Should the civilized world unite against Barbarians?

[gauchecritic]

Who needs smilies?

Drop by some time and meet the family. They're quite good at it.

That's the thing. I quite agree with what you're saying up there. But I can't help finding it ironic that you immediately follow a call to understand the other side's position with a suggestion that the side opposing you is composed of idiots. It's an extremely popular belief, that. "Why do people oppose you?" "Because they're imbeciles and have never learned to think properly!" Very popular theory on both sides of the aisle. Not, however, usually the case. The sooner one admits that they have reasons and finds out what they are, the better.

Shanglan

I avoid the use of words like 'proselytising' and 'parochial' and look where it gets me.

And I thought you knew me weller than that, Horatio.

Distribution of wealth: Capitalist running dogs: Property is theft. Aah, I feel better already.

Your inference does not necessarily encompass my implication. But like the Goddess Sher never tires of telling me: A reader brings themselves to anything you write.

I have never been given the impression that a proselytising right wing thinker would be able to break the constraints of their parochial worldview in order to fully examine, without bias, the merits of opposing and/or differing political or economic ideologies in such a way as to bolster their own and particularly like-minded people's opposition to such, without relying on extramural, exstrinsic common fears, either by implication or direct reference.

Chu xeppy bonny now?

Edited to add: eyup elsol

 

[elsol]

The reason this surprised me was this gentleman is a well educated person who also happens to be of a race who up until not too long ago were also attacked and persectued as he was advocating because they were different. I guess we just can't learn can we.

Cat

There's a race we've stopped attacking and persecuting?

Where do you live?

I ask because I'm one of 'those' races and I'd feel a lot safer where you be at then where I am now.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[oggbashan]

I happened to catch a bit of CNN this afternoon while working with one of my patients. This segment was showing footage taken in London sometime today. Part of it showed a young Muslim woman who had stopped at one of the barricades to place a bunch of flowers and pray only to be interupted by newsphotographers taking her picture.

After seeing this footage my patient made several comments which surprised me. He commented that he wouldn't have been surprised if she had been attacked by the people gathered there and that as far as he was concerned she would have been deserving of it. It had been people of her faith who had commited the bombings after all. The reason this surprised me was this gentleman is a well educated person who also happens to be of a race who up until not too long ago were also attacked and persectued as he was advocating because they were different. I guess we just can't learn can we.

Cat

He doesn't understand that London and most European cities are multi-racial and multi-faith (or none). Muslims were killed in the bombings. It was almost inevitable that they would be. Muslims died on 9/11.

Most people in the UK understand that the bombers, while claiming to be Muslims, are no more typical of Muslims than the IRA is of Roman Catholics.

However we do have a problem in this country with disaffected Muslim youth who are educated but unemployed. They are segregated from the rest of their non-Muslim communities by circumstance and, in some cases, their choice and that of their spiritual advisors. Lack of contact with others builds suspicion on both sides otherwise they would recognise that their non-Muslim neighbours have exactly the same problems of lack of reasonable employment. Segregation inflames hostility with each 'side' thinking that the other has a better deal in life. Those who want to keep the communities apart have a fertile breeding ground for inciting racial and religious hatred.

The fanatical Muslim fundamentalists and the fanatical White supremacists have an impact in those deprived areas far greater than their message deserves because both offer an illusory hope.

Most of the UK away from deprived areas of inner cities has no problem with toleration and acceptance. Commuters in Central London are likely to be the most tolerant of all because daily they work and travel together with those of different races and different faiths and so get to know that we are all human. Some of us are pleasant. Some of us are not. Which we are isn't programmed by race of religion.

Og

 

[BlackShanglan]

I have never been given the impression that a proselytising right wing thinker would be able to break the constraints of their parochial worldview in order to fully examine, without bias, the merits of opposing and/or differing political or economic ideologies in such a way as to bolster their own and particularly like-minded people's opposition to such, without relying on extramural, exstrinsic common fears, either by implication or direct reference.

