God wills it, and you will go to heaven! (was Re: My reflections on the terrorist's attack)
Tang Huyen
punnadhammo wrote: <<One image I can't stop thinking about is the truly terrible
state of mind of the terrorist piloting that plane full of people into that
tower full of even more people.
Buddhist theory tells us that the state of mind at the moment of death is
critical for determining the rebirth consciousness. Here was a young man whose
mind was full of delusion, hatred, fanatic zeal and the full knowledge that he
was bringing fiery death to thousands.
How can one doubt the full reality of niraya hell in the face of this?>>
I do not defend the crashing of jetliners into buildings full of people, but for
some frame of reference: to launch the first Crusade, Pope Urban II issued the
battle cry: "God wills it!"
The men who undertook the task of "taking the cross" to fight infidels were
officially promised imdulgences by him, and if killed, *assured a place in
heaven*.
So did you walk over to the Christian churches around where you live to inform
them that the men who went on Crusades went to niraya hell?
Tang Huyen
Dirk Bruere
"Tang Huyen" <tang_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3BB77EA8...@yahoo.com...
And is the final destination determined by deeds, intent, beliefs or
conscience?
FFF
Dirk
Doconnell48
Because the terrorist actions had a big impact on the world, we understandably
feel we too must do something in response. This is not right thinking.
There are two problems in this. First we have ceded control or our actions to
the terrorists and equanimity, peace and even "justice" are not goals they are
ways of being. If we are busy ordering our lives around some concept, we stop
living right now. It is a certainty that we will responde to these actions to
the extent they impact our lives, but our reaction is most sensible when it
drives us back to living mindufully. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh says, Living with
Peace in Every Step.
This is not a pie in the sky answer. It is the only true answer. It moves us
from concepts to "being peace." By living mindfully we do those things in our
daily lives that promote loving kindness and create a new world. We obstain
from those things that create injustice.
That's how we "get to heaven" and what "God will"
At first I responded to the terrible events with a need to "act out". I needed
to think this through and be prepared to show my compassion through some form
of action. By thinking so hard about it, I did nothing. I know what drives me
and I thought through the event and found insights that went deeper, but I did
nothing.
By returning to my daily life, I redoubled my efforts to be mindful and present
in each and everything I did. To my surprise, I realized that that alone was
the key. By thinking out what was the way to live and what was the right way
to behave, I stopped living and became a concept of myself. I was wrapped up
in the morass of pain and illogic.
The process is the answer. If we are not mindful of other people's suffering,
we will add to it.
Gassho Dan
Please remove nospam in email address to contact me.
Arnold Vance
>What we most often forget is that peace is a goal. It is a way of of being.
>Because the terrorist actions had a big impact on the world, we understandably
>feel we too must do something in response. This is not right thinking.
Neither is viewing 9-11 as terrorism. It was subversion.
>There are two problems in this. First we have ceded control or our actions to
>the terrorists and equanimity, peace and even "justice" are not goals they are
>ways of being. If we are busy ordering our lives around some concept, we stop
>living right now. It is a certainty that we will responde to these actions to
>the extent they impact our lives, but our reaction is most sensible when it
>drives us back to living mindufully. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh says, Living with
>Peace in Every Step.
Those whose business it is to keep business rolling will respond.
Thatch Hut will not be consulted I am sure.
>This is not a pie in the sky answer. It is the only true answer. It moves us
>from concepts to "being peace." By living mindfully we do those things in our
>daily lives that promote loving kindness and create a new world. We obstain
>from those things that create injustice.
And I wonder if you'll be able to square the response with your vision
of loving kindness?
>That's how we "get to heaven" and what "God will"
>
>At first I responded to the terrible events with a need to "act out". I needed
>to think this through and be prepared to show my compassion through some form
>of action. By thinking so hard about it, I did nothing. I know what drives me
>and I thought through the event and found insights that went deeper, but I did
>nothing.
I think thinking is doing a lot!
>By returning to my daily life, I redoubled my efforts to be mindful and present
>in each and everything I did. To my surprise, I realized that that alone was
>the key. By thinking out what was the way to live and what was the right way
>to behave, I stopped living and became a concept of myself. I was wrapped up
>in the morass of pain and illogic.
One thing the administration doesn't seem to fully appreciate is
the need to instill confidence and calm. It appears Colin Powell is
one level head, tho.
>The process is the answer. If we are not mindful of other people's suffering,
>we will add to it.
How can you ask a country to be calm and confident when its citizens
by And Large
dharmatroll
The Goldberg File
Civilization Envy: On Muslims, Israel, and McDonald’s.
September 28, 2001 4:15 p.m.
Someone once noted that a "gaffe" in Washington is when a politician
accidentally tells the truth. Thanks to globalization, this is a worldwide
phenomenon.
A Reuters story this morning begins, "Muslims around the world today demanded an
apology from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the European Union recoiled
with horror after the Italian asserted that Western Civilization was superior to
Islam."
The Arab League demanded an apology or an explicit denial that the Italian could
have even said such a thing. The European Union, led by Belgium (stop laughing),
acted as if someone had used his fingers to eat caviar. "I can hardly believe
Mr. Berlusconi made such remarks," gasped Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian prime
minister.
Mr. Berlusconi told reporters in Berlin, "We should be conscious of the
superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given
people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees
respect for human rights and religion."
"This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries," he asserted.
While critics have called his remarks "unacceptable," "barbaric," "silly," and
of course — "racist," I am at a loss to find a single untrue word in his remarks
(meanwhile, how his comments can be "racist" is beyond me, since all "races" can
be found within the Islamic world).
Now of course, this hasn't always been so. There was a time when the Muslim
world was out in front in the race for human advancement, and there was an even
longer period when the leader in that race was too close to call between the
Islamic, European, and Chinese civilizations. But for right now, and for the
foreseeable future, members and fans of Western Civilization have every right to
wave the big foam "We're Number 1" finger as high as we want.
There's not a single category of enlightened governance in which the West
broadly speaking isn't superior to the Islamic world — again, broadly speaking.
Religious freedom, social mobility, and tolerance, the guarantee of rights and
liberties in law, prosperity — you name it, and we beat the robes off them
(though in family cohesion, they probably have the edge on us).
To disagree with this assessment would require us to throw out the very
standards by which we judge our own society's shortcomings. For example, you
can't say (as Jesse Jackson does all of the time) that the United States is
racist or authoritarian or a police-state, and hold that Syria, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, et al., aren't far worse, without being intellectually dishonest. You
can't say that it's a crime that America "lets" so many of its people live in
poverty, and then think that Saddam Hussein, with his dozens of palaces, is in
some way a more enlightened leader. The same holds even for our "allies" Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait.
Even in the historical arena, the argument is not so cut-and-dried as the
anti-Westerners would have us believe. After all, the Arabs are just as culpable
for their participation in the slave trade as the West. What makes the West
unique was not our involvement in slavery, but our insistence upon ending the
institution, both at home and abroad.
Envious Islam
No, I'm beginning to believe that the central source of animus from the Arab
world is, quite simply, envy.
Indeed, I've been reading a lot of books and articles about the Middle East
lately (what? I do research sometimes), and I'm coming to the conclusion that
this really doesn't have much to do with Israel after all. At first, like
everybody else, I could hardly avoid the conclusion that the World Trade Center
was related in some significant way to Israel. I never agreed with the folks who
are always looking to peg any of these sorts of things on our support of Israel,
but it seemed naïve to think that the Jewish state didn't have something to do
with it (even though bin Laden's biggest gripe is the presence of our "crusader"
armies on the Arabian peninsula — and they aren't there because of Israel,
they're there to protect the flow of oil from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).
Of course, even if the attack did result from our support for Israel, I wouldn't
have agreed with those who say September 11th proves we should abandon Israel.
After all, you can make enemies by having the right policies just as easily as
you can from having the wrong ones — just ask all the cops who are hated just
for being cops. We supported Afghani freedom fighters in order to defeat the
Soviet Empire, and just because the Taliban is a harsh unintended consequence of
that support, doesn't mean we should have held the door open for Soviet
expansionism. Does it?
Bernard Lewis, perhaps the greatest living English-language historian of the
Middle East, wrote a brilliant essay eleven years ago in the Atlantic entitled
"The Roots of Muslim Rage." It is the best short piece I've found on this
subject to date, and I think anyone interested in this topic should read it
(thanks to Andrew Sullivan for calling it to my attention).
Lewis shows that while Israel is obviously unpopular in the Arab world, it may
not be for the reasons so many knee-jerk Israel foes believe. Consider that when
the Soviet Union was a bigger supporter of Israel than the U.S., the Arab world
didn't turn their enmity upon the Russians for it. Nor did they praise America
when we stood aloof from Israel's plight. The United States has no imperialist
or colonial record that even compares to Britain's, France's, or Germany's, and
yet we are denounced for our "imperialism" more than any other country. Indeed,
the Russians ruled millions of Muslims, while the U.S. ruled virtually none. And
yet the United States remains the bad guy above all others. Lewis suggests, with
professional restraint, that this is because the Muslim world is jealous and
resentful. Pure and simple.
Islamic culture, politics, and religion — which are far more conjoined than they
are in the West — cannot reconcile with the fact that the West, led by America,
is the lead dog on the sled of humanity. Israel may serve as a painful reminder
of this superiority, but they will find something else to gripe about no matter
what you do.
The Islamic world has a self-esteem problem.
Lewis gives a wonderful example. In 1979, a group of Muslim dissidents seized
the Great Mosque in Mecca — "an event in which there was no American involvement
whatsoever," Lewis writes — and an angry crowd in Islamabad, Pakistan, attacked
and burned the American embassy in response.
This is the sort of thing individuals and even whole societies do when they feel
they aren't getting the respect they deserve. Personally, it reminds me of our
domestic race-mongers who are convinced that every American action or event has
to do with race. It's an attempt to elevate your own status by picking an
"opponent" of greater stature — even if that "opponent" doesn't spend a minute
out of his year thinking about you. The deeper your sense of victimhood, and the
more unfair the world is to you, the greater your claim to moral superiority.
Indeed, after September 11, claims to social martyrdom were invoked by
Arab-American activists far more quickly than any denunciations of the assault.
In that corner of the national conversation, the shrieks of outrage about
discrimination against Muslims came fast and furious, while the fatwas against
mass murder remained in their holsters.
But this attitude also reminds me, oddly enough, of the global assault on
McDonald's, about which I've written a bunch. Around the world, McDonald's is
attacked for all sorts of bizarre reasons, including ones that don't technically
qualify as "anti-American." Depending where you go, Mickey D's haters may invoke
the environment or animal rights, economics or religion. Indeed, protestors
often prefer attacking McDonald's to attacking the local American Embassy.
While ideologues of all kinds see McDonald's as an enemy, McDonald's sees them
only as potential customers. This conflict of visions alone may explain a lot of
the problem. But from a broader perspective, the anger may be explained by the
fact that McDonald's is a tangible signal that the world is going in a direction
these people don't like. McDonald's is carried on the same wind as consumer
culture generally, women's rights, economic freedom, and all sorts of other
stuff, good and bad.
But one thing is certain: That wind blows from America. This arouses jealousies,
inflates grievances, and fans resentments not based in fact. The problem is that
even if you get rid of McDonald's, you do nothing to stop the wind. In this
sense, Israel may just be like a giant McDonald's franchise in the Middle East
an infuriating reminder of the fact the Islamic world won't be calling the shots
for a long time to come.
In fact, as Lewis argues better than I, this poses a real problem for both sides
in the conflict of civilizations. If America is going to be resented for its
success no matter what, there isn't much we can or should do to make them like
us. All we can do is protect our own interests as best we can. And then wait for
them to grow up.
Ex.
they
>are in the West - cannot reconcile with the fact that the West, led by
America,
>is the lead dog on the sled of humanity.
This I like!
Thanks for the post. This has to be, hands down, the most interesting
article I've ever read on Usenet.
Ex.
Doconnell48
>
a way of being." The idea being that one does not strive to achieve an object
one is the object.
>Neither is viewing 9-11 as terrorism. It was subversion.
I agree it was not terrorism, I only use that term for convenience. I'm not
sure what yo mean by "subversion". I view it as a form of warfare. A form of
warfare most would like to classify as uncivilized, so we can feel good about
what we fell is "civilized" war. The problem with that is manyfold. First
there is no such thing as "civlized war" and ignoring this as a form of
warfare, legitmate or not, blocks us from seeing into the depth of the problem
and identifying the roots. It isolates the act to 9-11 and lets us stop there.
>Those whose business it is to keep business rolling will respond.
>Thatch Hut will not be consulted I am sure.
True, but GWB Powell and the like, haven't called me up lately for an opinion.
Everything really starts with what I can do with my life. I have many
opinions, some of them are being shared but the test is what do I do. Yet
there are many things I can do in my life that promote harmony and peace.
>And I wonder if you'll be able to square the response with your vision
>of loving kindness?
Chances are I will not agree with my countries response. But, whether my
country acts according to my view of loving kindness, isn't as important as how
I act from that view. Suffering and injustice does exist in the world. I
cannot stop it all but I can affect that which occurs within the boundries of
my life and how I contribute to it. To me that's were peace begins. Assigning
blame and forcing solutions is a worthless exercise. It's like walking across
a lake covered with thin ice with a group of others. When the ice breaks and
we fall in to drown, what is the value of looking for the largest and heaviest
man and attributing the blame to that person. It's the combined weight not
anyone's specific weight that matters.
>I think thinking is doing a lot!
Thinking is thinking and it takes time which I is a way of looking at doing for
one is doing thinking and turned inward. While it important and thinking may
help understanding or it may confuse it, it is not doing in the context I was
implying which is to move beyond thought and into the realm of being in the
alive to the present moment.
>One thing the administration doesn't seem to fully appreciate is
>the need to instill confidence and calm. It appears Colin Powell is one level
head, tho.
I agree, but then I'm suspicious too. This could be the good cop bad cop play.
