Love a Muslim: Seattle version

[j_b]

China, India, the Congo, Vietnam - there's dozens of states that have had colonial experiences that were at least as recent and brutal as anything that the vast majority of Muslims have had to contend with - yet they're not trying to detonate themselves in pre-schools.

 

Quit talking out of your ignorant ass. Not only did the western media described these people in the same terms they are talking about muslim terrorists today but civilian targets have always been a fact of war, especially during asymmetric guerrilla warfare.

[j_b]

Congo? Do you actually know about the atrocities and the civilian death count (over 5 millions) in Congo between the late 90's early 2000's? Have you heard of the systematic mutilations, rapes, murders? Unbelievable.

[JayB]

Yes. I also know about the Belgian colonial exercise in the Congo as told in "King Leopold's Ghost." Well over a century of unspeakable suffering - yet they have shown little inclination to respond by traveling abroad and detonating themselves in packed discos. Ditto for the Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc.

 

The funny thing is that the people who have and will suffer the most at the hands of Muslim fanatics are...other Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace. Do you really think that hordes of Western leftists that go out of their way apologizing for, rationalizing, and desperately trying to unearth a tenable historico-political excuse for the fanatics' actions are actually helping anyone? Other than the fanatics.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Yes. I also know about the Belgian colonial exercise in the Congo as told in "King Leopold's Ghost." Well over a century of unspeakable suffering - yet they have shown little inclination to respond by traveling abroad and detonating themselves in packed discos. Ditto for the Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc.

 

The funny thing is that the people who have and will suffer the most at the hands of Muslim fanatics are...other Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace. Do you really think that hordes of Western leftists that go out of their way apologizing for, rationalizing, and desperately trying to unearth a tenable historico-political excuse for the fanatics' actions are actually helping anyone? Other than the fanatics.

 

[prole]

Yes. I also know about the Belgian colonial exercise in the Congo as told in "King Leopold's Ghost." Well over a century of unspeakable suffering - yet they have shown little inclination to respond by traveling abroad and detonating themselves in packed discos. Ditto for the Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc.

 

In other words, horrific violence directed against innocents is only worth investigating when it's directed against Westerners and creating a phantom menace serves the broader geopolitical goals. As far as the Muslims who just want to live in peace bearing the brunt of violence, we know well your record on supporting policies where "innocents" easily become "collateral damage".

Edited May 6, 2010 by prole

[rob]

we should just get rid of religion. Seriously. It's about time.

[RuMR]

couldn't agree more with that sentiment...

[JayB]

Yes. I also know about the Belgian colonial exercise in the Congo as told in "King Leopold's Ghost." Well over a century of unspeakable suffering - yet they have shown little inclination to respond by traveling abroad and detonating themselves in packed discos. Ditto for the Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc.

 

In other words, horrific violence directed against innocents is only worth investigating when it's directed against Westerners and creating a phantom menace serves the broader geopolitical goals. As far as the Muslims who just want to live in peace bearing the brunt of violence, we know well your record on supporting policies where "innocents" easily become "collateral damage".

 

I'm not sure that the menace is particularly phantom-like to the folks on the wrong end of honor killings, forced clitorectomies, stonings, executions for witchcraft,disco-train-plane-bombings etc, etc, etc, etc but I appreciate how it can seem so from your vantage point.

 

My take is that the cultural values in place prior to colonization, war, famine, economic stagnation, etc determine how a given people behave during and after these episodes. If Maronite and Coptic Christians -not to mention secularists - from the Middle East were detonating themselves near ice-cream trucks with a population adjusted frequency equal to that of their Muslim counterparts, you'd be justified in arguing that the set of creeds and values unique to Islam had no role in catalyzing and sustaining episodes like the campaign to murder a handful of Scandinavian cartoonists, train bombings, etc. Ditto for all of the other claims about poverty, repression, etc, etc, etc that don't square in the least with the profile of those committing the violence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[j_b]

Yes. I also know about the Belgian colonial exercise in the Congo as told in "King Leopold's Ghost." Well over a century of unspeakable suffering - yet they have shown little inclination to respond by traveling abroad and detonating themselves in packed discos. Ditto for the Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc.

 

Well, you are really outdoing yourself these days. Seriously, my jaw dropped when I read your answer. I didn't think you could come up with a rhetorical pirouette as stupid as you did. Congratulations.

 

The funny thing is that the people who have and will suffer the most at the hands of Muslim fanatics are...other Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace. Do you really think that hordes of Western leftists that go out of their way apologizing for, rationalizing, and desperately trying to unearth a tenable historico-political excuse for the fanatics' actions are actually helping anyone? Other than the fanatics.

 

as if We had waited for your rotten kind to condemn the dark age fanatics that your political current has always supported when it has been expedient, like throughout the 80's when they murdered and mutilated Afghan women that wanted to go to school. They are the same bloody warlords you are de facto supporting today by the way. Spare us your crocodile tears, hypocrite.

[j_b]

I'm not sure that the menace is particularly phantom-like to the folks on the wrong end of honor killings, forced clitorectomies, stonings, executions for witchcraft,disco-train-plane-bombings etc, etc, etc, etc but I appreciate how it can seem so from your vantage point.

