# A Lesson From 9/11



## Big Don (Sep 12, 2010)

*A Lesson From 9/11*

*September 10, 2010*

*By CHARLES M. BLOW The New York Times*

EXCERPT:

             Nine years ago today, we saw the world stand still. We saw the innocence  of a nation crumble to the ground. We saw the face of evil form in  plumes of smoke and ash. It was Sept. 11, 2001.		
  I heard a thousand gasps of a thousand people standing stock still in  the normally bustling Times Square as they watched the second plane hit  the second tower on a JumboTron in Times Square.		
  I saw images of small figures that looked liked birds outside the  towers. Only they werent birds, they were people, forced out by the  flames, forced to make an impossible choice under impossible  circumstances.		
  We all watched the towers collapse, completely, falling from the skies  above into a cloud below    horrific and awesome, breathtaking and  unbelievable.		
  I felt myself grow numb, but I refused to be afraid. My attitude that  day was the same as most Americans: the terrorists must not be allowed  to win. America would not be cowed. We would rise, our greatness would  shine, and our ideas of freedom would remain a beacon to the world.		
  That is why the debate these past few weeks over Islam in America    from the proposed Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan to talk of  the burning of Korans   has been so hard to watch. Too much of the  debate seems to be centered around the sensitivities of terrorists a  world away who have hijacked the passions of a faith, who would see us  destroyed and who want to attract more damaged souls to their cause.		
  I understand, in theory, the idea of not stirring the hornets nest  while our troops are still in harms way. But I chafe at the idea that  great American debates, in all their ugliness and splendor, should be  tempered for terrorists and their attempts to recruit.		
<<<SNIP>>> Free expressions are not always pleasant, but they must ever be protected, with no regard to the proclivities of the enemy.		
  END EXCERPT
I wholeheartedly agree.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Sep 12, 2010)

It seems to be a misunderstanding that terrorists hate you for your freedom. That's not true. They generally hate you because for the last 5 decades or so, you have been destabilizing the entire region, overthrowing their democratically elected governments for your national interests and treating them as inferior. Because of that, the entire region is filled with people holding grudges, and a handful of extremists are exploiting that sentiment to get those people to attack the US. Islam is a vehicle used by the extremists to channel that hatred.

I am not advocating that the US pander to the sensitivities of the terrorists, but it might be worthwhile to reflect on the real reasons that the US is hated so much. There is no need to needlessly piss off a billion and a half of people, and if you make a policy of invading or destabilizing countries when it seems fit, killing hundreds of thousands in the process and ending up with extremist regimes because of it... it will come back to haunt you.

Perhaps it helps to think about what YOU would do if some large powerful country had done to the US what the US has been doing to the middle east.
Would you turn the other cheek?


----------



## Touch Of Death (Sep 12, 2010)

I don't think we should refrain from showing disrespect because of terrorism, we should refrain because its direspectfull.
Sean


----------



## Bruno@MT (Sep 12, 2010)

touch of death said:


> i don't think we should refrain from showing disrespect because of terrorism, we should refrain because its direspectfull.
> Sean



+1


----------



## seasoned (Sep 12, 2010)

We are not as a nation suppose to blame many for the actions of a few. In turn, why is all of the US being blamed for, as mentioned, *our* actions all over the world. We as a people try every 2-4 years to remedy any injustice. We in the US as individuals are allowed to pick and choose our life's course whether good or bad, it is our choice and we are held accountable for it. *This* is freedom, and what we as a nation are indeed hated for. But still the masses come here to taste that same freedom that we are disdained for.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 12, 2010)

Big Don said:


> I understand, in theory, the idea of not stirring the hornets nest  while our troops are still in harms way. But I chafe at the idea that  great American debates, in all their ugliness and splendor, should be  tempered for terrorists and their attempts to recruit.



Debates?  I agree.  I don't call stabbing a taxi driver a debate.  Not burning a Mosque, or driving by firing shotguns in the air near one.  Nor burning Korans.  In what way are these things 'debate'?



> <<<SNIP>>> Free expressions are not always pleasant, but they must ever be protected, with no regard to the proclivities of the enemy.
> END EXCERPT



Free expression must of course always be protected.  Conflating that with choosing NOT to do things which are not only counterproductive, but which may end up with our own citizens being killed overseas where they are serving in our military is rather ugly.

But it is typical.  If one is taking into account that actions have consequences, one is molly-coddling the enemy or kissing their asses.  Despicable.



> I wholeheartedly agree.



I agree that civil rights must always be protected, and that voluntarily surrendering them in hopes of gaining favor from the enemy is not to be done.

I disagree that burning Korans or otherwise intentionally provoking a response so that one can say _"See how terrible Muslims are?"_ is the same thing.  Protected speech?  Yes.  Stupid in the extreme?  Also yes.


----------



## CanuckMA (Sep 12, 2010)

seasoned said:


> We are not as a nation suppose to blame many for the actions of a few. In turn, why is all of the US being blamed for, as mentioned, *our* actions all over the world. We as a people try every 2-4 years to remedy any injustice. We in the US as individuals are allowed to pick and choose our life's course whether good or bad, it is our choice and we are held accountable for it. *This* is freedom, and what we as a nation are indeed hated for. But still the masses come here to taste that same freedom that we are disdained for.


 

Because US foreign policy is the official policy of the entire nation. That's why the entire country gets blamed. You are not hated for freedom, but for the imposition of your ideas and the installation and support of govornments that are favourable to you. 

You can't blame all Muslims for the acts of the terrorists because the terrorists are not acting for all Muslims. But as you say, every 2-4 years the population of the US has the opportunity to change government, and policy. When said policy does not change, it can be seen as the nation not wanting that change.

You can't impose democracy in countries that don't want it. A frequent argument around here, when talking about things like healthcare or airport security, is that solutions that work somewhere else won't work in the US. How is it so hard to make the connection that your form of government won't work somewhere else as wel?


----------



## seasoned (Sep 12, 2010)

CanuckMA said:


> Because US foreign policy is the official policy of the entire nation. That's why the entire country gets blamed. You are not hated for freedom, but for the imposition of *your ideas* and the installation and support of govornments that are favourable to you.


Address below. 



CanuckMA said:


> You can't blame all Muslims for the acts of the terrorists because the terrorists are not acting for all Muslims. But as you say, every 2-4 years the population of the US has the opportunity to change government, and policy. When said policy does not change, *it can be seen as the nation not wanting that change.*


Granted it can be seen that way, but the circles I run in don't paint with that broad a brush.




CanuckMA said:


> *You can't impose democracy in countries that don't want it.* A frequent argument around here, when talking about things like healthcare or airport security, is that solutions that work somewhere else won't work in the US. How is it so hard to make the connection that your form of government won't work somewhere else as wel?


The US is still the most sought after country to live in, that is why thousands flock here daily to gain access. It's not a new thing, so I don't think it is because of our current government policies of change for the, better??


The problem is lethargy on the part of the American people. With only 40% of the population involved in the voting process, it leaves a lot to interpretation by other countries. There in lies the problem. There are a few dictating to the many, but I feel that change is in the air. There is a silent majority that is *trying* to be heard, things take time, and my hope is that things will get better for all, before it is too late.


----------



## CanuckMA (Sep 12, 2010)

seasoned said:


> The US is still the most sought after country to live in, that is why thousands flock here daily to gain access. It's not a new thing, so I don't think it is because of our current government policies of change for the, better??


 
Sure it's a good country, and lots of poeple want to move there. 

But it's not the same as believing that your way of life needs to  be imposed on all others.


----------



## Ken Morgan (Sep 12, 2010)

OMG. 

Where did this notion of they hate our freedom come from? Whoever came up with it obviously had no education or training in the political sciences, foreign policy or strategic studies. The terrorists dont give a crap about the West. The West is a means to an end for the leaders of the terrorist cells around the world.

The religious nuts in the Middle East can only and have ever only attained maybe 10 -15% support in their home countries. After Iran became an Islamic Republic 30 years ago, they figured every other country in the region would follow suit, topple like dominoes, it never happened. 

So how do you increase your support at home? You need a common enemy, someone you can blame all your problems on, the Nazis had the Jews, the Fundamental Muslims have the West, specifically the US. How do you get the West to hit you, kill civilians, women, children, goat herders, ruin your countries infrastructure? You attack them, you bomb them, then you wait till the west launches a military strike against you, and wow, you were right and your popularity just went up to 20-25%. The ignorant guys on the front line are canon fodder; they believe all the nonsense that is taught to them. 

The Leadership of the terrorist organizations want power in their home countries, and they will do whatever is necessary, to achieve those ends.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 12, 2010)

CanuckMA said:


> Sure it's a good country, and lots of poeple want to move there.
> 
> But it's not the same as believing that your way of life needs to  be imposed on all others.



I don't think that the USA has an agenda of imposing our way of life on other countries.  Yes, we did have the stated agenda of 'spreading democracy' but I do not think that is our prime motivator.

Our primary motivator is business.  It always has been.  We act in the best interest of our nation and the business of our nation (which are often seen as the same thing).

Frankly, we don't care if we're doing business with cannibals or dictators or junta leaders or strongmen or politburo apparatchiks or princes, potentates, or the leaders of various religions.  We DO NOT CARE.  We do care that their markets are open to us.  We do care that they do not outcompete our businesses inside our internal markets.  We do care that they not nationalize, take over, or otherwise harass our companies with branches or manufacturing in their country.  We always seek favorable terms, terms to our own advantage.  We'll take advantage ourselves if we can get away with it.  With the small exceptions of public outrage at this junta leader or that cannibal with filed teeth who eats his cabinet ministers from time to time, we'll do business with anybody. 