But I think not.
>How can you ask a country to be calm and confident when its citizens
>by And Large
Asking is easy. Being heard is tough. The way to ask and be heard it to be
what one is asking of others, calm and confident.
Much of this dialogue is surrounding a very fundamental Buddhist principle.
The principle of non-dualism. In a dualistic world view there is a difference
between subject and object. In an non-dualistic view there is not difference.
Let me explain. When we watch a TV show there is the watcher and the TV show.
That's dualism. However, in the non-dualistic world the TV show and the
watcher are one. By putting our energy into something we really join with it
and become that. Terrifying when I think of all the junk I let into my
existence by watching that box. But it's true. When I watch the a TV show,
the show and any reaction I experience to that show are all of me and the show.
Nothing else exists at that moment. Sure I can move on to another moment, but
then that is another moment, separate and distinct form the prior moment.
That which I was for that moment is forever gone and joined to that show.
That's why we say "You are what you eat" or "You are what you do."
Peace
dharmatroll
We have to understand how not only the Osama bin Ladens think, but how the
Muslim governments think in order to get along with them and negotiate witht
them. Very important article that leaves no stone unturned.
--DT
<< http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm
The Roots of Muslim Rage: Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why
their bitterness will not easily be mollified
by Bernard Lewis
[Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus, at Princeton University]
In one of his letters, Thomas Jefferson remarked that in matters of religion,
"the maxim of civil government" should be reversed and we should rather say,
"Divided we stand, united, we fall." In this remark Jefferson was setting forth
with classic terseness an idea that has come to be regarded as essentially
American: the separation of Church and State. This idea was not entirely new; it
had some precedents in the writings of Spinoza, Locke, and the philosophers of
the European Enlightenment. It was in the United States, however, that the
principle was first given the force of law and gradually, in the course of two
centuries, became a reality.
If the idea that religion and politics should be separated is relatively new,
dating back a mere three hundred years, the idea that they are distinct dates
back almost to the beginnings of Christianity. Christians are enjoined in their
Scriptures to "render ... unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God
the things which are God's." While opinions have differed as to the real meaning
of this phrase, it has generally been interpreted as legitimizing a situation in
which two institutions exist side by side, each with its own laws and chain of
authority -- one concerned with religion, called the Church, the other concerned
with politics, called the State. And since they are two, they may be joined or
separated, subordinate or independent, and conflicts may arise between them over
questions of demarcation and jurisdiction.
This formulation of the problems posed by the relations between religion and
politics, and the possible solutions to those problems, arise from Christian,
not universal, principles and experience. There are other religious traditions
in which religion and politics are differently perceived, and in which,
therefore, the problems and the possible solutions are radically different from
those we know in the West. Most of these traditions, despite their often very
high level of sophistication and achievement, remained or became local --
limited to one region or one culture or one people. There is one, however, that
in its worldwide distribution, its continuing vitality, its universalist
aspirations, can be compared to Christianity, and that is Islam.
Islam is one of the world's great religions. Let me be explicit about what I, as
a historian of Islam who is not a Muslim, mean by that. Islam has brought
comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women. It has given
dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of
different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live
side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which
others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its
achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also
known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and
violence. It is our misfortune that part, though by no means all or even most,
of the Muslim world is now going through such a period, and that much, though
again not all, of that hatred is directed against us.
We should not exaggerate the dimensions of the problem. The Muslim world is far
from unanimous in its rejection of the West, nor have the Muslim regions of the
Third World been the most passionate and the most extreme in their hostility.
There are still significant numbers, in some quarters perhaps a majority, of
Muslims with whom we share certain basic cultural and moral, social and
political, beliefs and aspirations; there is still an imposing Western presence
-- cultural, economic, diplomatic -- in Muslim lands, some of which are Western
allies. Certainly nowhere in the Muslim world, in the Middle East or elsewhere,
has American policy suffered disasters or encountered problems comparable to
those in Southeast Asia or Central America. There is no Cuba, no Vietnam, in the
Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as combatants or
even as "advisers." But there is a Libya, an Iran, and a Lebanon, and a surge of
hatred that distresses, alarms, and above all baffles Americans.
At times this hatred goes beyond hostility to specific interests or actions or
policies or even countries and becomes a rejection of Western civilization as
such, not only what it does but what it is, and the principles and values that
it practices and professes. These are indeed seen as innately evil, and those
who promote or accept them as the "enemies of God."
This phrase, which recurs so frequently in the language of the Iranian
leadership, in both their judicial proceedings and their political
pronouncements, must seem very strange to the modern outsider, whether religious
or secular. The idea that God has enemies, and needs human help in order to
identify and dispose of them, is a little difficult to assimilate. It is not,
however, all that alien. The concept of the enemies of God is familiar in
preclassical and classical antiquity, and in both the Old and New Testaments, as
well as in the Koran. A particularly relevant version of the idea occurs in the
dualist religions of ancient Iran, whose cosmogony assumed not one but two
supreme powers. The Zoroastrian devil, unlike the Christian or Muslim or Jewish
devil, is not one of God's creatures performing some of God's more mysterious
tasks but an independent power, a supreme force of evil engaged in a cosmic
struggle against God. This belief influenced a number of Christian, Muslim, and
Jewish sects, through Manichaeism and other routes. The almost forgotten
religion of the Manichees has given its name to the perception of problems as a
stark and simple conflict between matching forces of pure good and pure evil.
The Koran is of course strictly monotheistic, and recognizes one God, one
universal power only. There is a struggle in human hearts between good and evil,
between God's commandments and the tempter, but this is seen as a struggle
ordained by God, with its outcome preordained by God, serving as a test of
mankind, and not, as in some of the old dualist religions, a struggle in which
mankind has a crucial part to play in bringing about the victory of good over
evil. Despite this monotheism, Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was at
various stages influenced, especially in Iran, by the dualist idea of a cosmic
clash of good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos, truth and
falsehood, God and the Adversary, variously known as devil, Iblis, Satan, and by
other names.
The Rise of the House of Unbelief
IN Islam the struggle of good and evil very soon acquired political and even
military dimensions. Muhammad, it will be recalled, was not only a prophet and a
teacher, like the founders of other religions; he was also the head of a polity
and of a community, a ruler and a soldier. Hence his struggle involved a state
and its armed forces. If the fighters in the war for Islam, the holy war "in the
path of God," are fighting for God, it follows that their opponents are fighting
against God. And since God is in principle the sovereign, the supreme head of
the Islamic state -- and the Prophet and, after the Prophet, the caliphs are his
vicegerents -- then God as sovereign commands the army. The army is God's army
and the enemy is God's enemy. The duty of God's soldiers is to dispatch God's
enemies as quickly as possible to the place where God will chastise them -- that
is to say, the afterlife.
Clearly related to this is the basic division of mankind as perceived in Islam.
Most, probably all, human societies have a way of distinguishing between
themselves and others: insider and outsider, in-group and out-group, kinsman or
neighbor and foreigner. These definitions not only define the outsider but also,
and perhaps more particularly, help to define and illustrate our perception of
ourselves.
In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return,
the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam, where the
Muslim law and faith prevail, and the rest, known as the House of Unbelief or
the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam.
But the greater part of the world is still outside Islam, and even inside the
Islamic lands, according to the view of the Muslim radicals, the faith of Islam
has been undermined and the law of Islam has been abrogated. The obligation of
holy war therefore begins at home and continues abroad, against the same infidel
enemy.
Like every other civilization known to human history, the Muslim world in its
heyday saw itself as the center of truth and enlightenment, surrounded by
infidel barbarians whom it would in due course enlighten and civilize. But
between the different groups of barbarians there was a crucial difference. The
barbarians to the east and the south were polytheists and idolaters, offering no
serious threat and no competition at all to Islam. In the north and west, in
contrast, Muslims from an early date recognized a genuine rival -- a competing
world religion, a distinctive civilization inspired by that religion, and an
empire that, though much smaller than theirs, was no less ambitious in its
claims and aspirations. This was the entity known to itself and others as
Christendom, a term that was long almost identical with Europe.
The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen
centuries. It began with the advent of Islam, in the seventh century, and has
continued virtually to the present day. It has consisted of a long series of
attacks and counterattacks, jihads and crusades, conquests and reconquests. For
the first thousand years Islam was advancing, Christendom in retreat and under
threat. The new faith conquered the old Christian lands of the Levant and North
Africa, and invaded Europe, ruling for a while in Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and
even parts of France. The attempt by the Crusaders to recover the lost lands of
Christendom in the east was held and thrown back, and even the Muslims' loss of
southwestern Europe to the Reconquista was amply compensated by the Islamic
advance into southeastern Europe, which twice reached as far as Vienna. For the
past three hundred years, since the failure of the second Turkish siege of
Vienna in 1683 and the rise of the European colonial empires in Asia and Africa,
Islam has been on the defensive, and the Christian and post-Christian
civilization of Europe and her daughters has brought the whole world, including
Islam, within its orbit.
FOR a long time now there has been a rising tide of rebellion against this
Western paramountcy, and a desire to reassert Muslim values and restore Muslim
greatness. The Muslim has suffered successive stages of defeat. The first was
his loss of domination in the world, to the advancing power of Russia and the
West. The second was the undermining of his authority in his own country,
through an invasion of foreign ideas and laws and ways of life and sometimes
even foreign rulers or settlers, and the enfranchisement of native non-Muslim
elements. The third -- the last straw -- was the challenge to his mastery in his
own house, from emancipated women and rebellious children. It was too much to
endure, and the outbreak of rage against these alien, infidel, and
incomprehensible forces that had subverted his dominance, disrupted his society,
and finally violated the sanctuary of his home was inevitable. It was also
natural that this rage should be directed primarily against the millennial enemy
and should draw its strength from ancient beliefs and loyalties.
Europe and her daughters? The phrase may seem odd to Americans, whose national
myths, since the beginning of their nationhood and even earlier, have usually
defined their very identity in opposition to Europe, as something new and
radically different from the old European ways. This is not, however, the way
that others have seen it; not often in Europe, and hardly ever elsewhere.
Though people of other races and cultures participated, for the most part
involuntarily, in the discovery and creation of the Americas, this was, and in
the eyes of the rest of the world long remained, a European enterprise, in which
Europeans predominated and dominated and to which Europeans gave their
languages, their religions, and much of their way of life.
For a very long time voluntary immigration to America was almost exclusively
European. There were indeed some who came from the Muslim lands in the Middle
East and North Africa, but few were Muslims; most were members of the Christian
and to a lesser extent the Jewish minorities in those countries. Their departure
for America, and their subsequent presence in America, must have strengthened
rather than lessened the European image of America in Muslim eyes.
In the lands of Islam remarkably little was known about America. At first the
voyages of discovery aroused some interest; the only surviving copy of
Columbus's own map of America is a Turkish translation and adaptation, still
preserved in the Topkapi Palace Museum, in Istanbul. A sixteenth-century Turkish
geographer's account of the discovery of the New World, titled The History of
Western India, was one of the first books printed in Turkey. But thereafter
interest seems to have waned, and not much is said about America in Turkish,
Arabic, or other Muslim languages until a relatively late date. A Moroccan
ambassador who was in Spain at the time wrote what must surely be the first
Arabic account of the American Revolution. The Sultan of Morocco signed a treaty
of peace and friendship with the United States in 1787, and thereafter the new
republic had a number of dealings, some friendly, some hostile, most commercial,
with other Muslim states. These seem to have had little impact on either side.
The American Revolution and the American republic to which it gave birth long
remained unnoticed and unknown. Even the small but growing American presence in
Muslim lands in the nineteenth century -- merchants, consuls, missionaries, and
teachers -- aroused little or no curiosity, and is almost unmentioned in the
Muslim literature and newspapers of the time.
The Second World War, the oil industry, and postwar developments brought many
Americans to the Islamic lands; increasing numbers of Muslims also came to
America, first as students, then as teachers or businessmen or other visitors,
and eventually as immigrants. Cinema and later television brought the American
way of life, or at any rate a certain version of it, before countless millions
to whom the very name of America had previously been meaningless or unknown. A
wide range of American products, particularly in the immediate postwar years,
when European competition was virtually eliminated and Japanese competition had
not yet arisen, reached into the remotest markets of the Muslim world, winning
new customers and, perhaps more important, creating new tastes and ambitions.
For some, America represented freedom and justice and opportunity. For many
more, it represented wealth and power and success, at a time when these
qualities were not regarded as sins or crimes.
And then came the great change, when the leaders of a widespread and widening
religious revival sought out and identified their enemies as the enemies of God,
and gave them "a local habitation and a name" in the Western Hemisphere.
Suddenly, or so it seemed, America had become the archenemy, the incarnation of
evil, the diabolic opponent of all that is good, and specifically, for Muslims,
of Islam. Why?
Some Familiar Accusations
Among the components in the mood of anti-Westernism, and more especially of
anti-Americanism, were certain intellectual influences coming from Europe. One
of these was from Germany, where a negative view of America formed part of a
school of thought by no means limited to the Nazis but including writers as
diverse as Rainer Maria Rilke, Ernst Junger, and Martin Heidegger. In this
perception, America was the ultimate example of civilization without culture:
rich and comfortable, materially advanced but soulless and artificial; assembled
or at best constructed, not grown; mechanical, not organic; technologically
complex but lacking the spirituality and vitality of the rooted, human, national
cultures of the Germans and other "authentic" peoples. German philosophy, and
particularly the philosophy of education, enjoyed a considerable vogue among
Arab and some other Muslim intellectuals in the thirties and early forties, and
this philosophic anti-Americanism was part of the message.