Yes, that's pretty much the sort of thing I had in mind. Summary: "They are blinkered idiots incapable of supporting their side with reason."

As I said, quite popular.

 

[gauchecritic]

Yes, that's pretty much the sort of thing I had in mind. Summary: "They are blinkered idiots incapable of supporting their side with reason."

As I said, quite popular.

You just had to get the last word in didn't you?

 

[BlackShanglan]

You just had to get the last word in didn't you?

Now how can I answer that without fulfilling it?

 

[CharleyH]

You just had to get the last word in didn't you?

No - no - I will when i piece together AMICUS' THOUGHTS ... one day :|

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I happened to catch a bit of CNN this afternoon while working with one of my patients. This segment was showing footage taken in London sometime today. Part of it showed a young Muslim woman who had stopped at one of the barricades to place a bunch of flowers and pray only to be interupted by newsphotographers taking her picture.

After seeing this footage my patient made several comments which surprised me. He commented that he wouldn't have been surprised if she had been attacked by the people gathered there and that as far as he was concerned she would have been deserving of it. It had been people of her faith who had commited the bombings after all. The reason this surprised me was this gentleman is a well educated person who also happens to be of a race who up until not too long ago were also attacked and persectued as he was advocating because they were different. I guess we just can't learn can we.

Cat

I say, before we can unite against the barbarians, we have to decide who the barbarians really are, them or us.

 

[cantdog]

You could easily be them

I say, before we can unite against the barbarians, we have to decide who the barbarians really are, them or us.

Them and us are illusions. We're all us. Even them, I promise.

The more you get heated about Them the more you will be seen to look like 'em. Prophets, seers, avatars, bodhisattvas, saints have told you this for millenia. Get with the mother fuckin program. (Not you, specifically, Flicka, darlin', I'm speaking to the whole discussion, but i thought your post a propos.)

 

[shereads]

I say, before we can unite against the barbarians, we have to decide who the barbarians really are, them or us.

It is obvious: the infidels are the barbarians. Amicus, my brother in Jihad, is right to demand that we unite to destroy them as Allah commands.

Will you be joining Amicus and me at suicide training camp? To paraphrase the infidels' leader, you are either with Jihad or you're against us.

 

[raphy]

It is obvious: the infidels are the barbarians. Amicus, my brother in Jihad, is right to demand that we unite to destroy them as Allah commands.

Will you be joining Amicus and me at suicide training camp? To paraphrase the infidels' leader, you are either with Jihad or you're against us.

I reckon I'll leave you to that, she..

God knows I'm no liberal, but even I know that you have to fight terrorists without becoming terrorists. The instant you cross that line, then you become the enemy.

When I was a child, I used to think about crime, pubishment and vigilantes. A vigilante killer who murders other proven murderers who get off on a technicality is no less a murderer.

While it's true that at some level, there always need to be people to ensure that sometimes, the bad things happen to bad people, that doesn't change the fact that they're bad things.

So I pose you all a question, referring to my vigilante scenario above... And yes, this does have a bearing on the terrorism issue of today.

If you could round up all the murderers in your country who've gotten away scot-free, would you cold-bloodedly kill them all, knowing that when you were done, you yourself would be executed by the judicial system for being a murderer yourself? Would you reckon on that being a fair trade? Would that be a fair price to pay?

Do you think it would actually solve anything? Would the murder rate in your country drop dramatically after the extermination of those hardened criminals? Or would others simply rise up to take their place?

 

[Dar~]

That would be a good thread in and of itself Raphy.

 

[raphy]

It's the same issue, more or less. It poses the question 'Is it right to become that which is your enemy, in order to defeat the enemy?'

In my 'hypothetical scenario', after our hapless volunteer was executed by the state, in theory there would be no more murderers left in that country.

