We're overdue a Mid East thread

stretcher74

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Given that the thread is about Lebanon, and posts so far, especially the one you referenced where about Lebanon I think it was a reasonable inference.

I'll find it easier to read your posts properly when you stop writing like a 10 year old.

If you can't or won't discriminate between Islamic Radicalism as practiced by (in this context) terrorists and Islam as practiced by millions worldwide who feel the same dislike as most about Radicalism. when you continue to condemn the whole religion as, among other things, "stupid and evil" and suggest having Lebanon(?) blown off the face of the planet I will continue to consider you more than deserving of at least one of those epithets.

I'm still curious about the exploding animals reference, perhaps your irrational anger caused you to type it.

Call Me 5 or call me 10 . I'm rubber and you're glue. I said Islamists ruined the multicultural society that was Lebanon and cut down all the pretty cedar trees. Draw what conclusions you will.

As for naturally exploding suicide animals, I think I admitted that there weren't any(known). That is: no animals that act in the way that palestinans do(and the left appologizes for). A bit of satire or irony for you.

There are degrees of Islamism as you say. Doesn't make the core of the belief any less sensible. People can be a little stupid or very stupid. Doesn't mean that stupidity is smartness.

l8r
 

SteveHd

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Given that the thread is about Lebanon ...
I'll try to be gentle: It wasn't clear. The O.P. quoted news about Gaza, the two links pertained to photo editing, and the title is "We're overdue a Mid East thread" ... it might be difficult to limit this tread to just Lebanon. Especially now that Israel/Palestine have already been discussed.
If you can't or won't discriminate between Islamic Radicalism as practiced by (in this context) terrorists and Islam as practiced by millions worldwide who feel the same dislike as most about Radicalism. when you continue to condemn the whole religion as, among other things, "stupid and evil" ... [referring to what stretcher74 wrote]
He's not entirely off-base from a USA perspective. What he wrote alludes to what many Americans believe: the Islamic "silent majority" isn't taking a strong stand against radicalism and terrorism. By being mum or reticent, they're tacitly approving it and therefore culpable. There aren't enough moslems who'll shout "No!" to their radicals and terrorists. That's a "right-wing" view and I go along with it somewhat. I do put part of the blame on their lack of speaking out.
 

chico8

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I'll try to be gentle: It wasn't clear. The O.P. quoted news about Gaza, the two links pertained to photo editing, and the title is "We're overdue a Mid East thread" ... it might be difficult to limit this tread to just Lebanon. Especially now that Israel/Palestine have already been discussed.He's not entirely off-base from a USA perspective. What he wrote alludes to what many Americans believe: the Islamic "silent majority" isn't taking a strong stand against radicalism and terrorism. By being mum or reticent, they're tacitly approving it and therefore culpable. There aren't enough moslems who'll shout "No!" to their radicals and terrorists. That's a "right-wing" view and I go along with it somewhat. I do put part of the blame on their lack of speaking out.

Yet there is al Jazeera, that's in the process of being excluded by the US because it doesn't toe the party line. It has become a moderate voice but Wahibism more or less prevents any public stance of moderation. The same goes for the religious police in Saudi Arabia.

I think the totalitarian governments in the ME are responsible for many not speaking out. Why risk your life? Also, it's important to remember that family and conformism are extremely important in the ME.

Oil has allowed them to buy all sorts of western goods and services but creativity has been stifled to such a degree in the ME that the only hope for an artist from that region to get a showing is to leave.

There's simply no hope in the near future that something good will come from such repressed societies.
 

dong20

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I'll try to be gentle: It wasn't clear. The O.P. quoted news about Gaza, the two links pertained to photo editing, and the title is "We're overdue a Mid East thread" ... it might be difficult to limit this tread to just Lebanon. Especially now that Israel/Palestine have already been discussed.

It was clear to me when I started it, though I restated it's purpose to avoid any ambiguity, and did so prior to Stretcher's post, which was in direct response to yours which did relate to Lebanon. :rolleyes:

This wasn't really about the photo, I seriously doubt it's the first, or will be the last - it's only distingishing feature is the poor quality of the faking.

The thread was about the escalating situation in Lebanon. The fake photo element was meant to indicate that in terms of mainstream media reporting such events, things are seldom what they seem.

I wasn't and am not trying to limit the discussion to Lebanon I was merely restating it's initial focus because that may not have been 100% clear.

He's not entirely off-base from a USA perspective. What he wrote alludes to what many Americans believe: the Islamic "silent majority" isn't taking a strong stand against radicalism and terrorism. By being mum or reticent, they're tacitly approving it and therefore culpable. There aren't enough moslems who'll shout "No!" to the radicals and terrorists. That a "right-wing" view and I go along with it somewhat.