After the collapse of the Third Reich and the temporary ending of German
influence, another philosophy, even more anti-American, took its place -- the
Soviet version of Marxism, with a denunciation of Western capitalism and of
America as its most advanced and dangerous embodiment. And when Soviet influence
began to fade, there was yet another to take its place, or at least to
supplement its working -- the new mystique of Third Worldism, emanating from
Western Europe, particularly France, and later also from the United States, and
drawing at times on both these earlier philosophies. This mystique was helped by
the universal human tendency to invent a golden age in the past, and the
specifically European propensity to locate it elsewhere. A new variant of the
old golden-age myth placed it in the Third World, where the innocence of the
non-Western Adam and Eve was ruined by the Western serpent. This view took as
axiomatic the goodness and purity of the East and the wickedness of the West,
expanding in an exponential curve of evil from Western Europe to the United
States. These ideas, too, fell on fertile ground, and won widespread support.
But though these imported philosophies helped to provide intellectual expression
for anti-Westernism and anti-Americanism, they did not cause it, and certainly
they do not explain the widespread anti-Westernism that made so many in the
Middle East and elsewhere in the Islamic world receptive to such ideas.
It must surely be clear that what won support for such totally diverse doctrines
was not Nazi race theory, which can have had little appeal for Arabs, or Soviet
atheistic communism, which can have had little appeal for Muslims, but rather
their common anti-Westernism. Nazism and communism were the main forces opposed
to the West, both as a way of life and as a power in the world, and as such they
could count on at least the sympathy if not the support of those who saw in the
West their principal enemy.
But why the hostility in the first place? If we turn from the general to the
specific, there is no lack of individual policies and actions, pursued and taken
by individual Western governments, that have aroused the passionate anger of
Middle Eastern and other Islamic peoples. Yet all too often, when these policies
are abandoned and the problems resolved, there is only a local and temporary
alleviation. The French have left Algeria, the British have left Egypt, the
Western oil companies have left their oil wells, the westernizing Shah has left
Iran -- yet the generalized resentment of the fundamentalists and other
extremists against the West and its friends remains and grows and is not
appeased.
The cause most frequently adduced for anti-American feeling among Muslims today
is American support for Israel. This support is certainly a factor of
importance, increasing with nearness and involvement. But here again there are
some oddities, difficult to explain in terms of a single, simple cause. In the
early days of the foundation of Israel, while the United States maintained a
certain distance, the Soviet Union granted immediate de jure recognition and
support, and arms sent from a Soviet satellite, Czechoslovakia, saved the infant
state of Israel from defeat and death in its first weeks of life. Yet there
seems to have been no great ill will toward the Soviets for these policies, and
no corresponding good will toward the United States. In 1956 it was the United
States that intervened, forcefully and decisively, to secure the withdrawal of
Israeli, British, and French forces from Egypt -- yet in the late fifties and
sixties it was to the Soviets, not America, that the rulers of Egypt, Syria,
Iraq, and other states turned for arms; it was with the Soviet bloc that they
formed bonds of solidarity at the United Nations and in the world generally.
More recently, the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran have offered the most
principled and uncompromising denunciation of Israel and Zionism. Yet even these
leaders, before as well as after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, when
they decided for reasons of their own to enter into a dialogue of sorts, found
it easier to talk to Jerusalem than to Washington. At the same time, Western
hostages in Lebanon, many of them devoted to Arab causes and some of them
converts to Islam, are seen and treated by their captors as limbs of the Great
Satan.
Another explanation, more often heard from Muslim dissidents, attributes
anti-American feeling to American support for hated regimes, seen as reactionary
by radicals, as impious by conservatives, as corrupt and tyrannical by both.
This accusation has some plausibility, and could help to explain why an
essentially inner-directed, often anti-nationalist movement should turn against
a foreign power. But it does not suffice, especially since support for such
regimes has been limited both in extent and -- as the Shah discovered -- in
effectiveness.
Clearly, something deeper is involved than these specific grievances, numerous
and important as they may be -- something deeper that turns every disagreement
into a problem and makes every problem insoluble.
THIS revulsion against America, more generally against the West, is by no means
limited to the Muslim world; nor have Muslims, with the exception of the Iranian
mullahs and their disciples elsewhere, experienced and exhibited the more
virulent forms of this feeling. The mood of disillusionment and hostility has
affected many other parts of the world, and has even reached some elements in
the United States. It is from these last, speaking for themselves and claiming
to speak for the oppressed peoples of the Third World, that the most widely
publicized explanations -- and justifications -- of this rejection of Western
civilization and its values have of late been heard.
The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and
imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and
exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but
to plead guilty -- not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human
beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only
sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment
of women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has always
been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was rather better
than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has otherwise been the almost
universal lot of womankind on this planet.
Is racism, then, the main grievance? Certainly the word figures prominently in
publicity addressed to Western, Eastern European, and some Third World
audiences. It figures less prominently in what is written and published for home
consumption, and has become a generalized and meaningless term of abuse --
rather like "fascism," which is nowadays imputed to opponents even by spokesmen
for one-party, nationalist dictatorships of various complexions and shirt
colors.
Slavery is today universally denounced as an offense against humanity, but
within living memory it has been practiced and even defended as a necessary
institution, established and regulated by divine law. The peculiarity of the
peculiar institution, as Americans once called it, lay not in its existence but
in its abolition. Westerners were the first to break the consensus of acceptance
and to outlaw slavery, first at home, then in the other territories they
controlled, and finally wherever in the world they were able to exercise power
or influence -- in a word, by means of imperialism.
Is imperialism, then, the grievance? Some Western powers, and in a sense Western
civilization as a whole, have certainly been guilty of imperialism, but are we
really to believe that in the expansion of Western Europe there was a quality of
moral delinquency lacking in such earlier, relatively innocent expansions as
those of the Arabs or the Mongols or the Ottomans, or in more recent expansions
such as that which brought the rulers of Muscovy to the Baltic, the Black Sea,
the Caspian, the Hindu Kush, and the Pacific Ocean? In having practiced sexism,
racism, and imperialism, the West was merely following the common practice of
mankind through the millennia of recorded history. Where it is distinct from all
other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and tried, not entirely
without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter
for congratulation, not condemnation. We do not hold Western medical science in
general, or Dr. Parkinson and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the
diseases they diagnosed and to which they gave their names.
Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently
denounced is undoubtedly imperialism -- sometimes just Western, sometimes
Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in
the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry
quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these
writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance,
being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and
denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern
colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of
imperialism is not -- as for Western critics -- the domination by one people
over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is
truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers.
For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this
provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both
the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for
misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it
leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting
or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current
troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese
Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by
non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim
minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which
those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism.
Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim
spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In
their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith,
based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other
faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.
THERE are other difficulties in the way of accepting imperialism as an
explanation of Muslim hostility, even if we define imperialism narrowly and
specifically, as the invasion and domination of Muslim countries by non-Muslims.
If the hostility is directed against imperialism in that sense, why has it been
so much stronger against Western Europe, which has relinquished all its Muslim
possessions and dependencies, than against Russia, which still rules, with no
light hand, over many millions of reluctant Muslim subjects and over ancient
Muslim cities and countries? And why should it include the United States, which,
apart from a brief interlude in the Muslim-minority area of the Philippines, has
never ruled any Muslim population? The last surviving European empire with
Muslim subjects, that of the Soviet Union, far from being the target of
criticism and attack, has been almost exempt. Even the most recent repressions
of Muslim revolts in the southern and central Asian republics of the USSR
incurred no more than relatively mild words of expostulation, coupled with a
disclaimer of any desire to interfere in what are quaintly called the "internal
affairs" of the USSR and a request for the preservation of order and
tranquillity on the frontier.
One reason for this somewhat surprising restraint is to be found in the nature
of events in Soviet Azerbaijan. Islam is obviously an important and potentially
a growing element in the Azerbaijani sense of identity, but it is not at present
a dominant element, and the Azerbaijani movement has more in common with the
liberal patriotism of Europe than with Islamic fundamentalism. Such a movement
would not arouse the sympathy of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. It might
even alarm them, since a genuinely democratic national state run by the people
of Soviet Azerbaijan would exercise a powerful attraction on their kinsmen
immediately to the south, in Iranian Azerbaijan.
Another reason for this relative lack of concern for the 50 million or more
Muslims under Soviet rule may be a calculation of risk and advantage. The Soviet
Union is near, along the northern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan;
America and even Western Europe are far away. More to the point, it has not
hitherto been the practice of the Soviets to quell disturbances with water
cannon and rubber bullets, with TV cameras in attendance, or to release arrested
persons on bail and allow them access to domestic and foreign media. The Soviets
do not interview their harshest critics on prime time, or tempt them with
teaching, lecturing, and writing engagements. On the contrary, their ways of
indicating displeasure with criticism can often be quite disagreeable.
But fear of reprisals, though no doubt important, is not the only or perhaps
even the principal reason for the relatively minor place assigned to the Soviet
Union, as compared with the West, in the demonology of fundamentalism. After
all, the great social and intellectual and economic changes that have
transformed most of the Islamic world, and given rise to such commonly denounced
Western evils as consumerism and secularism, emerged from the West, not from the
Soviet Union. No one could accuse the Soviets of consumerism; their materialism
is philosophic -- to be precise, dialectical -- and has little or nothing to do
in practice with providing the good things of life. Such provision represents
another kind of materialism, often designated by its opponents as crass. It is
associated with the capitalist West and not with the communist East, which has
practiced, or at least imposed on its subjects, a degree of austerity that would
impress a Sufi saint.
Nor were the Soviets, until very recently, vulnerable to charges of secularism,
the other great fundamentalist accusation against the West. Though atheist, they
were not godless, and had in fact created an elaborate state apparatus to impose
the worship of their gods -- an apparatus with its own orthodoxy, a hierarchy to
define and enforce it, and an armed inquisition to detect and extirpate heresy.
The separation of religion from the state does not mean the establishment of
irreligion by the state, still less the forcible imposition of an anti-religious
philosophy. Soviet secularism, like Soviet consumerism, holds no temptation for
the Muslim masses, and is losing what appeal it had for Muslim intellectuals.
More than ever before it is Western capitalism and democracy that provide an
authentic and attractive alternative to traditional ways of thought and life.
Fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the
greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for
their people.
A Clash of Civilizations
THE origins of secularism in the west may be found in two circumstances -- in
early Christian teachings and, still more, experience, which created two
institutions, Church and State; and in later Christian conflicts, which drove
the two apart. Muslims, too, had their religious disagreements, but there was
nothing remotely approaching the ferocity of the Christian struggles between
Protestants and Catholics, which devastated Christian Europe in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries and finally drove Christians in desperation to evolve
a doctrine of the separation of religion from the state. Only by depriving
religious institutions of coercive power, it seemed, could Christendom restrain
the murderous intolerance and persecution that Christians had visited on
followers of other religions and, most of all, on those who professed other
forms of their own.
Muslims experienced no such need and evolved no such doctrine. There was no need
for secularism in Islam, and even its pluralism was very different from that of
the pagan Roman Empire, so vividly described by Edward Gibbon when he remarked
that "the various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all
considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false;
and by the magistrate, as equally useful." Islam was never prepared, either in
theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs
and practiced other forms of worship. It did, however, accord to the holders of
partial truth a degree of practical as well as theoretical tolerance rarely
paralleled in the Christian world until the West adopted a measure of secularism
in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
At first the Muslim response to Western civilization was one of admiration and
emulation -- an immense respect for the achievements of the West, and a desire
to imitate and adopt them. This desire arose from a keen and growing awareness
of the weakness, poverty, and backwardness of the Islamic world as compared with
the advancing West. The disparity first became apparent on the battlefield but
soon spread to other areas of human activity. Muslim writers observed and
described the wealth and power of the West, its science and technology, its
manufactures, and its forms of government. For a time the secret of Western
success was seen to lie in two achievements: economic advancement and especially
industry; political institutions and especially freedom. Several generations of
reformers and modernizers tried to adapt these and introduce them to their own
countries, in the hope that they would thereby be able to achieve equality with
the West and perhaps restore their lost superiority.
In our own time this mood of admiration and emulation has, among many Muslims,
given way to one of hostility and rejection. In part this mood is surely due to
a feeling of humiliation -- a growing awareness, among the heirs of an old,
proud, and long dominant civilization, of having been overtaken, overborne, and
overwhelmed by those whom they regarded as their inferiors. In part this mood is
due to events in the Western world itself. One factor of major importance was
certainly the impact of two great suicidal wars, in which Western civilization
tore itself apart, bringing untold destruction to its own and other peoples, and
in which the belligerents conducted an immense propaganda effort, in the Islamic
world and elsewhere, to discredit and undermine each other. The message they
brought found many listeners, who were all the more ready to respond in that
their own experience of Western ways was not happy. The introduction of Western
commercial, financial, and industrial methods did indeed bring great wealth, but
it accrued to transplanted Westerners and members of Westernized minorities, and
to only a few among the mainstream Muslim population. In time these few became
more numerous, but they remained isolated from the masses, differing from them
even in their dress and style of life. Inevitably they were seen as agents of
and collaborators with what was once again regarded as a hostile world. Even the
political institutions that had come from the West were discredited, being
judged not by their Western originals but by their local imitations, installed
by enthusiastic Muslim reformers. These, operating in a situation beyond their
control, using imported and inappropriate methods that they did not fully
understand, were unable to cope with the rapidly developing crises and were one
by one overthrown. For vast numbers of Middle Easterners, Western-style economic
methods brought poverty, Western-style political institutions brought tyranny,
even Western-style warfare brought defeat. It is hardly surprising that so many
were willing to listen to voices telling them that the old Islamic ways were
best and that their only salvation was to throw aside the pagan innovations of
the reformers and return to the True Path that God had prescribed for his
people.
ULTIMATELY, the struggle of the fundamentalists is against two enemies,
secularism and modernism. The war against secularism is conscious and explicit,
and there is by now a whole literature denouncing secularism as an evil
neo-pagan force in the modern world and attributing it variously to the Jews,
the West, and the United States. The war against modernity is for the most part
neither conscious nor explicit, and is directed against the whole process of
change that has taken place in the Islamic world in the past century or more and
has transformed the political, economic, social, and even cultural structures of
Muslim countries. Islamic fundamentalism has given an aim and a form to the
otherwise aimless and formless resentment and anger of the Muslim masses at the
forces that have devalued their traditional values and loyalties and, in the
final analysis, robbed them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their dignity,
and to an increasing extent even their livelihood.
