Why Islam is disrespected

[Veryknowing]

Yo, Ish, I can answer your question and you won't like the answer.

You have seen "Last Samurai" haven't you?

They's a lot of truth in that ficticious Hollywood production for a change...

Last Samurai was a pile of dog poo.

Most Japanese that I've met who I asked about it said the movie was plain silly.

 

[*******]

Read "Go Rin No Sho," the Victor Harris translation, look for the real-life parable about "The Body of a Rock," and get back to me on that one...

You also might find Hiroaki Sato's, "The Sword and The Mind," very illuminating too as to the mindset of the period as opposed to the thoughts of the modern urban Japanese citizen.

 

[Veryknowing]

Read "Go Rin No Sho," the Victor Harris translation, look for the real-life parable about "The Body of a Rock," and get back to me on that one...

You also might find Hiroaki Sato's, "The Sword and The Mind," very illuminating too as to the mindset of the period as opposed to the thoughts of the modern urban Japanese citizen.

I've read more frigging books on Japan than you could poke a stick at.

If those are the only books that you're basing your oppinions of Japan on, you've got a lot more reading to do.

LOL

 

[Le Jacquelope]

No I am not a Muslim, which is not relevant anyway.

Are you a card carrying member of the NRA, allowing the arrogance to espouse your hate on all others that do not share your veiw.

Actually I'll stop here, 'cause in another life you would be one of those despotic individuals who believes his way is the only way.

Just saddens me that you can afford a computer and there are people starving from poverty in the USA who are caucasian, christian etc because of attitudes like yours.

Actually, and this is no joke, he has had to beg people for money to pay his rent several times. Ishmael's wife in real life left him because of child abuse. He's also facing potential heat over some child molestation allegations.

 

[*******]

I've read more frigging books on Japan than you could poke a stick at.

If those are the only books that you're basing your oppinions of Japan on, you've got a lot more reading to do.

LOL

So now, we've gone from people you've talked to to I've read so much more on you on the subject that you're only worthy of my best attempts at late night material...

Where did I imply that these were the only texts that I am basing my understanding of the emporer's behavior and role from?

Then you know the story of the "Body of a Rock" I assume, or is it true what they say about that word?

There's also the parable of the Tea Master that helps one understand the mindset of the Japanese warrior/soldier of the period. I mean, they flew planes into ships for gawd's sake...

 

[Veryknowing]

I mean, they flew planes into ships for gawd's sake...

So what? Suicide missions aren't restricted only to Japanese. Many nations have used such tactics when in desperation.

 

[zipman]

Here is some examples;

CH


http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-09/13/article18.shtml


http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-09/13/article25.shtml


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1690624.stm


http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=question&qid=1007

http://www.mediamonitors.net/ikramsehgal37.html

I don't think the article is referring to 9/11 at all, as many countries did post formal condemnations after that attack, but rather the riots over the newsweek article.

The silence over the daily bombings which are targeting muslims in Iraq applies as well. From Iraq to Indonesia there are bombings in mosques which are muslim against muslim and therefore are not deemed as being newsworthy whereas the newsweek article which isn't as serious as a mosque bombing touched off riots.

Clearly a double standard exists with regard to reporting news and the reaction to it which is based more on the religion of the agressor than on the act itself.

 

[smoothdevil]

What do you call the firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, the slaughter of civilians at My Lai by US soldiers, the mass slaughter of 100,000 RETREATING Iraqi civilians and soldiers who were LEAVING Kuwait on the notorous road of death (they weren't all soldiers, there were tens of thousands of civilians in busses and taxis too), the sanctions enforced upon Iraq which resulted in the deaths of 2 million Iraqis (including 600,000 to 1 million children), the use of Agent Orange over Vietnam that continues to poison the Vietnamese people even today in the soil and in their food resulting birth defects and cancers,

I call the firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo ... war ...I didn't hear what you called the bonding of London, Warsaw, Stalingrad, etc ..... the slaughter at Mai Lai criminal... the supposedly slaughter of civilians on the retreat from Kuwait ... disposal of criminals, thiefs, rapists, looters and hopefully they couldn't breed new ones ... sanctions on Iraq ... somehow that didn't stop the nice generous SADAM family from building palaces, killing his opposition, buying Mercedes for Udai and the rest of cronie, while his people suffered .... UN officials from stealing your donations to this and many other imperished nation ........ the use of agent orange ... criminal ...

in essense i don't see everything black and white, saying the west is right in everything, but don't give me that drivel that only the west is responsible for the problems in the middle east. And as far as WW2 ... the Germans and Japanese fired the first shots ... you still do have a right to defend yourself ...