What that means is that we seek stability, fairness (as we see it), and reciprocity.  Mostly in the name of our national interest, which is to say, 'business'.  To that end, we have done questionable things in the Middle East (and other places around the world). We have toppled government covertly and installed our own puppets (by the way, if anyone disagrees with that, please by all means speak up).  We have bullied, cajoled, and bribed.

And by the way, I don't care that we have done those things.

EXCEPT FOR THIS...

In the Middle East, more than in other regions, our influx has been noted and resented.  When we treat with governments to give us preferential treatment and they do, they earn the enmity of their own people, especially when those people have a strong belief in a theocracy in a land that is not currently a theocracy.

In addition, those same malcontents see the influx of Western goods and more importantly, Western values into their countries, and they see this not just as an insult, but as an attack.  The fact that the USA builds McDonalds in Saudi Arabia, sells blue jeans in the shops, and MTV blares from the television sets is an actual, literal, attack to them.  Especially as their own populace becomes attuned to these things, used to them, and begins to desire them.  The kids want to dance, form rock-and-roll bands, rebel against authority, have sex, not wear special garb and be free to say what they want and to think what they want and to worship as they wish.

This is what the terrorists hate.  Not 'our freedom', that is a nebulous thing.  They hate what our freedom is doing to their culture.

This is not the culture overlap of France versus Britain versus Poland versus Germany.  Those cultures, while different, are all on the same playing field, more or less.  This is the clash of cultures across a distance of several hundred years.  This is MTV versus the Islamic equivalent of Gregorian chanting.  Get it?

Those of us who remember back to before the 1970's and early 1980's remember that the Middle East was acclimating to the West very rapidly.  There were news stories about the nightclubs of Egypt, the dance halls in Jordan, the restored 'Hanging Gardens of Babylon' in Iraq (yes, under Hussein, Iraq was becoming a tourist destination, prior to the Iran/Iraq war).  Then we had the overthrow of the Shaw (US puppet) in Iran, the Iran/Iraq war, the PLO and Yassir Arafat, and finally, the US involvement in building military basis in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and other locations in the Middle East.  All of these things were destabilizers, and they gave power to the noisy little Imams and problem-children of Islam who wanted Islam to be the actual political as well as religious power, and for whom Westernization was just the same as Satanization.

Now you have a massive battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims, primarily still in the Middle East, but also in places where we did not have problems before, such as parts of Africa (Somalia), the UK, Europe, The Netherlands, and the USA.  Muslims are being spoken to by those who are holding up the imminent destruction of Islam as the evil that is happening to the Middle East.  We see a war on terror; they are trying to sell it as a war on Islam.  As long as the average Muslim sees the USA as a force that is attempting to root out terrorists, they remain on our side.  When they become convinced that even though we SAY we're out to get terrorists, we're actually out to get Islam itself, then they tend to side with the terrorists.

So, it is important to sell our message.  The terrorists are selling theirs.

And to say that there is no good reason NOT to burn Korans or stop the building of Mosques or protest against Muslims is stupid.  STUPID.  It hands the terrorists ammunition to sell to the average Muslim, something they can point to and say _"Look, America says it hates terrorists, but you know what it really hates?  You."_

Do we have the right to be asshats of the first order?  Sure.  How stupid can we be?  I'm not sure.  We haven't really plumbed the depth of stupidity here, but the line is getting pretty deep.


----------



## elder999 (Sep 12, 2010)

Ken Morgan said:


> OMG.
> 
> Where did this notion of they hate our freedom come from? *Whoever came up with it obviously had no education or training in the political sciences, foreign policy or strategic studies.* .


 
:lfao:

[yt]p6HOcLWP-Ls[/yt]

[yt]HSFQNS39fMc[/yt]

:lfao:


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 12, 2010)

Ken Morgan said:


> OMG.
> 
> Where did this notion of &#8220;they hate our freedom&#8221; come from? Whoever came up with it obviously had no education or training in the political sciences, foreign policy or strategic studies. The terrorists don&#8217;t give a crap about the West. The West is a means to an end for the leaders of the terrorist cells around the world.



Oh, they care about the West, all right.  They care because it is Western culture that is their enemy.  We sell cheeseburgers and blue jeans in Iraq and Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  That's your enemy, right there.

Imagine if China, rather than exporting goods and services to the USA that match our culture, instead was selling Chinese culture on a scale that matched our dominance of sales channels into the Middle East.  Let's say they sold traditional Chinese attire and music and language and even culture and it was red-hot with the kids.  All the kids wanted to be Chinese, to dress, act, and talk like Chinese.  The TV shows were all about China and Chinese people, the music on the radio was all Chinese, you couldn't get away from it.  And most of the populace was just eating it up and demanding more.

Now, let's say you're a guy from a small town in the mid-west, and you hate all this stuff.  You don't mind maybe a little Chinese take-out from time to time, but no way are you going to trade in your blue jeans for a Mao suit or lean Chinese or start singing Chinese songs, and every time you turn on the TV, you get Chinese opera instead of Beverly Hills 90210.

Do you think you might feel just the tiny bit invaded?  Like maybe your culture was vanishing right before your eyes?

Now imagine that you're really, really, religious, and your religion condemns all these things.  And a few decades ago, nearly everyone was just like you religiously speaking.  And now they're casting their religion by the wayside, or watering it down so that they can still call themselves your religion but still adopt Chinese culture left right and center.

THINK YOU MIGHT FEEL ATTACKED?

That is what's happening.  They don't hate the West, per se, but they hate what the West represents, and they hate the intrusion by Western culture into their culture.  They hate their national, cultural, and religious identity being discarded by their fellow Muslims and their fellow citizens.  And it is stirring some of them to act.

Please note (as an aside to the ah-hah brigade) that I do not condone the terrorists for feeling this way; I am not making excuses for them.  But the first rule of war is to understand your enemy.  It is important to know what motivates them.  This is what motivates them, right or wrong.



> The religious nuts in the Middle East can only and have ever only attained maybe 10 -15% support in their home countries. After Iran became an Islamic Republic 30 years ago, they figured every other country in the region would follow suit, topple like dominoes, it never happened.


It was a combination of things, a perfect storm.  Iran being toppled was one thing.  The rise of the PLO was another.  The Iran/Iraq war was yet another.  The US building military bases in countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen was another.  The thing that prodded them to action was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and the US response to it - and perhaps more importantly, the response of the largely Islamic nations to that event.



> So how do you increase your support at home? You need a common enemy, someone you can blame all your problems on, the Nazi&#8217;s had the Jews, the Fundamental Muslims have the West, specifically the US. How do you get the West to hit you, kill civilians, women, children, goat herders, ruin your countries infrastructure? You attack them, you bomb them, then you wait till the west launches a military strike against you, and wow, you were right and your popularity just went up to 20-25%. The ignorant guys on the front line are canon fodder; they believe all the nonsense that is taught to them.


True to a certain extent.  But they also have to convince their populace that the USA doesn't want to sell them MTV and blue jeans, but to kill them.  To to this, they engage in propaganda wars that play on OUR fears, that the Muslims all want to kill us, and then record and play back the responses of the fear-driven bigots amongst us.



> The Leadership of the terrorist organizations want power in their home countries, and they will do whatever is necessary, to achieve those ends.


It is not simply power they want.  I seriously doubt that OBL wants to be a Caliph.  He wants the West to stop having any impact on Islamic culture, and he wants Islamic rule (their version of Sharia) in every Muslim country.  I'm sure some of them want world domination, but initially what they want is the West out of the Middle East.

That is not going to happen.  Not now, not ever.  Which means that we must complete the business of Westernizing the Middle East. I'm not talking about exporting democracy, nobody gives two craps about democracy.  I'm talking about building stores, establishing lines of credit, turning the average every day Muslim in the Middle East into a consumer of western culture and a variety of the sort of crap that we buy.  Toothpaste, prayer rugs, color TVs, a car and a house with a mortgage.

This cuts the legs out from under radical Islam.  This prevents the establishment of Caliphates that dictate how long a man's beard can be or what a woman has to wear over her whole body when she goes out.  Get Eminem  and Fifty Cent on TV teaching the kids to curse and dance and the battle is won.

The terrorists do not hate Americans in general.  They hate everything we represent, because the coming of our culture is the ending of their own.  Of course they hate it.  Of course they are going to fight it.  And we must crush them.

But we don't win by stopping the building of Mosques and burning Korans in the USA.  We stop it by embracing our Muslim immigrants, and enveloping them in our culture as quickly as possible.  A Muslim (like a Christian or a Jew) who has a job, a mortgage, bills to pay and braces to put on the kids teeth, not to mention a college education to foot the bill for, is NOT GOING TO BE A TERRORIST.  He's a taxpayer.  He's a consumer.  In short, a  sorry-*** American SOB just like the rest of us.  *I don't care how he prays, I care that he buys a new car every six years and has a house payment.*

Estrange them instead of embracing them, and you give them nothing to hold onto in our nation.  They find themselves unable to succeed in our culture, which leaves nothing but (TADA) their own culture.  And the terrorists will gladly embrace them and welcome them back to the (from our point of view) Stone Age.  And give them an AK at the same time.


----------



## seasoned (Sep 12, 2010)

You guys are a hard act to follow, I'm sure someone will, ain't going to be me.
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





  I think it's popcorn time.


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 12, 2010)

Time to check your premises.  US foreign and domestic policy needed a "9/11" in order to introduce some of its more extreme measures.  People had the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, both wars and possibly a third in the works, long before 9/11/2001.

Also, 9/11/1973 is the date that the CIA backed Pinochet in an overthrow democratically elected and popular Chilean Government.  There is nothing particularly striking about the coincidence because this policy had already become part and parcel of the "black" US foreign policy.  