There is something in the religious culture of Islam which inspired, in even the
humblest peasant or peddler, a dignity and a courtesy toward others never
exceeded and rarely equalled in other civilizations. And yet, in moments of
upheaval and disruption, when the deeper passions are stirred, this dignity and
courtesy toward others can give way to an explosive mixture of rage and hatred
which impels even the government of an ancient and civilized country -- even the
spokesman of a great spiritual and ethical religion -- to espouse kidnapping and
assassination, and try to find, in the life of their Prophet, approval and
indeed precedent for such actions.
The instinct of the masses is not false in locating the ultimate source of these
cataclysmic changes in the West and in attributing the disruption of their old
way of life to the impact of Western domination, Western influence, or Western
precept and example. And since the United States is the legitimate heir of
European civilization and the recognized and unchallenged leader of the West,
the United States has inherited the resulting grievances and become the focus
for the pent-up hate and anger. Two examples may suffice. In November of 1979 an
angry mob attacked and burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. The
stated cause of the crowd's anger was the seizure of the Great Mosque in Mecca
by a group of Muslim dissidents -- an event in which there was no American
involvement whatsoever. Almost ten years later, in February of 1989, again in
Islamabad, the USIS center was attacked by angry crowds, this time to protest
the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Rushdie is a British citizen
of Indian birth, and his book had been published five months previously in
England. But what provoked the mob's anger, and also the Ayatollah Khomeini's
subsequent pronouncement of a death sentence on the author, was the publication
of the book in the United States.
It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far
transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue
them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations -- the perhaps irrational
but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian
heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is
crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally
historic but also equally irrational reaction against that rival.
Not all the ideas imported from the West by Western intruders or native
Westernizers have been rejected. Some have been accepted by even the most
radical Islamic fundamentalists, usually without acknowledgment of source, and
suffering a sea change into something rarely rich but often strange. One such
was political freedom, with the associated notions and practices of
representation, election, and constitutional government. Even the Islamic
Republic of Iran has a written constitution and an elected assembly, as well as
a kind of episcopate, for none of which is there any prescription in Islamic
teaching or any precedent in the Islamic past. All these institutions are
clearly adapted from Western models. Muslim states have also retained many of
the cultural and social customs of the West and the symbols that express them,
such as the form and style of male (and to a much lesser extent female)
clothing, notably in the military. The use of Western-invented guns and tanks
and planes is a military necessity, but the continued use of fitted tunics and
peaked caps is a cultural choice. From constitutions to Coca-Cola, from tanks
and television to T-shirts, the symbols and artifacts, and through them the
ideas, of the West have retained -- even strengthened -- their appeal.
THE movement nowadays called fundamentalism is not the only Islamic tradition.
There are others, more tolerant, more open, that helped to inspire the great
achievements of Islamic civilization in the past, and we may hope that these
other traditions will in time prevail. But before this issue is decided there
will be a hard struggle, in which we of the West can do little or nothing. Even
the attempt might do harm, for these are issues that Muslims must decide among
themselves. And in the meantime we must take great care on all sides to avoid
the danger of a new era of religious wars, arising from the exacerbation of
differences and the revival of ancient prejudices.
To this end we must strive to achieve a better appreciation of other religious
and political cultures, through the study of their history, their literature,
and their achievements. At the same time, we may hope that they will try to
achieve a better understanding of ours, and especially that they will understand
and respect, even if they do not choose to adopt for themselves, our Western
perception of the proper relationship between religion and politics. To describe
this perception I shall end as I began, with a quotation from an American
President, this time not the justly celebrated Thomas Jefferson but the somewhat
unjustly neglected John Tyler, who, in a letter dated July 10, 1843, gave
eloquent and indeed prophetic expression to the principle of religious freedom:
The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is
believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent -- that
of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law
exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is
permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement. The offices of the
Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established
Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgement of man set up as the sure and
infallible creed of faith. The Mahommedan, if he will to come among us would
have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to
the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased
him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political
Institutions.... The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes
up his abode among us with none to make him afraid.... and the Aegis of the
Government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment
which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it;
our system of free government would be imperfect without it.
The body may be oppressed and manacled and yet survive; but if the mind of man
be fettered, its energies and faculties perish, and what remains is of the
earth, earthly. Mind should be free as the light or as the air.
>>
Lee Dillion
> Here is a lengthy but thorough article . . .
Excellent article. But I remain curious about your other real-life
example from today's posting. What did happen to the frat boy?
--
Lee Dillion
dharmatroll
http://msanews.mynet.net/Scholars/Laden/
<<
Publication: Foreign Affairs
Issue: November/December, 1998
Title: License to Kill: Osama bin Ladin's Declaration of Jihad
By: Prof. Bernard Lewis
In the 12/98 issue of Foreign Affairs, historian Bernard Lewis
interprets to American readers the mindset of Ussamah
Bin Laden and his penchant on ancient discourse, his language,
religious references and interpretation. The Islam specialist
even offers a unique and quite eloquent translation of Bin
Laden's February 23, 1998 "fatwa" against the United States
(different from both versions which are available at two
different 'specialized' online terrorism sites). The review,
in our view, puts Bin Laden in a context proper to his own
environment and history rather than the 'demon du jour'
portrayal of the man and what he represents. In this
light, the histories of Arabia and Iraq and their intertwining
with the Muslim psyche is explained. Saladin and his treatement
of Crusaders is invoked to drive home some arguments about
Bin Laden's reaction to "infidel occupation" of Muslim holy
land (both expressions are used by the professor.)
The argument about the centrality of Jerusalem to modern Arab
and Islamic discourse and how it relates to Bin Laden's row with
the West is deconstructed in Lewis' thesis. While Arabia is
important, Jerusalem is not. Examples are abound in Prof. Lewis'
article.
Questions about the use of terrorism and how it relates to
classical Islamic writings on Jihad and Islam's injunctions
on its usage as a means of warfare (including the question of
use of 'chemical and biological weapons') are also treated.
Speaking the language of American policymakers, the Islam
specialist explains why the West (in this case the U.S.)
reacted in the way it did to protect itself against the
"travesty" Bin Laden represents.
No political discussion of the Bin Laden phenomenon should go
without reference to this article, since the professor is
explaining mindsets and reactions and has no interest in
defiling Bin Laden or giving a shine to the Saudi dissident's
persona.
______________________________________________________________________
QUOTES FROM PROF. LEWIS' ARTICLE:
______________________________________________________________________
On February 23, 1998, Al-Quds al-Arabi, an
Arabic newspaper published in London, printed the
full text of a "Declaration of the World Islamic
Front for Jihad against the Jews and the
Crusaders." . . . The statement -- a magnificent
piece of eloquent, at times even poetic Arabic prose
-- reveals a version of history that most Westerners
will find unfamiliar. Bin Ladin's grievances are
not quite what many would expect. . .
"The three areas of grievance listed in [Bin Laden's
Feb 23] declaration -- Arabia, Iraq, and Jerusalem --
will be familiar to observers of the Middle Eastern
scene. What may be less familiar is the sequence and
emphasis. For Muslims, as we in the West sometimes
tend to forget but those familiar with Islamic
history and literature know, the holy land par
excellence is Arabia -- Mecca, where the Prophet was
born; Medina, where he established the first Muslim
state; and the Hijaz, whose people were the first to
rally to the new faith and become its
standard-bearers. . . Thereafter, except for a brief
interlude in Syria, the center of the Islamic world
and the scene of its major achievements was Iraq, the
seat of the caliphate for half a millennium. For
Muslims, no piece of land once added to the realm of
Islam can ever be finally renounced, but none
compares in significance with Arabia and Iraq. . ."
After the success of the jihad and the recapture of
Jerusalem, Saladin and his successors seem to have
lost interest in the city. In 1229, one of them
even ceded Jerusalem to the Emperor Frederick II as
part of a general compromise agreement between the
Muslim ruler and the Crusaders. Jerusalem was
retaken in 1244 after the Crusaders tried to make
it a purely Christian city, then eventually became
a minor provincial town. Widespread interest in
Jerusalem was reawakened only in the nineteenth
century, first by the European powers' quarrels
over custody of the Christian holy places and then
by new waves of Jewish immigration after 1882. . .
"To most Americans, the declaration is a travesty, a
gross distortion of the nature and purpose of the
American presence in Arabia. They should also know
that for many -- perhaps most -- Muslims, the
declaration is an equally grotesque travesty of the
nature of Islam and even of its doctrine of jihad. . ."
Article not featured as per copyright restrictions. Please buy
the current issue or visit your library for its full-text.
>>
dharmatroll
>> Here is a lengthy but thorough article . . .
> Excellent article.
Thanks, Lee.
> But I remain curious about your other real-life example from
> today's posting. What did happen to the frat boy?
>
> --
> Lee Dillion
Well, I considered hunting him down, and bombing all the frat houses until they
gave him up, as well as every other drunken frat boy that acts or speaks crudely
to girls; but my carry-out food was getting cold, so after he backed down and
ran away, and the girl said she was ok, then instead of chasing him, I picked up
my bag, walked back home, and watched "Law and Order" instead.
--DT
Lee Dillion
> > What did happen to the frat boy?
> gave him up, as well as every other drunken frat boy that acts or speaks crudely
> to girls; but my carry-out food was getting cold, so after he backed down and
> ran away, and the girl said she was ok, then instead of chasing him, I picked up
> my bag, walked back home, and watched "Law and Order" instead.
Interesting. So are you saying you didn't call the police? And that
you have no idea what this frat boy that beats up women is up to now?
By the way - how did you know he was a frat boy?
--
Lee Dillion
Lee Dillion
> Well, I considered hunting him down, and bombing all the frat houses until they
> gave him up, as well as every other drunken frat boy that acts or speaks crudely
> to girls;
Well I understood that he did far more than just speak crudely. Your
story was that he "threw her on the ground and punched her" and that you
were not going to "curl up in non-violence while he continued to beat
the shit out of her or rape her."
> my carry-out food was getting cold, so after he backed down and
> ran away, and the girl said she was ok, then instead of chasing him, I picked up
> my bag, walked back home, and watched "Law and Order" instead.
So are we to understand you acted out your longed for grasshopper scene
and then curled up with your take out food (I mean, it was getting cold)
while you let the frat boy run away to beat up women another day? So
this rapist and woman beater still roams your neighborhood while your
belly is full?
--
Lee Dillion
dharmatroll
>> Well, I considered hunting him down, then bombing all the
>> frat houses until they gave him up, as well as gave up every
>> other drunken frat boy that acts or speaks crudely to girls;
> Well I understood that he did far more than just speak crudely.
> Your story was that he "threw her on the ground and punched her"
Right, but I figured we should kill anyone who looks like they might be in a
fraternity or gives girls any kind of strange looks just to make sure it doesn't
happen again, Lee.
> and that you were not going to "curl up in non-violence while he
> continued to beat the shit out of her or rape her."
Exactly. I was gonna kick his butt if need be, and as soon as I stood up to him
a couple more people came up behind me. Then he ran off in a trot the other
direction.
> So are we to understand you acted out your longed for grasshopper
> scene and then curled up with your take out food
After I stopped him. Luckily, he was willing to back down.
Of course, had he not done so, he'd be in the hospital right now.
> while you let the frat boy run away to beat up women another day?
I didn't have my gun with me, nor my bazooka, nor even a single aircraft carrier
in the vicinity. I wasn't going to go chasing after him in unknown territory
before I had reinforcements.
> So this rapist and woman beater still roams your neighborhood
> while your belly is full?
Perhaps. But the guys at the bar nearby said they knew the girl and would ask
her about it next time they see her. If he has been beating her, she'll cough up
the name, and then I'll bring four carrier groups into the area, I'll bomb the
entire frat neighborhood for several weeks, and then I'll send in my bulldozers
to bury anybody that's left. That should make the world safer for girl walking
down the street, eh?
--DT
Lee Dillion
> > So this rapist and woman beater still roams your neighborhood
> > while your belly is full?
>
> Perhaps. But the guys at the bar nearby said they knew the girl and would ask
> her about it next time they see her. If he has been beating her, she'll cough up
> the name
And how would they know if this guy you let run off is beating her? Do
you know that people in abusive relationships will often not volunteer
that they are being physically abused? So you had the opportunity to
call the police and have this guy arrested but chose to go home and eat
your food, satisfied that you had done your little Kung Fu imitation so
you could brag to the guys at the bar how you had kicked some ass.
Kinda like you joining the army and kicking some terrorist butt?
What a joke.
--
Lee Dillion
Arnold Vance
>>>What we most often forget is that peace is a goal. It is a way of of being.
>>
>Again a slight mistatement. What I meant is that "peace is not a goal. It is
>a way of being." The idea being that one does not strive to achieve an object
>one is the object.
>
>>Neither is viewing 9-11 as terrorism. It was subversion.
>
>I agree it was not terrorism, I only use that term for convenience. I'm not
>sure what yo mean by "subversion". I view it as a form of warfare. A form of
>warfare most would like to classify as uncivilized, so we can feel good about
>what we fell is "civilized" war. The problem with that is manyfold. First
>there is no such thing as "civlized war" and ignoring this as a form of
>warfare, legitmate or not, blocks us from seeing into the depth of the problem
>and identifying the roots. It isolates the act to 9-11 and lets us stop there.
Subversion is any intentional act to cause damage to a government or
organized body. It is a form of warfare.
And we know where the roots of war are: right here. Whether one wishes
to investigate any furhter is up to each acher.
>>Those whose business it is to keep business rolling will respond.
>>Thatch Hut will not be consulted I am sure.
>
>True, but GWB Powell and the like, haven't called me up lately for an opinion.
