I think nightcrawler has a point. Just because we don't understand our enemy, it doesn't mean he's crazy. This is a common error in the west. Demonization of the enemy been happening all through history. But it turnes out most enemies can make peace.
Is it an error of "the west?" My understanding is that kind of approach is much more associated with the more collectivistic cultures of the Middle East. The individualistic cultures of the west are much more likely to forget about what group one belongs to, and forget about past conflicts between those groups. The more collectivistic cultures (Middle East, Asia) are much more "tribal" and focused on what group one belongs to, and therefore, I'd expect conflicts between groups to die much harder. Like this one.
The fact that I have to spell it out is argument against my bothering to spell it out:
I am responding to the absurd act of taking real political situations and dismissing real-time analysis and/or solutions in favor of the Book of Genesis!!!
I am stunned at how transparently simple-minded such a post is, and here you are, all this time talking with the adults!
Many poeple manage their religion with their own cooking, especially extremists. They have an agenda and they follow it. They are not in quest of the "truth". It doesn't mean that they are hypocrite : they follow their own personal agenda. They see in their religion what they want to see, but they have the greatest faith in it.
From you own word they follow a logic.
But what I wanted to point out, is that their logic, is not the logic of their religion, and therefore it's not because let's say Islam or any other religion said that you should not reteliate more than you have suffer that they will follow it. They will find an excuse like these people indirectly killed so many peoples and that's a reason to kill them all.
First paragraph : OK
Second paragraph : Sorry but it's too easy. US did not went to war with these countries, they just give support to one side. It's always like this. Even without support, the war will have done many casualties, and too much deaths. Nobody asked Iraq to attack Iran, nor syria to invade libanon. I have many grips against US politic, but it's too easy to transform US in the scapegoat of all problems of the world. It's way to easy to explain that dictatorship exist in middle east because of US.
Occidental countries have their sins and responsabilites in the current state of the world, but some countries should make their own autocritic.
I will be absolutely clear : there is no excuse for 9/11 attack. People who made it don't give a rat ass of the events you related : they just hate US , because it incarnate the arrogant domination of the occindental world at this time of history.
Third : US never installed Saddam. They helped him in the first time, after he took power , like many occidental countries, who believed falsely he was a modern man.
Fourth : US give found to Iraq, but also to arab countries, like Egyptia who recieved also billions of fund ( i haven't the exact number)
Fifht : the CIA has fucked many things it's not new. perhaps they have sucess, but we never heard of it.
1. The extremist organizations surely have their own agenda, and some of them call for the total killing of jews, but only those organizations that have a basis in Islam are supported by the moderate muslims. So, if an islamistic organization exceeds the retaliation-balance it loses support from the moderate muslims in the form of donations, which most of them need to keep up their fight, and in form of public and private sympathy, which they also need so that they can recruit more fighters.
In these times of media-awareness, and the technologies not only to transport information with lightspeed but also to manipulate informations, be they in text-form, in audio or video-form, I would be very cautious about some of these Al-Kaida-videos or Al-Kaida-audio-tapes, where he calls the muslims to kill all americans, be they civilian or not. It could well be a CIA-constructed tape to delegitimise Al-Kaida and their basis in Islam, as obviously the killing of all americans, espescially civilians is totally against the Islam, and against the balance of retaliation, and would cost Al-Kaida sympathies from the moderate muslims.
Propaganda is a dangerous tool these days.
2. Regarding the US not directly involved in these small mini-wars, that is not always true. True the US seldom used their official troops to act in these wars, except in the Israel vs. Lebanon-war in 82.
But the US used the CIA and its paramilitary-troops in those wars, and conducted a lot of terroristic attacks, like the CIA-operation in Beirut, where a bomb was placed at the exit of a mosque, and brought to explosion, which killed 80 mosque-visiters.
The Apache-helicopters are often used in those mini-wars, equipped with rockets, and machine-guns. The US not only helped one side by delivering military-equippment, by training, by financial-support, etc, they also took part in the fighting directly, though under CIA-emblem.
Additionaly most of the wars were provoked by the CIA in order to seduce Soviet-Union to enter a trap, where they have to fight against guerillia-tactics...
The CIA with close relationships with the wahabits of Saudi-Arabia helped in the teaching of a radical fundamentalistic version of Islam in order to recruit fighters for the guerillia-war against the Soviet-Union.
3. Regarding your doubts that the dictatorships exist because of the US. Perhaps you have forgotten a little bit of history about the islamic world: The islamic world was under occupation for many centuries under the ottomans, then the arabic countries called for England and France to help them to free themselves from the ottomans. Britain and France heard that call, came and occupied the arabic world, but even after the ottomans were beaten, the colonists didn't leave until after worldwar2. But not because the britains and french didn't want to be colonists anymore, no, because they have lost most of their military power in worldwar2 and couldn't uphold the occupations anymore, but there was a new player who gladly overtook, but with a slightly different form of colonialism, which I call neocolonialism.
The new player was off course the USA, which has decided that the most important thing in this world is the oil in the arabic countries, and so they secretly financed and equipped certain families with weapons, even during worldwar2, and gave them intelligence-information, trained them ... so that they can overtake power once the european colonialism ends, and if necessary to achieve its end by guerillia-tactics against the colonists.
Once these families were in power and the colonists gone, a new era started, the neocolonialism. How does/did it work? The now governing families are supported in every way possible so that they aren't toppled by another family or the people as a whole. The CIA gives that family intelligence-information on which persons to kill, training on torturings and imprisonments, etc...
What does the US get in return? Open markets for US-products, which has the consequence that there can't be a domestic industry that works profitable and without strong subventions. No domestic industry means no capital-generation, and therefore these countries have to make debts in the worldbank in order to subvention some industries and in order to keep the foodprices constant, as otherwise a revolt from the masses would topple the dictators over.
Interest-rates are high, and the interests must be paid so that new debts can be made... Off course in the end the countries have to sell their ressources cheaply to the west in order to generate capital..
4. Saddan Hussein was another special CIA-operation in order to bring a prowest-government to power. In 63 the CIA helped the Baath-party in a murderous coup to gain power in Iraq and to dethrone the former government which was leaning towards the Soviet-Union.
Hussein was a very modern man and that was not the problem the US had with him. The problem was that Saddam Hussein used Iraq's ressources for the own country and didn't open Iraq's market to US-products, so that a domestic industry could be established.
What did the US then do in order to change the situation, it delivered the Iraq with more and more weapons, including chemical weapons, and convinced him that Iran would sooner or later invade Iraq, which may be true or not, and that it would be better for Iraq to invade Iran before that happens.
A long war started with ahigh-death-toll on both sides, which has brought Iraq's economy down again to nearly before-industrialization-level. The war ended in 88, as both sides saw that the US provoked that war and that the war was not winnable for anyone, with a ceasefire.
Slowly but surely Iraq's economy developed again, and the US again wanted to stop Iraq, and organized a coup regarding Kuwait. First Kuwait started drilling for oil on the borders to Iraq and as such pumping oil from Iraq's oil-fields nearby, then Kuwait started pumping out oil from its own oil-fields in excess of what was signed in agreements and contracts between Iraq and Kuwait, and by this lowering the oil-price, and that was not good for Iraq's wardamaged economy.
Then a US-ambassador was sent to Saddam Hussein who should discuss the problems with Kuwait's oil-politics, and Saddam suggested that he takes into consideration the annexation of Kuwait to Iraq, and the ambassador told Hussein that the US wouldn't intervene in such a case as it would be a strict arabic affair.
You know what happened, Kuwait was been given an ultimatum to change its "breaching of oil-agreements"-politic and after the ultimatum was over and Kuwait denied, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The US off course was prepared that that would happen, and wasn't surprised in the least bit, like many are claiming. Quickly UN-security-council-resolutions were passed and a UN-alliance formed, and a ultimatum was ordered against Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait.