 

don't you support the policies of Bush and Reagan (retroactively I suspect fo rthe later) when they used the warlords (like Karzai's brother) to fight our enemies of the moment. What do you think warlords do to people? DO you think they are against stoning , against performing female circumcision?

 

YOU are truly clueless

[prole]

My take is that the cultural values in place prior to colonization, war, famine, economic stagnation, etc determine how a given people behave during and after these episodes. If Maronite and Coptic Christians -not to mention secularists - from the Middle East were detonating themselves near ice-cream trucks with a population adjusted frequency equal to that of their Muslim counterparts, you'd be justified in arguing that the set of creeds and values unique to Islam had no role in catalyzing and sustaining episodes like the campaign to murder a handful of Scandinavian cartoonists, train bombings, etc. Ditto for all of the other claims about poverty, repression, etc, etc, etc that don't square in the least with the profile of those committing the violence.

 

Do you think dead people care whether they were killed by a suicide bomb, machete, Colombian necktie, or a flaming tire around their neck? I'm looking forward to your paper where you identify the cultural gene hardwired into the American psyche that accounts for the increased number of suicide shootings in schools, workplaces, and fast-food restaurants by disaffected, young, white, suburban males.

[j_b]

Clearly, over one million Iraqi dead to bring "democracy" to Iraq isn't enough for JayB. Now he is going after the religious fanatics with the very same warlords who have been the cause of much terrifying violence in Afghanistan over the last 30 years, then he'll wonder why they hate his guts. It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

[JayB]

My take is that the cultural values in place prior to colonization, war, famine, economic stagnation, etc determine how a given people behave during and after these episodes. If Maronite and Coptic Christians -not to mention secularists - from the Middle East were detonating themselves near ice-cream trucks with a population adjusted frequency equal to that of their Muslim counterparts, you'd be justified in arguing that the set of creeds and values unique to Islam had no role in catalyzing and sustaining episodes like the campaign to murder a handful of Scandinavian cartoonists, train bombings, etc. Ditto for all of the other claims about poverty, repression, etc, etc, etc that don't square in the least with the profile of those committing the violence.

 

Do you think dead people care whether they were killed by a suicide bomb, machete, Colombian necktie, or a flaming tire around their neck? I'm looking forward to your paper where you identify the cultural gene hardwired into the American psyche that accounts for the increased number of suicide shootings in schools, workplaces, and fast-food restaurants by disaffected, young, white, suburban males.

 

Its probably more instructive to worry about the impact that the murders by various means have on the living, which is what the killers are primarily concerned with. On that more salient point, then mode of murder matters quite a bit. The fanatics understand this quite clearly.

 

Presumably you do too, which makes it all the more puzzling why you'd spend so much time and energy defending Islamist fanatics given that you purport to oppose everything that they stand for.

 

 

[j_b]

Why won't we won't stand for your bigoted claim that the Muslim religion is somehow the cause of all these atrocities? I think it's pretty obvious why considering your bloody record against Muslim people.

[j_b]

we should just get rid of religion. Seriously. It's about time.

 

It'd be much more productive to get rid of the militari-industrial complex.

[prole]

My take is that the cultural values in place prior to colonization, war, famine, economic stagnation, etc determine how a given people behave during and after these episodes. If Maronite and Coptic Christians -not to mention secularists - from the Middle East were detonating themselves near ice-cream trucks with a population adjusted frequency equal to that of their Muslim counterparts, you'd be justified in arguing that the set of creeds and values unique to Islam had no role in catalyzing and sustaining episodes like the campaign to murder a handful of Scandinavian cartoonists, train bombings, etc. Ditto for all of the other claims about poverty, repression, etc, etc, etc that don't square in the least with the profile of those committing the violence.

 

Do you think dead people care whether they were killed by a suicide bomb, machete, Colombian necktie, or a flaming tire around their neck? I'm looking forward to your paper where you identify the cultural gene hardwired into the American psyche that accounts for the increased number of suicide shootings in schools, workplaces, and fast-food restaurants by disaffected, young, white, suburban males.

 

Its probably more instructive to worry about the impact that the murders by various means have on the living, which is what the killers are primarily concerned with. On that more salient point, then mode of murder matters quite a bit. The fanatics understand this quite clearly.

 

Presumably you do too, which makes it all the more puzzling why you'd spend so much time and energy defending Islamist fanatics given that you purport to oppose everything that they stand for.

 

I do oppose everything they stand for which is exactly why I don't want to make more of them. The privileged place that fringe fanatics have been afforded in terms of ink and boots on the ground is completely out of proportion to their numbers and their actual power. Instead of treating these small, loosely connected, marginalized minorities like the criminals they are, the neocons treated them like the second coming of the Huns and undertook actions that have predictably increased their number and their ideological reach. What you've described here as a defense of fanaticism, capitulation, or whatever is actually an effort to formulate a more appropriate, effective response; opposed to one in which all aspects of the Muslim faith are conflated with extremism and violence and the historical roots current Mideast conflict and America's role in the genesis of these groups is obscured in favor of a metaphysical lurking Mohammedan leviathan. The "stamp them out, stay the course, America Fuck Yeah" alternative, which you seem to be aligned with, is clearly making things worse. At some point, if "the West" is going to be a part of a solution to this problem, it will have to come to terms with the history and the contemporary realities that continue to motivate and give birth to new fanatics.