What is striking and I think an "alternative" lesson one can draw from both 9/11's is that our government proved that it cared nothing for democracy, or human rights, or any of its vaunted values.  It proved itself a tool of the ruthless international interests who simply will do anything they want in order to advance their own agendas.

Anything they want.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 12, 2010)

maunakumu said:


> What is striking and I think an "alternative" lesson one can draw from both 9/11's is that our government proved that it cared nothing for democracy, or human rights, or any of its vaunted values.  It proved itself a tool of the ruthless international interests who simply will do anything they want in order to advance their own agendas.
> 
> Anything they want.



Yeah, that's true.  And I don't care at all.  What I do care about is when our actions overseas have repercussions against US citizens.  I care about what we do that affects us.  I don't care about what we do that affects others.  Governments act in their own self-interest; all of them.  We just have the biggest stick (and still do to some extent).  That means we get to call the shots.  However, if we're stupid about it, we end up with this mess we're in now.

The culture war in the Middle East is unavoidable at this point.  We must win it.  Failure is not really an option.  It is not possible for the two cultures to brush up against each other at this point.  Either all of Islam becomes as moderate as most of it is, of the extreme edges of it must be removed.


----------



## Archangel M (Sep 12, 2010)

IMO Bill's got it. 

All this "the US topples gvts..the US made policy decisions that made people hate us..." etc....thats the nature of international politics. Name any "major player" on the world stage throughout human history that hasn't played by the same rules. Our politicians SHOULD be acting in my countries best interest. However they should be acting with enough foresight to make wise decisions.


----------



## MA-Caver (Sep 12, 2010)

Excellent discourses one and all... yet I'd like to take this snippet and relate a conversation that took place where I work between myself and another who was of like-mind of the snip...


> <<<SNIP>>> Free expressions are not always pleasant,  but they must ever be protected, with no regard to the proclivities of  the enemy.



He was also expounding upon the freedom of speech. He disagreed with the idea of burning the Korans and etc. but said the man (and his supposed like-minded congregation) had the right to do it.

I told him that I agree however... maybe they have the RIGHT to say it... but is it the RIGHT thing to say? 

Just what is right and what is wrong? Agreed that the long range harm to not only U.S. troops but to American citizens in general (which these people -- sadly-- represent, albeit a tiny, hopefully tiny fraction of the populace). 

Terrorists as I understand them follow a mandate given to them by either their God or a charismatic leader who has a personal vendetta against whomever they're attacking... remember we're still relatively new targets to the list of peoples that terrorists wish to harm. 
What their reasons are I think aren't _that_ important, because we're not going to change if that is why they're attacking/hating us... no more will they change irregardless of how many we kill. 
Not stirring up the "hornet's nest" does seem like the safer out but I think it only postpones the inevitable. They will attempt to strike again and very well may have already tried a number of times. We do not know for certain how many sleeper cells have been busted up/captured since 9/11. We do not know how many planned attacks have been thwarted since the Dept. Of Homeland Security has been created and working in tandem with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. To announce it each time would either force other sleeper cells to go deeper into hiding or prematurely launch their planned attacks to avoid being caught. 

Either way, lesson learned was not to be so vulnerable, but a further lesson learned later was not to knee-jerk reaction and start taking away freedoms and dozens of other things we take for granted in the U.S. 
A better method of protecting the citizenry of this country needs to be implemented and a more broader search for terrorist cells needs to be conducted instead of focusing on one country at a time. 
Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda has been laughing at us for 9 years now.


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 12, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> The culture war in the Middle East is unavoidable at this point.  We must win it.  Failure is not really an option.  It is not possible for the two cultures to brush up against each other at this point.  Either all of Islam becomes as moderate as most of it is, of the extreme edges of it must be removed.



Perhaps war accomplishes nothing but to sharpen the edges and extend them.  Maybe the best way to avoid this so called "clash of cultures" is to live up to our values and trade without fraud.  I don't think we need to have big government intervening overseas any more then we need it intervening in our day to day lives.  The simple fact of the matter is that the government and the corporations have merged.  They serve one another and allow each to grow.  At the heart of all of our military actions is a general looting of other people's resources and livelihoods.  The people who run our fascist system can't compete on an even playing field in a real free market, so they just grab whatever they can with their guns and trick the public into supporting it.  Our foreign policy is nothing but the bludgeon in a rigged system.  

And you should care about that, because eventually that bludgeon will get turned back on you.


----------



## MA-Caver (Sep 13, 2010)

maunakumu said:


> Our foreign policy is nothing but the bludgeon in a rigged system.
> 
> And you should care about that, because eventually that bludgeon will get turned back on you.


It is a distinct possibility, I won't argue with that. Our Constitution supposedly is written to allow the citizens who would be the target of said bludgeon to put a stop to it. 
Let us hope that the citizens have the wherewithal and the strength to do so. Individually sure there are who would have the will to do so. 

Collectively? 
That remains to be seen.


----------



## Archangel M (Sep 13, 2010)

The role of gvt pretty much IS to deal with other nations and to work out the best result for THEIR nation.


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 13, 2010)

Archangel M said:


> The role of gvt pretty much IS to deal with other nations and to work out the best result for THEIR nation.



Is the government working in the best interests of the nation or of the multi-corporations who run the government?  That is the salient question.

Throughout my life as a "taxpayer" I have had thousands and thousands of dollars extracted from my standard or living to fund a MIC and I haven't really benefited from it.  In fact, no one has, our collective standard of living has gone DOWN despite the empire building.  Imagine what I could have done with that money?  I've ran two successful businesses and worked a full time job as a school teacher.  I could have grown and produced way more wealth if it wasn't hijacked from me in order to fund some corporate hijacking overseas.  I don't even want to think of how the government/corporation is going to foist the cost of these wars on me and my children in the future.  

The thing to remember is that these corporations that run the government aren't beholden to any one country anymore.  They operate in a quasi-sovereign state existing in many places at once and holding allegiance to no one.  Our government is a tool and our military another tool.  Our people could stand up and change things if we chose, but we are willing to let the corporations steal our wealth via the government.

The controlled left/right paradigm is part of this problem.  The Left points only at the corporations and demands more government.  the Right points at the government and gives the corporations more power.  Until we realize that the two have merged and that big corporations need big government (and vice versa) in order to exist, it's not going to change.

It's a rigged system that is parasitic to the lives of normal people for the benefit of the few.  The Muslims live in this system and are pawns...and they can see damn clear what is going on.  Imagine if we just let them live their own lives and develop their own businesses and industries, letting them compete with ours?  Would we have anywhere near the problems we have now?


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 13, 2010)

maunakumu said:


> Perhaps war accomplishes nothing but to sharpen the edges and extend them.  Maybe the best way to avoid this so called "clash of cultures" is to live up to our values and trade without fraud.



No, that's not the clash of cultures that we're experiencing in the Middle East.  The clash is because our Western values and the goods and services that support them are destroying the traditional ultra-rural Islamic culture.  We cannot co-exist with this culture as it stands.  We either withdraw entirely from all trade with the Middle East or we finish the task of introducing Modernity to the Middle East.  This is 'Westernization' and it is what we were doing by selling our goods and services there.

Islamists are not going to become complacent because we become more fair and open in our trading practices.  They don't want their culture destroyed, and our very presence does that.



> I don't think we need to have big government intervening overseas any more then we need it intervening in our day to day lives.  The simple fact of the matter is that the government and the corporations have merged.  They serve one another and allow each to grow.  At the heart of all of our military actions is a general looting of other people's resources and livelihoods.  The people who run our fascist system can't compete on an even playing field in a real free market, so they just grab whatever they can with their guns and trick the public into supporting it.  Our foreign policy is nothing but the bludgeon in a rigged system.



I don't care.



> And you should care about that, because eventually that bludgeon will get turned back on you.



Perhaps. Still don't care.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 13, 2010)

MA-Caver said:


> I told him that I agree however... maybe they have the RIGHT to say it... but is it the RIGHT thing to say?
> 
> Just what is right and what is wrong? Agreed that the long range harm to not only U.S. troops but to American citizens in general (which these people -- sadly-- represent, albeit a tiny, hopefully tiny fraction of the populace).



Right and wrong only have value as applied to our own populace in this situation.  Behave in such as way as to positively affect our own self-interests.  This is often the same as being 'morally correct', but I'm not interested in being morally correct.  I'm interested in our troops not being killed over some stunt pulled by some hate-monger in the USA to get some publicity.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 13, 2010)

maunakumu said:


> Imagine if we just let them live their own lives and develop their own businesses and industries, letting them compete with ours?  Would we have anywhere near the problems we have now?



Yes.  Granted that our military bases in countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen accelerated the recognition by Islamists of the problem, but it would have happened anyway.

As we developed friendly trade with the nations that comprise the Middle East, they began to adopt our values, if not our religion.  They began to wear suits and dresses, to follow fashion, to listen to Western music and watch Western TV, to speak English, to desire a 'Western' lifestyle.  And most of them did this while retaining their Islamic faith; albeit a more moderate version.  To them, the commandments to kill infidels were about as literal as the Bible's commandment to kill witches; we read it but we don't do it literally.

This caused great consternation among the more fundamentalist Muslims, and between the intrusion of Western values and the ongoing issues with Israel, they managed to carve out a niche where they could build both political and NGO military power.

There is NOTHING we could ever do to placate these people while still trading with them.  They want their culture as it was before the West began to trade with them and inculcate our values into their cultures.  They want Islam as political as well as spiritual leader of their various nations.

As long as we trade with the Middle East, we will continue to impact their culture; just by existing.  Our choices are to withdraw entirely from all contact with the Middle East (which would include abandoning Israel entirely) or destroying the Islamists and encouraging the continued Westernization of Islam and the Middle East.