It was these that got my attention:

The wife-beating, raping,lying, honor-killing, pedophile-led people who practically invented(or coinvented) suicide-bomb modern terrorism, crocidile tears oppression PR and islamofascism.

What they call culture is teaching kids to blow themselves up(even most animals won't do that), murder women and children and sing songs about blood drinking jews and the infidel. The ones who stand around in western aid bought Nike shoes and burn our flag and defile the holy sites of judeaism and christianity by using the church of the nativity in bethlehem as a urinal(literally).

and later,

I'm anti-muslim, but that doesn't make me racist. I think the religion is stupid and evil.

To me, they're sweeping, simplistic, predjuced generalisations and I called them as such. I did say when I replied that that I noted the post was posted as a rant so I didn't give it too much credence, but it seems he was serious.

To make a crude parallel it's about as sensible as calling all Christians child abusers, homophobes and racists because some of it's more vocal proponents are and by association condemning the entire religion, all its members because of those few and, by association the rest for not speaking out loudly enough against such behaviour. That logic would condemn the entire Human Race for something.

I wasn't commenting on his perspective or that of the US, merely on the veracity, logic and value of his views as I saw them. Last time I checked, and it's been stated here recently, condemning an entire group by the actions of a few is the definition of predjudice or, at least this one. We've also had the silence = approval thread recently too and I said there that I thought that principle is fundamentally unsound.

As it happens I do believe that such generalisations are at least in part responsible for perpetuating this situation by hardening attitudes based on them, rather than seeling an objective understanding of the root causes, murky as they may be.

It's anyone's right to have any opinion as it's mine to disagree with it and say so. I wasn't alone in doing so although that's also irrelevant.

No need to be gentle, I won't be.:biggrin1:
 

stretcher74

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Prejudice you say ? All true. I'm blatantly biased against bad.

perhaps Madam Zora will be along in a few minutes to demonstrate Godwin's law.

Anyways the thread seemed to initially be about manipulation in photojournalism. I added what seemed interesting and relevant to me there.

Then, as the original author indicated he wanted an ongoing Middle East thread I threw in a little bait for the islamopologists and campus intifada crowd. Usually a phrase or two to the effect that we shouldn't be paying for "angry muslims who want to kill us"(which I happen to think by the way) is enough to keep things going for hours/days.

Enjoy.
 

ClaireTalon

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<.> The Palestinians balked and started "Intifada II". Everything went downhill, for them, since then. Electing Hamas was yet another jumbo mistake.

What irks me is they blame Israel and "The Great Satan" for their problems. I feel bad for them but their own actions mitigate my feelings.

The election of Hamas, and other political forces who cooperate with the more conservative parts of their clerical leaders comes from the action these take: Many small-scale social welfare projects are organized by organizations that we call islamistic and terrorist. The electing people don't care about the higher spheres of international politics, but focus on the parties and organizations that help them immediately, with cash money, home building, etc. That's why hamas was elected, and this also explains the swing to the right that we saw in Iran two years ago.

As I have said, the conflict that broke out now has been a latent one for years. The thing that unified Hamas and Fatah for most of the time was the fight against the Israeli occupation, in which the moderate forces applied political means, whereas radical forces applied the arguments of suicide bombers and their ardently beloved AK-47s. Now with their common political aim widely achieved (at least in the Gaza strip), they fight the postponed fight for the control over the Palestinian people.
 

dong20

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Prejudice you say ? All true. I'm blatantly biased against bad.

The bias is clear.

Anyways the thread seemed to initially be about manipulation in photojournalism. I added what seemed interesting and relevant to me there.

Despite my post saying it wasn't.:rolleyes: I admit it, sometimes I'm too subtle.

Then, as the original author indicated he wanted an ongoing Middle East thread I threw in a little bait for the islamopologists and campus intifada crowd. Usually a phrase or two to the effect that we shouldn't be paying for "angry muslims who want to kill us"(which I happen to think by the way) is enough to keep things going for hours/days.

Nah, you just painted yourself a bigot with no grasp of the situation. Not the first here to do that so I wouldn't worry. Not that you will.

If you say that was an intentional strategy, so be it, it worked.


Absolutely.
 

stretcher74

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how did I paint myself as a bigot by saying I didn't want to feed our enemies ... In what gonzo universe does this make sense ?

why don't you post arguments instead of insults ding dong.
 

B_big dirigible

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Oh boy, a semi-dead thread revival.

We've had several statements here of the "you can't blame everyone [in some identifiable group] because of a few extremists" sort. Unfortunately, you can in some cases, the most notable being warfare. In fact in those cases you not only can, but you must. Warfare is group responsibility writ large. It can hardly be anything else. Even differentiation by political party fails in that case. We don't say that the Democrats dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities, even though in a very real sense it's true. The smallest division which makes any sense in that case is national. Even larger divisions are certainly possible.