Iraq gave in to the international pressure and explained that it would leave Kuwait if the US or the UN would negotiate a peace-treaty between Kuwait and Iraq, that would also solve the oil-differences.
But that offering from Iraq never reached the mainstreampress, instead a propaganda-operation never seen before was lanced in the media, demonizing everything that has to do with Iraq and Saddam Hussein, eventhough that dictatorship was installed and supported by the US until the late eighties.
You know what then happened, the second Gulf-war started, Iraq left Kuwait and Iraq's industries were bombed into stone-age. Iraq had to sign the non-proliferation-treaty in order to achieve a cease-fire, which had the consequence of UN-inspectors disarming Iraq from most weapons, be they WMD's or long-range-rockets... Later on a total economy embargo was installed upon Iraq, which led to the total collapse of Iraq's industries which weren't destroyed by the US-bombs in the no-fly-zones.
In order for Iraq to get food an oil-for-food-programm was started, so that the west could still get the oil from Iraq and Iraq could get food for it...
A nice sideeffect for the US of that war: The US could convince Saudi Arabia to let in US-troops into their country, off course with faked intelligence-infos about Iraq's troops-movements.
The US expected that Saddam Hussein would be toppled by a starving population in a few months or years. But it didn't happen, instead Saddam Hussein gained more and more support from the Sunni-population, and the Shia- and Kurd-population didn't dare to revolt again since the chemical weapons made in USA were used on them by Hussein. They had their autonomy in their areas.
Hussein even found a way to partially circumvent the strict oil-for-food-program by delivering to the nearby arabic states, like Syria and Jordan, and by corrupting certain UN-controllers.
So, a new war was only a question of time, as Iraq's infrastructure was severly damaged, so that the oil-pumping was very low, and the US wanted more oil, so Hussein had to be dethroned no matter what, Iraq's oil-pumping capability had to be brought to pre-war-level, maybe even to pre-Iran-war-level, and a strictly pro-US-government installed, which keeps the Iraq-market open to US-products which leads to the loss of domestic industrialization and the need to make debts as well as the need to sell all ressources for cheap prices...
Clinton-administration definetly was a hinderance of pursuing that strategy since the Clinton-family was not into the oil-business and din't have ties to the oil-industry. But the Bushs have, so...
5. I know that the US supports the arabic dictatorships, which the US installed themselves, financially and military, but still Israel gets the most of the support, financially, military, but espescially ideological and diplomatic.
And Israel is the only country in the middleeast which the US has helped in gaining atom-bombs and which is tolerated.
But what do I mean with ideological support? It's about history-writing, the US took over the israelic version of history-telling in the IsraelvsPalestine-conflict, from 1948 until today.
Diplomatic support means that the US vetoes nearly every UN-security-council-resolution that could be dangerous to Israel's interests, and which ask for immediate action.
I don't think the past has all that much to do with current problems. The real problem is that one side of this situation has nuclear weapons and the other had dirt, and no one is willing to step imbetween. Until that situation is changed genocide will continue.
nightcrawler . . . (didn't you used to visit these boards under a different name when your English was not so good?)
If that onslought of words above is some form of making excuses for the extremist groups who's intentions it is, and has been, to destroy the West, then your head is up your ass!!!
It is possible that the US is doing, and has done stupid things, and self-interested things in the ME, AND, that these groups are ideologically what they say they are.
I would not doubt their statements that they want to kill Americans simply in order to maintain my rabid Anti-Americanism (which, in my case does not exist . . .)
Your logic is all-too-familiar, you type and type and you convince yourself that because the US has done idiotic things and supported some unjust policies that the groups that commit terror are justified!
You might not admit to yourself that that is what you are saying but it is plain to see buried in your tortured prose.
These groups, that you are apologizing for, are neo-fascist organizations that want to return the world to a dark age (Taliban?!) and will kill anybody in their way . . . forget this idiotic balance . . . .
You think that they care about the few dollars from 'donations' once they get a nuke that they can use against NYC or LONDON or Tel Aviv?
You are deluded and your apologies are not taking the reality of monstrous ideology into account.
The fact that I have to spell it out is argument against my bothering to spell it out:
I am responding to the absurd act of taking real political situations and dismissing real-time analysis and/or solutions in favor of the Book of Genesis!!!
I am stunned at how transparently simple-minded such a post is, and here you are, all this time talking with the adults!
Um, is there some medication that you did not take, or some meditation you forgot about, or something along those lines?
I'm not your enemy.
I did not dismiss you or anyone else, nor did I assert that you had to take my observation too seriously. I made a simple observation based on my limited memory on the situation. I also conditioned my answer as such.
As far as talking with adults, I thought that I was until that last post.
Um, is there some medication that you did not take, or some meditation you forgot about, or something along those lines?
I'm not your enemy.
I did not dismiss you or anyone else, nor did I assert that you had to take my observation too seriously. I made a simple observation based on my limited memory on the situation. I also conditioned my answer as such.
As far as talking with adults, I thought that I was until that last post.
Well, the khaltura we do along with: poisoning the wells, inoculating unsuspecting bystanders with AIDS, spraying toxic gaz on the population, hunting down innocent children for their blood (as you know we need a regular intake of that bodily fluid), and of course distributing aphrodisiac bubble gum to the submissive-to-the-lord womenfolk (definitely our greatest invention) so they succumb to their animal desire.
Unfortunately we can no longer occult it with our global media control, so we might as well acknowledge it.
nightcrawler . . . (didn't you used to visit these boards under a different name when your English was not so good?)
If that onslought of words above is some form of making excuses for the extremist groups who's intentions it is, and has been, to destroy the West, then your head is up your ass!!!
It is possible that the US is doing, and has done stupid things, and self-interested things in the ME, AND, that these groups are ideologically what they say they are.
I would not doubt their statements that they want to kill Americans simply in order to maintain my rabid Anti-Americanism (which, in my case does not exist . . .)
Your logic is all-too-familiar, you type and type and you convince yourself that because the US has done idiotic things and supported some unjust policies that the groups that commit terror are justified!
You might not admit to yourself that that is what you are saying but it is plain to see buried in your tortured prose.
These groups, that you are apologizing for, are neo-fascist organizations that want to return the world to a dark age (Taliban?!) and will kill anybody in their way . . . forget this idiotic balance . . . .
You think that they care about the few dollars from 'donations' once they get a nuke that they can use against NYC or LONDON or Tel Aviv?
You are deluded and your apologies are not taking the reality of monstrous ideology into account.
1. No, I never posted in this forum under a different name.
2. Yes, my postings above are an excuse for islamistic organizations, though I'm not excusing for Al-Kaida as they are a creation of CIA during the AfghanistanvsSovietUnion-war.
But compared with the terrorism the US has commited/commits in the islamic countries, the terror of Al-Kaida is really small.
3. Eh, no, if Islamists would get a nuke into their hands they wouldn't use them. If they wanted to do that they could have bought nukes in Russia and used them for the last ten years. The use of nukes is contraproductive, as it exceeds the rule of retaliation-balance and because it would alienate all supporters from the moderate muslims.
4. What is showing under your hate for islamists is really a phobia of all things to do with Islam, be they extremistic or not. The socalled concentration on islamistic terrorists is only an excuse to hide the real hate you are feeling regarding Islam.
If a religion develops ideologies it's evil coming up to destroy the world, but if it's the USA or the west developing ideologies that justify the terrorism in the islamic countries, and the support for dictatorships and the exploitation of these countries... then it's called freedom, democracy, peace, and capitalism.
These days everyone seems to concentrate on Osama Bin Laden as the top-terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the world, but there is one very big terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the US living peacefully his life without being hunted, tried or emprisoned, eventhough he has hundred times as many innocent blood on his hands than Bin Laden:... Henry Kissinger.