Edited May 7, 2010 by prole

[j_b]

JayB is in fine company:

 

The Dirty Dozen

Who's who among America's leading Islamophobes

 

Bigots aren’t born, and hate doesn’t spring up on its own; as the song says, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” The following list includes some of the media’s leading teachers of anti-Muslim bigotry, serving various roles in the Islamophobic movement. Some write the books that serve as intellectual fodder, others serve as promoters, others play the roles of provocateurs and rabble-rousers. Some ply their bigotry in the media’s mainstream, others in the Internet’s tributaries, while still others work talk radio’s backwaters. Together with uncounted smaller players, they form a network that teaches Americans to see Islam in fearful terms and their Muslim neighbors as suspects.

 

[...]

 

Article here: The Dirty Dozen

[KaskadskyjKozak]

JayB is in fine company:

 

The Dirty Dozen

Who's who among America's leading Islamophobes

 

 

ISLAMOPHOBE KNUCKLE DRAGGING REGRESSIVE OIL COMPANY SHILL!

[prole]

JayB is in fine company:

 

The Dirty Dozen

Who's who among America's leading Islamophobes

 

 

ISLAMOPHOBE KNUCKLE DRAGGING REGRESSIVE OIL COMPANY SHILL!

 

Wow, sure am glad you've found something to do besides pick nits off your balls.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

JayB is in fine company:

 

The Dirty Dozen

Who's who among America's leading Islamophobes

 

 

ISLAMOPHOBE KNUCKLE DRAGGING REGRESSIVE OIL COMPANY SHILL!

 

Wow, sure am glad you've found something to do besides pick nits off your balls.

 

I keep picking you off and you keep finding your way there.

[prole]

sickie

[j_b]

Just for you, here's a dictionary:

 

ISLAMOPHOBE

 

It is seriously twisted (or more likely stupid) to claim that people who blow themselves up with their victims on another continent are worse evil than those going around chopping limbs and bellies a few countries over (let's not mention any of the other methods of achieving 'collateral damage'). To claim that it is a worse evil because the perpetrators are muslims makes it islamophobic.

 

 

KNUCKLE DRAGGING

 

Red-baits about 'soshalists', refuses to discuss his extensive cherry picking of facts and data, never responds directly to an argument, extensive straw man building, etc

 

 

REGRESSIVE

 

Wants to destroy the social safety net. Refuses any environmental constraint on industry. Espouses "a good government is a dead one". Hasn't found a war he didn't like. A picture perfect dead-ender despite the free maryjane rhetoric.

 

OIL COMPANY SHILL!

 

Always sides for the interests of big business. Pushes policies directly leading to consolidations, monopolies, corporatocracy. Pays occasional lip service to subsidies but never calls it corporate welfare despite its widespread and longstanding economic importance or never acknowledges its necessary role for development.

[Fairweather]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8676351.stm

 

A Swedish artist who created an international furore by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was assaulted as he delivered a university lecture.

 

Lars Vilks says he was head-butted by an audience member as he spoke about the limits of artistic freedom.

 

The cartoonist's glasses were broken, but he was not injured.

 

Mr Vilks has been threatened on numerous occasions, but the assault at Uppsala University was the first time he has been physically attacked.

 

The artist said a group of about 15 people had been shouting and trying to interrupt the lecture, which was attended by about 250 people.

 

"A man ran up and threw himself over me. I was head-butted and my glasses were broken," Mr Vilks was quoted as saying by the AP news agency.

 

A video clip of the attack was posted on the website of a Swedish newspaper.

 

It showed police using pepper spray and batons to control an angry crowd shouting "God is great" in Arabic as Mr Vilks was led away. Two people were detained.

 

Earlier this year, Mr Vilks was the target of an alleged murder plot involving Colleen LaRose, an American who called herself "Jihad Jane".

 

She has pleaded not guilty, but faces life in prison if convicted.

 

In 2007, a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 (£66,000) reward for killing Mr Vilks, and a 50% bonus if he was "slaughtered like a lamb" by having his throat cut.

 

The Vilks cartoon was published about a year-and-a-half after a series of depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper caused protests by Muslims around the world.

[ivan]

muslims need more hobbies?

[Stonehead]

Yes, well research by this anthropologist (PATHWAYS TO AND FROM VIOLENT EXTREMISM: THE CASE FOR SCIENCE-BASED FIELD RESEARCH )suggests intervention with some alternate type of engagement to de-radicalize youth.

 

Scott Atran's thesis runs counter to the common conception of Islam as the hotbed for radicalism. Rather, the impetus appears to be various factors which lead to marginalization and Islam instead of solely being the problem can actually yield solutions.