Currently there's a war on, though exactly who the enemy is isn't entirely clear. It is not inconceivable that it's all of Islam. Strictly it's against anyone who thinks that chopping the heads off school kids and immolating harmless office workers are legitimate forms of political expression, but it could be more than that - it could be everyone who longs for the day when he and all his neighbors can live under strict Sharia. I don't really think that the class of immediate enemies encompasses all Muslims, but there's no strong reason to believe I'm right about that. I'm certainly not justified in declaring anyone who does think so a bigot, or a racist (?!), or even ignorant, because he may turn out to be right. We simply don't know the answer to that question yet.

As for legitimate Palestinian gripes, if there is no time limit to your list of grievances, you'll always have enough of them to justify whatever outrages you wish to perpetrate. This is not solely a Palestinian problem. The Serbs are still sore about their crushing defeat at the hands of the Ottomans at Kossovo Polye. That was in 1389, and I'd say that as an inspiration for hatred, it's somewhat past its "use by" date. The Serbs seem to disagree.

The weight of the past is a severe drag on the future. In the US, considerations of, say, laws involving Indian reservations aren't diverted with long litanies of the crimes at Deerfield or Jamestown or other massacres by Indians. The US isn't still trying to get revenge on England for the outrages committed by Banastre Tarleton during the fighting in the Carolinas during the Revolution. It's all real, but it's all ancient history, and just not relevant to the issues of the present day. But that's not how they see it in the Balkans, or in far too much of the Middle East.
 

stretcher74

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stretcher74, are you refuting the word "bigot"?

I don't know Steve. I get called a bigot sometimes, so maybe I am one to those people. From my perspective this is used by people who don't like a judgement, discernment or opinon I have about a given group, culture or worldview. That is, they have deemed me "biased" against something I think is stupid, immoral, wrong, bad or just ugly. In that sense they are right. But it's kind of meaningless because they can apply it in the defense of anything irregardless of the merit/backwardness of that thing.

To me however being a bigot would have to involve some sort of active bigotry or unfairness or deep unrepresentative generalization on my part. For instance if you came to me for a job fully qualified and I wouldn't hire you because you were part of some club that liked to wear purple shirts. Or worse, something completely incidental that you couldn't change like your skin color.

Of course, generalization is a required part of the human experience. Our brains are smaller than the universe around us and so representative models are made.
 

SteveHd

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I don't know Steve. I get called a bigot sometimes, so maybe I am one to those people. ...
Using the dictionary definition, many people can be termed a "bigot". Based on what you wrote a week or so ago, you'd have a hard time wiggling away from the term.
 

stretcher74

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Using the dictionary definition, many people can be termed a "bigot". Based on what you wrote a week or so ago, you'd have a hard time wiggling away from the term.

Many people/any people. Either way the word doesn't mean much in and of itself, you bigot.
 

dong20

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Oh boy, a semi-dead thread revival.

Finest kind. If you feel that way, why chime in?

We've had several statements here of the "you can't blame everyone [in some identifiable group] because of a few extremists" sort. Unfortunately, you can in some cases, the most notable being warfare. In fact in those cases you not only can, but you must. Warfare is group responsibility writ large. It can hardly be anything else. Even differentiation by political party fails in that case. We don't say that the Democrats dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities, even though in a very real sense it's true. The smallest division which makes any sense in that case is national. Even larger divisions are certainly possible.

So the entire US population is a crazed rascist mob based on the activities of say the Klan? I know that's not what you meant but it wouldn't be much of a leap for the idiots among us to construe it that way.

Either way, even in war it's a non argument, at least until ordnance is able to target, with absolute reliability enemy combatants alone. Probably using some as yet undiscovered means. Evidence shows people seem to do a relatively poor job of that so I don't hold out much hope for human engineered technology to do better.

Until then, in war the innocent will die alongside the slightly less innocent and it's often almost impossble to tell them apart. After all, it's comparatively seldom that the truly guilty get truly 'hands on'. Assuming of course you even care enough to make the distinction in the first place. Your argument seems to suggest that your see merit in not doing so?

Currently there's a war on, though exactly who the enemy is isn't entirely clear. It is not inconceivable that it's all of Islam. Strictly it's against anyone who thinks that chopping the heads off school kids and immolating harmless office workers are legitimate forms of political expression, but it could be more than that - it could be everyone who longs for the day when he and all his neighbors can live under strict Sharia. I don't really think that the class of immediate enemies encompasses all Muslims, but there's no strong reason to believe I'm right about that. I'm certainly not justified in declaring anyone who does think so a bigot, or a racist (?!), or even ignorant, because he may turn out to be right. We simply don't know the answer to that question yet.