>Everything really starts with what I can do with my life. I have many
>opinions, some of them are being shared but the test is what do I do. Yet
>there are many things I can do in my life that promote harmony and peace.
Absolutely, and I am counting on you soldier!
>>And I wonder if you'll be able to square the response with your vision
>>of loving kindness?
>
>Chances are I will not agree with my countries response. But, whether my
>country acts according to my view of loving kindness, isn't as important as how
>I act from that view. Suffering and injustice does exist in the world. I
>cannot stop it all but I can affect that which occurs within the boundries of
>my life and how I contribute to it. To me that's were peace begins. Assigning
>blame and forcing solutions is a worthless exercise. It's like walking across
>a lake covered with thin ice with a group of others. When the ice breaks and
>we fall in to drown, what is the value of looking for the largest and heaviest
>man and attributing the blame to that person. It's the combined weight not
>anyone's specific weight that matters.
And by d.o. it's the combined weight of history that got you there
that matters.
>>I think thinking is doing a lot!
>
>Thinking is thinking and it takes time which I is a way of looking at doing for
>one is doing thinking and turned inward. While it important and thinking may
>help understanding or it may confuse it, it is not doing in the context I was
>implying which is to move beyond thought and into the realm of being in the
>alive to the present moment.
Thinking is part of that. The present moment is a thought.
> >One thing the administration doesn't seem to fully appreciate is
>>the need to instill confidence and calm. It appears Colin Powell is one level
>head, tho.
>
>I agree, but then I'm suspicious too. This could be the good cop bad cop play.
> But I think not.
Well, all I'm saying is that he appears to be carrying out *our* interests
with a bit more aplomb. If a person in a powerful position makes
inflammatory statements, using incendiary rhetoric, people will
naturally get riled up.
>>How can you ask a country to be calm and confident when its citizens
>>by And Large
>
>Asking is easy. Being heard is tough. The way to ask and be heard it to be
>what one is asking of others, calm and confident.
Exactly. Confidence begets confidence.
>Much of this dialogue is surrounding a very fundamental Buddhist principle.
>The principle of non-dualism. In a dualistic world view there is a difference
>between subject and object. In an non-dualistic view there is not difference.
>
>Let me explain. When we watch a TV show there is the watcher and the TV show.
>That's dualism. However, in the non-dualistic world the TV show and the
>watcher are one. By putting our energy into something we really join with it
>and become that. Terrifying when I think of all the junk I let into my
>existence by watching that box. But it's true. When I watch the a TV show,
>the show and any reaction I experience to that show are all of me and the show.
> Nothing else exists at that moment. Sure I can move on to another moment, but
>then that is another moment, separate and distinct form the prior moment.
>
>That which I was for that moment is forever gone and joined to that show.
>That's why we say "You are what you eat" or "You are what you do."
I don't watch TV so I don't understand your point. ;)
Dirk Bruere
"dharmatroll" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:P_2u7.11558$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
> "To most Americans, the declaration is a travesty, a
> gross distortion of the nature and purpose of the
> American presence in Arabia. They should also know
> that for many -- perhaps most -- Muslims, the
> declaration is an equally grotesque travesty of the
> nature of Islam and even of its doctrine of jihad. . ."
Well, I for one consider Bin Ladens claims as to the US presence in Saudi
Arabia to be well founded.
IMO US troops were put there to 'protect' the House of Saud from Saddam, who
was left as deliberately unfinished business in order to act as a
'bargaining chip' in oil price negotiations in the years following the Gulf
War. As such, the Saudi govt is an 'Uncle Tom' at best and a betrayer of
Islam and the Arab peoples at worst.
Now, given that a well educated Westerner such as myself believes that, why
shouldn't hundreds of millions of Moslems?
FFF
Dirk
Dirk Bruere
> those in Southeast Asia or Central America. There is no Cuba, no Vietnam,
in the
> Muslim world, and no place where American forces are involved as
combatants or
> even as "advisers." But there is a Libya, an Iran, and a Lebanon, and a
surge of
> hatred that distresses, alarms, and above all baffles Americans.
And few places where the US hasn't bombed or had troops stationed.
Not to mention the quiet little wars (such as Oman) fought by British
Special Forces and mercs. When I was playing soldiers there was a collection
from some of the guys who had been shot up in that part of the world (I
assume in retrospect - at the time it was classified info).
The trick is that they resign from the British army, go and fight, and are
re-instated afterwards. I assume the US has a similar system. Hence (for
example) British forces did not fight in Vietnam (and anyone who says Brits
fought there really means Australians or NZers).
FFF
Dirk
dharmatroll
>
>dharmatroll wrote:
>
>>> So this rapist and woman beater still roams your neighborhood
>>> while your belly is full?
>> Perhaps. But the guys at the bar nearby said they knew the girl
>> and would ask her about it next time they see her. If he has been
>> beating her, she'll cough up the name
> And how would they know if this guy you let run off is beating her?
The worst case is that I'll read about her in the news and identify him in a
lineup.
> Do you know that people in abusive relationships will often not
> volunteer that they are being physically abused?
Well, that's one of the practical problems. Let's get something straight. My
safety comes first. I'm worth more than both of them put together. If I beat
this guy up, she might turn around and say that she was with her boyfriend and
that I simply attacked him, and deny he was beating her up. Women can be like
that (and I mean this practically, not as a stereotype) and I have to watch out
that the person (or country) I'm defending doesn't turn on me suddenly.
Second of all, I was unarmed, and not willing to pursue someone I don't know in
a situation I just came upon. She may have kicked him in the balls, and now he
was beating her up for it. Policemen get shot more in domestic squabbles than
with actually bad guys committing crimes, you know, and I didn't have a gun.
Anyway, I think we should bomb all the frat houses. I hear they keep women as
sex laves in camps called 'sororities' where they force the women to starve
themselves and wear clothes too small for them, and to put holes through their
ears and other bodily parts and then they brand them by painting their eyelids
and lips in various colors. We should liberate them all!
> So you had the opportunity to call the police and have this guy arrested
Oh, I did have the other witnesses call the police, and I figured they explained
what happened, but I wanted to go home and eat my din-din, as I stopped the
immediate threat and have better things to do with my time than to interact with
the inebriated locals any more than necessary.
> chose to go home and eat your food, satisfied that you had done
> your little Kung Fu imitation so you could brag to the guys at the bar
Yup. And that I did. And they said, "you want us to come with you and try to
find that guy and kick his ass," and I said, "no, if the girl was hurt she will
tell the police and they will handle it." And yeah, I got to feel macho, just as
you get to feel like the Gandhi-Amish-wimp-goody-two-shoes-Richie-Cunningham.
> Kinda like you joining the army and kicking some terrorist butt?
No. The incident the other night caught me by surprise, and I could not simply
walk away, seeing a person being beaten. However, I'm not going to put myself at
risk, and unless I can stop him in that moment, I'd prefer bombing his frat
house from a safe distance where I'm least likely to get hurt.
As for my joining, I had a close friend die from Muslim terrorists, and I feel
horrible about it, and don't want anyone else to go through what I went through
and what I saw her family go through.
> What a joke.
Tell that to her mom, Lee. You're the joke. You'd let it happen again.
--DT
dharmatroll
>>> What did happen to the frat boy?
>> Well, I considered hunting him down, and bombing all the
>> frat houses until they gave him up, as well as every other
>> drunken frat boy that acts or speaks crudely to girls;
>> but my carry-out food was getting cold, so after he backed down
>> and ran away, and the girl said she was ok, then instead of
>> chasing him, I picked up my bag, walked back home, and watched
>> "Law and Order" instead.
> Interesting. So are you saying you didn't call the police?
I got someone else to. I did what I could and wasn't going to waste any more of
my time or take any risks when armed policemen are paid to do that. However, if
there is no policeman around, I will use violence to stop someone from beating
another, being the responsible, compassionate citizen that I am.
> And thatyou have no idea what this frat boy that beats up women
> is up to now? By the way - how did you know he was a frat boy?
He looked like a frat boy, he talked like a frat boy, he was drunk and beating
up a sorority girl, and he ran off toward the frathouse neighborhood. Maybe he
was really a terrorist posing as a frat boy, who knows?
--DT
Lee Dillion
> > Kinda like you joining the army and kicking some terrorist butt?
>
> No. The incident the other night caught me by surprise, and I could not simply
> walk away, seeing a person being beaten. However, I'm not going to put myself at
> risk, and unless I can stop him in that moment, I'd prefer bombing his frat
> house from a safe distance where I'm least likely to get hurt.
But you did just walk away - after, of course, playing out your Kung Fu
fantasy. You had an opportunity to go to the police at no risk to
yourself, describe the frat boy, give them the greek letters of his
house so they could pick him up, and testify as to what you saw. If it
was domestic violence, then those jurisdictions that have "no drop"
prosecution policies would have prosecuted the frat boy no matter what
the girl had to say. But you couldn't be bothered since your food was
getting cold.
--
Lee Dillion
Lee Dillion
> > And thatyou have no idea what this frat boy that beats up women
> > is up to now? By the way - how did you know he was a frat boy?
>
> He looked like a frat boy, he talked like a frat boy, he was drunk and beating
> up a sorority girl, and he ran off toward the frathouse neighborhood.
So you knew where this frat boy ran but couldn't be bothered to pursue
the matter if not by physically running after him, then by calling the
police. What a wimp.
--
Lee Dillion
dharmatroll
Oct 01, 2001 -- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
(Interview with NBC "Meet the Press" with host Tim Russert)
Mr. Russert:
"USA Today" went into one of the schools in Pakistan, in madrassas, where they
indoctrinate young kids, and I want to read that to you and our audience, give
you a chance to think about it and talk about it.
"At the Haqquania madrassa, a student who says he has just attended one of bin
Laden's training camps, pulls out a training manual called the encyclopedia,
which U.S. officials say is used in the camps in Afghanistan." Quote, "'Now
listen, American, and listen well,'says Hussein Zaeef, 21. He reads from page 12
of the manual. 'Bomb their embassies and vital economic centers. That's what I
will do to you and your country. I'll get your children. I will get their
playgrounds. I will get their schools, too. I will get all of you.' Tempers then
flare. Several students begin yelling at once, pointing their fingers and
gesturing wildly. One yells out the name of Mohammed Atta, an alleged bin Laden
associate believed to have hijacked one of the two jets that crashed into the
World Trade Center. Another says he will kill more than Atta. A third student
then unfolds a picture of the Sears tower in Chicago. 'This one is mine,' he
says." Two-thirds of the people in large parts of the world are under the age of
18. How do we change their mindset? How do we get inside the heads and hearts of
those children and tell them not to hate America, there's a different way?
Secretary Rumsfeld:
Well, first of all, the idea they hate America I think is wrong. I think that,
first of all, there isn't a big "they." This is a very small population of
terrorists and people who are of that mindset. It doesn't represent the majority
of any country, it doesn't represent the majority of any religion. It's a small
fraction.
And hate -- there've always been haters on this globe. We've known that. Do they
hate America? I suppose they do hate freedom. They hate our culture, they hate
Western culture. It isn't just the United States, it's a way of life.
But mostly what they hate, I suppose, is any infringement on their extreme
beliefs, whether it comes from us or another country, whether it comes from a
free system or a different dictatorial system than theirs.
So I think to personalize it is probably wrong, and how do we do that? How do we
deal with that problem? Well, we engage in the competition of ideas and
competition of ways of life. I mean, our way of life obviously provides the best
for the most people, and we see that. Anyone looking down from Mars sees that
the countries that are providing the greatest opportunity for people are the
freer countries.
>>
dharmatroll
>> No. The incident the other night caught me by surprise, and I
>> could not simply walk away, seeing a person being beaten.
>> However, I'm not going to put myself at risk, and unless I can
>> stop him in that moment, I'd prefer bombing his frat house
>> from a safe distance where I'm least likely to get hurt.
> But you did just walk away -
NO, I did not. The other guy ran away. I didn't have weapons or sufficient
numbers, and he hadn't killed anyone, and for all I know his girlfriend and he
fight all the time when they are drunk.
> You had an opportunity to go to the police at no risk
And say what? That I almost beat up some guy but he ran away?
I don't want to waste the time to talk to some policeman.
> describe the frat boy,
Yeah, right. They all look alike to me. (White, jarhead, big jaw.)
> give them the greek letters of his house
Don't know his house, just guessed he's a frat boy, remember?
Anyway, I stopped him and he ran away. If I see him again, I'll kick his butt
real good for ya, Lee.
--DT
dharmatroll
>
>dharmatroll wrote:
>> He looked like a frat boy, he talked like a frat boy, he was
>> drunk and beating up a sorority girl, and he ran off toward
>> the frathouse neighborhood.
> So you knew where this frat boy ran
No, I didn't. He ran in a direction toward a populated neighborhood.
> but couldn't be bothered to pursue the matter if not by physically
> running after him,
Why? I had no gun, and I'm not going to take an unnecessary risk.
> What a wimp.
Nope. Just smart. He's a moron. I'll shoot him at a distance, sure.
But I'm not going in after him where he or others could hurt me.
You and Bhante think protecting yourself and others is being a wimp. I'm not out
to prove anything, just to kill or beat up this guy as efficiently as possible,
without risk to myself. Same with the Toweliban-heads.
--DT
dharmatroll
12-Year-Olds Take Up Arms Against Taliban
By DAVID ROHDE
AHMONKHEL, Afghanistan, Oct. 1 - The commander of the anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance here, a small man with a graying beard, did not hesitate when asked the
age of his youngest soldier.
"He is 12," the officer said, pointing at a skinny boy nearby. "He fought last
year when he was 11."
The boy, who gave his name as Lalsaid, said going off to war at such a young age
did not faze him. "Our enemy attacked us," Lalsaid said. "I had to join."
The Afghan opposition forces that the United States is supporting in its
campaign against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban governors who are sheltering
him include a deposed octogenarian king in exile in Rome and the Northern
Alliance's jostling collection of tribal leaders, self-styled warlords and boys
like Lalsaid.