We can do the latter by embracing moderate Islam in the USA, not rejecting it. Enlightened self-interest. Give them boobies and booze and MTV.  Sell them cheeseburgers and blue jeans.  Turn them into wage slaves and taxpayers like the rest of us.  The Islamists cannot convert these people once they've turned to the dark side (us).


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 13, 2010)

After having traveled extensively, I can tell you for sure that nobody flips out and wants to kill other people because of cheeseburgers and women in pants.  Granted, you have a small segment of extremists that get upset about these things, but in major population centers and throughout the bulk of society people are perfectly willing to amalgamate.  These people are very much like us and the thing to try to understand is what would get YOU to get up out of your seat and blow yourself up.  

Essentially, we have middle class people who supposedly should be moderate, but are choosing to take extreme measures and we are being told that this is because of the so called "clash of cultures" ie..."they hate us for our freedoms" or "they are upset about cheeseburgers and pants."

Another explanation that makes more sense is that these people are sick of having their elected governments overthrown, having multi-national corporations rape and pillage the economy, having vicious dictators installed to oppress the people, and then having their homes and livelihoods blown up when these dictators don't do what they are told.

Instead of the obvious, Americans choose to believe in the so called "culture war."  This is the product of manipulation and it should be noted that to a great extent, the major events that get so much air time are completely contrived.  

Take for instance, the ground zero mosque that has everyone up and ready bomb some more Muslims.  

http://www.observer.com/2010/politics/untangling-new-intrigue-behind-ground-zero-mosqueThe CIA, secretive defense contractors, and the media have conspired to fund the creation of this thing...and then they turn around to demonize it in order fan hatred and support a general war against Muslims.

And then we have the so called "underwear bomber" that was used to install more police state tactics in our airports like dehumanizing naked body scanners.  By the way, the company that makes these scanners is run by none other then former Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/01-2

Apparently, the underwear bomber was led on the plane by a government agent without any form of ID or passport.  This was witnessed by Detroit attorneys Kurt and Lori Haskell and eventually confirmed by journalists who actually did their jobs.  The FBI tried to deny this at first, but now that cat is out of the bag.

http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com/2010/01/truth-about-flight-253-has-been.html

Lastly, we have 9/11 itself.  

We have whistleblowers coming out saying that the government maintained a close relationship to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda right up to 9/11 and we have whistleblowers who have direct evidence that shows that they deliberately thwarted investigations that would have outed "operatives" in the "plot".  

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/31/whistleblower-bin-laden-was-us-proxy-until-911/

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/27/203251.shtml

Like I said above, maybe it's time we check our premises.  Events are being manipulated to further and agenda and convince Americans to surrender their standard of living, allowing the "taxpayer" to construct a war machine for the corporations and construct the police state machines for their own oppression.  

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't real terrorists out there who would like to see Americans dead, but I am saying that you would have no idea as to their motive or to who they really were or who created them, based on the propaganda we are fed on a daily basis.  You simply don't know and you can't trust the media or the government to tell you what to think.  That is another lesson of 9/11.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 13, 2010)

maunakumu said:


> After having traveled extensively, I can tell you for sure that nobody flips out and wants to kill other people because of cheeseburgers and women in pants.



Yes, they do.  And I've 'traveled extensively' too.



> Granted, you have a small segment of extremists that get upset about these things, but in major population centers and throughout the bulk of society people are perfectly willing to amalgamate.



This is quite correct.  It is the Islamists, as I have stated, that see their society and their culture as being under attack.



> These people are very much like us and the thing to try to understand is what would get YOU to get up out of your seat and blow yourself up.
> 
> Essentially, we have middle class people who supposedly should be moderate, but are choosing to take extreme measures and we are being told that this is because of the so called "clash of cultures" ie..."they hate us for our freedoms" or "they are upset about cheeseburgers and pants."



I'm not disagreeing with you.

What I'm saying is that there is a battle for the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslim, especially the emerging upper and middle class, educated, Muslim.

When an extremist tells them that they should side with them (Islamists), they would tend to reject that.  After all, they have embraced Western culture themselves, why would they want to go back to wearing long beards and dressing their women in burkas?

However, when *we* tell those same moderate, modern, middle-class Muslims that they are NOT WELCOME in the USA, that we don't believe that they are not terrorists, that we think they're all alike, then we push them into the arms of the terrorists, the Islamists.  Whether they see burning a Koran as the act of a lone idiot or endemic of the current culture of the USA, they feel excluded, left out, and rejected from US society.  This makes them targets of extremists.



> Another explanation that makes more sense is that these people are sick of having their elected governments overthrown, having multi-national corporations rape and pillage the economy, having vicious dictators installed to oppress the people, and then having their homes and livelihoods blown up when these dictators don't do what they are told.



Well, that's another explanation, but it's wrong.  



> Instead of the obvious, Americans choose to believe in the so called "culture war."  This is the product of manipulation and it should be noted that to a great extent, the major events that get so much air time are completely contrived.



That doesn't even make sense.  My explanation is the distinct minority belief in the US; most bigots have no idea of what I'm even talking about; they haven't gotten past the _"all dem dere Muslims is bad, right?"_ stage.

Culture war?  I think so, but most people in the USA can't spell it.  So no, I don't think _'most Americans choose to believe'_ in it.  Most of them are booger-eatin' morons who could not think their way out of a paper bag.



> Take for instance, the ground zero mosque that has everyone up and ready bomb some more Muslims.



Sorry, I snipped all the loony-tunes conspiracy theory junk.  Good lord man, you believe every crackpot theory that comes down the pike.  You really need to think about that.  I'm sure not going to defile my mind with that kind of garbage, let alone trying to pick it apart logically.


----------



## CanuckMA (Sep 13, 2010)

Maunakumu,

It is a culture war. I see it in varying degrees in my extended community. I'm an Orthodox Jew, mostly at the left side of the Orthodox spectrum, what many call Modern Orthodox. There are many things I see around me that I don't agree with. I do my best to avoid them, and I shielded my kids from them as much as possible. The Ultra-Orthodox react to that by getting more insular. But because half of the Jews in the world live in the Diaspora, we tend to accept it more. You can see some of that culture clash in Israel, but again, Israel was created out of Western culture and a large segment of Israelis are secular, so the State is pushing back. 

Now move the same influences to entire countries that are more religious, where the government is more eligious, and it's easy to see states pushing back against Western culture. 

Bill is right. Every bone headed move we make to alienate Muslims will be seized upon by the Islamists to point out "see, they're against us, you will never fit with them. Join us"


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 13, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Sorry, I snipped all the loony-tunes conspiracy theory junk.  Good lord man, you believe every crackpot theory that comes down the pike.  You really need to think about that.  I'm sure not going to defile my mind with that kind of garbage, let alone trying to pick it apart logically.



Good lord, man, you can't even look at this information and acknowledge that there might be contradictory information here.  When push comes to shove, if I didn't see it, I don't know what happened.  You, on the other hand, have this long string of unchecked premises and you haven't even bothered to think about what this edifice is built upon.

Also Crimestop, Bob should make a smiley for this for conversations in the study.



> _Crimestop_ means the faculty of stopping short, as though by  instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the  power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors,  of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to  Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is  capable of leading in a heretical direction. _Crimestop_, in short, means protective stupidity.



Just read the stupid articles, I'm sure you'll have some way to fit this into this convoluted world view, but who knows, you may surprise me and be just a little bit less certain of the things your being told.  I think the biggest reason I keep throwing this out is to throw some mud in the eye of some people's so called "clear" sight.  

Also, for the love of Cthulu will some of you who are so certain, please consider that some of what the world experiences is blowback.  Yeah, I know that this gets bandied about the controlled Left, but it's at least a plausible explanation that doesn't completely absolve the US of responsibility for some of the things that could rightly be called terrorism.

Lastly, consider this.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/...ticles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/

This is the controlled Washington Post, so take it for what it is, however, I will say because of this, you can't be so sure of anything you read about in regards to foreign policy, terrorism, and probably the government in general.  IMO, the Post gets it right when they say it's out of control.  

What is the point of voting in our Republic if everything is secret and manipulated?


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 13, 2010)

CanuckMA said:


> It is a culture war.



I don't buy it.  Most people that I have met just want the same things I do and are willing to look at new things and possibly accept them.  A very small percentage may get upset, but it's not enough to start shooting or blowing themselves up.

At the very least, I think it's being blown out of proportion on purpose to manipulate public opinion.  Look at this whole Koran Burning story.  You get some two bit kooky preacher with a flock of 30, who tells the media that he's going to burn some Korans and suddenly the story spreads around the world.  Then video floods in of some idiots in foreign countries beating up Christians and burning Bibles.

Meanwhile enthusiasm for the wars is flagging and people are really starting to rethink paying for these wars.  

At some point, people are going to have to start considering whether or not they can trust the fascist corporate/government media.  Especially when we have a "secret state" that the public really has no clue about.  Read the article I posted above on this and ask yourself some questions about what this implies.


----------



## Archangel M (Sep 13, 2010)

Of course you don't buy it. You buy stuff like controled demo of the WTC. 

Not that I want to turn this into a personal attack mauna...I truely don't..but people who have a history of buying into odd stuff have to realize that people will then take everything they say as being in the same vein.


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 13, 2010)

Archangel M said:


> Of course you don't buy it. You buy stuff like controlled demo of the WTC.
> 
> Not that I want to turn this into a personal attack mauna...I truely don't..but people who have a history of buying into odd stuff have to realize that people will then take everything they say as being in the same vein.



That's a fair criticism, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one, I don't think we should be so certain about what everyone accepts as true.  Especially when we consider the secrecy and the proven involvement in many cases.  This doesn't mean that Islamic militants don't exist, it just means that we can't be so sure who is who and what is what.

