[quote]lixy wrote:
I will have to read this later, but I will say ahead of time…
for everyone of these perspecives I could find one that counters it from a Israeli Jew who thinks the land belongs to them. (don’t take that as I am in support of israel, or against.)
It’s quite lengthy indeed, but would highly recommend you to read it as it’s comprehensive and well-written. The conflict is not going to end in our lifetimes, so we might as well know what’s its origins and what it’s about from as many viewpoints as possible.
[/quote]
True. Personally I wish They would have set israel up in latin america back in 1949. Then again I am one of the Christians that is amillenialist.
I said what appears. That implies I only have what is covered in the news. I didn’t hide that fact either.
[quote]
I thought you could draw the answer from the examples I gave you. I’ll spell it out then: You can’t oppress people indefinitely and get away with it. It’s bound to blow back in your face.[/quote]
Not all of those fights are based off of oppression to think that would be turning a blind eye to the history that the shia and sunni’s have had.
If it isn’t religion it is food. If it isn’t either it is power.
I say this with a bit of hesistancy. There is something to be admired about their commitment to what they believe is right; however there can be great ignorance in such a staunch unwaviering position as well.
It is a well known, and over used statment, but it is one I live my life by
The only way for the profit of evil is that good men do nothing ~ sir Edmund Burke
If only we always sought to be on the side of good rather than the side of right there would be alot less evil in our world.
[quote]haney1 wrote:
Not all of those fights are based off of oppression to think that would be turning a blind eye to the history that the shia and sunni’s have had.[/quote]
Arguable; I believe they were all oppressed in one way or the other.
The Shia/Sunni schism has gained a lot of attention lately because of Iraq. The Sunni were overthrown by the US and the Shi’ate were violently oppressed by Saddam (the Sunni). Anyone with half a brain could have predicted the consequences of the invasion of Iraq.
Anyway, for me that schism is a non-topic as the Shi’ate are a mere 10% of the total Muslim population and their fight is not ideological but political. There are no fundamental differences between the two schools of thought. In fact, I refuse to adhere to either because it’s just plain silly.
Unarguable.
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” ~Plato (427-347 BC)
[quote]lixy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Muhammed? Isn’t it a kadish, or a radish, or some other sack of bullshit?
If you attack somebody, you must expect retaliation.
The woman who saw her kids, family and friends fall under US bombs and fire views yur attack on Iraq as unjustified (like the majority of the world). Did she have anything to do with 9/11? No. But you still destroyed her life.
[/quote]
And if Saddam killed her family instead, just like the 500,000 other people he killed in Iraq, would that be any different?
You seem to think we are fighting the average Joe in Iraq because he doesn’t want the US there. That is NOT what is happening. Iraq is the battlefield and a magnet for all the Muslim extremists groups in the middle east. Yes, it is true that innocent people are getting killed because they live in the battlefield. But most of these people are dieing from fellow extremists Muslims, not US troops. So make no mistake, the US is fighting terrorists in Iraq.
A couple of points I would like to make:
Someone mentioned that if Christians were killing people, other Christians would stop them.
This happened. Serbia was killing Muslims and Croats and Europe turned a blind eye to this slaughter and the US ended up putting a stop to it.
In Iraq, the US saved a lot of Shite and Kurd’s lives with the no-fly zones which were set up so Saddam could not use aircraft to kill these people. Had we pulled out of Saudi Arabia like Bin Laden wanted, there would have been a slaughter. The only mistake we made in the 90’s is we should have backed the Shites when they rose up against Saddam. Because we didn’t and Sadr’s dad got killed, he now hates our guts.
Also, after the invasion, if you follow exactly what happened, the US had the best intentions when they went in there to help the people. The Saddam loyalists and al qaeda began killing everyone who wanted peace or wanted a democracy. They took out a huge Shite cleric who wanted democracy, bombed their holiest shrine, started a car and suicide bomb campaign against civilians, blew up the UN headquarters, and killed contractors who were there to fix the infrastructure.
Chalabi turned out to be a traitor.
The only sad thing is that our military and government didn’t have the foresight to see what happened in Iran when the Shah fell, the methods of warfare the Palestinians were using against Israel and the entire history of Lebanon in the 80’s. The terrorists never changed their tactics. We should have anticipated them and been ready.
