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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:30 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
on the other hand:
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| If American state power were gutted in the same way as Iraqi state power was |
Are you suffering from selective reading comprehension again? The point, Pedro, is that this civil war was inevitable. These animosities predate the Saddam regime. Moreover, Saddam's henchmen only served to deepen the ethnic divide, and he undoubtedly encouraged them to form an insurgency if the regime collapsed. Simply put: there was no legitimate Iraqi state authority before the war.
[We don't know if the civil war was necessarily inevitable or on that scale. Remember, people were played against each other. It was Bremer not Gardner who thought De-Baathification was a brilliant idea.
Huge mistakes were made to make a civil war inevitable. That part is certain. You are speculating. The De-Baathification and promoting the Shiites excessively in the beginning was definitely done; you cannot deny that, Steve. Yes, Saddam contributed to the divisions and so did Bremer.
The civil war may have occured with or without U.S. intervention, but it is speculation on your part.
BigBird:
I misjudged you: I thought you were a liberal but after reading your most recent post I see that you have swung much further to the Left. Are you a former staffer for Dennis Kucinich?
Just what would you have us do after 9-11? Should we have just shrugged our shoulders? Waited until the military technology and forces existed to wage the perfect war (in which collateral damage doesn't occur)? And doesn't the Taliban take the ultimate responsibility for inviting these al-Qaeda thugs into their midst? Your indignation is misplaced and I really do wonder if you can conceive of a viable alternative in waging the war on terrorism. The war in Afghanistan was not an act of retaliation against the citizenry at large. If you believe it was, we have no basis on which to debate reasonably.
[Steve there is a difference between invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yes, the Taliban were guilty for having Al Qaeda but Al Qaeda was already there and received years of support and funding by outside sources with the blessing of you know who; you cannot deny that.
Supposedly, the Taliban even once received aid from the U.S. government because the government wanted a pipe line to tap into Central Asian oil. That is all missing from your analyses. I don't think the war in Afghanistan was retaliation against the Afghan people. I don't know if Big Bird does. If she does, she can clarify that, I suppose.
The Taliban emerged after Afghanistan was abandoned; that was a choice that was made; it was a wrong one.
Now if you want to take the spiritual high-road, I suppose you could claim that NO war is worth the killing of a single child. But we don't live in an ideal world where everyone plays by the same rules. Today we find out that those Iraqi schoolgirls were actually targeted as a reprisal, but I don't hear you crying about that? Face it: militant Islam is the scourge of civilization in the contemporary era and no amount of apologetics is going to obscure that reality. You really are living on Cloud 9. |
Yes, but I would counter and say that these conflicts were largely due to many years of political blunders but people keep denying it. The warning signs were there long ago but people try to explain it away with those crazy Muslims without looking at what happend to stir the pot and so many were asleep at the switch and 9/11 could have been avoided and even prevented. For Pete's sake, the towers were hit in 1993. That was a clear harbinger what was to come. Of course, when someone hits you, you end up responding. However, the way things were done it was like someone having to go through chemotherapy for lung cancer after smoking packs of cigarettes for years. I didn't see any preventive action really taken. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:49 am Post subject: |
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adventurer:
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| I didn't see any preventive action really taken. |
In retrospect, all is abundantly clear. But all this mounting evidence of bad intent happened on liberal Clinton's watch (although he's not solely to blame). |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:05 am Post subject: |
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| Moreover, Saddam's henchmen only served to deepen the ethnic divide, and he undoubtedly encouraged them to form an insurgency if the regime collapsed. |
I think you'll find there are quite a few dictators, Muslim or otherwise, who would plan some sort of insurgency in the event of an impending invasion of their country. I seem to recall Baby Doc's followers in Haiti getting up to some pretty nasty stuff after he was ousted, and that was sans invasion.
(Actually, at various points in the past few years, you could probably have compiled a fairly lengthy list of Christian atrocities, heavily padded with examples from Haiti.)
| Quote: |
| These animosities predate the Saddam regime. |
Sure they do. Just like the abortion animosity has been around for a long time in the states. But like I say, you'd probably see an astronomical increase in the number of clinic bombings and doctor shootings if it were announced on national TV that there was no more law enforcement in the USA.
| Quote: |
Simply put: there was no legitimate Iraqi state authority before the war.
