Thread: It's important to keep this topic on the boil...

Originally Posted by srirangan

And using Asim Logic © I conclude that all Kolkottans can drive tanks and are super progressive.

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

The guys you send in, if any of them get killed or caught, the TV images will be very, very unpleasant.

Still worth it to me.

-dale

Originally Posted by srirangan

I think he also mentioned that his mom can drive a car so Islam is very progressive. I was mighty impressed.

ROFL, And he has a photo of Beyonce with her tummy showing, how modern is that!

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

"It looks nice, but i would never go there. I might get my head cut off"
~My native ARGENTINIAN girlfriend Graciela as she looked at the pic of dubai posted by Asim.

Smart girl, that Graciela.

To a society that has it womenfolk moving 24 x 7 as walking, talking sleeping shrouds, even the show of eyes through the mosquito net covering sewed in the burkha is overly modern.

Therefore, showing a stomach is mind blowing modern to them and excruciatingly sexy!!!

Did you see the girl wearing the headgear (I forget what it is called in Arabia, it is called a 'tudung' in Malaysia) "enjoying " herself as she conjured "ideas" seeing the naked stomach gyrating sexily before her!!

Voyeurism is what such a phenomenon is called, am I right or am I right?

Originally Posted by Asim Aquil

Get on a freakin plane and see how more and more of your Americans are choosing to live like this:
Islam was going to make your daughters wear burkhas?
Look what Beyonce's wearing in a Muslim country
And look! A Danish band performing live in a Muslim city! Wtf? Some danish artist made cartoons and Muslims are sposed to hate all Danish people!
And what the hell? I thought Muslim girls had to stay at home and never have any fun!

It's so nice you're having a good time Asim. Pity the people in the previous photos, where all those things that give you such pleasure came from, are being blown up by your Islamic brothers though.

Actually, all this 'debate' has dredged up an old 2003 Matthew Levitt piece for me and reminded me of the concept of Al-Taqiya.

The State of Denial
Arab journalists and intellectuals are apologists for terror.

By Matthew A. Levitt


Well into the second year of a global war on terrorism, key Arab journalists and intellectuals continue to whitewash Middle Eastern terrorism. In effect, there currently exists a pan-Arab state of denial.




The shallow nature of America's anti-terror partnerships in the Middle East is only partly a result of the State Department's ineffectual public-diplomacy campaign. Indeed, no information campaign can stand a chance so long as the region's hearts and minds continue to be poisoned by a media concerned less with addressing the Arab world's ills than with spinning conspiracy theories and (to borrow a term from Fouad Ajami) "endless escapes" to explain those ills away.

The Arab media deny most of the terrorist threat facing the world today, and excuse the rest. For example, in the wake of a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem on November 21, 2002, several Egyptian newspaper editorials hailed the suicide attack as a "valiant, courageous operation" and "most honorable mission" (Al-Gumhuriyya, 11/22/02), and described the noncombatant, civilian victims as "terrorists" (Al-Akhbar, 11/22/02).

We can hardly expect the support of the Arab masses in the war on terror when their most respected journalists and intellectuals are apologists for terrorism. The Arab public readily accepts such apologetics and blame-shifting as fact, hungrily consuming them so long as the blame can be shifted elsewhere, and Arabs are not forced to take any responsibility for either the current state of affairs or the radicalism it fosters.

Regimes play on this rubber-and-glue mentality, molding their counterterrorism activities to suit their particular interests. Specifically, they cooperate in the war on terrorism only to the extent that the war coincides with their own interest in suppressing those elements threatening the ruling regime. Syria, therefore, provides limited cooperation targeting radical Sunni elements threatening the minority Alawite regime, and Yemen is forthcoming so long as America provides weapons and training to curb unruly tribal elements threatening Sanaas central authority.

The prime example of this state of denial and intellectual atrophy is Jihad al-Khazen, an outspoken apologist for Middle Eastern terrorist groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah — and one of the region's most prominent editorialists. In fact, al-Khazen is not only considered the region's Tom Friedman, he is a senior editor for al-Hayat, the paper widely regarded as the New York Times of the Arab world. His prominence has gained him considerable prestige, including membership on the board of advisers to Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. With people like this feeding the Mideastern denial frenzy, it's no wonder the Arab street has responded with such hostility to Western efforts to expose international terrorist activities, even after September 11.

Jihad al-Khazen has now written three editorials in response to articles I've written about Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Would that he had taken issue with the substance of those articles, rather than merely dismissing my detailed analysis. Indeed, for denialists like al-Khazen there is simply no need to offer a substantive critique or counterargument to positions with which they disagree; for the Arab press, whitewashing terrorism requires no more than making personal attacks on one's opponents and then spreading a fresh layer of conspiratorial conclusions.