Is that a price worth paying. What effects would that have on the society of the country as a whole? Would that be a shame that had to be borne by every other member of the community, that they were willing to let someone do that.

I have other thoughts on this, thoughts on the responsibility and guilt of the society that would allowed such an action, except that right now my brain is too muddled for them to come out in any near-coherent form...

But, it's the same issue as how to fight terrorism. Do we become them to beat them? And if we do, then what? Who will protect others from us?

As anyone who can remember me from way back knows, one of my biggest priorities when deciding upon a course of action to take, or a line of argument to follow is - Does it give me the moral high ground? Without the 'rightness' of such a position, I cannot take any action or argue any point effectively.

 

[elsol]

Deleted.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . before we can unite against the barbarians, we have to decide who the barbarians really are . . .

Where is RumpleForskin with his Pogo sig. quote.

"We Have met the enemy, and he is us."



raphy,

In your example, it would NOT be worthwhile, only taking into consideration their past and extracting vengeance. It WOULD be worthwhile to eliminate all the perpetrators of violence before they offend again.

Unfortunately, one would need to have absolute proof that all the people on your elimination list are actually guilty, and that they were, in fact, the instigator as well as the perpetrator.

Second — and this is even more problematic — you would have to know that they WOULD offend again. That they would NEVER see the light – turn over a new leaf, and not only be rehabilitated, but at some future time perhaps discover/invent a way to remedy uncounted suffering from the world, if they are permitted to live out their allotted lives.

And, of course, you should try to discover if resorting to star chamber procedures to correct what you perceive as a failure of justice does not become a precedent for other who follow, with less scrupulous methods.


Since these questions cannot be answered outside of a science fiction film, I am pleased that I will eventually become a citizen of a country which, recognizes the limitations of their infallibility, and has excluded the death penalty from their future legal options, undertaken — ostensibly — on my behalf.

 

[shereads]

He doesn't understand that London and most European cities are multi-racial and multi-faith (or none). Muslims were killed in the bombings. It was almost inevitable that they would be. Muslims died on 9/11.

Most people in the UK understand that the bombers, while claiming to be Muslims, are no more typical of Muslims than the IRA is of Roman Catholics.

Most urban cities in the coastal U.S. have substantial Islamic populations (it is the world's fastest growing religion, after all). But in newer, more suburban cities like Miami, there's so little daily contact with recently arrived ethnic groups that women in traditional dress still stand out in a crowd.

In older American cities like New York and Chicago, where the cultural and business hub is in the inner city and not the suburbs, ethnic groups seem to mingle more, because it's more necessary. I've seen more people in traditional Muslim dress during an hour on the streets of Manhattan than I see in a typical year in Miami, where life is lived outside the city and transportation is by car.

It's understandable that first-generation and even second-generation Americans keep to their own communities when it's as easy to do so as it is here. But I think it perpetuates bigotry against people with foreign speech and dress. We're a multi-ethnic city that is barely aware of any group other than the three that compete for political power: Cuban-American, Anglo and Black. The others are still foreign.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I don't think labelling muslim extremists 'barbarians' is going to help our cause all that much. Neither will going on a massive invading and killing spree in third world countries.

What we need to do is tackle the cause instead of the symptoms. It doesn't matter how many muslim extremists are killed - there'll always be more in reserve.

These people evidentally hold a grudge against us, and going in with jackboots is making that grudge worse. This isn't a problem that's going to be solved by military force - it's going to need a much softer, smarter, diplomatic approach.

As Ogg said, most of our cities are multi-racial, multi-faith places. We in Britain pride ourselves on our diversity and our tolerance. If we suddenly conduct a campaign of "send the buggers back home and persecute the ones who stay" we've lost to the terrorists. They want us to change our way of life, and we're not going to. We're above that.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Raphy! Haven't seen you for a looooooooooooooooong time! *hugs*

 

[OZ 73]

it might help

It might help if the boss cockys [ imams et al] could get the following to their flock.
1. God is all powerful and does not need any help to punish the infadel.
2. There are no 70 odd virgins for anyone in paradise, let alone those who take their own lives.
3. Better sex education, viz. an experianced 40 year old is a much better bonk than a virgin any day.