Well, the khaltura we do along with: poisoning the wells, inoculating unsuspecting bystanders with AIDS, spraying toxic gaz on the population, hunting down innocent children for their blood (as you know we need a regular intake of that bodily fluid), and of course distributing aphrodisiac bubble gum to the submissive-to-the-lord womenfolk (definitely our greatest invention) so they succumb to their animal desire.
Unfortunately we can no longer occult it with our global media control, so we might as well acknowledge it.
1. No, I never posted in this forum under a different name.
2. Yes, my postings above are an excuse for islamistic organizations, though I'm not excusing for Al-Kaida as they are a creation of CIA during the AfghanistanvsSovietUnion-war.
But compared with the terrorism the US has commited/commits in the islamic countries, the terror of Al-Kaida is really small.
3. Eh, no, if Islamists would get a nuke into their hands they wouldn't use them. If they wanted to do that they could have bought nukes in Russia and used them for the last ten years. The use of nukes is contraproductive, as it exceeds the rule of retaliation-balance and because it would alienate all supporters from the moderate muslims.
4. What is showing under your hate for islamists is really a phobia of all things to do with Islam, be they extremistic or not. The socalled concentration on islamistic terrorists is only an excuse to hide the real hate you are feeling regarding Islam.
If a religion develops ideologies it's evil coming up to destroy the world, but if it's the USA or the west developing ideologies that justify the terrorism in the islamic countries, and the support for dictatorships and the exploitation of these countries... then it's called freedom, democracy, peace, and capitalism.
These days everyone seems to concentrate on Osama Bin Laden as the top-terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the world, but there is one very big terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the US living peacefully his life without being hunted, tried or emprisoned, eventhough he has hundred times as many innocent blood on his hands than Bin Laden:... Henry Kissinger.
Nightcrawler
You are deeply wrong, particularly about my feelings for Muslims . . . you don't know me at all.
And, your fantasy about 'the rule of retaliation' is a dangerous luxory to maintain.
Because you are Muslim, (if you are) and/or have lived among Muslim's means about as much as my living among predominately Christians (though I am not a Christian). . . I wouldn't undersell the capacity of Christians to commit heinous acts . . . I think they have, and could easily do so again. If their was an extremist group of Christians that said that they had, as a goal, the overthrow of Islam and murder of the heathen . . I would believe them.
Especially if they had recently killed 3000 innocent people, as well as assorted other murders, and actually gloated for those deaths.
As for Al Quaida being a creation of the CIA: that is misguided. The USA funded the Mujahideen (among whom was some anonymous "freedom-fighter named Ossama) The USA fueled radical religious feelings. When the Soviets left so did the USA. Many of the fighters stayed, as they were considered outlaws from their countries of origin.
They formed groups of religious-political-fanatics. Al Qaida was not one of them for a long time, and it came about because OBL was rich and charismatic, and tall . . . and, get this into your head: we did not support any group after the Soviets left: perhaps it is because of this that the groups came about, with a distrust and hatred for the US, for abandoning them. BUT they were abandoned and the CIA no longer funded them and did NOT 'create' Al Quaida.
Yes the environment upon which the fanatical political/religious (or rather irreligious) fanaticalism of Al Quaida grew was first fostered by American funding, arms and fueling of Religious sentiments, but, to say that they continued to fund groups is wrong . . . and to say that they created AQ is just plain wrong . . . if that is what you are saying
But, it could very well be that you are saying that AQ does not exist and it is all a Jewish/CIA creation in the vast Zionist conspiracy put into place by "The Elders" . . . and I might even detect some of that thinking in your apologia . . . but I will give you the benefit of the doubtand assume that though you are misguided there is still reason there.
You are deeply wrong, particularly about my feelings for Muslims . . . you don't know me at all.
And, your fantasy about 'the rule of retaliation' is a dangerous luxory to maintain.
Because you are Muslim, (if you are) and/or have lived among Muslim's means about as much as my living among predominately Christians (though I am not a Christian). . . I wouldn't undersell the capacity of Christians to commit heinous acts . . . I think they have, and could easily do so again. If their was an extremist group of Christians that said that they had, as a goal, the overthrow of Islam and murder of the heathen . . I would believe them.
Especially if they had recently killed 3000 innocent people, as well as assorted other murders, and actually gloated for those deaths.
As for Al Quaida being a creation of the CIA: that is misguided. The USA funded the Mujahideen (among whom was some anonymous "freedom-fighter named Ossama) The USA fueled radical religious feelings. When the Soviets left so did the USA. Many of the fighters stayed, as they were considered outlaws from their countries of origin.
They formed groups of religious-political-fanatics. Al Qaida was not one of them for a long time, and it came about because OBL was rich and charismatic, and tall . . . and, get this into your head: we did not support any group after the Soviets left: perhaps it is because of this that the groups came about, with a distrust and hatred for the US, for abandoning them. BUT they were abandoned and the CIA no longer funded them and did NOT 'create' Al Quaida.
Yes the environment upon which the fanatical political/religious (or rather irreligious) fanaticalism of Al Quaida grew was first fostered by American funding, arms and fueling of Religious sentiments, but, to say that they continued to fund groups is wrong . . . and to say that they created AQ is just plain wrong . . . if that is what you are saying
But, it could very well be that you are saying that AQ does not exist and it is all a Jewish/CIA creation in the vast Zionist conspiracy put into place by "The Elders" . . . and I might even detect some of that thinking in your apologia . . . but I will give you the benefit of the doubtand assume that though you are misguided there is still reason there.
blah, blah, blah....don't you know by now that all evils in the world can be traced directly to Israel and the US? Haven't you learned that and actions taken by these groups are simply reactions to US/Israel action; that is they were either forced to react or encouraged and told to act, either way, the US/Israel is culpaple for all of the wrongs that ever occured in the ME or wrongs commited by people from the ME.
3. Eh, no, if Islamists would get a nuke into their hands they wouldn't use them. If they wanted to do that they could have bought nukes in Russia and used them for the last ten years. The use of nukes is contraproductive, as it exceeds the rule of retaliation-balance and because it would alienate all supporters from the moderate muslims.
Nightcrawler
I don't buy at all this argument. Islamists are not concerned by the support of moderate muslims : they even kill them. Last year a moderate muslim Imam was killed in France, by extremists.
If they are interested in moderate muslim is to convert them at their views.
However Islamists do not need moderate muslims. By your own words you said that 90 % of the muslims are moderate, so 10 % are extremists, wich means , following your numbers (and I believe you on words), that 150 millions of peoples are Islamists.
It's a huge number, only 10 % of this number will be sufficiant to help Islam terrorism.
I will also point out that terrorism do not help the islam word. It just bringed more hate and incomprehension among the occidental world. It's unfortunate that people are not able to do the difference between moderate people and extremists.
So I am not convinced that the Islamic bomb will bring peace in middle east. Terrorism is the way that a part of the palestinian struggle, but it's not efficiant, nor it's efficiant to kill civil palestinian or to destroy their houses. It just bring more fuel on the fire, and cancel any chances of peace.
We need to distinguish what an extremist is - there are many people on these boards who are anti-Bush, anti-US policy, anti-Israel whatever. If they were muslims they would be branded 'extremists'.
Maybe so. But that doesn't mean they would be prepared to kill or undertake suicide missions.
There are two types of Islamic extremism - there is a very common one (more than 10% possibly I would say) that is literalist, fundamentalist and generally non-thinking. The Saudis spend billions on propaganda for this.
As an example, when I was at University in London 12 years ago studying Islamic religion, the faculty needed a new building. The government refused to put money into education so the Uni went cap in hand to various Islamic trusts whose purpose is the supposed furtherance of research into Islamic culture. Well, the Saudis (some minor prince) just doshed out a $2M cheque and voila, we had a Chair, a museum and a new building.
That's how they operate (and another area where the cozy relationship with the Sauds and western government needs exploring). Anyway, lo, we found that we could not say certain things as we used to, could not discuss certain things, certain courses were removed from the curriculum.