Certainly, the Muslims I work with and know as friends don't appear to feel that Sharia law or Pork or doing such terrible things as not hiding oneself from head to toe constitute issues worthy of such actions, or even any action at all. Neither, so far as I'm able to tell, do they pose any immediate threat to national security. Of course neither do I, but naturally that could change.

The only way to make your argument even remotely plausible is to conclude to that is that everyone is your (potential) enemy, all that's needed is the right trigger. I do think there's some truth in that, and there is precedent but only under the most unusual circumstances. Beyond that, well, it's mostly tosh.

The Serbs are still sore about their crushing defeat at the hands of the Ottomans at Kossovo Polye. That was in 1389, and I'd say that as an inspiration for hatred, it's somewhat past its "use by" date. The Serbs seem to disagree.

Have you taken a poll?

The weight of the past is a severe drag on the future. In the US, considerations of, say, laws involving Indian reservations aren't diverted with long litanies of the crimes at Deerfield or Jamestown or other massacres by Indians. The US isn't still trying to get revenge on England for the outrages committed by Banastre Tarleton during the fighting in the Carolinas during the Revolution. It's all real, but it's all ancient history, and just not relevant to the issues of the present day. But that's not how they see it in the Balkans, or in far too much of the Middle East.

Some people look back, some look forward, sadly too many don't seem to look anywhere at all. The better one's lot the less likely they are to blame the actions of others, even if they occured centuries ago. I would have thought that was obvious.
 

stretcher74

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Finest kind. If you feel that way, why chime in?



So the entire US population is a crazed rascist mob based on the activities of say the Klan? I know that's not what you meant but it wouldn't be much of a leap for the idiots among us to construe it that way.

Either way, even in war it's a non argument, at least until ordnance is able to target, with absolute reliability enemy combatants alone. Probably using some as yet undiscovered means. Evidence shows people seem to do a relatively poor job of that so I don't hold out much hope for human engineered technology to do better.

Until then, in war the innocent will die alongside the slightly less innocent and it's often almost impossble to tell them apart. After all, it's comparatively seldom that the truly guilty get truly 'hands on'. Assuming of course you even care enough to make the distinction in the first place. Your argument seems to suggest that your see merit in not doing so?



Certainly, the Muslims I work with and know as friends don't appear to feel that Sharia law or Pork or doing such terrible things as not hiding oneself from head to toe constitute issues worthy of such actions, or even any action at all. Neither, so far as I'm able to tell, do they pose any immediate threat to national security. Of course neither do I, but naturally that could change.

The only way to make your argument even remotely plausible is to conclude to that is that everyone is your (potential) enemy, all that's needed is the right trigger. I do think there's some truth in that, and there is precedent but only under the most unusual circumstances. Beyond that, well, it's mostly tosh.



Have you taken a poll?



Some people look back, some look forward, sadly too many don't seem to look anywhere at all. The better one's lot the less likely they are to blame the actions of others, even if they occured centuries ago. I would have thought that was obvious.

Dong, my wariness, or call it paranioa with respect to muslims is based on both research and 20+ years of experience. My experience is that many muslims are often polite, courteous and careful when clearly in the massive minority but that they rapidly become intolerable and massively intolerant as members of a pluralistic society as their numbers increase. Once critical mass is reached the moderates overwhelmingly go along with or allow whatever the more radical members of the religion propose.

Theologically and socially, as I have read more I have come to belive it is because Islam is a base a militant TRIBAL value system with some improv ideology on top of that. In the tribe you go with the warlord/sect/tribal leader who is winning no matter how brutal or your access to food and women is cut off. For those born into muslim cultures who do try to integrate a more moderate and compassionate worldview there is nowhere to stand when the radicals come to take over because theologically and scripturally the radicals are in the right and there is no signifigant tradition of dissent or reformation.
 

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dong20, I'm glad that you mentioned "the Klan". Because there's a big difference between how USA dealt with the KKK and how the Islamic world deals with their radical groups.

As you may know, the FBI heavily infiltrated the KKK and some of the tactics are illegal today. The FBI essentially destroyed KKK. It still exists, but a shell of what it was, and the FBI still watches them. Books have been written about how it was done. Today I'd say most Americans would approve of what the FBI did, perhaps even approve of the now illegal stuff.

Timothy McVeigh is an example of an American terrorist. He built and set off the bomb in Oklahoma City. But he had to face consequences: some medicine known as lethal injection. He got what he deserved. I'd say most Americans would concur.

When I look at the Islamic world and how they're handling their radicals, I see mostly apathy. Particularly from in the public. And that's being polite ... very polite. Someday they may get ballsy enough to go after their own radicals in a big way. Saudi Arabia has started to, but it's only a start. Until the Islamic world goes after their radicals, I will hold a low opinion of them, collectively. By "go after" I mean aggressive official action with majority backing from their public. I don't expect to see that anytime soon.