 

[CharleyH]

GOOD GOD! This is hear still? I hoped for the book of the dead and buried? Time and place.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Actually, the Koran says that anyone who kills him/herself, will NOT get to Paradise.

However, the terrorist leader tries to defend this anti-islam actions by claiming that suicice missions is NOT the same as suicide.

Yeah, and if you rape someone, you're still a virgin...

 

[gauchecritic]

It might help if the boss cockys [ imams et al] could get the following to their flock.

2. There are no 70 odd virgins for anyone in paradise, let alone those who take their own lives.

How do you know?

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

How do you know?

If he doesn't respond in a week, we will know that he decided to research the question.

Then we will have to chalk up another DB to your reckoning.

 

[Pure]

muslim extremists; biographies

Sheherezade: //I don't think labelling muslim extremists 'barbarians' is going to help our cause all that much. Neither will going on a massive invading and killing spree in third world countries.

What we need to do is tackle the cause instead of the symptoms. It doesn't matter how many muslim extremists are killed - there'll always be more in reserve.//

In this case, the muslim extremists were Brit citizens. Very ordinary appearing, in some cases a bit more 'religious' than the average. Some had families. A couple had visited Pakistan.

Here's another puzzle. In Israel, the 20% Arab citizens have scarcely ever been involved in a terrorist act.
====

Lives of Three Men Offer Little to Explain Attacks



New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: July 14, 2005


LEEDS, England, July 13 - In the gritty, working-class suburbs of Leeds, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, was the fun-loving, rich kid of the neighborhood, the son of a savvy, Mercedes-driving shop owner.

[picture]Ian Hodgson/Reuters
Bashir Ahmed, center, an uncle of the bombing suspect Shahzad Tanweer, said Wednesday in Leeds that his nephew "loved his country."

Hasib Hussain, 18, who lived nearby, was the impressionable one, a charming young man who had been drifting into a reckless teenage life until religion set him straight.

And Mohamed Sadique Khan, 30, was the grown-up one, with a wife and a baby daughter at home. The three men used to work out together at the Hardy Street mosque in Beeston, the Leeds neighborhood that two of the suspects called home.

As the identities of these suicide bombing suspects slowly emerged Wednesday behind a thicket of disbelief, the question that nobody in these neighborhoods could answer was this: What kind of radical force threw the three men together, with another bomber, to commit such a heinous crime against their country, the one they rooted for in soccer matches, and their people?

"It still hasn't sunk in yet that these people could have perpetrated something like this and actually came from our community," said Hanif Malik, spokesman for the Hamara Community Services Center in Beeston. "The tensions in this town are not based on religion, but on economics and culture."

Bradford, a community nearby, had riots a few years ago, as did Leeds, though on a smaller scale, and tensions between whites and South Asians often run high in the Holbeck and Beeston neighborhoods, home to many of Leeds' Muslims, residents said.

Many local businesses are owned by people of South Asian origin, a source of resentment among many whites. Last year a white teenage boy was stabbed to death by a group of South Asian teenagers, and the hard feelings have deepened since then.

Some whites make no attempts to hide their disaffection, and say relations are only likely to worsen. "Make them all go back," said David Swaine, 23, of Beeston.

In many ways, the two youngest suicide bombing suspects, Mr. Tanweer,[/B] 22, and Mr. Hussain, 18, were British to the core, shaped by their diverse, rough neighborhoods, where flashy cars, petty teenage battles and designer clothes jostle with the Muslim values of work, family and religion. But in the last year or two, friends said, they had noted a turn toward Muslim piety in each man; nothing shocking or obnoxious, just something plain to see.