I remember one lecture where some muslims walked out because the topic under discussion was 'did Muhammad write the Qu'ran or was it divine' or some such (actually a very interesting topic because if he did write it then he was one of the greatest poets of all time - up there with Shakespeare, so it is of interest to literature research also).
This is extremism - not being prepared to discuss your ideas or question them (hint: get out of the university - actually they do, they go to the madrasa) and as such your '10%' is analogous to the Christian fundamentalists in America and, imo, has the same psychological roots - very few of these people will kill.
So that's one group of extremists. The other, the supposed al-Qs, is a bunch of hotheads not numbering more than 100,000 imo. I think that is a figure I got from some US gov source but am not sure. Of course it is growing every day and when the US go into Syria and Iran it will increase.
The people fighting in Iraq are not 'terrorists' in the main, they are muslims who hate the US because of what it is doing to them.
What is so hard to understand ?
Thanks for your precisions. However I speak of the number of people willing to support the terrorists, not being terrorists them selves.
I was simply said that islamists terrorists do not give a rat ass about the opinion of moderate muslims, nor they need them.
But my point is that there are very few of these hardcore Islamists relatively speaking and that it is not correct to lump them in with ordinary extremists of whom there are very many and more each day.
I don't buy at all this argument. Islamists are not concerned by the support of moderate muslims : they even kill them. Last year a moderate muslim Imam was killed in France, by extremists.
If they are interested in moderate muslim is to convert them at their views.
Sorry, but I don't agree, the islamists definetly need the moderate muslims, as well as the moderate muslims need the islamists.
You seem to forget that the moderate muslims in the islamic countries are opressed/suppressed by US-sponsored and US-installed dictatorships, and these moderate muslims hope that sometime in the future the islamists will enfree them from them, that's why they need the islamists.
The islamists on the other hand need the sympathy be it private or public sympathy as well as money from the moderate muslims. Sure there are a few islamistic groups that have found other ways to come to money like drug-dealing (which is by the way prohibited by Islam), but only because the donation-traffic from the moderate muslims to them is somehow cut by some government, but even those groups need sympathy by the moderate ones, in order to recruit more fighters.
There is a mutual agreement between the moderate muslims and the extremistic islamists: The moderate muslims will tolerate and support them until they are free from the US-neocolonialism and the US-sponsored dictatorships. So basically the extremistic version of Islam, is one for war-time. When the war is over, it will be discarded.
Sorry, but I don't agree, the islamists definetly need the moderate muslims, as well as the moderate muslims need the islamists.
You seem to forget that the moderate muslims in the islamic countries are opressed/suppressed by US-sponsored and US-installed dictatorships, and these moderate muslims hope that sometime in the future the islamists will enfree them from them, that's why they need the islamists.
The islamists on the other hand need the sympathy be it private or public sympathy as well as money from the moderate muslims. Sure there are a few islamistic groups that have found other ways to come to money like drug-dealing (which is by the way prohibited by Islam), but only because the donation-traffic from the moderate muslims to them is somehow cut by some government, but even those groups need sympathy by the moderate ones, in order to recruit more fighters.
There is a mutual agreement between the moderate muslims and the extremistic islamists: The moderate muslims will tolerate and support them until they are free from the US-neocolonialism and the US-sponsored dictatorships. So basically the extremistic version of Islam, is one for war-time. When the war is over, it will be discarded.
Nightcrawler
Name one Islamic country who's Government was 'installed' by the US besides Afghanistan!
And the people of Afghanistan were far more 'oppressed' under the Taliban: or maybe you like that form of governance?!?!
And what dictatorships are ou referring to:
Saudis (perhaps, allthough they themselves seem to be the biggest state perveyor of rectionary fundamentalism around),
Syria? (nope)
Iran? (nope)
Lebanon (nope)
Yemen (nope)
Quattar (well, they are pretty chummy, and they are experimenting with democracy . . . wouldn't that be at the behest of the US . . . but then again that would go against your need for them to be an oppressive dictatorship)
Kuwait (hmm?! Probably the closest thing besides Saudi Arabia . . . allthough my Kuwaiti students seem to be pretty pleased with things . . . but then again, they were probably just daughters of the oppressor elites . . . hence their refusal to wear dog-collar like face coverings and their refusal to be absolutely obescient to the men in the room -yeah, they were oppressed into being freed from sexist Sharia, oppressed into being able to think and talk and be educated)
Packistan? (hmm?! we aren't 'ultra-good buddies', but we aren't at war either)
Egypt? (is that really a tyrany? seems pretty cosmopolitan and open to me . . . and harbors some pretty reactionary groups . . . maybe some who you know?)
. . . Now I'll give you Tajikistan and Uzbeckistan but these alliances were formed right at the begining of the Afghani war . . .
Turkey (nope, they pretty much do what they want when they want)
I must be missing the Oppressoer puppet states that we intalled . . .unless you meant Kuwait and Saudi Arabia . . .
Please fill me in.
anyway, I'd still like to see your list and explanations
The facts are that most moderates hate the extremists - at the very least because the extremists know very, very little about Islam.
The question is more (or should be) about the west's complete and utter rejection of anything remotely Islamic whatsoever taht elads to this confusion.
People don't make these correlations with Buddhists (say) even though one could point to Burma as being a fascist Buddhist junta. Because they know what Buddhism is and isn't.
Why is there not a similar knowledge of Islam ?
You don't get it but it's totally clear to me that the islamists know only little about Islam, and I also know that the moderate muslims have a sort of hate/love-relationship to the islamists, but and that is the point they are tolerated by the moderate ones as they hope for freedom from US-neocolonialism.
Actually the US in close cooperation with the Sauds, who the US have installed in the arabic peninsula, have forced and exported the islamic fundamentalism and radicalism in order to gain recruits for the war against the Soviet-Union. It's rather funny that the ghosts the US have called upon its enemy aren't vanishing again.
Actually for the islamic world the islamists are the best thing that could have happened to them. The radical version of the Islam that the islamists are propagating challenges the moderate muslims to finally reread the Quran and to interpret it for themselves and to study their religion again. Perhaps you don't know it, but since the islamic countries are governed by mostly US-installed and supported dictatorships, the imams (that are the leaders of the mosques) are appointed and handchoosen by the regimes. So, whatever the imams are saying is totally loyal to the regimes, otherwise these imams land in prison, where they get tortured.
The islamists on the other hand are pretty independent from the regimes and very critical about them, they are like the opposition in democracies. They say what they want, land in prison, are killed, but other imams take their place, etc..
And their simplified, radical, narrow understanding of Islam provokes the moderate muslims to think about their religion, and makes them studying the Quran again, and be it only so that they can reject the arguments of the islamists. That's a good thing.
That leads to the rediscovery of the political, legislative and social messages of the Islam, which are mostly not used in the islamic countries, and this leads to the suspicion that the socalled islamic governments aren't really islamic at all..
Don't disregard the fact that the Quran and the Islam were in contained political, economic, social and religious messages from the beginning of Islam.
But the european colialism and even before that the ottomans, and after all that the US-installed dictatorships have abandoned all but the religious message of Quran... in order to become secular regimes.
Comments
How could I be so dumb?!?!
How could I forget the Cain and Abel myth . . . I mean story, I mean FACT!
. . .or maybe it was Ishmael?
'his hand against every hand'
isn't Ishmael the son of Muslims?!?!
of course now I know
why?
because the bible told me so
How could I be so doll-garn-it dumb?!?!
(as someone said: for him, its all moving lights and shiny things)
Originally posted by pfflam
of course! that is explains everything!!
How could I be so dumb?!?!
How could I forget the Cain and Abel myth . . . I mean story, I mean FACT!
. . .or maybe it was Ishmael?
'his hand against every hand'
isn't Ishmael the son of Muslims?!?!
of course now I know
why?
because the bible told me so
How could I be so doll-garn-it dumb?!?!
(as someone said: for him, its all moving lights and shiny things)
I worded my post very carefully. Your response is very... well... illogical and plain weird. What are you replying to?