Arguable; I believe they were all oppressed in one way or the other.
The Shia/Sunni schism has gained a lot of attention lately because of Iraq. The Sunni were overthrown by the US and the Shi’ate were violently oppressed by Saddam (the Sunni). Anyone with half a brain could have predicted the consequences of the invasion of Iraq.
[/quote]
IIRC the conflict between the two started in the 7th century when one of muhummad’s right hand man claimed to be in charge, and the shia followed his nephew. Which would constitute a power conflict. Now oppression might have been the following result of the conflict, but I doubt that is the sole reason. Even here in the states I know there are people that are bitter over the south losing to the north, and I am sure we are not oppressed.
for the most part I would agree… which is why I compared it to the scottish clans. No real difference just a power pissing contest.
[quote]
If it isn’t religion it is food. If it isn’t either it is power.
Unarguable.[/quote]
Hey we agree! now I’m confused…
[quote]
The only way for the profit of evil is that good men do nothing ~ sir Edmund Burke
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” ~Plato (427-347 BC)[/quote]
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
And if Saddam killed her family instead, just like the 500,000 other people he killed in Iraq, would that be any different? [/quote]
Actually not. People were opposing Saddam’s regime and died because of that. But in no way, at the rate they’re falling right now.
Iraq was screwed from day one when some Brits decided to draw maps and create countries in the region.
Anyway, despite all the horror under Saddam (which you have to remember was one of the most valuable allies of Washington), people were better off under his regime than they are now. Everybody warned Bush about that but he didn’t seem to care or had ulterior motives for invading.
The lesser of two evils…
Wait a sec’. People had lives before the US invasion. Kids could walk to school without the fear of a suicide bombing or a US tank blowing up his class. You mean to tell me that no one of the average Joes in Iraq felt physically threatened by your presence there and opposed resistance to it?
It’s a pretty naive position to think that people in Iraq would not oppose your presence on their soil. Look at the polls. You’re clearly not welcome there. Add to that the fat contracts given to US corporations for reconstruction, the torture scandals and the rape and murders of little girls by American soldiers and you end up with a population that tries to harm you as much as possible.
It reminds me of the the 60+ years old grandmother in Palestine that blew herself up a few months back. Does anyone seriously consider that she was trained by Al-Qaeda or needed to be indoctrinated to perform that act? I think not. She decided to kill herself along with innocent Israelis, because of the the repeated raids of Tsahal on her home, the killing and abduction of her family and friends and absolutely no prospects for a peaceful future.
That’s a spot-on statement. What it fails to account for, is that the reason it became a magnet is exactly the US occupation of the country.
I know that you’re trying to fight terrorism out there (at least that’s the line of thinking of your soldiers) but you can’t possibly think that the average Joe won’t oppose - by force if necessary - your occupation of his homeland.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Actually not. People were opposing Saddam’s regime and died because of that. But in no way, at the rate they’re falling right now.
[/quote]
Actually people died because they happened to be the wrong religion and were opposed to Saddam exterminating them.
I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but the war in Iraq has not caused the death of 500,000 people like under Saddam.
Only better off if you happened to be the same religion as Saddam, if not you were just killed.
No, they would be afraid of Saddam’s republican guard coming to kill their parents for worshiping in a different way than Saddam. Yea, sounds like paradise to me.
It is unfortunate that that does occur by a few military people, but it also occurred under Saddam.
No, I’m sure she learned that behavior from Sunday school or by reading self-help books! You expect us to believe that an average woman using a tactic of terrorists did not learn that from terrorists? Riiiight! How many Jews during WW2 blew themselves up in protest to Hitler? Hummmm? 0
And that is also why they are not here in the US flying into buildings.
[quote]
I know that you’re trying to fight terrorism out there (at least that’s the line of thinking of your soldiers) but you can’t possibly think that the average Joe won’t oppose - by force if necessary - your occupation of his homeland.[/quote]
Did the French oppose US occupation of France during WW2? No, just like the people of France, they didn’t like it but knew it was necessary to get the oppressor (Hitler/Saddam) out.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
Only better off if you happened to be the same religion as Saddam, if not you were just killed.
[/quote]
Nope. Iraq was secular under Saddam. He killed political enemies.
And this, the assessment by America’s intelligence agencies:
: Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight
Sunday, September 24, 2006
[i]The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.