Here's another example...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10341.htm

Some of these "terrorists" may surprise people.


----------



## CanuckMA (Sep 13, 2010)

maunakumu said:


> I don't buy it. Most people that I have met just want the same things I do and are willing to look at new things and possibly accept them. A very small percentage may get upset, but it's not enough to start


 

Well we've never met, so I guess that counts, But I can tell you I don't want the same things you do, and I actively reject a portion of Western 'culture'. And I'm the moderate amongst my greater group.


----------



## Bruno@MT (Sep 14, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Yes.  Granted that our military bases in countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen accelerated the recognition by Islamists of the problem, but it would have happened anyway.
> 
> As we developed friendly trade with the nations that comprise the Middle East, they began to adopt our values, if not our religion.  They began to wear suits and dresses, to follow fashion, to listen to Western music and watch Western TV, to speak English, to desire a 'Western' lifestyle.  And most of them did this while retaining their Islamic faith; albeit a more moderate version.  To them, the commandments to kill infidels were about as literal as the Bible's commandment to kill witches; we read it but we don't do it literally.



That is a good point. However, change over a longer time is less likely to trigger violent counter reactions. Fast change is more likely to trigger counter reactions, especially if the fast change happen by force.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 14, 2010)

Bruno@MT said:


> That is a good point. However, change over a longer time is less likely to trigger violent counter reactions. Fast change is more likely to trigger counter reactions, especially if the fast change happen by force.



Yes, I agree.  It's like that old story about boiling a frog by slowly turning up the heat.  During the 1970's, the Islamic world was by and large becoming Westernized and more-or-less without strife.  Yes, you still had the Israeli-Palestine conflict, but Islam was (pardon the expression) moving into the 20th century and moderating.  It was a series of jarring intrusions that made the reactionaries take notice and begin to pull in the opposite direction.

However, what's done is done.  We must complete the Westernization of the Islamic world.  Unfortunately, the trend at the moment is the opposite direction.  Bellwethers are countries like Turkey, once the most moderate of Islamic nations.  If Turkey falls to extremists, the we really have serious problems.  In the meantime, we also are ignoring (to some extent) the creeping Islamization (and by that I mean Islamist, not regular Islam) of places like Somalia, the Philippines, and so on.  We ignore these at our own peril.

As an aside, that is one of the major reasons I cannot be a capital-L Libertarian anymore.  I do not believe in a policy of isolationism; we must engage and defeat Islamists (while reaching out to moderate Muslims, which the bone-heads and bigots can't seem to figure out) or we'll all pay the price eventually.


----------



## Empty Hands (Sep 14, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> As an aside, that is one of the major reasons I cannot be a capital-L Libertarian anymore.  I do not believe in a policy of isolationism; we must engage and defeat Islamists (while reaching out to moderate Muslims, which the bone-heads and bigots can't seem to figure out) or we'll all pay the price eventually.



I agree; however I have some sympathy for the isolationist view at a practical level because we are just so terrible at effectively engaging with the world at large.  Nothing seems to go like it should, and we all endure the blowback later.  Perhaps isolationism would cause less harm in the long run?  The ideal of course would be for the United States to actually figure out how to engage the world to complete our goals without making a mess of it at every turn.  Unlikely, I know.


----------



## CoryKS (Sep 14, 2010)

Empty Hands said:


> I agree; however I have some sympathy for the isolationist view at a practical level because we are just so terrible at effectively engaging with the world at large. Nothing seems to go like it should, and we all endure the blowback later. Perhaps isolationism would cause less harm in the long run? The ideal of course would be for the United States to actually figure out how to engage the world to complete our goals without making a mess of it at every turn. Unlikely, I know.


 
The problem is that if you're strong enough to affect global events, you will be held responsible whether you do something or not.  Now we are blamed for the crises we get involved in.  If we go isolationist, we will be blamed for the crises we don't get involved in because hey - we could have prevented it.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 14, 2010)

CoryKS said:


> The problem is that if you're strong enough to affect global events, you will be held responsible whether you do something or not.  Now we are blamed for the crises we get involved in.  If we go isolationist, we will be blamed for the crises we don't get involved in because hey - we could have prevented it.



Isolationism also means no trade with the outside world, not just no intervention.  Because ultimately, trading with the outside world affects the outside world, for good or for ill.  That means we would neither import nor export anything.

In the first place, that's basically impossible at this point; most of our debt is held by foreign governments.  Without external trade, there is no means by which to pay for that.

And what does the West (not just the USA) export more than its own culture?  No one buys rap music if they don't enjoy it (as an example).  They don't enjoy it unless they've been exposed to the culture that values it.  Exposure to that culture changes one's own culture.  Some will see that a good thing; others will see that as a bad thing.

Doesn't matter if it's McDonalds or rap music or blue jeans or whatever; we want to sell it; in order to sell it, we must entice others to want to buy it.  That means reaching into their world and making them prefer ours to some extent.  Unless all we sell in Muslim nations is Korans and prayer rugs, we're not going to be able to trade in those countries without affecting their culture.  All such things have consequences.


----------



## 5-0 Kenpo (Sep 15, 2010)

I have been trying to stay out of the Islamic debates lately. I have heard differing opinions on these issues, from Terrorism experts (those I have met have expressed a moderate opinion of Islam), to those growing up in Muslim countries, to haters of Islam, to Muslims. 

I have formed the opinion that, as I don't make policy on any issue relating to it, that I will reserve an opinion. I choose to regard those Muslims that I meet as individuals.

However, on occasion, I will take some issue, if only for clarifications sake, with the things that some say. So, here goes...



> But we don't win by stopping the building of Mosques and burning Korans in the USA. We stop it by embracing our Muslim immigrants, and enveloping them in our culture as quickly as possible....
> 
> Estrange them instead of embracing them, and you give them nothing to hold onto in our nation. They find themselves unable to succeed in our culture, which leaves nothing but (TADA) their own culture. And the terrorists will gladly embrace them and welcome them back to the (from our point of view) Stone Age. And give them an AK at the same time.


 
I'm just curious as to how much embracing we need to do.

I posit this as an example of what is being done in one nation, in direct defiance of the local laws, and with the tacit protection of the local police being forced to allow it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5SfJACxS2s&feature=related

Are these extremists? Or are they so-called moderates violating France's laws and inconviencing non-Muslims from going about their daily routine, perhaps several times per day (as devout Muslims are supposed to pray five times daily)?

Are these the people that we are supposed to embrace?

Now, what I find interesting in the argument that I quoted above was this: You say the only way to stop the violence is to to embrace them into our culture. Now, we're talking about the Muslim culture, not the Arab culture, Philipean culture, Pakistani culture, etc., but that of Muslims as a whole.

You suggest that if we don't allow them to succeed in our culture (and the only reasonable way that they can do that is to adopt aspects of our culture), then that "leaves nothing but (TADA) their own culture." Well, if Islam is not inherently a destructive and violent religion, as you and they say, what is the problem with that? As you said, if they keep to their culture, the terrorists will embrace that, using it to cause death and destruction. So, by your statement therefore, it is their (religious) culture that gives them the permission to perform such acts, because that is what they will exploit.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 15, 2010)

5-0 Kenpo said:


> I'm just curious as to how much embracing we need to do.
> 
> I posit this as an example of what is being done in one nation, in direct defiance of the local laws, and with the tacit protection of the local police being forced to allow it:
> 
> ...



I don't know if they are extremists or not.  They're engaging in what we would call civil disobedience to protest (apparently) not having enough prayer space set aside for them.  I would not attempt to assign a religious component (extremist, moderate, etc) to their actions.  I've certainly seen religious people block access to abortion clinics.  I don't know if they are extremists or not either.  I don't approve of either action.  However, civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in the USA.  The point of it is that it should end up with the protesters being ticketed or arrested and in any case, forced to clear the streets.

I can't imagine why the French police are tolerating this behavior.  I'd expect the police in the USA not to.



> Are these the people that we are supposed to embrace?



Embrace the people?  Yes.  Accept that kind of activity?  No.  But not because it is religious; not because it is Muslim.  Because it's an impediment to traffic.  I can't do it, you can't do it, the people doing it should not be able to do it.  Make them move; if they don't, start taking up the blankets and issuing police citations.  Tolerance does not mean _'do nothing while our laws are broken'_, and I hope I've never suggested that it does.l



> Now, what I find interesting in the argument that I quoted above was this: You say the only way to stop the violence is to to embrace them into our culture. Now, we're talking about the Muslim culture, not the Arab culture, Philipean culture, Pakistani culture, etc., but that of Muslims as a whole.


No, I did NOT say that the only way to stop the violence is to embrace them into our culture.  I said that there is a battle for hearts and minds going on right now, and refusing to embrace moderate Muslims into our culture is to shove them in the direction of the extremists and the terrorists.  That's not the same thing at all.



> You suggest that if we don't allow them to succeed in our culture (and the only reasonable way that they can do that is to adopt aspects of our culture), then that "leaves nothing but (TADA) their own culture."


Once again, no, I did NOT say that.  I said that if we do not embrace them, meaning accept them, then they have nowhere to go.  I said nothing about rigging the game so that they have an advantage or succeed over others.  All they deserve is what all Americans deserve; an equal chance.

The people to which I am referring are those (and I believe I said this) who are Muslim and have either been born in this country or have moved here and obtained citizenship.  These are people who WANT to be here; they have embraced OUR culture to the extent that they are willing to live under our secular laws, to work, pay taxes, to try to achieve and better themselves.  They may keep many aspects of their own culture, such as their religion, but they don't embrace the parts of the Koran, for example, that might urge them to kill infidels (just as we no longer obey similar commands in the Bible).  They are the farthest thing from extremists.  However, if they cannot be accepted in the USA, if they are rejected and not allowed to take part in the society of America because of their religious beliefs and practices, then they will be outcast and more open to the siren call of the Islamists.  The Islamists tell them over and over that no matter what they do, they will always be hated and not accepted by the West.  If we prove them right, then which direction do you suppose they will turn?