I di

 

[Gringao]

Not really.

The Japanese Emperor remained in his position as Emperor, which was the same condition that the Japanese government required in their original surrender conditions.

Yes, really. "Unconditional" meant precisely what it said: no conditions put forth by the Japanese would be accepted. They continued to propose them, so the war went on, ipso facto. That the Allied occupation decided after the fact that the Emperor's station could be maintained (albeit subordinate to the Allied command in every respect) is not evidence that the decision to do so was made prior to the establishment of the occupational government, nor of a tacit agreement between the Allies and the Imperial government. Given the text of the IoS, the Allies had the clear option of dissolving the Emperor's status. That would not have been the case had the precondition been explicitly accepted.

 

[Gringao]

Sanctions are a form of forced embargo, and yes they do result in plenty. Inaction is when you do nothing at all.

If a group of nations were to completely embargo all American trade, the USA would consider that an act of war - because it would be.

Like the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s? Can you relate the details of our conquest of Arabia as a result of that 'act of war?'

 

[Veryknowing]

Then you know the story of the "Body of a Rock" I assume, or is it true what they say about that word?

I have no idea what you have heard people say about the "Body of a Rock" idea, but I favour the description of Musashi from the Book of Five Rings, which I mostly read for the military strategy ideas, but the mental attitude side of it is certainly true enough from my own experience in real fighting.

There's also the parable of the Tea Master that helps one understand the mindset of the Japanese warrior/soldier of the period.

I don't think that's entirely true. It describes an ideal, which the pretense of was bound to be more common than the actuality. There are two Japans, as they say - the pretense and the real and they blur often. Westerners usually only see and write about the pretend image, the one that is presented. I learned to be very sceptical of those sort of things. It's too simplistic.

Not all Samurai were into Zen, not all were Buddhist, and not all were Shinto. Some Samurai clans were barely affected by Zen or Buddhism.

During the Edo Period, there was all the appearance of a monolithic set of rules of behaviour, and this view is carried over in movies and TV shows depicting that period, but again they're going for a certain ideal that was mythological to a large extent. I've read other literature from the same period from other areas of Japan where the rules weren't quite the same, the ideal affected by local culture of course.

Of course this sort of discussion would become very complex very fast, as POV is bound to very different.

Geez, I could write a novel-sized article on all of this if I got started, so I'm just going to leave it at that. Half my bookshelf is filled with Japanese books in Japanese (not English translations), plus a few translated books as well (Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto "Daughter of the Samurai" is an interesting one if you want a good read, mine's a rather old, 1937 edition - it's an account of the Post-Edo era; lots of little cultural items).

Anyway I'll leave it that.

 

[Veryknowing]

That the Allied occupation decided after the fact that the Emperor's station could be maintained .

There is no real evidence that it was only decided afterwwards, and there is evidence that the condition was already advertised as acceptable ot the government of the USA.

Those radio broadcasts that I mentioned.

I'll post a link about them when I get the chance. Later.

But go ahead, keep pushing the same excuse. It doesn't change the fact that the same condition that the Japanese government had repeatedly had in their offers of surrender for weeks before the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the same as eventually resulted, making the whole point of the USA accepting only "unconditional" surrender a pile of bullshit by the fact that the Emperor Hirohito remained Emperor.

All those people slaughtered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't save any lives; that's just another fictional excuse.

Like the claims of WMDs in Iraq being the excuse for invasion, and the resulting slaughter of 30,000 Iraqi civilians (so far at least).

The government of the USA seems to have a habit of making up fictional excuses for their worst atrocities committed against civilians.

 

[Ishmael]

I don't think the article is referring to 9/11 at all, as many countries did post formal condemnations after that attack, but rather the riots over the newsweek article.