Still, the best example of al-Khazen's whitewashing of terrorism can be found in his assertion that the Damascus offices of Islamic Jihad could not possibly be involved in the group's terror attacks because — brace yourself — the group's leader told him so. That's right, Ramadan Shallah, the Damascus-based leader of Islamic Jihad, told him so. But we're to take Shallah, and by extension al-Khazen, at his word because al-Khazen "consider[s] Dr. Ramadan Shallah a personal friend."

Al-Khazen is a perfect example of the widespread denial in the Arab world, where there is no need to accept responsibility or institute change because all wrongs must be the fault of others. Figures like al-Khazen illustrate perfectly why the United States is not getting the kind of support it needs from the Middle East in the war on terrorism. Moreover, as an Arab Christian, al-Khazen can't even hide behind Islamism to justify his denial.

At minimum, our government should bar al-Khazen and those like him from entering the U.S., where the sponsorship of Georgetown and other American institutions continue to burnish their credentials and enhance their prestige. Under the USA Patriot Act, the U.S. can now exclude people who use their "prominence to endorse terrorist activity" or have "been associated with a terrorist organization" from entering the country. Al-Khazen brazenly endorses terrorism by Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and opposes a peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By his own admission, Ramadan Shallah — the head of Islamic Jihad, and himself a Specially Designated Terrorist — is a "personal friend."

The U.S. should not allow Arab elites to poison the Middle East with apologetics for terrorism and baseless, anti-American tirades. It's time to put an end to the mentality of denial in the Arab world.

— Matthew A. Levitt is senior fellow in terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

I was in two minds at the time but I'm beginning to see what he means now. I'll find some more on Al-Taqiya soon.

I find it interesting that only the West is having a debate about this. The Russians and Chinese certainly are not.

Colonel,

I am sure you read the Chinese newspapers, but surely not the Russian.

In the Russian papers, it sure is discussed. I get a short version online in my e mail.

If indeed it is not discussed in so much of details, it is because possibly they don't want publicity of their ruthless war against these elements within their own countries or have prying eyes to see the number that are dying at the hands of these terrorist, whom they term as "bandits".

bluesman,

Y'all need a Martin Luther, but of course, we all know what happened in the seat of Christendom when we got ours: genocidal warfare beween the sects, some of which carries on right into the present day.

actually, what the religion as a whole could use is an Enlightenment, even more than a Reformation. the one biggest advantage which the bible has over the koran in terms of acceptance of modernity is the phrase "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." islam, as it is currently interpreted, is more than just a religion, but also a way of life.

even then, it took christians hundreds of years of church abuse, bloody warfare, and murder to finally disconnect government and religion. the most difficult thing about the whole deal is that we are trying to get the muslim world to do so in hopefully less than that long time span...AFTER their first experiment with such in the 50s-60s ended with stupid communist economic policies, defeat by israel, and increasing secular repression.

islam, as it is currently interpreted, is more than just a religion, but also a way of life.

An undiplomatic way of saying this would be: Islamic Laws and Islamic clerics have much of the population under slavery. The lyrics change, yet song remains the same. A bit of an exxageration? I for one support the rebirth Zorastarism in Iran. Iranians need to be freed.

Astralis,

And how long has Islam been on the scene?

And how long will it take to get "enlightened"?

And who asked them to adopt the Communist way?

Who asked them to get defeated by Israel?

Other countries too had Socialist forms of govt (not Islamic), why did they not suffer the bug? How come they are not on a nonstop terrorist phase?

Other religions too like Buddhism, Hinduism etc are also way of life and not really a religion.

So?

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

Who said anything about self defense in that instance?

m21, to answer your points,

your original quote was :

The Japanese and Native Americans ought to show you that in extreme situations the US is fully capable of doing extreme things, just like all nations seeking survival.

the native americans were hardly an "extreme situation".

Some would call it prudent vigilance.

and some would call it a racist, uncalled-for effort that pissed on what the constitution of the US stands for.

"those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."- benjamin franklin

in any case, the point i am trying to make is that many of these extreme responses to a situation require the US to sacrifice much (freedoms that are, according to the declaration of independence, certain unalienable rights) for little in return.

thus, if we must choose an extreme response, it better have one hell of a benefit if it's gonna destroy the freedoms and democracy that we believe in and hold dear.

the native americans were hardly an "extreme situation".

Which only means that some won't have to wait till that extreme situation arrives.