A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the “centrality” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.[/i]
Now, some of you guys may think you have more expertise…
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but the war in Iraq has not caused the death of 500,000 people like under Saddam. [/quote]
Saddam killed a lot of people.
The US caused the death of a lot more in a fraction of the time.
I hate to sound remotely defending the monster, but he didn’t care much about religion as long as you didn’t oppose his rule. Saddam was arguably the most secular in the region.
This is not true. The conflict was political not religious. It’s all about power and money.
To a much lesser extent.
Who ever heard of a Republican Guard woman abusing people sexually?
She was a granny for God’s sake! She was over 60 years old. Don’t you think at that age, you’re as wise as you can be?
The human bomb, as we know it, is a pretty recent form of warfare. You can’t possibly link it to WWII.
No. Airline security was a joke prior to 9/11.
Bottomline, you claim to know what’s good for them even if it’s against what they want. Go take a look at the polls and stop reasoning like a Fox junkie.
In a ICRSS poll a couple of months ago, 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of US forces. What part of that don’t you understand?
[quote]lixy wrote:
I hate to sound remotely defending the monster, but he didn’t care much about religion as long as you didn’t oppose his rule. Saddam was arguably the most secular in the region.
[/quote]
Saddam killed women and children who were not his political enemies:
It’s not the human bomb that is the issue, it’s the mindset of killing yourself to kill others that was not a mindset of anyone until radical Islam came up with it. So the difference is that the human bomb has nothing to do with perceived oppression and everything to do with a radical irrational religious fanatic.
[quote]
Bottomline, you claim to know what’s good for them even if it’s against what they want. Go take a look at the polls and stop reasoning like a Fox junkie.
In a ICRSS poll a couple of months ago, 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of US forces. What part of that don’t you understand?[/quote]
And if fundamental Christians were killing people all over the world and swore to kill anyone who would not convert to Christianity, it would be our DUTY as Christians to put an end to it. And we would for certain.
[/quote]
Where were the Christians who felt it their duty to put an end to the Crusades and the Spanish Conquista?
And if fundamental Christians were killing people all over the world and swore to kill anyone who would not convert to Christianity, it would be our DUTY as Christians to put an end to it. And we would for certain.
Where were the Christians who felt it their duty to put an end to the Crusades and the Spanish Conquista?[/quote]
I said it quite clearly and since you missed my point, I’ll make it again.
Please don’t skip over the details…
I wrote (as you can see) that it would be OUR duty as Christians. I don’t know about you or anyone reading this post but I was not alive during the Crusades. Nor was I alive during the Conquista so obviously I was unable to do anything, can we agree?
When I wrote our duty it should’ve been fairly obvious to you that I was speaking about Christians today, not eons ago.
I said it quite clearly and since you missed my point, I’ll make it again.
Please don’t skip over the details…
I wrote (as you can see) that it would be OUR duty as Christians. I don’t know about you or anyone reading this post but I was not alive during the Crusades. Nor was I alive during the Conquista so obviously I was unable to do anything, can we agree?
When I wrote our duty it should’ve been fairly obvious to you that I was speaking about Christians today, not eons ago. [/quote]
No, I understand you perfectly. You are saying that Christianity has evolved over the last millennium to the point where Christians today, including yourself, would stop the self-appointed leaders of Christendom from massacring non-Christians in the name of Christ.
So if the next president of the United States declares it to be his (or her) mission, as a Christian, to convert or kill all Muslims (as Ann Coulter has intimated is the proper course of action), I expect that you would lead the fight to put an end to it.
Absolutely. It’s just that they happened to be in a region where there was resistance to Saddam’s regime. You know, like the south Lebanese last summer.
Sorry, dear. You got it wrong. The “human bomb” was pioneered by the Tamil tigers.
From the wiki: “LTTE had carried out more suicide bombings than any other organization on the face of the earth.According to the experts at janes securities,between 1980 to 2000,LTTE had carried out a total number of 168 suicide attacks on civilians and military targets.The number of suicide attacks easily exceeded the combine total of Hizbullah and Hamas suicide attacks carried out during the same period.”
Did you even read the link you posted? The hilarious comments of people on it?
You’re telling me that I should take the word of Generals and Colonels of the US army over that of an international polling organization. Not a chance.