The silence over the daily bombings which are targeting muslims in Iraq applies as well. From Iraq to Indonesia there are bombings in mosques which are muslim against muslim and therefore are not deemed as being newsworthy whereas the newsweek article which isn't as serious as a mosque bombing touched off riots.

Clearly a double standard exists with regard to reporting news and the reaction to it which is based more on the religion of the agressor than on the act itself.

Sorry Zip, but the acts you're talking about are reported else how would you know of them? They are reported in the local and regional papers. It it occurs in Iraq it's reported, along with the death toll (but sans details), in the NYT. Might be on page 3 under the fold, but by God it's reported.

In each and every case the reader gets to decide how they're going to react to the article. One of the reasons I agree the the author of the column originally cited. Newsweek was guilty of shabby journalistic standards, not incitement to riot. The readers made that decision all by themselves.

Selective reporting??? Nah, more the case of selective rioting.

Ishmael

 

[landslider]

Newsweek was tempted because the flushing tale fit into its predispositions.

And isn't it true that not one person will even be disciplined there?

 

[zipman]

Sorry Zip, but the acts you're talking about are reported else how would you know of them? They are reported in the local and regional papers. It it occurs in Iraq it's reported, along with the death toll (but sans details), in the NYT. Might be on page 3 under the fold, but by God it's reported.

In each and every case the reader gets to decide how they're going to react to the article. One of the reasons I agree the the author of the column originally cited. Newsweek was guilty of shabby journalistic standards, not incitement to riot. The readers made that decision all by themselves.

Selective reporting??? Nah, more the case of selective rioting.

Ishmael

The acts are indeed reported. However, any condemnation of those acts isn't reported. The worldwide media jumped all over the "Koran" newsweek story (which was uncorroborated) and blew it out of proportion in the muslim world while bombings of mosques and the killing of innocents while actually praying is completely minimized because it is muslim vs. muslim and not christian vs. muslim.

Btw, I agree with the original aritcle.

 

[mack_the_knife]

Has anyone else noted that every time some new 'atrocity' comes to light it is once again "The worst thing you can do to offend muslims"?

They're just so techy...yeesh

 

[Ishmael]

Newsweek was tempted because the flushing tale fit into its predispositions.

And isn't it true that not one person will even be disciplined there?

Yup, that's the word on the street. Isikoff is the same dude that originally dug up the Monica Lewinsky story. Newsweek tanked that one because there was no second source.

It seems that the threshold for 'fit to print' stories varies with who the 'victim' of said stories are, like you said. If you have a standard, even a low one, stick with it.

It would be interesting to see some law maker introduce a bill that would require all print news sources to print their jounalistic standards is each edition. The news industries equivalent of the "truth in advertising" law. If the food people have to put a list of ingredients and such on their product, why not the news people?

They can go ahead and print any damn thing they want, the public will just have a yardstick to go by regarding the 'quality' of the news. And perhaps a means of holding their feet to the fire if they violate their own ethics. It'll never happen, but it's an interesting thought none the less.

Ishmael


Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

The acts are indeed reported. However, any condemnation of those acts isn't reported. The worldwide media jumped all over the "Koran" newsweek story (which was uncorroborated) and blew it out of proportion in the muslim world while bombings of mosques and the killing of innocents while actually praying is completely minimized because it is muslim vs. muslim and not christian vs. muslim.

Btw, I agree with the original aritcle.

True enough Zip. And they wonder why their subscription numbers are tanking? They're playing the 'shill' for the Muslim extremists and they don't seem to care.

Ishmael

 

[Lovelynice]

Like the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s? Can you relate the details of our conquest of Arabia as a result of that 'act of war?'

Are you deliberately stupid or were you born that way?

The oil embargo of the 1970s doesn't compare to what the USA & UK did to Iraq with the sanctions.

Imagine this situation; the USA gets all trade restricted in the same way as they did to Iraq. Trade is reduced to a mere fraction, food is reduced to what they can trade oil for, and the USA economy has been devastated already by bombardment of water, sewerage, and power facilities that can barely be kept operating. 2 million Iraqi civilians died due to those sanctions which were described as an act of attempted genocide because nearly one million Iraqi children died as well. If the same proportion of the USA's population had been affected equally as badly, that would mean 20-30 million civilians dying (including at least 10 million children).

No wonder your comments sound like they come from a fascist mass murderer.