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Okay, so then who was making all those arrests and executions under Saddam? If you want to argue that that was terrorism, not statecraft, then it seems to me that to be consistent you have to say the same thing about ALL dictatorships, in which case you're gonna have a pretty hefty list of additions to the "Christian terrorist" list. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| huffdaddy wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
Terrorism isn't really my concern, other than to point out how disproportionately muslims are represented as terrorist murderers to you, huff. |
Your concerns are still ambigious. A loss of freedom? That's because governments are clamping down on unwarranted Islamphobia. You're beef is with them, not the Muslims. What else are you concerned about? |
The youth, after all, are our future. Maybe they can help erode some freedoms? still islamaphobia?
| Quote: |
Multiculturalism 'drives young Muslims to shun British values'
The doctrine of multi-culturalism has alienated an entire generation of young Muslims and made them increasingly radical, a report has found.
In stark contrast with their parents, growing numbers sympathise with extreme teachings of Islam, with almost four in ten wanting to live under Sharia law in Britain.
� Radical Islam as bad as BNP, says Cameron
� 'Naked X-rays on lampposts' to single out terror suspects
The study identifies significant support for wearing the veil in public, Islamic schools and even punishment by death for Muslims who convert to another religion.
Most alarmingly, 13 per cent of young Muslims said they "admired" organisations such as Al Qaeda which are prepared to "fight the West".
The poll exposes a fracture between the attitudes of Muslims aged 16 to 24, most of whom were born in Britain, and those of their parents� generation, who are more likely to have been immigrants.
A report published alongside the poll, commissioned by the Right-wing think tank Policy Exchange and carried out by Populus, said the doctrine of multi-culturalism was at least partly responsible.
A series of Labour ministers have broken recently with the idea that different communities should not be forced to integrate but should be allowed to maintain their own culture and identities.
Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, have also expressed serious doubts about multi-culturalism.
Academic Munira Mirza, lead author of the report, said: "The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multi-cultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines."
The poll of 1,000 Muslims, weighted to represent the population across the UK, found that a growing minority of youngsters felt they had less in common with non-Muslims than their parents did.
While only 17 per cent of over-55s said they would prefer to live under Sharia law, that increased to 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24. |
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
BigBird:
I misjudged you: I thought you were a liberal but after reading your most recent post I see that you have swung much further to the Left. Are you a former staffer for Dennis Kucinich? |
So I'm a swinging lefite...? 
| SteveMcTrollette wrote: |
| Just what would you have us do after 9-11? Should we have just shrugged our shoulders? Waited until the military technology and forces existed to wage the perfect war (in which collateral damage doesn't occur)? And doesn't the Taliban take the ultimate responsibility for inviting these al-Qaeda thugs into their midst? Your indignation is misplaced and I really do wonder if you can conceive of a viable alternative in waging the war on terrorism. The war in Afghanistan was not an act of retaliation against the citizenry at large. If you believe it was, we have no basis on which to debate reasonably. |
What should we have done post 9-11? We should have treated it as a crime against humanity, and begun working with various governments and agencies around the world to clean these terror organisations up. There was a lot of goodwill directed at the US in late 2001 (which Bush managed to squander) and many nations would have been happy to co-operate, and those countries that were less enthusiastic to comply could have been leaned on. We could have worked together to create a worldwide situation where it was very difficult to organise terrorist activity, or finance it. We could have worked hard to track these people down, and deal with them as criminals. Instead, we decided to follow a course of action that has only served to inflame terrorism.
In fact, it's quite clear that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq was really about stemming terror. The war on terror was merely a pretext. These places were invaded for other reasons. But that's another thread.
| TrollMcCarrot wrote: |
| Now if you want to take the spiritual high-road, I suppose you could claim that NO war is worth the killing of a single child. |
I'd say there's some truth to that.
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| Face it: militant Islam is a scourge of civilization in the contemporary era and no amount of apologetics is going to obscure that reality. |
I don't disagree with this (provided one swaps the definite article for the indefinite). Militant Islam is indeed of grave concern. I dearly hope that it will begin to wane as my own children get older. But I disagree with the way you purport to deal with the problem. Invading Arab nations is not going to help the situation in the slightest.
Last edited by Big_Bird on Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
adventurer:
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| I didn't see any preventive action really taken. |
In retrospect, all is abundantly clear. But all this mounting evidence of bad intent happened on liberal Clinton's watch (although he's not solely to blame). |
The first time the terrorist struck in earnest was in 1993. Bill Clinton was barely president so it was in relation to actions and policies carried by his predecessor who happens to the current president's father. You don't seem to acknowledge that. Clinton dealt with most of the symptoms and didn't go as actively against Al Qaeda as he should have but Al Qaeda was once backed up by his two predecessors who were not liberals as you recall, Steve. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Jack Lord wrote: |
| And doesn't the Taliban take the ultimate responsibility for inviting these al-Qaeda thugs into their midst? |
Haven't you forgotten that it was the Republican governments, CIA, the Brits and the Pakistanis that did most of the 'inviting' of Al-Qaeda thugs to Afghanistan? Perhaps we should have bombed ourselves too? |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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on the other hand:
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| Actually, at various points in the past few years, you could probably have compiled a fairly lengthy list of Christian atrocities, heavily padded with examples from Haiti. |
Still trying to equate Christian and Muslim aggression? Sorry, but it doesn't add up. And your forgetting one critical difference: when ETA or the IRA or the Serbs engage in terrorism, it is roundly condemned in the Christian world and even the Vatican. Not so with Islam, segments of which glorify terrorism while countless others condone it.