Originally posted by New
I think nightcrawler has a point. Just because we don't understand our enemy, it doesn't mean he's crazy. This is a common error in the west. Demonization of the enemy been happening all through history. But it turnes out most enemies can make peace.
Is it an error of "the west?" My understanding is that kind of approach is much more associated with the more collectivistic cultures of the Middle East. The individualistic cultures of the west are much more likely to forget about what group one belongs to, and forget about past conflicts between those groups. The more collectivistic cultures (Middle East, Asia) are much more "tribal" and focused on what group one belongs to, and therefore, I'd expect conflicts between groups to die much harder. Like this one.
The fact that I have to spell it out is argument against my bothering to spell it out:
I am responding to the absurd act of taking real political situations and dismissing real-time analysis and/or solutions in favor of the Book of Genesis!!!
I am stunned at how transparently simple-minded such a post is, and here you are, all this time talking with the adults!
Originally posted by Powerdoc
Segovius:
Many poeple manage their religion with their own cooking, especially extremists. They have an agenda and they follow it. They are not in quest of the "truth". It doesn't mean that they are hypocrite : they follow their own personal agenda. They see in their religion what they want to see, but they have the greatest faith in it.
From you own word they follow a logic.
But what I wanted to point out, is that their logic, is not the logic of their religion, and therefore it's not because let's say Islam or any other religion said that you should not reteliate more than you have suffer that they will follow it. They will find an excuse like these people indirectly killed so many peoples and that's a reason to kill them all.
First paragraph : OK
Second paragraph : Sorry but it's too easy. US did not went to war with these countries, they just give support to one side. It's always like this. Even without support, the war will have done many casualties, and too much deaths. Nobody asked Iraq to attack Iran, nor syria to invade libanon. I have many grips against US politic, but it's too easy to transform US in the scapegoat of all problems of the world. It's way to easy to explain that dictatorship exist in middle east because of US.
Occidental countries have their sins and responsabilites in the current state of the world, but some countries should make their own autocritic.
I will be absolutely clear : there is no excuse for 9/11 attack. People who made it don't give a rat ass of the events you related : they just hate US , because it incarnate the arrogant domination of the occindental world at this time of history.
Third : US never installed Saddam. They helped him in the first time, after he took power , like many occidental countries, who believed falsely he was a modern man.
Fourth : US give found to Iraq, but also to arab countries, like Egyptia who recieved also billions of fund ( i haven't the exact number)
Fifht : the CIA has fucked many things it's not new. perhaps they have sucess, but we never heard of it.
1. The extremist organizations surely have their own agenda, and some of them call for the total killing of jews, but only those organizations that have a basis in Islam are supported by the moderate muslims. So, if an islamistic organization exceeds the retaliation-balance it loses support from the moderate muslims in the form of donations, which most of them need to keep up their fight, and in form of public and private sympathy, which they also need so that they can recruit more fighters.
In these times of media-awareness, and the technologies not only to transport information with lightspeed but also to manipulate informations, be they in text-form, in audio or video-form, I would be very cautious about some of these Al-Kaida-videos or Al-Kaida-audio-tapes, where he calls the muslims to kill all americans, be they civilian or not. It could well be a CIA-constructed tape to delegitimise Al-Kaida and their basis in Islam, as obviously the killing of all americans, espescially civilians is totally against the Islam, and against the balance of retaliation, and would cost Al-Kaida sympathies from the moderate muslims.
Propaganda is a dangerous tool these days.
2. Regarding the US not directly involved in these small mini-wars, that is not always true. True the US seldom used their official troops to act in these wars, except in the Israel vs. Lebanon-war in 82.
But the US used the CIA and its paramilitary-troops in those wars, and conducted a lot of terroristic attacks, like the CIA-operation in Beirut, where a bomb was placed at the exit of a mosque, and brought to explosion, which killed 80 mosque-visiters.
The Apache-helicopters are often used in those mini-wars, equipped with rockets, and machine-guns. The US not only helped one side by delivering military-equippment, by training, by financial-support, etc, they also took part in the fighting directly, though under CIA-emblem.
Additionaly most of the wars were provoked by the CIA in order to seduce Soviet-Union to enter a trap, where they have to fight against guerillia-tactics...
The CIA with close relationships with the wahabits of Saudi-Arabia helped in the teaching of a radical fundamentalistic version of Islam in order to recruit fighters for the guerillia-war against the Soviet-Union.
3. Regarding your doubts that the dictatorships exist because of the US. Perhaps you have forgotten a little bit of history about the islamic world: The islamic world was under occupation for many centuries under the ottomans, then the arabic countries called for England and France to help them to free themselves from the ottomans. Britain and France heard that call, came and occupied the arabic world, but even after the ottomans were beaten, the colonists didn't leave until after worldwar2. But not because the britains and french didn't want to be colonists anymore, no, because they have lost most of their military power in worldwar2 and couldn't uphold the occupations anymore, but there was a new player who gladly overtook, but with a slightly different form of colonialism, which I call neocolonialism.
The new player was off course the USA, which has decided that the most important thing in this world is the oil in the arabic countries, and so they secretly financed and equipped certain families with weapons, even during worldwar2, and gave them intelligence-information, trained them ... so that they can overtake power once the european colonialism ends, and if necessary to achieve its end by guerillia-tactics against the colonists.
Once these families were in power and the colonists gone, a new era started, the neocolonialism. How does/did it work? The now governing families are supported in every way possible so that they aren't toppled by another family or the people as a whole. The CIA gives that family intelligence-information on which persons to kill, training on torturings and imprisonments, etc...
What does the US get in return? Open markets for US-products, which has the consequence that there can't be a domestic industry that works profitable and without strong subventions. No domestic industry means no capital-generation, and therefore these countries have to make debts in the worldbank in order to subvention some industries and in order to keep the foodprices constant, as otherwise a revolt from the masses would topple the dictators over.
Interest-rates are high, and the interests must be paid so that new debts can be made... Off course in the end the countries have to sell their ressources cheaply to the west in order to generate capital..
4. Saddan Hussein was another special CIA-operation in order to bring a prowest-government to power. In 63 the CIA helped the Baath-party in a murderous coup to gain power in Iraq and to dethrone the former government which was leaning towards the Soviet-Union.
Hussein was a very modern man and that was not the problem the US had with him. The problem was that Saddam Hussein used Iraq's ressources for the own country and didn't open Iraq's market to US-products, so that a domestic industry could be established.
What did the US then do in order to change the situation, it delivered the Iraq with more and more weapons, including chemical weapons, and convinced him that Iran would sooner or later invade Iraq, which may be true or not, and that it would be better for Iraq to invade Iran before that happens.
A long war started with ahigh-death-toll on both sides, which has brought Iraq's economy down again to nearly before-industrialization-level. The war ended in 88, as both sides saw that the US provoked that war and that the war was not winnable for anyone, with a ceasefire.
Slowly but surely Iraq's economy developed again, and the US again wanted to stop Iraq, and organized a coup regarding Kuwait. First Kuwait started drilling for oil on the borders to Iraq and as such pumping oil from Iraq's oil-fields nearby, then Kuwait started pumping out oil from its own oil-fields in excess of what was signed in agreements and contracts between Iraq and Kuwait, and by this lowering the oil-price, and that was not good for Iraq's wardamaged economy.
Then a US-ambassador was sent to Saddam Hussein who should discuss the problems with Kuwait's oil-politics, and Saddam suggested that he takes into consideration the annexation of Kuwait to Iraq, and the ambassador told Hussein that the US wouldn't intervene in such a case as it would be a strict arabic affair.
You know what happened, Kuwait was been given an ultimatum to change its "breaching of oil-agreements"-politic and after the ultimatum was over and Kuwait denied, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The US off course was prepared that that would happen, and wasn't surprised in the least bit, like many are claiming. Quickly UN-security-council-resolutions were passed and a UN-alliance formed, and a ultimatum was ordered against Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait.