Mr. Tanweer, a university-educated cricket fanatic who also excelled in soccer and whose father ran a successful fish and chips shop, had taken to praying five times a day, something his relatives did not do, and attending a number of mosques regularly, acquaintances said. He even went to Pakistan last year to visit relatives and study religion, and some media reports said he visited Afghanistan on the same trip.

"He went to Pakistan," said a friend who works for a local greengrocer in Beeston and asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals. "But a lot of people go to Pakistan. So? The lads used to tease him that he was going there to get married. I think he went for six weeks or something."

Forensic evidence indicates Mr. Tanweer was on the subway train at Aldgate.

"The family is shattered," said Bashir Ahmed, 65, Mr. Tanweer's uncle, who walked toward Mr. Tanweer's house, which was roped off by police tape. Mr. Tanweer "loved his country," he said. "He loved this community. I thought his only interest was cricket. He was not especially religious. Our family does not have a future in this community now."

Mr. Hussain, an average student who graduated from Matthew Murray Vocational School in 2003 and was attending Thomas Danby College, the equivalent of the last two years of high school. He had also begun to shake off Western habits, even more abruptly than his friend Mr. Tanweer. A tall, shy teenager, Mr. Hussain, who lived in Holbeck, had taken up with a rough Pakistani crowd in his high school years, the kind of young people who brawled with white kids over girls and perceived slights. Classmates said he was relatively docile, until provoked, then he could become violent.

(Page 2)
Then, about 18 months ago, he went on the hajj to Saudi Arabia, neighbors said, and returned a changed person, less aggressive and keenly interested in religion. He began going to the mosque. Sometimes, he even wore flowing baggy Pakistani pants and shirt. He, too, went to Pakistan, the BBC reported. The adults around him, who had been concerned that he was veering out of control, seemed pleased at the change, neighbors said. Skip to next paragraph

He told his family he was going to London with friends for a few days, but on Thursday evening, when he failed to return home, his mother called the police to report that he was missing. The phone call would help police break open the case.Mr. Hussain's driver's license and bank cash cards were found in the wreckage of the double-decker bus.

A few miles away, in Dewsbury, a more kempt suburb of Leeds, Mr. Khan, 30, the man suspected of blowing up the bomb at the Edgware Road subway station, moved recently into a small terrace house with his wife and daughter. By day, Mr. Khan, who was born in Pakistan but reared in Leeds, worked with disabled students at a center or a school, neighbors said.

He was not particularly devout, and few neighbors said they could remember seeing him at the mosque. In fact, neighbors said he married without even telling his family. His parents found out after the fact, they told reporters.. His mother-in-law, Farida Patel, is a teacher and a prominent community worker whose father campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, a local official, Khizar Iqbal, said.Forensic evidence ties Mr. Khan to the bombing near Edgware Station.

In some ways, the men, particularly the youngest ones, fit neatly into the stereotype of a suicide bomber: They are the right age. They grew up in neighborhoods where no jobs, or bad jobs, are just as common as steady jobs. They lived on blocks where people from all over the world - from Pakistan to Kosovo, Jamaica to Uganda - do not so much live together as collide with one another or, at best, keep a separate peace.Small-time drug dealing and drug use have increased in Beeston, residents say.

But the men, particularly Mr. Tanweer, are also sharply at odds with common notions about the profile of a suicide bomber. While not rich, his family is certainly not destitute. Mr. Tanweer's father, a successful local businessman who moved to Britain in the 1960's, is an immigrant success story. Mr. Tanweer lived in a large house and drove his father's red Mercedes on occasion. He wore brand-name clothes, worked out at a gym and took classes in the martial arts. He studied sports science at Leeds Metropolitan University, and when he could, he worked at his father's fish and chips shop for extra money.

Everyone who knew him described him as infinitely likable. Terrorism seemed the farthest thing from his mind, his friends said. "He was a good lad, so down-to-earth," said a friend who played cricket with him the day before the bombing. Although the neighborhood is poor, people of South Asian origin own most of the businesses. There is a sense, at least among these families, that they were moving up the ladder, rather than down it.