What joins them is their resistance to the militant Islamic Taliban militia,
which took control of the capital, Kabul, in 1996 and now controls most of
Afghanistan. But the poverty, ethnic divisions and opportunism that afflict the
country suggest that toppling the Taliban alone may not be enough to bring about
stability. Meanwhile, the seemingly endless civil war has ensnared hundreds of
young soldiers.
Lalsaid said he could not remember a time when there was peace in Afghanistan.
He was born in 1989, the year of the Soviets withdrew. His father and uncle, he
said, were killed by the Taliban last year.
Officials with the Northern Alliance say their soldiers have to be at least 18.
But in an afternoon in this village five miles from the front, baby-faced
soldiers kept strolling by, carrying automatic rifles. The commander, who gave
his name as Sarballan, said boys were being enlisted out of desperation.
Refugees who have been fleeing Kabul have report that the Taliban have also been
conscripting boys.
"There has been a revolution in our country for the last 20 years," Sarballan
said. "Because of the times, we have to take the young people and send them to
war."
Lalsaid, the 12-year-old, defended his military record. In his four or five days
of combat, he said, he had fired his weapon but could not see what had happened.
He did not know whether he had killed anyone.
As he spoke, a 16-year-old, Abdul, moved down the road with a Kalashnikov rifle
on his shoulder. Abdul said he had started fighting at 13, when his village was
attacked. "We had to defend our line," he said.
If the fighting ever stopped, he said, "I will pursue an education." He added
that he hoped to become a doctor, an engineer or a teacher.
If the fighting continues, however, the careers of some commanders in the
alliance suggest a different outcome.
Thirty miles away in Gulbahar, a middle-age man covered in sweat and with his
chest heaving pulled a cart loaded with wood as three boys pushed from behind.
As he strained, a Japanese-built pickup passed, carrying young warlords who have
become the elite of this region.
Like other civil wars in the post- cold-war era, Afghanistan's has involved a
handful of local leaders in an impoverished country fighting over resources and
power. If there is a constant to the tumultuous history during the last 20 years
or so, it is that there seem to be no limits to the opportunism of the leaders
or the suffering of the people.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries. The average life expectancy is 43
for men and 44 for women. Seventy percent of the population is illiterate, and
in 20 years of warfare, 1.5 million people have died.
The villages in this northern region are dominated by men who who took up arms
as teenagers to fight Soviet invaders in the 1980's and have since acquired
small fiefs.
"I started fighting at 15 against the Soviets," said Shawali, a Northern
Alliance commander in a town several miles away. At 30, he oversees 200 soldiers
and is considered an influential figure.
Then there are the ethnic divisions. It is widely believed that the
southern-based Pashtun, the largest ethnic group and one that dominates the
Taliban, would not accept a government led by Tajiks, the major group in the
Northern Alliance. Winning the support of the Pashtun elite is considered
central to hastening the fall of the Taliban, and American diplomats and
Northern Alliance officials say they have stepped up contacts with Pashtun
leaders.
Mohammad Zahir Shah, the 86- year-old Afghan king who was toppled in 1973, has
been suggested as an interim leader, in part because he is a Pashtun.
At the same time, northern leaders have quietly warned that if they find the
makeup of an interim government unacceptable, some of them may continue
fighting.
The warlords who are fighting together in the Northern Alliance illustrate the
ethnic undertones of the conflict. A report by Human Rights Watch in the summer
also warned that the fighting was taking on a growing ethnic tone.
Gen. Rashid Dostum, who recently rejoined the alliance, leads a force made up
primarily of another ethnic minority, Uzbeks. Yet another group, headed by
Muhammad Karim Khalili, is predominantly made up of ethnic Hazaras.
But ethnic lines in Afghanistan are not set in stone. Warlords have a long
record of being bought and quickly switching sides.
One northern general, Abdul Malik Pahlawan, switched sides and pledged
allegiance to the Taliban in 1997. After 3,000 Taliban soldiers had entered
Mazar-i-Sharif, the general switched sides again, and the 3,000 Taliban troops
were killed by ethnic Hazaras. When the Taliban retook the city a year later,
they killed 2,000 Hazara civilians in revenge.
Despite the history and divisions, some people here are optimistic. Muhammad
Hassan, 30, a trader in this dazzlingly beautiful but crushingly poor northern
area, said ethnic tensions were not a problem for him. Mr. Hassan, a Pashtun,
said he was comfortable living in territory controlled by the Northern Alliance
and was happily married to a Tajik. When his children are asked their ethnicity,
he answered, "They say, `We are Afghan.' "
In Mr. Hassan's village, the road that leads in is wide enough for three
automobiles. Mulberry trees planted decades ago line its edges. But just beyond
on one side stands a Soviet-built howitzer. On the other side stands a rocket
launcher.
Back in Rahmonkhel, teenagers continue to gird for war.
A 15-year-old, Ezmeray, said he had been fighting for a year. Someday he wants
to become a doctor, he said, but that lies somewhere in the future. His
motivation for volunteering was simple.
"My father was killed by the Taliban," he said. "And I want to take revenge with
this gun."
A provisional commander, Fazil Ahmed Azimi, lamented the persistent war and the
boys' fate. "It's been three decades of our people going backward in terms of
education," he said. "We have young boys that are more familiar with a gun than
with school."
>>
Lee Dillion
> > You had an opportunity to go to the police at no risk
>
> And say what? That I almost beat up some guy but he ran away?
> I don't want to waste the time to talk to some policeman.
You tell the story of a drunken frat boy who is beating up a girl -
someone who, rather than "curl up in non-violence while he continued to
beat the shit out of her or rape her" you stared down.
Now this potential rapist was someone you were prepared to kill -
remember, this story was told by you in response to my statement "And
from this, you take away the lesson that you must be prepared to kill
when kindness and peaceful solutions are not effective." Your response
was this story, introduced with "Actually, I know that from direct
experience, not from fantasies."
But when you actually had an opportunity to possibly stop the cycle of
violence (He did it once. What is the chance he may beat up or rape
more women?) by going to the police and helping identify the guy that
you clearly saw and supposedly could describe ("He saw that in my eyes,
perhaps, and he backed off").
But what was your thought at that time? - "my carry-out food was getting
cold." Wimp.
--
Lee Dillion
Lee Dillion
>
> In article <3BB91467...@cableone.net>, Lee Dillion says...
> >
> >dharmatroll wrote:
>
> >> He looked like a frat boy, he talked like a frat boy, he was
> >> drunk and beating up a sorority girl, and he ran off toward
> >> the frathouse neighborhood.
>
> > So you knew where this frat boy ran
>
> No, I didn't. He ran in a direction toward a populated neighborhood.
You said he "ran off toward the frathouse neighborhood." Not an overly
big area (even in the largest of "Greek" universities) when trying to
track down a potential rapist.
> > but couldn't be bothered to pursue the matter if not by physically
> > running after him,
>
> Why? I had no gun, and I'm not going to take an unnecessary risk.
Then call the police like any other interested citizen who had witnessed
a horrible crime first hand and had an excellent view of the criminal.
dharmatroll
> You said he "ran off toward the frathouse neighborhood."
> Not an overly big area (even in the largest of "Greek" universities)
A huge area, and full of frat boys, and I didn't have a gun.
Dirk could take on 20 frat boys with his bare hands, because he has a fourth
degree black belt in whatever. I would need an Uzi. I can kick one of their
asses though.
> Then call the police like any other interested citizen who had
> witnessed a horrible crime
A drunk guy hit a girl and drag her by the hair? Happens all the time.
The police would get there a half hour later and make you fill out a report and
ask you stupid questions. My dinner would get cold.
--DT
dharmatroll
>
>dharmatroll wrote:
>
>> > You had an opportunity to go to the police at no risk
>>
>> And say what? That I almost beat up some guy but he ran away?
>> I don't want to waste the time to talk to some policeman.
>
> You tell the story of a drunken frat boy who is beating up a girl
I saw him hit her and then drag her by the hair. They were both drunk.
> Now this potential rapist was someone you were prepared to kill -
Yes, when I confronted him, I was prepared to kill him, and my adrenaline was
pumping, and, seeing I wasn't going to back down and was prepared to hurt him,
he backed down and ran off.
The same thing happened with Sadam and Slobodan, except they were too stupid to
back down and withdraw. The Taliban are also too stupid, it seems, and so we
will kick their butts. The compassionate action is to give them a non-violent
choice. I did just that. The frat boy took it and ran. Sadam and Slobodan did
not, and so we kicked their butts. Now the Taliban have the same choice. It is
theirs. I don't want any unnecessary risks for my troops, and I want to minimise
the casualties of the locals as much as technologically possible, but if they
get hurt anyway, then go complain to the Taliban for not complying.
> Wimp.
Just like a liberal. Complain and whine about those who stand up for their
country not doing it right, while you hide under the table and won't even own a
gun to protect your own family. Pathetic.
--DT
Lee Dillion
Volume 14 - cont'd
. . . page 473
Finally, if, in the midst of beating up women or small children, you
find yourself surrounded by the dreaded Dharmatroll Kung Fu Legion of
Doom, the only possible escape from one severe ass-whuppin is as
follows:
1. Open your emergency ration kit.
2. Locate the Self-heating Beef n' Bean Burrito (TM)
3. Pull the auto heat cord on the Burrito - this should be done with a
smooth, firm pull.
4. Immediately toss the Burrito over the head of the attackers.
In about 30 seconds, the dreadnoughts will smell the Burrito and,
fearing the loss of heat, will immediately break off the attack,
allowing you to amble away and beat up more women later the next day.
Lee Dillion
> > Now this potential rapist was someone you were prepared to kill -
>
> Yes, when I confronted him, I was prepared to kill him, and my adrenaline was
> pumping, and, seeing I wasn't going to back down and was prepared to hurt him,
> he backed down and ran off.
Then dinner called and you couldn't be bothered to take further action.
Pathetic.
--
Lee Dillion
Lee Dillion
> > Then call the police like any other interested citizen who had
> > witnessed a horrible crime
>
> A drunk guy hit a girl and drag her by the hair? Happens all the time.
This drunk - who you perceived had the potential for rape - got away
because you got hungary. Happens all the time.
--
Lee Dillion
Evelyn Ruut
"Lee Dillion" <leedi...@cableone.net> wrote in message
news:3BB9F553...@cableone.net...
Dear Lee,
It must be catching.... the last couple of replies to DT have been
argumentative and not really your usual constructive stuff. Rest assured
you are not the only one who can get a bit rattled from time to time....:-)
Ev.
DharmaTroll
>
>dharmatroll wrote:
>
>>> Then call the police like any other interested citizen who had
>>> witnessed a horrible crime
>> A drunk guy hit a girl and drag her by the hair? Happens all the time.
> This drunk - who you perceived had the potential for rape -
> got away because you got hungary.
No, he got away because I didn't have a gun.
You're right: I should carry a gun at all times in public.
As for Hungary, I have no problem with them, but I'll bomb them if you want.
--DT
cupcake
DharmaTroll wrote:
> As for Hungary, I have no problem with them, but I'll bomb them
> if you want.
>
good idea -- go ahead and bomb 'em :)
>--DT
petie
Lee Dillion
> It must be catching.... the last couple of replies to DT have been
> argumentative and not really your usual constructive stuff.
Not argumentative - just focused on the failure of DT's real life
example to support his point. Instead, the "beat up the frat boy then
walk away" story actually illustrates quite well the flawed nature of a
violence must meet violence strategy.
But I can't take the story very seriously. It has shifted and mutated
under questioning and is not up to DT's normal standards. In fact, it
is so flawed from beginning to end that I am beginning to suspect that
the real DT is tied up somewhere in a frat house basement while the
impersonator is posting silly forged posts to besmirch Grasshopper's
good name.
Please. Let Grasshopper go.
--
Lee Dillion
swift
Evelyn Ruut <mama...@ulster.net> wrote in message
news:RTou7.150$o5.2...@newsfeed1.thebiz.net...
Hello Evelyn
I distinctly remember thinking Lee had written some of
his best posts ever since he got back after 11 September.
Sure we all gotta be rattled...and something's catching...
everywhere...look at this newsgroup for one thing...even
Theravad sounded odd... poor DT is all over the place,
and as for your behaviour towards Tang, and vice-versa
... i guess there's lots of evidence, but you and he place
entirely different constructions on the past, and Tang of
course, would deny placing any constructions, baskets
or cages, on the grounds that he practices dropping
them all on the grounds that he's a buddhist, only not like
any buddhists that you know, Evelyn, so I guess you don't
count it as buddhism...but i don't really want to get distracted...
you could have told him you didn't understand...
Everybody is saying the world changed on 11/September,
but who says how? There is great confusion, almost a rush
to impose a new world order...talk of war...and preparations
and negotiations...it seems like a more important time than
ever to scrutinize our governments and examine the media...
So who says...what are we fighting for...? How? Who?
It seems like its true, the world can never be the same
way it was..
If the murder of the seven thousand is recognised as a crime
against humanity...what can it mean...this recognition of a crime
against humanity...?