> Well, if Islam is not inherently a destructive and violent religion, as you and they say, what is the problem with that? As you said, if they keep to their culture, the terrorists will embrace that, using it to cause death and destruction. So, by your statement therefore, it is their (religious) culture that gives them the permission to perform such acts, because that is what they will exploit.


The terrorists are a distinct minority.  They need converts to give them power.  I don't mean converts to Islam, I mean converts to their way of thinking.  In addition to their extreme view of Islam, they also believe that the West is destroying their traditional culture.  They use this as a key point in trying to gain converts.  It is not essentially different from any politician or salesman's spiel; they try to identify with their target audience, create a bond, and then build on it.

When terrorists reach out to an ignorant and relatively primitive (by our standards) people such as the tribes-people in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan or rural Iraq, they don't have a huge task in front of them.  They can control the media, they can control the message.  They can sway opinions by simply being the only voice that the people who live there hear.

When they reach out to the Muslims who live in more modern circumstances, they have to compete with other messages.  In Islamic countries, they can try to control this if they can gain political leadership positions; taking over governments by fair means or foul, and controlling the media, public education, and so on.

However, when they reach out to the Muslims who live in Western nations under modern circumstances, they have to employ an entirely different set of tools.  They cannot control the media or the access that Muslims who live in places like Europe and the USA have to it.  They cannot tell the average Muslim who works in Dearborn, Michigan putting fenders on Fords that Americans hate him and want to kill him if the Muslim who lives in Dearborn knows that is not true.  Does that make sense?

So he has to convince these moderate Muslims, somehow, that they will never fit in to American (or European) society.  That they will not be permitted to succeed no matter how hard they try.  That their religion will be hated, that their sacred symbols will be desecrated, that their Mosques will be burned down and that they'll be personally subject to violence and even murder if they stay.

They cannot do this if it's simply not true.  The Muslim guy who works in Dearborn at Ford is not interested in blowing up buildings or taking up arms against the USA; he lives here, he has a house, a mortgage, his kids are in college, he has to buy groceries!  He would be against the terrorists; they make trouble for him, they make his life more difficult; they hate the things he prefers.  The only thing they share is a religion; but that's like saying my religion is like Fred Phelp's religion.  They might be both called 'Christianity', but that's about as far as it goes.

If anti-Muslim sentiment continues to grow, if we begin to see more and more violent incidents against Muslims in the USA, then the terrorists will begin to be able to make headway with their message and their recruiting.  If the Muslim guy who lives in Dearborn and works at Ford starts getting people driving by his house at night and firing shotguns in the air, if his local Mosque gets burned down, if people throw burned Korans on his yard, he might start to believe that no matter how much he WANTS to be an American, he'll never be allowed to be one.  Then what is he supposed to do?


----------



## WC_lun (Sep 16, 2010)

There are idiots in every culture than can be taken advantage of men with the charisma and desire for power.  There are men in the Middle East that derive thier power AND control from religion.  When they no longer get to use that religion to dictate the lives of thier followers due to moderation they react and in some cases violently.  It is not isolated to Islam, as many here would like you to believe.  It has happened in the US.  In my opinion, it is happening right now, but with less violence.  Add to this scenario men who recognize this upheaval for what it is and use it to forward thier own agenda.

The answer for us, while simple is not easy.  We must act to our ideals, thinking long term in order not to give ammunition to those seeking to radicalize and recruit.  This means not doing things such as torture, invading countries under false pretense, or attacking the Muslim faith.  The US is one of the most generous and giving countries in the world.  Do things to highlight this, which I think we are doing.  We build schools, infrastructure, and donate billions wordlwide.  Third, we kill or capture those seeking to radicalize and use people for thier own agenda.  That means if a terrorist attacks any US citizen, they and thier entire network is taken out, as far as we can.  No more Osama Bin Ladens who create a following for themselves by just being alive after committing an attack on us.  Make the risk for attacking us not worth the possible reward.  While the front line troops of organizations like Al'Queda may not mind dying for thier cause, the planners and leaders certainly do.


----------



## 5-0 Kenpo (Sep 16, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I don't know if they are extremists or not. They're engaging in what we would call civil disobedience to protest (apparently) not having enough prayer space set aside for them. I would not attempt to assign a religious component (extremist, moderate, etc) to their actions. I've certainly seen religious people block access to abortion clinics. I don't know if they are extremists or not either. I don't approve of either action. However, civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in the USA. The point of it is that it should end up with the protesters being ticketed or arrested and in any case, forced to clear the streets.
> 
> I can't imagine why the French police are tolerating this behavior. I'd expect the police in the USA not to.


 
Maybe because experience has shown them that if they try to put a stop to it, then the Muslims there will cause violence.  I point you to the 2005 riots there when the police detained some Muslim youths who were breaking the law.

And what about the violence after that Dutch newspaper published images of Muhammed?  Essentially, we as Americans, would have to curtail our rights of free expression so as not to even offend Muslims so that violence doesn't ensue.



> Embrace the people? Yes. Accept that kind of activity? No. But not because it is religious; not because it is Muslim. Because it's an impediment to traffic. I can't do it, you can't do it, the people doing it should not be able to do it. Make them move; if they don't, start taking up the blankets and issuing police citations. Tolerance does not mean _'do nothing while our laws are broken'_, and I hope I've never suggested that it does.l


 
And if they riot when we do attempt to enforce our laws, as they did in France?

See, it's easy to say enforce our laws, but when the French did, they had a state of emergency for three months.  Then what?  That would be just as much fuel for the fire for Muslim extremists to use against the west, as people here argue that burning the Koran does.  This would just be the argument of, "See, they won't even let you pray in peace to Allah."

It's a no win situation.





> No, I did NOT say that the only way to stop the violence is to embrace them into our culture. I said that there is a battle for hearts and minds going on right now, and refusing to embrace moderate Muslims into our culture is to shove them in the direction of the extremists and the terrorists. That's not the same thing at all.


 
"We stop it by embracing our Muslim immigrants, and enveloping them in our culture as quickly as possible."

Perhaps I misunderstood what you said here then.  Because it sounds to me like you are saying that we need to take them and their views into our culture, because...

"Estrange them instead of embracing them, and you give them nothing to hold onto in our nation. They find themselves unable to succeed in our culture, *which leaves nothing but (TADA) their own culture.* And the terrorists will gladly embrace them and welcome them back to the (from our point of view) Stone Age. And give them an AK at the same time."

Once again, I pose the question:  If we must embrace them, how far does it go.  After all, the French have had ample expericence as to what happens when you decide to enforce even burglary and tresspassing laws against them.  (I know this is an oversimplification for the causes of the riots in France, 

Once again, no, I did NOT say that. I said that if we do not embrace them, meaning accept them, then they have nowhere to go. I said nothing about rigging the game so that they have an advantage or succeed over others. All they deserve is what all Americans deserve; an equal chance.

The people to which I am referring are those (and I believe I said this) who are Muslim and have either been born in this country or have moved here and obtained citizenship. These are people who WANT to be here; they have embraced OUR culture to the extent that they are willing to live under our secular laws, to work, pay taxes, to try to achieve and better themselves. They may keep many aspects of their own culture, such as their religion, but they don't embrace the parts of the Koran, for example, that might urge them to kill infidels (just as we no longer obey similar commands in the Bible). They are the farthest thing from extremists. However, if they cannot be accepted in the USA, if they are rejected and not allowed to take part in the society of America because of their religious beliefs and practices, then they will be outcast and more open to the siren call of the Islamists. The Islamists tell them over and over that no matter what they do, they will always be hated and not accepted by the West. If we prove them right, then which direction do you suppose they will turn?

The terrorists are a distinct minority. They need converts to give them power. I don't mean converts to Islam, I mean converts to their way of thinking. In addition to their extreme view of Islam, they also believe that the West is destroying their traditional culture. They use this as a key point in trying to gain converts. It is not essentially different from any politician or salesman's spiel; they try to identify with their target audience, create a bond, and then build on it.

When terrorists reach out to an ignorant and relatively primitive (by our standards) people such as the tribes-people in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan or rural Iraq, they don't have a huge task in front of them. They can control the media, they can control the message. They can sway opinions by simply being the only voice that the people who live there hear.

When they reach out to the Muslims who live in more modern circumstances, they have to compete with other messages. In Islamic countries, they can try to control this if they can gain political leadership positions; taking over governments by fair means or foul, and controlling the media, public education, and so on.

However, when they reach out to the Muslims who live in Western nations under modern circumstances, they have to employ an entirely different set of tools. They cannot control the media or the access that Muslims who live in places like Europe and the USA have to it. They cannot tell the average Muslim who works in Dearborn, Michigan putting fenders on Fords that Americans hate him and want to kill him if the Muslim who lives in Dearborn knows that is not true. Does that make sense?

So he has to convince these moderate Muslims, somehow, that they will never fit in to American (or European) society. That they will not be permitted to succeed no matter how hard they try. That their religion will be hated, that their sacred symbols will be desecrated, that their Mosques will be burned down and that they'll be personally subject to violence and even murder if they stay.

They cannot do this if it's simply not true. The Muslim guy who works in Dearborn at Ford is not interested in blowing up buildings or taking up arms against the USA; he lives here, he has a house, a mortgage, his kids are in college, he has to buy groceries! He would be against the terrorists; they make trouble for him, they make his life more difficult; they hate the things he prefers. The only thing they share is a religion; but that's like saying my religion is like Fred Phelp's religion. They might be both called 'Christianity', but that's about as far as it goes.