Mr. Hussain's father works in a factory. His son finished vocational school. It was clear that the teenage dangers here - gangs, drugs and other troublemaking - posed more of a threat than extremist ideologies. Many in the neighborhood theorize that the men must have been "brainwashed," as Adrian Healy, a neighbor, put it. "That may sound extreme," he added. "But then so is blowing people up."

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I don't think labelling muslim extremists 'barbarians' is going to help our cause all that much. Neither will going on a massive invading and killing spree in third world countries.

What we need to do is tackle the cause instead of the symptoms. It doesn't matter how many muslim extremists are killed - there'll always be more in reserve.

These people evidentally hold a grudge against us, and going in with jackboots is making that grudge worse. This isn't a problem that's going to be solved by military force - it's going to need a much softer, smarter, diplomatic approach.

As Ogg said, most of our cities are multi-racial, multi-faith places. We in Britain pride ourselves on our diversity and our tolerance. If we suddenly conduct a campaign of "send the buggers back home and persecute the ones who stay" we've lost to the terrorists. They want us to change our way of life, and we're not going to. We're above that.

One has to ask what concilliatory approach you would lke to take?

Hammas & Islamic Jihad are easy, we just need to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and they'll quit blowing themselves and innocent bystanders up.

AQ is a little less easy to please, since they don't have a terribly well defined goal, other than killing folks for no god damned reason. One could postulate a complete withdrawl of western influence from the middle east. That would appear to be, at least trasitionally what they want. Of course middle eastern countries still want money from the west and in some places, they would like a few import items too. However, to please AQ, you would have to stop that as well. Gonna be a cold winter for those of us who depend on heating oil, but hey, AQ won't be blowing shit up for funsies.

History teaches a very good lesson about this, although it has often been misinterpreted. It happened in Munich, when a very rational, peace loving and concilliatory British PM met with a madman on a power trip. He gave him practically everything he was asking for. And declared he had secured peace in our time. Funny thing is, the madman invaded Poland not long afterward and peace in our time became World War II. Appeasement got a very bad name from that and for a long time Presidents and Pm's the world over were afraid to compromise, as they feared it would appear they were appeaseing their enemies.

Hammass is never going to get what it wants, because the US is never going to abandon Israel to their tender mercies and even if we did, Israel has proven herself quite capable of kicking the living crap out of any Arab state that invades her territory. The Eu backs the arabs, but the Eu dosen't have a country in it that can mount a long range invasion of Israel to help the Arabs out. I question if any country in the Eu, besides the UK, even has a force capable of standing toe to toe with the IDF and not getting their noses bloddied badly. So in your kinder, gentler approach, what's the plan? Dog pile on Israel? Let me reinterate, with this particular group of homocidal lemmings their goal is clearly stated, the destruction of a soverign state. How exactly do you intend to moderate that goal to find room to even begin trying a kinder approach?

As to Aq, forgetting a moment GWB's huburis, what you are advocating is we pull out all troops from the mideast, that is all troops from Iraq, from Kuwait, From Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the UAE, etc. Never mind that in some cases the soverign governments have asked us to deploy troops. You're also advocating Shell, BP, Mobile, Exxon and a host of other companies completely shut down mid east operatinons and get out. Never mind that the Arabs who run these countires don't have enough trained technical staff to keep the refineries that have made them rich operational. So once the west is out, we can all enjoy the winter together as the oilfields, refineries and pipelines shut down dur to a lack of trained maintenance and operational personel.

It should be obvious to anyone, that the goals of these organizations are so fantastically impractical as to be impossible to fulfill, even if we were inclinded to surrender to their terror. To the politically adept, it should be just as obvious that's intentional. Like the war on terror, it's a jihad that can't ever end, so those in power within Hamass, Aq etc. are secure in their positions of power within the movement.