 

[Gringao]

Are you deliberately stupid or were you born that way?

Perhaps you would do better to re-read the thread and ask yourself that question, LN. VK posited that an embargo againt the US would be considered an act of war, the implication being that we would respond violently. I pointed to an embargo and asked him to describe our military response to it. Is that so hard to understand?

As for being an apologist for fascistic murderers, why not again ask yourself what the duration of the sanctions against Iraq might have been had Saddam and his Ba'athists (who are the bastard offspring of real fascists, I might add) done what they had agreed to do as part of the armistice and simply opened Iraq up to UNSCOM and disarmed? The UN, US and everyone else would have been out of Iraq within a year, I'd bet. Instead, they chose to obstruct, obfuscate and generally refuse to cooperate. The result was a prolongation of the measures imposed, to the shock of no sensible person.

Now, is Uncle Sam responsible for Saddam's obstinacy? Does it all go back to the Great Satan in the wacky world of LN? Is no one else even held to his own decisions?

 

[zipman]

Are you deliberately stupid or were you born that way?

The oil embargo of the 1970s doesn't compare to what the USA & UK did to Iraq with the sanctions.

Imagine this situation; the USA gets all trade restricted in the same way as they did to Iraq. Trade is reduced to a mere fraction, food is reduced to what they can trade oil for, and the USA economy has been devastated already by bombardment of water, sewerage, and power facilities that can barely be kept operating. 2 million Iraqi civilians died due to those sanctions which were described as an act of attempted genocide because nearly one million Iraqi children died as well. If the same proportion of the USA's population had been affected equally as badly, that would mean 20-30 million civilians dying (including at least 10 million children).

No wonder your comments sound like they come from a fascist mass murderer.

One might easily ask you the same question based on your post.

1) The UN imposed sanctions, not the US and UK. Even you should know this.

2) 2 Million people didn't die because of the sanctions, they died because Saddam was busy building huge mosques (two of the biggest after the 3 main holy sites of Islam) and sending $25,000 dollars to the family of every suicide bomber.

But why let facts get in your way of rewriting history?

 

[Silvergirl]

One might easily ask you the same question based on your post.

1) The UN imposed sanctions, not the US and UK. Even you should know this.

2) 2 Million people didn't die because of the sanctions, they died because Saddam was busy building huge mosques (two of the biggest after the 3 main holy sites of Islam) and sending $25,000 dollars to the family of every suicide bomber.

But why let facts get in your way of rewriting history?

1) The UN imposed sanctions under pressure from the USA and UK which only used the UN to legitimize their actions. It was also the UK and USA which primarily enforced those sanctions. Even you should know this.

2) Crap. According to the UN, those 2 million people died as a direct result of those sanctions, not from all that other rubbish you mention. They died because of poor medical care, lack of vital medicines which were extremely limited to insanely low quantities, and numerous diseases due to the inability to properly repair power stations, sewerage treatment facilities, and even water treatment facilities which were bombed by the USA and UK during the Gulf War in breach of the Geneva Convention and International Law.

But why let facts get in the way of your excuses? Facts never stopped the USA and UK governments lying about WMDs in Iraq.

 

[Silvergirl]

Perhaps you would do better to re-read the thread and ask yourself that question, LN. VK posited that an embargo againt the US would be considered an act of war, the implication being that we would respond violently. I pointed to an embargo and asked him to describe our military response to it. Is that so hard to understand??

You pointed out an embargo that was minor in comparison to that imposed by the sanctions on Iraq.

Then you tried to pretend it was equivalent, when it wasn't.

It seems you have a problem understanding that the rest of us aren't fooled.

 

[Silvergirl]

The worldwide media jumped all over the "Koran" newsweek story (which was uncorroborated) .

But later it was found to be true as all other witnesses and other news reports and even the International Red Cross confirmed.

The embarrassment for Newsweek was that they backed-down under political pressure but now everyone knows the koran story was true, and similar insulting treatment of the Islamic holy book had been committed many times by US soldiers and interrogators (and torturers) since 2002.

 

[Silvergirl]

I call the firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo ... war ...I ......

I think VK made his point clear enough. You try to push the idea that only Japan and Germany were guilty of committing attrocious and horrific acts, but it's the pot calling the kettle black.