I have heard some people are talking about what would
be a fitting memorial to be made of the world trade centre
towers... maaybe it's come up at your rotary club? do you still
do that...?
all eyes and ears on the politicians, eh Evelyn? I'm watching ours
with care, on the basis that you need eyes up yer arse
with that lot. which seems to be what _they_ are saying about
us...governments about citizens i mean... if i hear "the innocent
have nothing to fear" one more time...
one good thing the eyes of the world are on them...
btw, maybe you could post that link with the Afghani revolutionary
women, it is excellent...
i don't have so much time to post now,,, snatched some
news of tony blair at the Labour party conference...he
still worries me...he made an long speech in sincere,
grave tones...dogmatic i thought...messianic, a labour
MP described it,...yeh! he's going very presidential,
and is not debating within cabinet...
messianic is worrying,,,i know Bush retracted crusade...
and that fascist bastard Berlusconi has had to backpeddle...
strangely enough, or not as the case may be... i heard a
progressive muslim on the radio agree with the content
of Berlusconi's inferiority of islamic civilizations rant...
from an quite different perspective...which just goes to
show you something Evelyn,...and gave me a timely reminder
about context, and how some things, some criticisms are
acceptably made from within, which are not readily
acceptable from without, for various reasons, including
motives... but of course, that is a very problematic area...
the war against terrorism...and i don't think war is a good
word to use, personally...is a war in defence of democracy
and freedom itself, we hear. tony blair's government is four
square behind him, including clair short, whom i think believes
government accountability to adopting ethical foreign policy
is possible...and he's right up Bush's behind...
they appear to have backed off compulsory
id cards...but amendments to the Human Rights Act...?
not much on public private partnerships,,,just public
services got to reform and modernise...nobody saying
what that means really...
talking of human rights, a group of residents living in HeathRow
airports flight path just won their case in the European court
for the right to a good night's sleep...i got to smile...: )
oh, and there was a report featuring an Afghani former
refugee to Pakistan telling how the Taliban Ministry for
Promoting Virtue and Prohibing Vice persecuted him for
not wearing a halal beard -
and a touching report from another Afghani saying that
people have been fleeing from the Taliban, and telling
the west their stories from the start, but nobody seemed
to want to listen to them or help them...i know for sure
that uk treatment of refugees stinks...and breeds hatred
and division at street level, where refugees have already
been murdered...oh, and the opium growing was mentioned,
but not the $43 m dollar subsidy or whatever it was the US
paid the Taliban, only now it seems maybe they did it to
control supply and demand, not because its unislamic,
huh!!
seeing as how our government's are such a liability to us
as citizens...it occurs to me that this time is a real test
of democracy and freedom and what that means...as well
as what constitutes terrorism...Jack Straw, our worrying
foreign secretary, brought in the concept of the Taliban
bringing themselves to justice...
Straw was reprted to be furious at having to back off
civil liberties and human rights...who knows what his game
is...?
somebody said cut out the war, go straight to Nuremburg...
but maybe we hit that "construction cage" straight off...?
crimes against humanity...mass murder, genocide,..
systematic and repeated rape of women and children...
so when is a terrorist a freedom fighter or a criminal...and
who gets to say...? women of Rwanda?
while western governments don't seem to think they
can be convicted of crimes because they are
democratically elected...i got to feel worried about
this secret evidence they got about Al-quaida but
don't want to tell us about...i think unaccountable
government sucks...and why my government
wants the right to surveil e-mails and to designate
me as a terrorist if it doesn't like what i say on the net...
it seems like there's a lot of people want to give their
testimony, but don't have a forum to do so...
even so, i think the signs are good, Evelyn. and you won't
shut Tang up, get used to it. we all gotta change.
i've got a lot of stuff to do, and don't know when i can
write again...
love
jan
words can't say : )
dharmatroll
>
>Evelyn Ruut wrote:
>> It must be catching.... the last couple of replies to DT have been
>> argumentative and not really your usual constructive stuff.
> Not argumentative - just focused on the failure of DT's real life
> example to support his point.
Actually, it did support my point. I was willing to use force and I would have,
and knowing that, I was able to created the possibility of a peaceful situation.
I physically got between the drunk girlfriend and the drunk guy, and threatened
him, and he backed down and left. Were I not willing to stand up to him, he may
have gone on beating her.
> Instead, the "beat up the frat boy then walk away" story
I didn't beat him up. Rather, I threatened him and stopped him from beating her
up.
> actually illustrates quite well the flawed nature of a
> violence must meet violence strategy.
No, it illustrates that the willingness to stand up for your values, even if
that means beating up the bad guy, is necessary, and that from that willingness
came the possibility of non-violence: and not the Lee non-violence of letting
the girl get beat up, but the DT non-violence of not letting anyone get beat up
or else DT will kick your butt.
> But I can't take the story very seriously.
That's only because it was 100% true, so I couldn't tailor it for you.
If you want to take something seriously, let's talk Trek tele-transporters.
--DT
Dr Ben Lau
>If you want to take something seriously, let's talk Trek tele-transporters.
>
>--DT
>any time troll , i just got my new teleporter from scotty , spock souped it ,
and many beasties etc can be transported to barren astroids for finall
extinction . I just beamed Kahn and Tattoo to a far away system within the
nexus .Care to join them .
>Dr. Ben Lau [ stardate Oct 2, 2001 ] , ships Dr,Starship Enterprise [b]
Phasers on fun
>
>
>
>
>
>
punnadhammo
> No, I'm beginning to believe that the central source of animus from the Arab
> world is, quite simply, envy.
Keep believing this simplistic nonsense. It saves the difficulty of
doing the hard work of learning the history involved. And the even
harder work of asking the tough questions.
Yup. Their just jealous. That's all there is to it. Now we can bomb the
living crap out of them and go back to watching TV.
Evelyn Ruut
Thank you for the nice long reply. I may have to reply to you in parts....
"swift" <spac...@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:3bba7...@mk-nntp-1.news.uk.worldonline.com...
> I distinctly remember thinking Lee had written some of
> his best posts ever since he got back after 11 September.
Lee's posts are some I always look forward to, and rely on as being
straightforward and seldom affected by emotional nonsense.
> Sure we all gotta be rattled...and something's catching...
> everywhere...look at this newsgroup for one thing...even
> Theravad sounded odd... poor DT is all over the place,
> and as for your behaviour towards Tang, and vice-versa
> ... i guess there's lots of evidence, but you and he place
> entirely different constructions on the past, and Tang of
> course, would deny placing any constructions, baskets
> or cages, on the grounds that he practices dropping
> them all on the grounds that he's a buddhist,
I am not alone in my belief that he is a "Tangist" rather than a buddhist,
but for the sake of discussion I have to tell you that his latest caper
involving dar, was really over the top. Even worse than the strange
mailings.
only not like
> any buddhists that you know, Evelyn, so I guess you don't
> count it as buddhism...but i don't really want to get distracted...
> you could have told him you didn't understand...
That is just it, Jan, I DO understand too well.
The part I don't understand is intolerance.
It is the kind of thing the Taliban is doing.
The word is intolerance. Plain and simple. Just like ethnic cleansing,
Tang is doing "Buddhist cleansing". It is still intolerance.
> Everybody is saying the world changed on 11/September,
> but who says how? There is great confusion, almost a rush
> to impose a new world order...talk of war...and preparations
> and negotiations...it seems like a more important time than
> ever to scrutinize our governments and examine the media...
> So who says...what are we fighting for...? How? Who?
Yes, it can be confusing.
> It seems like its true, the world can never be the same
> way it was..
> If the murder of the seven thousand is recognised as a crime
> against humanity...what can it mean...this recognition of a crime
> against humanity...?
There have been many crimes against humanity in the history of the world.
It is part of the muslim way but it should never be part of the buddhist
way.
> I have heard some people are talking about what would
> be a fitting memorial to be made of the world trade centre
> towers... maaybe it's come up at your rotary club? do you still
> do that...?
Yes, I am still a member of the Rotary Club. This year we fixed two little
childrens faces with plastic surgery who had been born with cleft palate in
South America. We also provided wheel chairs to some invalids, provided
scholarships to young students, made donations to homeless shelters and to
domestic violence shelters, dug wells, inoculated children against disease,
sent medical help to Africa to fight AIDS, supported orphanages in Africa
where AIDS orphans otherwise would be abandoned on their own completely,
participated in habitat for humanity in building homes for poor people, and
too many other good deeds to list here. I would need an entire newsgroups
worth of space to tell of all the good they do in the world. I am blessed
and priviliged to be able to participate in their efforts. Rotary is
compassion in action. Their slogan this year is "Mankind is our business"
....
As to the WTC, I think it should never be rebuilt. Like the Titanic and
several other locations where great loss of life has happened, I think it
should be made into a memorial park, forever to provide a place to visit for
those thousands whose loved ones have not been recovered, who were
incinerated completely. Of all the thousands dead, did you know they have
only recovered about three hundred?
> all eyes and ears on the politicians, eh Evelyn? I'm watching ours
> with care, on the basis that you need eyes up yer arse
> with that lot.
Yes, you surely do.
> btw, maybe you could post that link with the Afghani revolutionary
> women, it is excellent...
Don't know if I still have it Jan, but I will look for it.
> i know Bush retracted crusade...
> and that fascist bastard Berlusconi has had to backpeddle...
> strangely enough, or not as the case may be... i heard a
> progressive muslim on the radio agree with the content
> of Berlusconi's inferiority of islamic civilizations rant...
> from an quite different perspective
He made some good points, it is true. They are behind the times in many
Islamic countries in human rights and many other freedoms.
...which just goes to
> show you something Evelyn,...and gave me a timely reminder
> about context, and how some things, some criticisms are
> acceptably made from within, which are not readily
> acceptable from without, for various reasons, including
> motives... but of course, that is a very problematic area...
>
> the war against terrorism...and i don't think war is a good
> word to use, personally...is a war in defence of democracy
> and freedom itself, we hear.
So they say, Jan, but the truth is that they hate the west and believe that
we are all demons and unbelievers and all that junk. How can you deal with
people who are so intolerant (there's that word again!)
tony blair's government is four
> square behind him, including clair short, whom i think believes
> government accountability to adopting ethical foreign policy
> is possible...and he's right up Bush's behind...
> they appear to have backed off compulsory
> id cards..
We need them here. We have so many immigration problems and till now most
people use their drivers license for an ID. Not everyone drives, so an ID
card might not be a bad idea, it is just that so many think it is for
keeping tabs on people. When the enemy has infiltrated your country and is
blowing up your citizens, a little tab-keeping might be a good thing.
> crimes against humanity...mass murder, genocide,..
> systematic and repeated rape of women and children...
> so when is a terrorist a freedom fighter or a criminal...and
> who gets to say...? women of Rwanda?
Unfortunately women the world over (and even here on the newsgroups) are not
listened to very much. It is always blame the victim time, no matter what
they do. Well not everyone is a silent victim, and hopefully women all over
will speak up for our rights and will squawk loudly when we are trampled on
or threatened or when people try to harm you in your very home. Maybe some
men will listen sometime. The women of Afghanistan cannot even complain if
they are raped, did you know that? A man has to WITNESS it for the charge
to stick.
On newsgroups even though the perpetrators of verbal abuses brag all over
publicly to everyone, time after time what they have done, nobody says a
word.
> while western governments don't seem to think they
> can be convicted of crimes because they are
> democratically elected...i got to feel worried about
> this secret evidence they got about Al-quaida but
> don't want to tell us about...i think unaccountable
> government sucks...and why my government
> wants the right to surveil e-mails and to designate
> me as a terrorist if it doesn't like what i say on the net...
> it seems like there's a lot of people want to give their
> testimony, but don't have a forum to do so...
Yes, it is a shame Jan, but we are being victimized again, by the lowest
common demoninator in our society. There are people who want to hijack
planes and blow up people, just ordinary people going to work, not military
targets..... What would you have them do to prevent this sort of thing? If
they want to surveil e-mails, they can go ahead, since they are not really
"private" according to all the reports I hear, anyway.
> even so, i think the signs are good, Evelyn. and you won't
> shut Tang up, get used to it. we all gotta change.
I won't go quietly as long as he continues to harass and torment Tibetan
buddhists on their own newsgroup, (which is where I am replying to this
from). He can say all he wants on t.r.b., but he really is pushing it when
he continues to go to other newsgroups dedicated to forms of buddhism he
won't tolerate.
I also won't go quietly when he uses people as "trojan horses" to infiltrate
others confidence to gain their personal information. So he should get
used to it too, and all others who blame the victim around here also should
get used to it. One of these days maybe HE will change and get the hell out
of a.r.b.t. and quit harassing women.
> i've got a lot of stuff to do, and don't know when i can
> write again...
It has been a pleasure, Jan......
> love
>
> jan
>
Love to you too,
Evelyn
dharmatroll
>> No, I'm beginning to believe that the central source of animus from the Arab
>> world is, quite simply, envy.
> Yup. Their just jealous. That's all there is to it.
No, there is a lot more to it. Again, it's the clash of values.
They are envious of are success, AND disgusted by our freedom.
And they resent that "There's not a single category of enlightened governance in
which the West broadly speaking isn't superior to the Islamic world — again,
broadly speaking. Religious freedom, social mobility, and tolerance, the
guarantee of rights and liberties in law, prosperity."
--DT
<<
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldbergprint092801.html
The Goldberg File
Civilization Envy: On Muslims, Israel, and McDonald’s.
Someone once noted that a "gaffe" in Washington is when a politician
accidentally tells the truth. Thanks to globalization, this is a worldwide
phenomenon.
A Reuters story this morning begins, "Muslims around the world today demanded an
apology from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the European Union recoiled
with horror after the Italian asserted that Western Civilization was superior to
Islam."
The Arab League demanded an apology or an explicit denial that the Italian could
have even said such a thing. The European Union, led by Belgium (stop laughing),
acted as if someone had used his fingers to eat caviar. "I can hardly believe
Mr. Berlusconi made such remarks," gasped Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian prime
minister.
Mr. Berlusconi told reporters in Berlin, "We should be conscious of the
superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given
people widespread prosperity in those countries that embrace it, and guarantees
respect for human rights and religion."
"This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries," he asserted.
While critics have called his remarks "unacceptable," "barbaric," "silly," and
of course — "racist," I am at a loss to find a single untrue word in his remarks
(meanwhile, how his comments can be "racist" is beyond me, since all "races" can
be found within the Islamic world).
Now of course, this hasn't always been so. There was a time when the Muslim
world was out in front in the race for human advancement, and there was an even
longer period when the leader in that race was too close to call between the
Islamic, European, and Chinese civilizations. But for right now, and for the
foreseeable future, members and fans of Western Civilization have every right to
wave the big foam "We're Number 1" finger as high as we want.