Iraq gave in to the international pressure and explained that it would leave Kuwait if the US or the UN would negotiate a peace-treaty between Kuwait and Iraq, that would also solve the oil-differences.
But that offering from Iraq never reached the mainstreampress, instead a propaganda-operation never seen before was lanced in the media, demonizing everything that has to do with Iraq and Saddam Hussein, eventhough that dictatorship was installed and supported by the US until the late eighties.
You know what then happened, the second Gulf-war started, Iraq left Kuwait and Iraq's industries were bombed into stone-age. Iraq had to sign the non-proliferation-treaty in order to achieve a cease-fire, which had the consequence of UN-inspectors disarming Iraq from most weapons, be they WMD's or long-range-rockets... Later on a total economy embargo was installed upon Iraq, which led to the total collapse of Iraq's industries which weren't destroyed by the US-bombs in the no-fly-zones.
In order for Iraq to get food an oil-for-food-programm was started, so that the west could still get the oil from Iraq and Iraq could get food for it...
A nice sideeffect for the US of that war: The US could convince Saudi Arabia to let in US-troops into their country, off course with faked intelligence-infos about Iraq's troops-movements.
The US expected that Saddam Hussein would be toppled by a starving population in a few months or years. But it didn't happen, instead Saddam Hussein gained more and more support from the Sunni-population, and the Shia- and Kurd-population didn't dare to revolt again since the chemical weapons made in USA were used on them by Hussein. They had their autonomy in their areas.
Hussein even found a way to partially circumvent the strict oil-for-food-program by delivering to the nearby arabic states, like Syria and Jordan, and by corrupting certain UN-controllers.
So, a new war was only a question of time, as Iraq's infrastructure was severly damaged, so that the oil-pumping was very low, and the US wanted more oil, so Hussein had to be dethroned no matter what, Iraq's oil-pumping capability had to be brought to pre-war-level, maybe even to pre-Iran-war-level, and a strictly pro-US-government installed, which keeps the Iraq-market open to US-products which leads to the loss of domestic industrialization and the need to make debts as well as the need to sell all ressources for cheap prices...
Clinton-administration definetly was a hinderance of pursuing that strategy since the Clinton-family was not into the oil-business and din't have ties to the oil-industry. But the Bushs have, so...
5. I know that the US supports the arabic dictatorships, which the US installed themselves, financially and military, but still Israel gets the most of the support, financially, military, but espescially ideological and diplomatic.
And Israel is the only country in the middleeast which the US has helped in gaining atom-bombs and which is tolerated.
But what do I mean with ideological support? It's about history-writing, the US took over the israelic version of history-telling in the IsraelvsPalestine-conflict, from 1948 until today.
Diplomatic support means that the US vetoes nearly every UN-security-council-resolution that could be dangerous to Israel's interests, and which ask for immediate action.
Nightcrawler
Originally posted by bunge
I don't think the past has all that much to do with current problems. The real problem is that one side of this situation has nuclear weapons and the other had dirt, and no one is willing to step imbetween. Until that situation is changed genocide will continue.
What Genocide?
If that onslought of words above is some form of making excuses for the extremist groups who's intentions it is, and has been, to destroy the West, then your head is up your ass!!!
It is possible that the US is doing, and has done stupid things, and self-interested things in the ME, AND, that these groups are ideologically what they say they are.
I would not doubt their statements that they want to kill Americans simply in order to maintain my rabid Anti-Americanism (which, in my case does not exist . . .)
Your logic is all-too-familiar, you type and type and you convince yourself that because the US has done idiotic things and supported some unjust policies that the groups that commit terror are justified!
You might not admit to yourself that that is what you are saying but it is plain to see buried in your tortured prose.
These groups, that you are apologizing for, are neo-fascist organizations that want to return the world to a dark age (Taliban?!) and will kill anybody in their way . . . forget this idiotic balance . . . .
You think that they care about the few dollars from 'donations' once they get a nuke that they can use against NYC or LONDON or Tel Aviv?
You are deluded and your apologies are not taking the reality of monstrous ideology into account.
Originally posted by pfflam
To NaplesX
The fact that I have to spell it out is argument against my bothering to spell it out:
I am responding to the absurd act of taking real political situations and dismissing real-time analysis and/or solutions in favor of the Book of Genesis!!!
I am stunned at how transparently simple-minded such a post is, and here you are, all this time talking with the adults!
Um, is there some medication that you did not take, or some meditation you forgot about, or something along those lines?
I'm not your enemy.
I did not dismiss you or anyone else, nor did I assert that you had to take my observation too seriously. I made a simple observation based on my limited memory on the situation. I also conditioned my answer as such.
As far as talking with adults, I thought that I was until that last post.
Take a deep breath and relax a bit.
Originally posted by NaplesX
Um, is there some medication that you did not take, or some meditation you forgot about, or something along those lines?
I'm not your enemy.
I did not dismiss you or anyone else, nor did I assert that you had to take my observation too seriously. I made a simple observation based on my limited memory on the situation. I also conditioned my answer as such.
As far as talking with adults, I thought that I was until that last post.
Take a deep breath and relax a bit.
Originally posted by rashumon
What Genocide?
Well, the khaltura we do along with: poisoning the wells, inoculating unsuspecting bystanders with AIDS, spraying toxic gaz on the population, hunting down innocent children for their blood (as you know we need a regular intake of that bodily fluid), and of course distributing aphrodisiac bubble gum to the submissive-to-the-lord womenfolk (definitely our greatest invention) so they succumb to their animal desire.
Unfortunately we can no longer occult it with our global media control, so we might as well acknowledge it.
(inster demonic laughter here)
Originally posted by pfflam
nightcrawler . . . (didn't you used to visit these boards under a different name when your English was not so good?)
If that onslought of words above is some form of making excuses for the extremist groups who's intentions it is, and has been, to destroy the West, then your head is up your ass!!!
It is possible that the US is doing, and has done stupid things, and self-interested things in the ME, AND, that these groups are ideologically what they say they are.
I would not doubt their statements that they want to kill Americans simply in order to maintain my rabid Anti-Americanism (which, in my case does not exist . . .)
Your logic is all-too-familiar, you type and type and you convince yourself that because the US has done idiotic things and supported some unjust policies that the groups that commit terror are justified!
You might not admit to yourself that that is what you are saying but it is plain to see buried in your tortured prose.
These groups, that you are apologizing for, are neo-fascist organizations that want to return the world to a dark age (Taliban?!) and will kill anybody in their way . . . forget this idiotic balance . . . .
You think that they care about the few dollars from 'donations' once they get a nuke that they can use against NYC or LONDON or Tel Aviv?
You are deluded and your apologies are not taking the reality of monstrous ideology into account.
1. No, I never posted in this forum under a different name.
2. Yes, my postings above are an excuse for islamistic organizations, though I'm not excusing for Al-Kaida as they are a creation of CIA during the AfghanistanvsSovietUnion-war.
But compared with the terrorism the US has commited/commits in the islamic countries, the terror of Al-Kaida is really small.
3. Eh, no, if Islamists would get a nuke into their hands they wouldn't use them. If they wanted to do that they could have bought nukes in Russia and used them for the last ten years. The use of nukes is contraproductive, as it exceeds the rule of retaliation-balance and because it would alienate all supporters from the moderate muslims.
4. What is showing under your hate for islamists is really a phobia of all things to do with Islam, be they extremistic or not. The socalled concentration on islamistic terrorists is only an excuse to hide the real hate you are feeling regarding Islam.
If a religion develops ideologies it's evil coming up to destroy the world, but if it's the USA or the west developing ideologies that justify the terrorism in the islamic countries, and the support for dictatorships and the exploitation of these countries... then it's called freedom, democracy, peace, and capitalism.
