Most Muslims are not terrorists. I wasn't saying otherwise. I was using the expression "Muslim terrorist" not "Muslims". Calling them Islamists instead of "Muslim terrorist" is fine, but just a matter of symantics...Ranger68 said:
Margaret Hassan
- Thread starter BeaverCleaver
- Start date
ONE MORE TIME - The US had good reason to go into Afghanistan, prompting massive international support. This is FUNDAMENTALLY different than the Iraq incursion.ocean976124 said:
Israel still occupies that land illegally. They are NOT entitled to stay there. I know more than enough about the Arab-Israeli wars, thank you.
Yes, there are lots of options available to terrorists, practically none of which are so-called "WMDs".
As for the "main threat", right now, it's Islamists. It's foolish to think it always will be, or always was. In any case, this doesn't change the fact that practically no nations negotiate with terrorists, which makes the Islamists no different than anyone else.
No real "myths" being debunked in that web link - just a response to anti-semitic idiocy, I suppose. Nothing most people who read about the war wouldn't have already known.
And the terms Muslim and Islamist have been used pretty incorrectly in this thread by various parties. To imply that they're the same is neither correct nor conducive to the arguments at hand.
And the terms Muslim and Islamist have been used pretty incorrectly in this thread by various parties. To imply that they're the same is neither correct nor conducive to the arguments at hand.
Bin Laden is an ISLAMIST. The Islamist terrorists began terrorizing the west only after it became clear that their targeting of people in their home nations was not working. It has to do with means to an end, less than culture.
When you say "their" views of the west, you really mean the Islamists, not Muslims, in general, who for the most part desire western-style reforms and economies.
YOU ARE EQUATING THE WORDS "MUSLIM" AND "ISLAMIC" AS IF THEY WERE THE SAME THING!
The leaders of Jordan and Egyps are MUSLIM not ISLAMIC.
If you think that the actions of the US and Israel are "irrelevant" you're not paying any attention.
Iran had - pay attention now - an ISLAMIC REVOLUTION! Of COURSE they then discarded all western influences - THAT'S WHAT THE ISLAMISTS ARE ALL ABOUT! Most Muslims, most Muslim countries, do NOT want the Islamists about, to the extent that they're ostracized, imprisoned, tortured, and killed in most of these nations.
Geez.
When you say "their" views of the west, you really mean the Islamists, not Muslims, in general, who for the most part desire western-style reforms and economies.
YOU ARE EQUATING THE WORDS "MUSLIM" AND "ISLAMIC" AS IF THEY WERE THE SAME THING!
The leaders of Jordan and Egyps are MUSLIM not ISLAMIC.
If you think that the actions of the US and Israel are "irrelevant" you're not paying any attention.
Iran had - pay attention now - an ISLAMIC REVOLUTION! Of COURSE they then discarded all western influences - THAT'S WHAT THE ISLAMISTS ARE ALL ABOUT! Most Muslims, most Muslim countries, do NOT want the Islamists about, to the extent that they're ostracized, imprisoned, tortured, and killed in most of these nations.
Geez.
You don't know shit about Muslim society, clearly. Bin Laden is an ISLAMIST - this is an EXTREME set of the Muslim community. This is like saying that the KKK just holds an extreme version of a view that most Christians hold. Don't be an idiot.bbking said:
Once again, people, most Muslims enjoy western culture and influence, and are NOT Islamists.
What does their "rhetoric" say? Please provide some quotes. They are most certainly NOT Islamists, and their regimes have tortured and killed MANY Islamists for these beliefs. They are MUSLIM leaders, not Islamic per se. Please pay attention.bbking said:
What the US is doing is MOST CERTAINLY a cause of most Arabs' hatred of them.bbking said:
LOL Who's "making up words"? LOLbbking said:
There is *considerable* difference between those who Muslims would call *Islamic* - really, they are *Islamists* - and run-of-the-mill Muslims. You need to do some reading.bbking said:
Not remotely incorrect - it's your inability to understand this diffentiation in Muslim society that underlines the racism inherent in the ignorance which calls for a war against Islam.bbking said:
It certainly is true. It's assholes like you who fuel increased Arab and Muslim hatred of the west.bbking said:
You're right about how extreme positions don't evolve in vacuums. You should consider why these ISLAMIST positions have evolved.
There had always been radical Muslim groups around who condemned the existing governments as insufficiently *Islamic*; it was a normal part of politics in Muslim countries. Their numbers grew and their critique sharpened as the secular Arab governments demonstrated their total inability to deal with the problems they confronted (Israel, foremost among them), and by the early 1970s they had achieved critical mass in a number of Arab countries: they became actual revolutionary movements. Their analysis of the problem was crude, but it had an undeniable appeal because of its very simplicity.