If anti-Muslim sentiment continues to grow, if we begin to see more and more violent incidents against Muslims in the USA, then the terrorists will begin to be able to make headway with their message and their recruiting. If the Muslim guy who lives in Dearborn and works at Ford starts getting people driving by his house at night and firing shotguns in the air, if his local Mosque gets burned down, if people throw burned Korans on his yard, he might start to believe that no matter how much he WANTS to be an American, he'll never be allowed to be one. Then what is he supposed to do?[/quote]


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 16, 2010)

5-0 Kenpo said:


> And what about the violence after that Dutch newspaper published images of Muhammed?  Essentially, we as Americans, would have to curtail our rights of free expression so as not to even offend Muslims so that violence doesn't ensue.



What about it?  We have freedom of speech here; if Muslims choose to live here, they have to accept that.  If they 'riot', they get arrested like anybody else.



> And if they riot when we do attempt to enforce our laws, as they did in France?



Arrest them.  This is not France.

On the other hand, have you seen any Muslim riots in the USA?



> See, it's easy to say enforce our laws, but when the French did, they had a state of emergency for three months.  Then what?  That would be just as much fuel for the fire for Muslim extremists to use against the west, as people here argue that burning the Koran does.  This would just be the argument of, "See, they won't even let you pray in peace to Allah."



I am not going to argue about some supposed thing that might happen and then this person might say this and that person might say that.  The Muslims who live here in the USA have not been rioting.  And I live in Detroit; if they were going to riot anywhere, it would be here; we have 300,000 Middle Easterners living here.



> It's a no win situation.



It's a make-um-up no-win situation.  



> Once again, I pose the question:  If we must embrace them, how far does it go.  After all, the French have had ample expericence as to what happens when you decide to enforce even burglary and tresspassing laws against them.  (I know this is an oversimplification for the causes of the riots in France,



I'll make it simple.  Treat the Muslim down the street the same way you treat the Jew next door, the Mormon across the road, or the Christian-but-of-another church that you work with.  Stop acting like the Muslims in the USA want something different than you do.  That's what I mean by 'embracing' them.  If they break the law, enforce it.  If they riot, club them over the ****ing head.  Jesus H. Christ.


----------



## 5-0 Kenpo (Sep 16, 2010)

Sorry about that. My computer started acting up and it only took part of what I was writing.



> Once again, no, I did NOT say that. I said that if we do not embrace them, meaning accept them, then they have nowhere to go. I said nothing about rigging the game so that they have an advantage or succeed over others. All they deserve is what all Americans deserve; an equal chance.


 
Yes they do. Just like the rest of us, they can go to a State / Country that is more in line with their belief system.



> The people to which I am referring are those (and I believe I said this) who are Muslim and have either been born in this country or have moved here and obtained citizenship. These are people who WANT to be here; they have embraced OUR culture to the extent that they are willing to live under our secular laws, to work, pay taxes, to try to achieve and better themselves.


 
You mean like Nidal Hassan, the man who killed thirteen U.S. Army soldiers. Or what about Anwar al-Awlaki, another who is also born, raised (partly)and educated (partly) in America? Or Sharif Mobely, who is an American born and raised member of al-Queda. Or Hasan Akbar, who while on active duty in Kuwait killed and wounded U.S. soldiers with a hand grenade. Or Lee Boyd Malvo, the D.C. Sniper, who told us that his motivation was jihad against the United States.

Or what about this girl, who is a student at a VERY good college in Southern California:





 
Not only does she agree with the killing of Jews, but this "moderate" is wearing terrorist garb.

Are these the disenfranchised Muslims of whom you speak. 



> They may keep many aspects of their own culture, such as their religion, but they don't embrace the parts of the Koran, for example, that might urge them to kill infidels (just as we no longer obey similar commands in the Bible). They are the farthest thing from extremists. However, if they cannot be accepted in the USA, if they are rejected and not allowed to take part in the society of America because of their religious beliefs and practices, then they will be outcast and more open to the siren call of the Islamists. The Islamists tell them over and over that no matter what they do, they will always be hated and not accepted by the West. If we prove them right, then which direction do you suppose they will turn?


 
But then, is that their religion? Or are they betraying fundamental tenets of their religion?

BTW, your comparison to Christianity is erroneous. God gave no general command to kill non-believers, or anyone for that matter. When the Jews did kill, it was upon the direct order of God to kill a specific group of people. This is something completely different then the what the so-called Muslim extremist believes.



> The terrorists are a distinct minority


 
How do you know? Tell me where you get your facts and figures from? I suspect this is a pure speculative statement on your part.

Even still, this doesn't take into account those that support their terrorism without committing direct acts of terrorism themselves. Perhaps like the woman in the video that I showed.




> I don't mean converts to Islam, I mean converts to their way of thinking. In addition to their extreme view of Islam, they also believe that the West is destroying their traditional culture. They use this as a key point in trying to gain converts. It is not essentially different from any politician or salesman's spiel; they try to identify with their target audience, create a bond, and then build on it.


 
Since when did you or anyone else here become an expert on Islamic doctrine and belief? I find it interesting that I should believe your and others here position, when I have OBL, al-Awlaki, or al-Zarqawi, who are / were born and raised practicing Muslims. To be sure, they are not the only ones who fit such a bill, but the question is why should I believe you over them about what their faith entails?



> However, when they reach out to the Muslims who live in Western nations under modern circumstances, they have to employ an entirely different set of tools. They cannot control the media or the access that Muslims who live in places like Europe and the USA have to it. They cannot tell the average Muslim who works in Dearborn, Michigan putting fenders on Fords that Americans hate him and want to kill him if the Muslim who lives in Dearborn knows that is not true. Does that make sense?
> 
> They cannot do this if it's simply not true. The Muslim guy who works in Dearborn at Ford is not interested in blowing up buildings or taking up arms against the USA; he lives here, he has a house, a mortgage, his kids are in college, he has to buy groceries! He would be against the terrorists; they make trouble for him, they make his life more difficult; they hate the things he prefers. The only thing they share is a religion; but that's like saying my religion is like Fred Phelp's religion. They might be both called 'Christianity', but that's about as far as it goes.
> 
> ...


 
They have told the average Muslim that (with the help of the left wing American media, no less) and the message is resonating. Hence, all of the American born terrorist that I listed earlier.

What is it about Islam that makes it so susceptible to corruption, then, if these things are not a basic tenet of their belief system already?





Bill Mattocks said:


> What about it? We have freedom of speech here; if Muslims choose to live here, they have to accept that. If they 'riot', they get arrested like anybody else.


 
And yet we say that a pastor should not burn the Koran because of the reaction that it will cause among Muslims, namely that it will cost American soldiers their lives. 

Really? It's that simple, huh? Yeah, I suppose the French thought the same thing.

How did that work out for them?

What's funny is, you say arrest them for violating our laws, but when Mexicans do it and people make this argument, it can't simply be that, can it.  And you're so assertive when it comes to enforcing traffic laws, but not immigration laws.

Were you a motor cop?  That would explain alot.  (That last bit was a joke, and was not meant to be offensive, to you or motor cops.)



> Arrest them. This is not France.


 
And if there is swift and violent backlash? Then what? 



> On the other hand, have you seen any Muslim riots in the USA?


 
No, but I have seen a lot of them commit mass murder, become active terrorists, become finacers of terrorist organizations.......





> I am not going to argue about some supposed thing that might happen and then this person might say this and that person might say that. The Muslims who live here in the USA have not been rioting. And I live in Detroit; if they were going to riot anywhere, it would be here; we have 300,000 Middle Easterners living here.


 
Weak agrument here. 

As they say in psychology, the best indicator of future performance is past behavior.  They may not riot, but look at the other things they have done.




> It's a make-um-up no-win situation.


 
You mean kinda like your "if anti-Muslim sentiment continues to grow". So, I'm supposed to address your make-um-up-no-win situation, but you refuse to do the same for mine.

Nice debating with you then. :roflmao: 




> I'll make it simple. Treat the Muslim down the street the same way you treat the Jew next door, the Mormon across the road, or the Christian-but-of-another church that you work with.


 
As I said that I do.



> Stop acting like the Muslims in the USA want something different than you do.


 
I would actually argue that most people want something different that I do. 



> That's what I mean by 'embracing' them. If they break the law, enforce it. If they riot, club them over the ****ing head. Jesus H. Christ.


 
And as you yourself said, create the next generation of terrorists. Because if you somehow think that the message that they will receive is merely "don't break our laws" and it will be live and let live, the you are sorely naive and are ignoring human psychology.

And I would say that about almost any group with a "cause", not just Muslims. Black Americans, homosexuals, Hispanics. If the cause is "unfair treatement" then any incarceration / anti-riot reaction will evoke such a response.

As you said yourself, what other behavior could I expect.


----------



## 5-0 Kenpo (Sep 17, 2010)

WC_lun said:


> There are idiots in every culture than can be taken advantage of men with the charisma and desire for power. There are men in the Middle East that derive thier power AND control from religion. When they no longer get to use that religion to dictate the lives of thier followers due to moderation they react and in some cases violently. It is not isolated to Islam, as many here would like you to believe. It has happened in the US. In my opinion, it is happening right now, but with less violence. Add to this scenario men who recognize this upheaval for what it is and use it to forward thier own agenda.
> 
> The answer for us, while simple is not easy. We must act to our ideals, thinking long term in order not to give ammunition to those seeking to radicalize and recruit. This means not doing things such as torture, invading countries under false pretense, or attacking the Muslim faith. The US is one of the most generous and giving countries in the world. Do things to highlight this, which I think we are doing. We build schools, infrastructure, and donate billions wordlwide. Third, we kill or capture those seeking to radicalize and use people for thier own agenda. That means if a terrorist attacks any US citizen, they and thier entire network is taken out, as far as we can. No more Osama Bin Ladens who create a following for themselves by just being alive after committing an attack on us. Make the risk for attacking us not worth the possible reward. While the front line troops of organizations like Al'Queda may not mind dying for thier cause, the planners and leaders certainly do.