These days everyone seems to concentrate on Osama Bin Laden as the top-terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the world, but there is one very big terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the US living peacefully his life without being hunted, tried or emprisoned, eventhough he has hundred times as many innocent blood on his hands than Bin Laden:... Henry Kissinger.
Nightcrawler
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Well, the khaltura we do along with: poisoning the wells, inoculating unsuspecting bystanders with AIDS, spraying toxic gaz on the population, hunting down innocent children for their blood (as you know we need a regular intake of that bodily fluid), and of course distributing aphrodisiac bubble gum to the submissive-to-the-lord womenfolk (definitely our greatest invention) so they succumb to their animal desire.
Unfortunately we can no longer occult it with our global media control, so we might as well acknowledge it.
(inster demonic laughter here)
I knew it all along you farshtinkeners!
Originally posted by Nightcrawler
1. No, I never posted in this forum under a different name.
2. Yes, my postings above are an excuse for islamistic organizations, though I'm not excusing for Al-Kaida as they are a creation of CIA during the AfghanistanvsSovietUnion-war.
But compared with the terrorism the US has commited/commits in the islamic countries, the terror of Al-Kaida is really small.
3. Eh, no, if Islamists would get a nuke into their hands they wouldn't use them. If they wanted to do that they could have bought nukes in Russia and used them for the last ten years. The use of nukes is contraproductive, as it exceeds the rule of retaliation-balance and because it would alienate all supporters from the moderate muslims.
4. What is showing under your hate for islamists is really a phobia of all things to do with Islam, be they extremistic or not. The socalled concentration on islamistic terrorists is only an excuse to hide the real hate you are feeling regarding Islam.
If a religion develops ideologies it's evil coming up to destroy the world, but if it's the USA or the west developing ideologies that justify the terrorism in the islamic countries, and the support for dictatorships and the exploitation of these countries... then it's called freedom, democracy, peace, and capitalism.
These days everyone seems to concentrate on Osama Bin Laden as the top-terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the world, but there is one very big terrorist (or terrorism-inspirer) in the US living peacefully his life without being hunted, tried or emprisoned, eventhough he has hundred times as many innocent blood on his hands than Bin Laden:... Henry Kissinger.
Nightcrawler
You are deeply wrong, particularly about my feelings for Muslims . . . you don't know me at all.
And, your fantasy about 'the rule of retaliation' is a dangerous luxory to maintain.
Because you are Muslim, (if you are) and/or have lived among Muslim's means about as much as my living among predominately Christians (though I am not a Christian). . . I wouldn't undersell the capacity of Christians to commit heinous acts . . . I think they have, and could easily do so again. If their was an extremist group of Christians that said that they had, as a goal, the overthrow of Islam and murder of the heathen . . I would believe them.
Especially if they had recently killed 3000 innocent people, as well as assorted other murders, and actually gloated for those deaths.
As for Al Quaida being a creation of the CIA: that is misguided. The USA funded the Mujahideen (among whom was some anonymous "freedom-fighter named Ossama) The USA fueled radical religious feelings. When the Soviets left so did the USA. Many of the fighters stayed, as they were considered outlaws from their countries of origin.
They formed groups of religious-political-fanatics. Al Qaida was not one of them for a long time, and it came about because OBL was rich and charismatic, and tall . . . and, get this into your head: we did not support any group after the Soviets left: perhaps it is because of this that the groups came about, with a distrust and hatred for the US, for abandoning them. BUT they were abandoned and the CIA no longer funded them and did NOT 'create' Al Quaida.
Yes the environment upon which the fanatical political/religious (or rather irreligious) fanaticalism of Al Quaida grew was first fostered by American funding, arms and fueling of Religious sentiments, but, to say that they continued to fund groups is wrong . . . and to say that they created AQ is just plain wrong . . . if that is what you are saying
But, it could very well be that you are saying that AQ does not exist and it is all a Jewish/CIA creation in the vast Zionist conspiracy put into place by "The Elders" . . . and I might even detect some of that thinking in your apologia . . . but I will give you the benefit of the doubtand assume that though you are misguided there is still reason there.
Originally posted by pfflam
You are deeply wrong, particularly about my feelings for Muslims . . . you don't know me at all.
And, your fantasy about 'the rule of retaliation' is a dangerous luxory to maintain.
Because you are Muslim, (if you are) and/or have lived among Muslim's means about as much as my living among predominately Christians (though I am not a Christian). . . I wouldn't undersell the capacity of Christians to commit heinous acts . . . I think they have, and could easily do so again. If their was an extremist group of Christians that said that they had, as a goal, the overthrow of Islam and murder of the heathen . . I would believe them.
Especially if they had recently killed 3000 innocent people, as well as assorted other murders, and actually gloated for those deaths.
As for Al Quaida being a creation of the CIA: that is misguided. The USA funded the Mujahideen (among whom was some anonymous "freedom-fighter named Ossama) The USA fueled radical religious feelings. When the Soviets left so did the USA. Many of the fighters stayed, as they were considered outlaws from their countries of origin.
They formed groups of religious-political-fanatics. Al Qaida was not one of them for a long time, and it came about because OBL was rich and charismatic, and tall . . . and, get this into your head: we did not support any group after the Soviets left: perhaps it is because of this that the groups came about, with a distrust and hatred for the US, for abandoning them. BUT they were abandoned and the CIA no longer funded them and did NOT 'create' Al Quaida.
Yes the environment upon which the fanatical political/religious (or rather irreligious) fanaticalism of Al Quaida grew was first fostered by American funding, arms and fueling of Religious sentiments, but, to say that they continued to fund groups is wrong . . . and to say that they created AQ is just plain wrong . . . if that is what you are saying
But, it could very well be that you are saying that AQ does not exist and it is all a Jewish/CIA creation in the vast Zionist conspiracy put into place by "The Elders" . . . and I might even detect some of that thinking in your apologia . . . but I will give you the benefit of the doubtand assume that though you are misguided there is still reason there.
blah, blah, blah....don't you know by now that all evils in the world can be traced directly to Israel and the US? Haven't you learned that and actions taken by these groups are simply reactions to US/Israel action; that is they were either forced to react or encouraged and told to act, either way, the US/Israel is culpaple for all of the wrongs that ever occured in the ME or wrongs commited by people from the ME.
Originally posted by Nightcrawler
3. Eh, no, if Islamists would get a nuke into their hands they wouldn't use them. If they wanted to do that they could have bought nukes in Russia and used them for the last ten years. The use of nukes is contraproductive, as it exceeds the rule of retaliation-balance and because it would alienate all supporters from the moderate muslims.
Nightcrawler
I don't buy at all this argument. Islamists are not concerned by the support of moderate muslims : they even kill them. Last year a moderate muslim Imam was killed in France, by extremists.
If they are interested in moderate muslim is to convert them at their views.
However Islamists do not need moderate muslims. By your own words you said that 90 % of the muslims are moderate, so 10 % are extremists, wich means , following your numbers (and I believe you on words), that 150 millions of peoples are Islamists.
It's a huge number, only 10 % of this number will be sufficiant to help Islam terrorism.
I will also point out that terrorism do not help the islam word. It just bringed more hate and incomprehension among the occidental world. It's unfortunate that people are not able to do the difference between moderate people and extremists.
So I am not convinced that the Islamic bomb will bring peace in middle east. Terrorism is the way that a part of the palestinian struggle, but it's not efficiant, nor it's efficiant to kill civil palestinian or to destroy their houses. It just bring more fuel on the fire, and cancel any chances of peace.
Originally posted by segovius
We need to distinguish what an extremist is - there are many people on these boards who are anti-Bush, anti-US policy, anti-Israel whatever. If they were muslims they would be branded 'extremists'.
Maybe so. But that doesn't mean they would be prepared to kill or undertake suicide missions.
There are two types of Islamic extremism - there is a very common one (more than 10% possibly I would say) that is literalist, fundamentalist and generally non-thinking. The Saudis spend billions on propaganda for this.