"Theologically, the Islamist position is profoundly anti-nationalist. It comes out of the Salafist tradition, an intensely romantic vision in which the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, living in forty-odd countries spread across three continents, return to the ideals of the first generations of Muslims and live as one under Sharia law in a single, borderless community. Nation-states based on shared language and history are idolatry and blasphemy and only distract the attention of Muslims from the one community they really owe loyalty to: the umma, the worldwide community of all Muslim believers. As Osama bin Laden put it in a tape broadcast in February 2003, just before the US invasion of Iraq: 'The fighting should be in the name of God only, not in the name of national ideologies, nor to seek victory for the ignorant governments that rule all Arab states, including Iraq'."
- Dyer, Future Tense
Most Muslims are NOT Islamists. Even the word "Islamic" isn't equated with "Muslim" by the majority of that religion.
The paradox is that while Islamism is an anti-national doctrine, most of the Muslims who have been attracted to it are Arab nationalists - because Arabs are the only large Muslim group whose situation is so desperate that many of them have been tempted to turn to such a radical doctrine. Some people try to force Iran into the same category, but the "Islamic revolution" in Iran in 1978-79 was in no sense an Islamist phenomenon. It was another example of conservative Muslim revolt against a radical project for Westernization by a secular modernizer, Shar Reza Pahlavi, but it completely lacked the apocalyptic world-changing ambitions of the Islamists.
"Support for Islamist ideals (if not always for Islamist tactics) probably ranges between ten and fifteen percent of the population in most Arab countries."
- Dyer, Future Tense.
The great majority of the committed Islamists in the world are Arab.
Osama Bin Laden is an Islamist. The Taliban were Islamists.
If we're at war, it's with them - not Islam or the Muslim world. Don't fuel the rhetoric, folks.
"Theologically, the Islamist position is profoundly anti-nationalist. It comes out of the Salafist tradition, an intensely romantic vision in which the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, living in forty-odd countries spread across three continents, return to the ideals of the first generations of Muslims and live as one under Sharia law in a single, borderless community. Nation-states based on shared language and history are idolatry and blasphemy and only distract the attention of Muslims from the one community they really owe loyalty to: the umma, the worldwide community of all Muslim believers. As Osama bin Laden put it in a tape broadcast in February 2003, just before the US invasion of Iraq: 'The fighting should be in the name of God only, not in the name of national ideologies, nor to seek victory for the ignorant governments that rule all Arab states, including Iraq'."
- Dyer, Future Tense
Most Muslims are NOT Islamists. Even the word "Islamic" isn't equated with "Muslim" by the majority of that religion.
The paradox is that while Islamism is an anti-national doctrine, most of the Muslims who have been attracted to it are Arab nationalists - because Arabs are the only large Muslim group whose situation is so desperate that many of them have been tempted to turn to such a radical doctrine. Some people try to force Iran into the same category, but the "Islamic revolution" in Iran in 1978-79 was in no sense an Islamist phenomenon. It was another example of conservative Muslim revolt against a radical project for Westernization by a secular modernizer, Shar Reza Pahlavi, but it completely lacked the apocalyptic world-changing ambitions of the Islamists.
"Support for Islamist ideals (if not always for Islamist tactics) probably ranges between ten and fifteen percent of the population in most Arab countries."
- Dyer, Future Tense.
The great majority of the committed Islamists in the world are Arab.
Osama Bin Laden is an Islamist. The Taliban were Islamists.
If we're at war, it's with them - not Islam or the Muslim world. Don't fuel the rhetoric, folks.
In this day and age do you really think that the majority of Muslim thought in the world believes that the west is evil and needs to be rejected and destroyed? Nonsense. It's just simple prejudice that you can attribute such tolerance and understanding to the Christian community as a whole yet not to the Muslim world.
You need to read some books on the topic.
I have no hatred of the US - just current US policy. Nice try, though.
Clearly it's YOU who haven't been reading MY posts. LOL
What's your "root cause"? LOL I haven't seen one. A "cultural clash"?! Yeah, that makes sense! That sounds like enough motivation for the Muslim world to rise up against the west. LOL As if the Arab Muslim culture were anything like the culture of Muslims around the world. Ignorant.
Yes, Bin Laden CLEARLY states what the problem is. Fact is, he's an Islamist, and no more represents the beliefs of regular Muslims than David Duke represents the beliefs of regular Christians.
I've read ALL your idiotic posts on the subject. You have NOTHING to offer, and are clearly ignorant on everything you're talking about - it's all just ignorant, prejudiced, racist conjecture that fits your world view.