Did the United States also help the Turks when they killed the Armenians in 1915?
America is only 200 + years old. We are not responcible for all the atrocities ever committed. I mean, did we supply weapons to this guy:
We set up no fly zones in Iraq saving countless Kurd’s lives and lead the bombing of Serbia to save countless Muslims there. Not only that, we attempted to help starving people in Somalia in the 90’s.
Do the muslims ever give us credit for doing any good in the world?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Where were the Christians who felt it their duty to put an end to the Crusades and the Spanish Conquista?
You forgot the inquisition.
They came later. The Prostestants.[/quote]
The Fourth Crusades were launched against my brethren, Orthodox Christians, at Constantinople in the 13th century - hundreds of years before Protestantism ever emerged. Orthodox Christian soldiers battled the Franco-Latins (Roman Catholics) on the western front only to later be conquered by the Ottoman Muslims from the east.
What a shame greed so deceived the Franco-Latins to focus their attention upon the peace-loving Christians at Byzantium. It’s a well known fact that Orthodox Christians battled the Roman Catholic Crusaders.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
We… lead the bombing of Serbia to save countless Muslims there.
[/quote]
Only to cause a mass exodus of indigenous Serbs out of Kosovo. Hip hip hooray for the KLA! Now Muslim terrorism and narcotics can run rampant in the Balkans and the international community is caught with its dick in its hands.
The development and training of KLA forces was part of NATO planning, directly led by General Wesley Clark. In the words of former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) secret agent Michael Levine, writing at the height of the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia:
“[b]Ten years ago we were arming and equipping the worst elements of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan - drug traffickers, arms smugglers, anti-American terrorists… Now we’re doing the same thing with the KLA, which is tied in with every known middle and far eastern drug cartel. Interpol, Europol, and nearly every European intelligence and counter-narcotics agency has files open on drug syndicates that lead right to the KLA, and right to Albanian gangs in this country.[/b]”
(New American Magazine, May 24, 1999)
The role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a terrorist organization is amply documented by Congressional transcripts. According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organized Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the House of Representatives Judicial Committee:
“What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the “Balkan Route” that links the “Golden Crescent” of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe.”
(House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000)
The relationship between the KLA and Osama bin Laden is confirmed by Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence division:
“The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden . Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict.”
(US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000).
“Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists.”
(Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998.)
KLA guerilla warfare was supported by Bin Laden yet most Americans still have no clue. We inflicted lots more evil there than good. We should be ashamed that our country sponsored Islamic terrorism in the Balkans.
I encourage you to study more on the mujahideen, the Golden Crescent of Islam, and it’s critical connection with the Balkan Route:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
America is only 200 + years old. We are not responcible for all the atrocities ever committed.[/quote]
True. Before the end of WWII, the US minded its own business (wrecking the American continent, that is!).
It’s only in the second half of last century that it suddenly decided it needed a constant and fresh supply of enemies to keep the Military-Industrial Complex running at full steam. The Soviets were drawn into a militarization race that their economy could obviously not sustain.
When the USSR collapsed, you were in dire need of some villain to justify invading others. Enters Saddam and Ben Laden. The propaganda looked surreal to anyone remotely interested in unveiling the truth;
“In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah’s full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. “I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” Nayirah said. “While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.”
Three months passed between Nayirah’s testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. “Of all the accusations made against the dictator,” MacArthur observed, “none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City.”
At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis’ own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.”
Saddam finally fell - which was a good thing - but at what price? Hundreds of thousands killed, million displaced and a country in ruin.
For the average person in the Arab street, it looks as if Bush declared a crusade. When some imbeciles around here call for nuking Iran, you can understand that it’s not really so far from the truth. The repeated threats directed towards Teheran further alienate Muslims, and at some point, popular uprisings against US client regimes in the Muslim world will break. At that point, I’m afraid a world war will be inevitable.
If I was to give you credit for every good thing that came out of the US, it would probably take me a few lifetimes to list everything. But I know two thing will definitely not make it on the list: US interventionism since the end of WWII and Britney Spears.
The latter is self-explanatory, I hope. The former is solely dictated by US financial and strategic interests. No amount of trying to dress it with a humanitarian cloak will ever make it past the scrutiny of an informed person. That’s the reason so many people around the world and within the US denounce those low attempt to justify the unjustifiable; Namely, murder.