As an example, when I was at University in London 12 years ago studying Islamic religion, the faculty needed a new building. The government refused to put money into education so the Uni went cap in hand to various Islamic trusts whose purpose is the supposed furtherance of research into Islamic culture. Well, the Saudis (some minor prince) just doshed out a $2M cheque and voila, we had a Chair, a museum and a new building.
That's how they operate (and another area where the cozy relationship with the Sauds and western government needs exploring). Anyway, lo, we found that we could not say certain things as we used to, could not discuss certain things, certain courses were removed from the curriculum.
I remember one lecture where some muslims walked out because the topic under discussion was 'did Muhammad write the Qu'ran or was it divine' or some such (actually a very interesting topic because if he did write it then he was one of the greatest poets of all time - up there with Shakespeare, so it is of interest to literature research also).
This is extremism - not being prepared to discuss your ideas or question them (hint: get out of the university - actually they do, they go to the madrasa) and as such your '10%' is analogous to the Christian fundamentalists in America and, imo, has the same psychological roots - very few of these people will kill.
So that's one group of extremists. The other, the supposed al-Qs, is a bunch of hotheads not numbering more than 100,000 imo. I think that is a figure I got from some US gov source but am not sure. Of course it is growing every day and when the US go into Syria and Iran it will increase.
The people fighting in Iraq are not 'terrorists' in the main, they are muslims who hate the US because of what it is doing to them.
What is so hard to understand ?
Thanks for your precisions. However I speak of the number of people willing to support the terrorists, not being terrorists them selves.
I was simply said that islamists terrorists do not give a rat ass about the opinion of moderate muslims, nor they need them.
Do you agree with this point ?
Originally posted by segovius
But my point is that there are very few of these hardcore Islamists relatively speaking and that it is not correct to lump them in with ordinary extremists of whom there are very many and more each day.
Luckily there is very few of them for **** sake
PS : it' s not related to AO geek
Originally posted by Powerdoc
I don't buy at all this argument. Islamists are not concerned by the support of moderate muslims : they even kill them. Last year a moderate muslim Imam was killed in France, by extremists.
If they are interested in moderate muslim is to convert them at their views.
Sorry, but I don't agree, the islamists definetly need the moderate muslims, as well as the moderate muslims need the islamists.
You seem to forget that the moderate muslims in the islamic countries are opressed/suppressed by US-sponsored and US-installed dictatorships, and these moderate muslims hope that sometime in the future the islamists will enfree them from them, that's why they need the islamists.
The islamists on the other hand need the sympathy be it private or public sympathy as well as money from the moderate muslims. Sure there are a few islamistic groups that have found other ways to come to money like drug-dealing (which is by the way prohibited by Islam), but only because the donation-traffic from the moderate muslims to them is somehow cut by some government, but even those groups need sympathy by the moderate ones, in order to recruit more fighters.
There is a mutual agreement between the moderate muslims and the extremistic islamists: The moderate muslims will tolerate and support them until they are free from the US-neocolonialism and the US-sponsored dictatorships. So basically the extremistic version of Islam, is one for war-time. When the war is over, it will be discarded.
Nightcrawler
Originally posted by Nightcrawler
Sorry, but I don't agree, the islamists definetly need the moderate muslims, as well as the moderate muslims need the islamists.
You seem to forget that the moderate muslims in the islamic countries are opressed/suppressed by US-sponsored and US-installed dictatorships, and these moderate muslims hope that sometime in the future the islamists will enfree them from them, that's why they need the islamists.
The islamists on the other hand need the sympathy be it private or public sympathy as well as money from the moderate muslims. Sure there are a few islamistic groups that have found other ways to come to money like drug-dealing (which is by the way prohibited by Islam), but only because the donation-traffic from the moderate muslims to them is somehow cut by some government, but even those groups need sympathy by the moderate ones, in order to recruit more fighters.
There is a mutual agreement between the moderate muslims and the extremistic islamists: The moderate muslims will tolerate and support them until they are free from the US-neocolonialism and the US-sponsored dictatorships. So basically the extremistic version of Islam, is one for war-time. When the war is over, it will be discarded.
Nightcrawler
Name one Islamic country who's Government was 'installed' by the US besides Afghanistan!
And the people of Afghanistan were far more 'oppressed' under the Taliban: or maybe you like that form of governance?!?!
And what dictatorships are ou referring to:
Saudis (perhaps, allthough they themselves seem to be the biggest state perveyor of rectionary fundamentalism around),
Syria? (nope)
Iran? (nope)
Lebanon (nope)
Yemen (nope)
Quattar (well, they are pretty chummy, and they are experimenting with democracy . . . wouldn't that be at the behest of the US . . . but then again that would go against your need for them to be an oppressive dictatorship)
Kuwait (hmm?! Probably the closest thing besides Saudi Arabia . . . allthough my Kuwaiti students seem to be pretty pleased with things . . . but then again, they were probably just daughters of the oppressor elites . . . hence their refusal to wear dog-collar like face coverings and their refusal to be absolutely obescient to the men in the room -yeah, they were oppressed into being freed from sexist Sharia, oppressed into being able to think and talk and be educated)
Packistan? (hmm?! we aren't 'ultra-good buddies', but we aren't at war either)
Egypt? (is that really a tyrany? seems pretty cosmopolitan and open to me . . . and harbors some pretty reactionary groups . . . maybe some who you know?)
. . . Now I'll give you Tajikistan and Uzbeckistan but these alliances were formed right at the begining of the Afghani war . . .
Turkey (nope, they pretty much do what they want when they want)
I must be missing the Oppressoer puppet states that we intalled . . .unless you meant Kuwait and Saudi Arabia . . .
Please fill me in.
anyway, I'd still like to see your list and explanations
Originally posted by segovius
...
The facts are that most moderates hate the extremists - at the very least because the extremists know very, very little about Islam.
The question is more (or should be) about the west's complete and utter rejection of anything remotely Islamic whatsoever taht elads to this confusion.
People don't make these correlations with Buddhists (say) even though one could point to Burma as being a fascist Buddhist junta. Because they know what Buddhism is and isn't.
Why is there not a similar knowledge of Islam ?
You don't get it but it's totally clear to me that the islamists know only little about Islam, and I also know that the moderate muslims have a sort of hate/love-relationship to the islamists, but and that is the point they are tolerated by the moderate ones as they hope for freedom from US-neocolonialism.
Actually the US in close cooperation with the Sauds, who the US have installed in the arabic peninsula, have forced and exported the islamic fundamentalism and radicalism in order to gain recruits for the war against the Soviet-Union. It's rather funny that the ghosts the US have called upon its enemy aren't vanishing again.
Actually for the islamic world the islamists are the best thing that could have happened to them. The radical version of the Islam that the islamists are propagating challenges the moderate muslims to finally reread the Quran and to interpret it for themselves and to study their religion again. Perhaps you don't know it, but since the islamic countries are governed by mostly US-installed and supported dictatorships, the imams (that are the leaders of the mosques) are appointed and handchoosen by the regimes. So, whatever the imams are saying is totally loyal to the regimes, otherwise these imams land in prison, where they get tortured.
The islamists on the other hand are pretty independent from the regimes and very critical about them, they are like the opposition in democracies. They say what they want, land in prison, are killed, but other imams take their place, etc..
And their simplified, radical, narrow understanding of Islam provokes the moderate muslims to think about their religion, and makes them studying the Quran again, and be it only so that they can reject the arguments of the islamists. That's a good thing.
That leads to the rediscovery of the political, legislative and social messages of the Islam, which are mostly not used in the islamic countries, and this leads to the suspicion that the socalled islamic governments aren't really islamic at all..
Don't disregard the fact that the Quran and the Islam were in contained political, economic, social and religious messages from the beginning of Islam.
But the european colialism and even before that the ottomans, and after all that the US-installed dictatorships have abandoned all but the religious message of Quran... in order to become secular regimes.
Nightcrawler