Disgusting.
You need to read some books on the topic.
I have no hatred of the US - just current US policy. Nice try, though.
Clearly it's YOU who haven't been reading MY posts. LOLWhat's your "root cause"? LOL I haven't seen one. A "cultural clash"?! Yeah, that makes sense! That sounds like enough motivation for the Muslim world to rise up against the west. LOL As if the Arab Muslim culture were anything like the culture of Muslims around the world. Ignorant.
Yes, Bin Laden CLEARLY states what the problem is. Fact is, he's an Islamist, and no more represents the beliefs of regular Muslims than David Duke represents the beliefs of regular Christians.
I've read ALL your idiotic posts on the subject. You have NOTHING to offer, and are clearly ignorant on everything you're talking about - it's all just ignorant, prejudiced, racist conjecture that fits your world view.
Disgusting.
"This instinctive sense of moral outrage and even superiority on the part of Americans is understandable, given what we have suffered at the hands of terrorists; but in historical terms it is badly misplaced, as well as detrimental to the cause of dealing with the problems we face."
- Caleb Carr, The Lessons of Terror
- Caleb Carr, The Lessons of Terror
It's like terrorism is something new - some new way of making war that we need to protect against. As if the Muslim world, if it were truly united, would choose such a feeble way to "make war" on "the west".
To call these terrorists "Islamic" is like calling the Bader-Meinhof Gang "Christian terrorists". They represent a tiny, extreme minority of the world's Muslim community, one which draws almost entirely from the community of disenfranchised Arabs who have no other recourse but this method of la politique du pire, who truly do feel that all of the evils of their present situation are attributable to Israel and western subjugation - the Arabs.
They are ISLAMISTS.
And the VAST MAJORITY of the world's Muslims, even in the Arab states, do not agree with their goals or their methods.
The sooner people in the west understand that, the sooner we can be rid of the Islamist menace, the myth of a "Muslim culture war".
To call these terrorists "Islamic" is like calling the Bader-Meinhof Gang "Christian terrorists". They represent a tiny, extreme minority of the world's Muslim community, one which draws almost entirely from the community of disenfranchised Arabs who have no other recourse but this method of la politique du pire, who truly do feel that all of the evils of their present situation are attributable to Israel and western subjugation - the Arabs.
They are ISLAMISTS.
And the VAST MAJORITY of the world's Muslims, even in the Arab states, do not agree with their goals or their methods.
The sooner people in the west understand that, the sooner we can be rid of the Islamist menace, the myth of a "Muslim culture war".
"In a climate of commonplace terror, the Palestinians needed to put some sort of distinctive spin on their own activities. They found it when they made the leap from victimizing only Israelis to attacking citizens of any nations that they felt were aiding Israel, which eventually included a considerable list of powerful countries. But as time went on, the head of al-Fatah (and later of the Palestinian Liberation Organization), Yasir Arafat, focused his group's violent attention on one nation in particular: the United States, the first country to have granted de facto recognition to Israel when it declared its independence and thereafter its chief supplier of money and arms."
- Carr, The Lessons of Terror
The PLO isn't interested in any "culture war", nor is Hamas. And they are an extremist organization. As is Al Qaeda.
"In doing so (targeting civilians on a grand scale), the organizers, sponsors, and foot soldiers of every terrorist group involved in the September 11 and subsequent attacks have unwittingly ensured that their *extremist cause* will be discredited among many of their sympathizers, disowned by most of their former sponsors, and finally defeated by their enemies: two thousand years of the lessons of terror dictate that this is the ultimate fate that awaits the attacker, no matter how many noncombatants they manage to kill along the way."
- Carr, The Lessons of Terror
The PLO isn't interested in any "culture war", nor is Hamas. And they are an extremist organization. As is Al Qaeda.
"In doing so (targeting civilians on a grand scale), the organizers, sponsors, and foot soldiers of every terrorist group involved in the September 11 and subsequent attacks have unwittingly ensured that their *extremist cause* will be discredited among many of their sympathizers, disowned by most of their former sponsors, and finally defeated by their enemies: two thousand years of the lessons of terror dictate that this is the ultimate fate that awaits the attacker, no matter how many noncombatants they manage to kill along the way."
This is the end result of all terrorist activities down through history. The OPPOSITE of the goal they were trying to achieve.onthebottom said:
This hasn't stopped even very intelligent people from trying, hoping that the times have finally changed and that their tactics of terror may have found an era where they can succeed.
No, Islamic and Islamist are different words. Please read some of my posts.bbking said:
Al Qaeda is an ISLAMIST organization, with a radical ISLAMIC agenda. For the last time, these words are different. And even most Muslims would not classify themselves as Islamic these days, LET ALONE ISLAMISTS.