 
I agree with you.  And we have been doing such things, as you say.

And yet, they are still winning converts who are trying to blow us up.

American soldiers, Marines, and sailors have lost their lives defending Muslims.  Whether it be Kuwait, Kosovo, Afganistan (against the Russians).  We have poured billions of dollars into Muslim nations in order to support them.  To be sure, I am not ignorant of the fact that in most, if not all of these things, there was some underlying U.S. political or economic interest.  But quite frankly, we have been better to Muslims on a whole then they have been to each other.

And yet they still win converts who want to blow us up.

We allow Muslims more freedom in this country to practice their religion as they see fit than even their own countries (with the exception of things like stoning rape victims).  

So, I'm sorry if I don't see your solution as the panacea you seem to make it out to be.  It seems that no matter what we do, they continue to win converts over who want to blow us up.

If this isn't about Islam, which I'm perfectly willing to accept, then what is it that makes the average Muslim, even the ones that were born and raised in the U.S., so willing to kill us.

I am fighting for an answer, I really am.  I talk with a really good friend of mine and he is about as anti-Islam as one could get.  And I argue on behalf of the Muslim.  But when I see the dirty, nasty, downright evil s**t that the "moderate" Muslim engages in, I have to ask myself why I'm doing it.


----------



## Archangel M (Sep 17, 2010)

A "non-issue" like all this supposed anti-muslim activity in the US?



> So, in 2008, the last year such statistics were available, there were 2,876 hate crimes against blacks, 1,297 against gays, and 1,055 against Jews.
> 
> Yet, with only 105 such disgusting acts committed against Muslims, America's media want you to believe this nation is Islamophobic.
> 
> ...


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 17, 2010)

Archangel M said:


> A "non-issue" like all this supposed anti-muslim activity in the US?



That was 2008.  It seems anti-Muslim activity is on the uptick.


----------



## Big Don (Sep 17, 2010)

Bill Mattocks said:


> That was 2008.  It seems anti-Muslim activity is on the uptick.


Gee, that was a year when we had a President who constantly praised Islam, and yet, chose to prosecute a war against terrorism.
Hope and Change, baby, Hope and Change...

BTW, got anything you can cite that shows that?


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 17, 2010)

Big Don said:


> Gee, that was a year when we had a President who constantly praised Islam, and yet, chose to prosecute a war against terrorism.
> Hope and Change, baby, Hope and Change...



You're barking up the wrong, tree if you're talking to me. I voted for Bush and I voted for McCain.  I'm no Obama fan.



> BTW, got anything you can cite that shows that?



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39081887/ns/business-careers



> There is a hatred, an open hatred, and a lack of tolerance for  people who are Muslim, said Mary Jo ONeill, regional attorney for the  Phoenix district office  of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She said she has seen  an uptick in discrimination complaints among Muslim workers in her  region, which includes Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.
> I think the mosque in Manhattan seems to be a flashpoint, but it  taps into feelings that preceded it, she said. The feeling among  people in the workplace, she added, is not only are we not going to  accommodate your practices and beliefs, were also going to ridicule you  and call you names.
> *Claims of bias against Muslims in the workplace rose to 1,490 last  year from 1,304 in 2008 and just 697 in 2004, according to EEOC figures.  Last year's total was even higher than in the year after the 9/11  attacks, when bias claims hit 1,463. Figures from this year are not yet  available.*



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129330121


----------



## Archangel M (Sep 17, 2010)

Discrimination complaints to the EEOC does not equal hate crimes reported to the FBI.


----------



## Bill Mattocks (Sep 17, 2010)

Archangel M said:


> Discrimination complaints to the EEOC does not equal hate crimes reported to the FBI.



I stated _"That was 2008.  It seems anti-Muslim activity is on the uptick."_

Big Don said _"BTW, got anything you can cite that shows that?"_

I did and posted it.  Question asked and answered.  I try to support my statements.  Unless you want me to support statements I did not make.  That would be a bit harder.


----------



## Makalakumu (Sep 17, 2010)

Meanwhile...

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6328.shtml



> WMR has learned from a deep background source that Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, has been conducting false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan that are later blamed on the entity called Pakistani Taliban.
> 
> 
> Only recently did the US State Department designate the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, a terrorist group. The group is said by the State Department to be an off-shoot of the Afghan Taliban, which had links to Al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks on the United States. TTPs leader is Hakimullah Mehsud, said to be 30-years old and operating from Pakistans remote tribal region with an accomplice named Wali Ur Rehman. In essence, this new team of Mehsud and Rehman appears to be the designated replacement for Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri as the new leaders of the so-called Global Jihad against the West.
> ...



Who are the terrorists, again?


----------



## Archangel M (Sep 17, 2010)

Pfffttt!! Wayne Madsen. He He He!!!! 

[yt]ctEDHm0OKms[/yt]

"Deep Background Sources" conspiracy code for "made up".


----------



## WC_lun (Sep 17, 2010)

5-0 Kenpo said:


> We allow Muslims more freedom in this country to practice their religion as they see fit than even their own countries (with the exception of things like stoning rape victims).
> 
> So
> If this isn't about Islam, which I'm perfectly willing to accept, then what is it that makes the average Muslim, even the ones that were born and raised in the U.S., so willing to kill us.
> ...


 
These two paragraphs are nothing but nonsense.  Muslims have the same religious rights in the US as anyone else.  No more or less... unless you count the knuckleheads that promote fear by doing such idiotic things as fire bombing mosque.  Take into account the knuckleheads and they have a little bit less religious freedom than say the average Christian.

The "average Muslim" as you put it, abhors violence just as much as the average Christian.  To think otherwise is to feed on the ignorance of fear espoused by people who either do not know any better, or are pursuing an agenda.  You take some examples of radical Muslims from the US as an example of the "average Muslim."  That would be the same as using Timothy McVey as an example of the average Christian.  Once again, there are idiots in EVERY culture.  Those idiots are not the norm.


----------



## 5-0 Kenpo (Sep 20, 2010)

WC_lun said:


> These two paragraphs are nothing but nonsense. Muslims have the same religious rights in the US as anyone else. No more or less... unless you count the knuckleheads that promote fear by doing such idiotic things as fire bombing mosque. Take into account the knuckleheads and they have a little bit less religious freedom than say the average Christian.


 
I think you misunderstood that paragraph.  It wasn't about Muslims in the U.S. having more rights then any other group.  It was the fact that they have more freedom to worship in the U.S. then in even Muslim countries.  Here, everyone is free to worship as they please, with very few exceptions.  The same couldn't be said in most Islamic countries.  There you worship as the government / Imam sees fit.

Oh, and in so far as your last statement, there are an average of 15 to 20 Christian church arsons per month.  In the period of 1996 to 2000, according to the ATF, there were nearly 1,000 church arsons.  

In doing a search online, I haven't found one U.S. mosque arson.  Admittedly of course, just because I couldn't find one doesn't mean there haven't been *any, *but I don't think it's the scourge that you intimate that it is.

You should probably utilize facts to support your position before you speak.



> The "average Muslim" as you put it, abhors violence just as much as the average Christian. To think otherwise is to feed on the ignorance of fear espoused by people who either do not know any better, or are pursuing an agenda. You take some examples of radical Muslims from the US as an example of the "average Muslim." That would be the same as using Timothy McVey as an example of the average Christian. Once again, there are idiots in EVERY culture. Those idiots are not the norm.


 
I didn't put them as average Muslims.  I asked if the example that I showed were typical of the average Muslim.  

Why do I pick them?  

Because these are military soldiers and officers, students at American universities, laborers.  You know, those people who lived everyday lives like the rest of us, but eventually killed, or as in the case of the student, believes in her heart that the Jews should be "hunted".  

Do I believe that all Muslims want to convert or kill all non-muslims, absolutely not.  I have met some great people of the Islamic faith.  

However, I keep seeing things from the average Muslim that show that violence is a part of their way of life.  I could keep posting them, such as a video of a woman being kicked to death and a cinder block dropped on her head in the street for not marrying the person that her family arranged for her to marry, but what would be the point?

You know, I point out instances of "everyday"(?) Muslims killing and talking about killing others who are not of their faith.  But, other then a *few* Islamic religions leaders, no one is providing evidence to the contrary, nor giving any evidence to refute those actions or positions as being in defiance of Islamic law and faith.  

That is most frustrating.

And, once again, your comparison is erroneous.  Tmothy McVeigh was not motivated, as were these people, by religion, much less Christianity.  McVeigh stated himself that the bombing was revenge for the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents.   Not only that, but here is a Wikipedia version of his religious beliefs:  



> In a recorded interview with Time magazine McVeigh professed his belief in "a god", although he said he had "sort of lost touch with" Catholicism and "I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs." Throughout his childhood, he and his father were Roman Catholic and regularly attended daily Mass at Good Shepherd Church in Pendleton, New York.  *The Guardian reported that McVeigh wrote a letter to them claiming to be anagnostic* and that he did not believe in a hell. *McVeigh once said that he believed the universe was guided by natural law,* energized by some universal higher power that showed each person right from wrong if they paid attention to what was going on inside them. He had also said, *"Science is my religion."*


 
So, where should I get that he represents the average Christian.

Once again, get your facts straight before you speak.


----------