| Quote: |
| Just like the abortion animosity has been around for a long time in the states. |
Equating the abortion issue with ethnic strife is such a stretch of logic that even your other hand wouldn't be able to grasp it.
Apologetics takes one into the stratosphere of rationalizing.
[/quote] |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
on the other hand:
| Quote: |
| Actually, at various points in the past few years, you could probably have compiled a fairly lengthy list of Christian atrocities, heavily padded with examples from Haiti. |
Still trying to equate Christian and Muslim aggression? Sorry, but it doesn't add up. And your forgetting one critical difference: when ETA or the IRA or the Serbs engage in terrorism, it is roundly condemned in the Christian world and even the Vatican. Not so with Islam, segments of which glorify terrorism while countless others condone it.
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And there are no muslims who condemn it? Most muslims I know are heartily sick of it.
And there were no segments of Chrisian society who condoned or glorified violence by other Christians? I knew quite a few Irish lads who admired the IRA. I met even more Americans of Irish descent who hero worshipped the IRA. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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BigBird:
Have you lost all your feathers? Did you bother to read my last post in its entirety? If you had, you wouldn't be talking about the IRA. Jeepers.
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| Most muslims I know are heartily sick of it. |
More anecdotal evidence which amounts to a glob of warm spit. Undeniably, except from the sympathetic Left, millions (perhaps not most) in the Muslim world have embraced the ideology of jihad and its contempt of the infidel. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
BigBird:
millions (perhaps not most) in the Muslim world have embraced the ideology of jihad and its contempt of the infidel. |
Have you lost all your teeth, you old codger? What does "millions (perhaps not most)" mean? |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:09 am Post subject: |
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BigBird:
Guess Korea hasn't taught you to dignify the elderly. So you consider being 50 years-old a codger? Is that the best you can do?
It is reasonable to ascertain that millions of Muslims would sympathize with al-Qaeda's aims and actions considering their absolute number and the range of regions in which Islam holds sway. Of course, no one could cite an accurate figure, as if you could take a poll. But numerous international correspondents have reported this phenomenon, so it's hardly hyperbole.
Now go flap your wings. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:16 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
BigBird:
millions (perhaps not most) in the Muslim world have embraced the ideology of jihad and its contempt of the infidel. |
Have you lost all your teeth, you old codger? What does "millions (perhaps not most)" mean? |
You argue like a schoolboy. Is that the best you can do for a debate?
Show me evidence that a large-scale backlash against radical islam is building from WITHIN islam. Anecdotes don't work.
The evidence I have seen, and posted here time and time and time again suggests that muslims tend to be in mild disagreement about killing the kuffar but don't really have strong feelings as, well, they are just kuffar.
There was a suicide bomb in Israel today. I bet it was a muslim (why not Cristian pali bombers??, nah, doesn't' matter). I suppose we should be seeing the large demonstrations against this horrendous act soon? The streets of KL and Paris will fill with muslims protesting this disrespect upon their religion? Chomsky and Zinn will march on the Washington Monument demanding justice? 'We are all Jews now', the leftist professors in the UK will say. |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:49 am Post subject: |
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The apologists for the idiot excesses of Islam, just don't get it. We are supposed to "understand" them and perhaps feel their pain.
No thank you. Their minds an morals are stuck in the middle ages. |
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huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:24 am Post subject: |
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| contrarian wrote: |
The apologists for the idiot excesses of Islam, just don't get it. We are supposed to "understand" them and perhaps feel their pain.
No thank you. Their minds an morals are stuck in the middle ages. |
Just like the polygamists. It must have been a sad day for the Muslims when their poll numbers dropped below the Mormons. At least they're still ahead of the Scientologists.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/12/opinion/polls/main1494697.shtml
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THE MORMON RELIGION
Favorable
20%
Unfavorable
39%
Don't Know
41%
ISLAM
Favorable
19%
Unfavorable
45%
Don't Know
36%
SCIENTOLOGY
Favorable
8%
Unfavorable
52%
Don't Know
40%
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