Please.
Even your intimation that most Muslims agree with this cultural pollution is false. Most Muslims around the world WANT westernization - they STRONGLY DESIRE it. It is practically only in the Arab world that this rejection of western culture - seen as keeping them down - has found a foothold.
Indeed, I have INFORMED YOU that organizations like Al Qaeda draw mainly from disenfranchised Arab communities. To move from this to the belief that these societies *generally support the Islamists* is utter crap.
My "definition of terror" is stupid, how? Terrorism is terrorism. The goals change, the means remain the same.
Do some reading. Dyer's and Carr's works would be good starts. Do you have any recommendations? Any works that support any of your views? Anything beyond an on-line dictionary?
You think wrong. I have several Muslim friends who were born in primarily Muslim countries outside of Canada. I have spoken with their parents, who lived in these countries and can talk intelligently about them, on many occasions. Keep grasping at straws, though. LOL
Do some reading, then you can come back and tell me the difference between "Islamic" and "Islamist". I'll give you a hint - Islamists used to be called "pan-Islamics". That you think it's not a word, and think you can argue intelligently in here, is frightening - but wholly indicative of the underlying problem.
I've never said there is not "plenty of support" for Bin Laden's war. However, it is NOT supported by ANYWHERE NEAR A MAJORITY of ANY Arab population. Period.
Yes, my hatred is for the current administration - unlike your hatred, which seems to be of the Arab Islamics (or Islamists ), or probably even the entire Muslim world in general. Only Bush has violated international law to such a ridiculous extent, which you'd know if you'd been reading any of my posts. Even Reagan, though he was an idiot, wasn't all that dangerous an idiot. Bush is the worst thing to happen to US security in decades.
LOL I love these incredible straw men you keep throwing up - your entire posts are nothing but! LOL I never indicated that the US should "turtle". Again, in fact, if you'd read some of my posts, you'd recall I said that an isolationist US is most certainly HARMFUL to the world. In what way, outside of your twisted brain, is this an accession to the desireability of invading Iraq? LOL
Goodness.
Do some reading, then you can come back and tell me the difference between "Islamic" and "Islamist". I'll give you a hint - Islamists used to be called "pan-Islamics". That you think it's not a word, and think you can argue intelligently in here, is frightening - but wholly indicative of the underlying problem.
I've never said there is not "plenty of support" for Bin Laden's war. However, it is NOT supported by ANYWHERE NEAR A MAJORITY of ANY Arab population. Period.
Yes, my hatred is for the current administration - unlike your hatred, which seems to be of the Arab Islamics (or Islamists
), or probably even the entire Muslim world in general. Only Bush has violated international law to such a ridiculous extent, which you'd know if you'd been reading any of my posts. Even Reagan, though he was an idiot, wasn't all that dangerous an idiot. Bush is the worst thing to happen to US security in decades.LOL I love these incredible straw men you keep throwing up - your entire posts are nothing but! LOL I never indicated that the US should "turtle". Again, in fact, if you'd read some of my posts, you'd recall I said that an isolationist US is most certainly HARMFUL to the world. In what way, outside of your twisted brain, is this an accession to the desireability of invading Iraq? LOL
Goodness.
Punch-drunk eh?
I think a cavalier use of "the west" is being used, epitomized by "Most Muslims around the world WANT westernization ".
To me the words "western" and "westernization" are akin to "dynamic, interesting, empowering": a meaningless and sometimes wrong catch-all to support a diffcult argument, thereby weakened. I can't imagine any definition of westernization is going to achieve agreement between westerners, Arabs, Muslims and Islamists. To me, "westernization" as a descriptive causal issue, justification or explanative commentary is a western concept or western incorrect interpretive translation. I sometimes wonder if it's purposeful disinformation, parsing, or a necessary oversimplification.
To me, westernization is a moot issue. There's too much western and other's interest, opinions, meddling, power brokering manipulations, etc.
I think a cavalier use of "the west" is being used, epitomized by "Most Muslims around the world WANT westernization ".
To me the words "western" and "westernization" are akin to "dynamic, interesting, empowering": a meaningless and sometimes wrong catch-all to support a diffcult argument, thereby weakened. I can't imagine any definition of westernization is going to achieve agreement between westerners, Arabs, Muslims and Islamists. To me, "westernization" as a descriptive causal issue, justification or explanative commentary is a western concept or western incorrect interpretive translation. I sometimes wonder if it's purposeful disinformation, parsing, or a necessary oversimplification.
To me, westernization is a moot issue. There's too much western and other's interest, opinions, meddling, power brokering manipulations, etc.
