentioned quran 4:34 which says that a man can beat his wife. You had no argument against this as I recall.
Huh? No. I never do this. I always try to be careful to single out when I’m talking about extremists and when I’m talking about something that is common to mainstream islam.
Quran 4:34, for example, is not an extremist thing. It’s mainstream. I’m not sayiung that all muslims beat their wives (I should imagine very few do). Just saying that the quran gives them scriptural justification for those that wish to do it. This therefore equals a poor moral teaching (in my view).
“A book that treats Africans in general as backwards primitive savages, Islam as a loose religion not demanding of any effort or honesty (unlike, surprise surprise, the Christianity of the writers), and its audience as historically uneducated. Somehow I am really not surprised you have brought this forward, Jojo. The other points of view you have espoused also seem to come from equally questionable sources of historical information.”
[/quote]
waffle. I didn’t post the White Nile as a “cite”. I’ve already said that. I wasn’t doing cites. I just posted it as an interesting thing I’d read. And in any case you didn’t actually say why it was wrong, you just came out with more waffle.
Maybe if you actually came up with some counter points to the points I make instead of just reaming off pages of waffle, we might be able to get somewhere.
waffle. waffle. waffle
Although this is interesting:
So once again you are saying that any criticism of islam is “malicious and insidious”. Wow.
I don’t hate islam but I think there are criticisms that can be made about it. Quran 4:34 is one such example. What’s “malicious and insidious” about that?
waffle.
waffle.
Answer any points made, don’t give me a travelogue of your life. I’ve travelled around a bit too, so what?
Anyway I’m bored of this. You’re objectivity is in question. When I have conversations with Tamerlane about islam we don’t go through all this horeshit. He just answers points made objectively (agreeing with me sometimes and disagreeing with me at other times). He doesn’t post page after page of meaningless waffle and personal attacks.
Go forth and try and learn to do that.
I resisted going in to your rants Jojo, also because Abe has tried very hard to provide you with enough information on the issues. But you still don’t get it, do you?
It is supported by what is called reality on the ground. And that is to be read as including my ground.
Maybe you should take a few steps into the realities of the real world.
- bin laden is not an Islamic scholar, he is not an Imam, he is not an authority on no matter what touches the study of Islam, its history, its teachings. In short: he is in no position to issue any fatwa on no matter what or about no matter what.
- people like OBL use no matter what grievance they can use to make their point coming across to their target audience.
(Oh how I love to do this:) CITE?
There were Integrist indoctrination camps in Pakistan and later also in Afghanistan decades before anyone in the West was ready to even take a look at the reports on them. I even wrote a short study on this as part of my study curriculum when I was 18 and that was 13 years ago.
There is no link between this and what you want to link it at. The rise of what is popularly called “Islamism” has other foundations/causes/reasons then what you seem to think it has.
Sorry, have to leave go watch my spouses to be beaten. Of course I don’t do that myself, it makes me sweat.
If you want to have a serious discussion about this verse (and others, eventually) then I suggest you open a thread for it. (And on this particular one, or better said on the verb that is used, I have as researcher my own views and ideas because I see it as expressing clear contradiction with the rest of the message of AQ)
Well, I didn’t read that book, but the quote you gave was already enough to have it classified the way Abe describes it.
The fact that you find that an “interesting thing your have read” says something about you.
Nothing.
But it becomes so when you refuse to accept the explanation you (repeatedly) receive from people who show in their posts very clearly that they have more knowledge and background in the matter then you show to have.
Salaam. A