There's not a single category of enlightened governance in which the West
broadly speaking isn't superior to the Islamic world — again, broadly speaking.
Religious freedom, social mobility, and tolerance, the guarantee of rights and
liberties in law, prosperity — you name it, and we beat the robes off them
(though in family cohesion, they probably have the edge on us).
To disagree with this assessment would require us to throw out the very
standards by which we judge our own society's shortcomings. For example, you
can't say (as Jesse Jackson does all of the time) that the United States is
racist or authoritarian or a police-state, and hold that Syria, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, et al., aren't far worse, without being intellectually dishonest. You
can't say that it's a crime that America "lets" so many of its people live in
poverty, and then think that Saddam Hussein, with his dozens of palaces, is in
some way a more enlightened leader. The same holds even for our "allies" Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait.
Even in the historical arena, the argument is not so cut-and-dried as the
anti-Westerners would have us believe. After all, the Arabs are just as culpable
for their participation in the slave trade as the West. What makes the West
unique was not our involvement in slavery, but our insistence upon ending the
institution, both at home and abroad.
Envious Islam
No, I'm beginning to believe that the central source of animus from the Arab
world is, quite simply, envy.
Indeed, I've been reading a lot of books and articles about the Middle East
lately (what? I do research sometimes), and I'm coming to the conclusion that
this really doesn't have much to do with Israel after all. At first, like
everybody else, I could hardly avoid the conclusion that the World Trade Center
was related in some significant way to Israel. I never agreed with the folks who
are always looking to peg any of these sorts of things on our support of Israel,
but it seemed naïve to think that the Jewish state didn't have something to do
with it (even though bin Laden's biggest gripe is the presence of our "crusader"
armies on the Arabian peninsula — and they aren't there because of Israel,
they're there to protect the flow of oil from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).
Of course, even if the attack did result from our support for Israel, I wouldn't
have agreed with those who say September 11th proves we should abandon Israel.
After all, you can make enemies by having the right policies just as easily as
you can from having the wrong ones — just ask all the cops who are hated just
for being cops. We supported Afghani freedom fighters in order to defeat the
Soviet Empire, and just because the Taliban is a harsh unintended consequence of
that support, doesn't mean we should have held the door open for Soviet
expansionism. Does it?
Bernard Lewis, perhaps the greatest living English-language historian of the
Middle East, wrote a brilliant essay eleven years ago in the Atlantic entitled
"The Roots of Muslim Rage." It is the best short piece I've found on this
subject to date, and I think anyone interested in this topic should read it
(thanks to Andrew Sullivan for calling it to my attention).
Lewis shows that while Israel is obviously unpopular in the Arab world, it may
not be for the reasons so many knee-jerk Israel foes believe. Consider that when
the Soviet Union was a bigger supporter of Israel than the U.S., the Arab world
didn't turn their enmity upon the Russians for it. Nor did they praise America
when we stood aloof from Israel's plight. The United States has no imperialist
or colonial record that even compares to Britain's, France's, or Germany's, and
yet we are denounced for our "imperialism" more than any other country. Indeed,
the Russians ruled millions of Muslims, while the U.S. ruled virtually none. And
yet the United States remains the bad guy above all others. Lewis suggests, with
professional restraint, that this is because the Muslim world is jealous and
resentful. Pure and simple.
Islamic culture, politics, and religion — which are far more conjoined than they
are in the West — cannot reconcile with the fact that the West, led by America,
is the lead dog on the sled of humanity. Israel may serve as a painful reminder
of this superiority, but they will find something else to gripe about no matter
what you do.
The Islamic world has a self-esteem problem.
Lewis gives a wonderful example. In 1979, a group of Muslim dissidents seized
the Great Mosque in Mecca — "an event in which there was no American involvement
whatsoever," Lewis writes — and an angry crowd in Islamabad, Pakistan, attacked
and burned the American embassy in response.
This is the sort of thing individuals and even whole societies do when they feel
they aren't getting the respect they deserve. Personally, it reminds me of our
domestic race-mongers who are convinced that every American action or event has
to do with race. It's an attempt to elevate your own status by picking an
"opponent" of greater stature — even if that "opponent" doesn't spend a minute
out of his year thinking about you. The deeper your sense of victimhood, and the
more unfair the world is to you, the greater your claim to moral superiority.
Indeed, after September 11, claims to social martyrdom were invoked by
Arab-American activists far more quickly than any denunciations of the assault.
In that corner of the national conversation, the shrieks of outrage about
discrimination against Muslims came fast and furious, while the fatwas against
mass murder remained in their holsters.
But this attitude also reminds me, oddly enough, of the global assault on
McDonald's, about which I've written a bunch. Around the world, McDonald's is
attacked for all sorts of bizarre reasons, including ones that don't technically
qualify as "anti-American." Depending where you go, Mickey D's haters may invoke
the environment or animal rights, economics or religion. Indeed, protestors
often prefer attacking McDonald's to attacking the local American Embassy.
While ideologues of all kinds see McDonald's as an enemy, McDonald's sees them
only as potential customers. This conflict of visions alone may explain a lot of
the problem. But from a broader perspective, the anger may be explained by the
fact that McDonald's is a tangible signal that the world is going in a direction
these people don't like. McDonald's is carried on the same wind as consumer
culture generally, women's rights, economic freedom, and all sorts of other
stuff, good and bad.
But one thing is certain: That wind blows from America. This arouses jealousies,
inflates grievances, and fans resentments not based in fact. The problem is that
even if you get rid of McDonald's, you do nothing to stop the wind. In this
sense, Israel may just be like a giant McDonald's franchise in the Middle East
an infuriating reminder of the fact the Islamic world won't be calling the shots
for a long time to come.
In fact, as Lewis argues better than I, this poses a real problem for both sides
in the conflict of civilizations. If America is going to be resented for its
success no matter what, there isn't much we can or should do to make them like
us. All we can do is protect our own interests as best we can. And then wait for
them to grow up.
>>
Evelyn Ruut
The Islamic world has a LONG way to go towards coming into the modern world.
Their human rights and rights for women and children are nearly
non-existent.
But they have lived that way for a long time and don't see any reason to
change. It is going to have to come from within their own community, not
from without.
Evelyn
"dharmatroll" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:GFKu7.14770$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
> In article <031020010924514926%arcc@STOPSPAM_baynet.net>, punnadhammo
says...
>
> >> No, I'm beginning to believe that the central source of animus from the
Arab
> >> world is, quite simply, envy.
>
> > Yup. Their just jealous. That's all there is to it.
>
> No, there is a lot more to it. Again, it's the clash of values.
> They are envious of are success, AND disgusted by our freedom.
>
> And they resent that "There's not a single category of enlightened
governance in
> which the West broadly speaking isn't superior to the Islamic world -
> of course - "racist," I am at a loss to find a single untrue word in his
remarks
> (meanwhile, how his comments can be "racist" is beyond me, since all
"races" can
> be found within the Islamic world).
>
> Now of course, this hasn't always been so. There was a time when the
Muslim
> world was out in front in the race for human advancement, and there was an
even
> longer period when the leader in that race was too close to call between
the
> Islamic, European, and Chinese civilizations. But for right now, and for
the
> foreseeable future, members and fans of Western Civilization have every
right to
> wave the big foam "We're Number 1" finger as high as we want.
>
> There's not a single category of enlightened governance in which the West
> broadly speaking isn't superior to the Islamic world - again, broadly
speaking.
> Religious freedom, social mobility, and tolerance, the guarantee of rights
and
> liberties in law, prosperity - you name it, and we beat the robes off them
> but it seemed naīve to think that the Jewish state didn't have something
to do
> with it (even though bin Laden's biggest gripe is the presence of our
"crusader"
> armies on the Arabian peninsula - and they aren't there because of Israel,
> they're there to protect the flow of oil from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).
>
> Of course, even if the attack did result from our support for Israel, I
wouldn't
> have agreed with those who say September 11th proves we should abandon
Israel.
> After all, you can make enemies by having the right policies just as
easily as
> you can from having the wrong ones - just ask all the cops who are hated
> Islamic culture, politics, and religion - which are far more conjoined
than they
> are in the West - cannot reconcile with the fact that the West, led by
America,
> is the lead dog on the sled of humanity. Israel may serve as a painful
reminder
> of this superiority, but they will find something else to gripe about no
matter
> what you do.
>
> The Islamic world has a self-esteem problem.
>
> Lewis gives a wonderful example. In 1979, a group of Muslim dissidents
seized
> the Great Mosque in Mecca - "an event in which there was no American
involvement
> whatsoever," Lewis writes - and an angry crowd in Islamabad, Pakistan,
attacked
> and burned the American embassy in response.
>
> This is the sort of thing individuals and even whole societies do when
they feel
> they aren't getting the respect they deserve. Personally, it reminds me of
our
> domestic race-mongers who are convinced that every American action or
event has
> to do with race. It's an attempt to elevate your own status by picking an
> "opponent" of greater stature - even if that "opponent" doesn't spend a
Ixnay
>I agree with DT and the Italian Prime Minister.
>
>The Islamic world has a LONG way to go towards coming into the modern
>world. Their human rights and rights for women and children are nearly
>non-existent.
>
>But they have lived that way for a long time and don't see any reason to
>change. It is going to have to come from within their own community,
>not from without.
>
>Evelyn
>
>
Ev,
Fundamentalist Muslims will NEVER come into the modern world. Their hope is
to restore Islam to the way it was in the tenth century. It is not a matter
of jealousy as much as faith. They look at the West as being corrupt
morally and in other ways. The most extreme factions would love to see us
all submit to the will of Allah and it seems to me that they are more than
happy to use our inventions against us to achieve their goals.
One only has to look at what has happened in Afghanistan and Iran to
realize this desire to return to a fundamental form of Islam is only at a
starting point. There are factions in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt who would
dearly love to see the overthrow of the respective current regime in those
countries as they are not strictly following Islamic law. Even in Northern
Africa there are countries which have this structure. I expect that at some
point fundamentalist Iraqis will depose Saddam Hussein and the same will
follow there.
Cheers,
Ixnay
--
May all beings be happy.
May they live in safety and joy.
dharmatroll
>
> "Evelyn Ruut" <mama...@ulster.net> wrote in
> <CJKu7.14$m5....@newsfeed1.thebiz.net>:
>
>> I agree with DT and the Italian Prime Minister.
>>
>> The Islamic world has a LONG way to go towards coming into
>> the modern world. Their human rights and rights for women
>> and children are nearly non-existent.
> Ev,
>
> Fundamentalist Muslims will NEVER come into the modern world.
Another interesting article from "The Atlantic Online":
Find this article at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/jihad.htm
Links referenced within this article:
"The Roots of Muslim Rage"
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm
"Blowback"
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96may/blowback.htm
"The Lawless Frontier"
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/kaplan.htm
an Atlantic Unbound interview
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/ba2000-08-09.htm
Flashbacks: Coming to Grips With Jihad
September 12, 2001
As investigators attempt to trace yesterday's devastating terrorist acts to
their source, attention seems increasingly to be focusing on Osama bin Laden and
his militant followers—Islamic fundamentalists who consider themselves engaged
in a "jihad" (often translated as "holy war" but perhaps more accurately
rendered as "righteous struggle") against the Western world. The attacks on New
York and Washington (if they are, indeed, the work of bin Laden's men) represent
the most audacious expression to date of fundamentalist Islamic hatred for the
West. But the jihad is not new. A number of Atlantic articles from the early
1990s to the present have considered the movement, addressing its origins and
its consequences.
In "The Roots of Muslim Rage" (September 1990), the historian of Islam Bernard
Lewis explored the reasons behind Islamic fundamentalists' antipathy to the
West. He contended that "fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in
Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to
retain or restore for their people." Arguing that Islamic fundamentalists are
ultimately struggling against the dramatic changes brought about by secularism
and modernism, Lewis went on to write that "Islamic fundamentalism has given an
aim and a form to the otherwise aimless and formless resentment and anger of the
Muslim masses at the forces that have devalued their traditional values and, in
the final analysis, robbed them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their
dignity, and to an increasing extent even their livelihood."
Lewis brought his piece to a close with an admonition:
"It should now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far
transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue
them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations—the perhaps irrational but
surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian
heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is
crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally
historic but also equally irrational reaction against that rival.... The
movement nowadays called fundamentalism is not the only Islamic tradition. There
are others, more tolerant, more open, that helped to inspire the great
achievements of Islamic civilization in the past, and we may hope that these
other traditions will in time prevail."
In "Blowback" (May 1996), Mary Anne Weaver explained Osama bin Laden's rise to
power as an example of the manner in which the U.S. support for the Afghan
mujahideen—the loose coalition of fighters from all parts of the Islamic world
who doggedly resisted Soviet occupation during the 1980s—has backfired on the
United States. In essence, Weaver wrote, the CIA's training of the mujahideen
allowed for the creation and development of "an informal network of small,
loosely organized underground cells, with support centers scattered around the
world: in the United States, the Persian Gulf countries, Germany, Switzerland,
Scandinavia, Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan."
After describing the enduring relationships forged in this network—between,
among others, the Saudi Arabian bin Laden, the Afghan leader Gulbaddin
Hekmatyar, the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman (convicted in 1996
of seditious conspiracy to wage a "war of urban terrorism against the United
States"), and the Palestinian Ramzi Ahmed Youssef (considered to have been the
mastermind of the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center)— Weaver noted
that such connections, the direct result of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan
more than a decade ago, have led to the emergence of "a new breed of terrorist"
whose energies are directed against their former sponsors and trainers. The
nature of terrorism has changed, Weaver concluded—today, "E-mail and faxes drive
the jihad."
More recently, Robert Kaplan visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and, in
"The Lawless Frontier" (September 2000), painted a disturbing picture of a
region dominated by tribalism, ignorance, violence, and rampant religious
fanaticism. The region's fundamentalist religious fervor crystallized in 1994
with the emergence of the Taliban, a militant group devoted to an extremely
inflexible version of Islam. In 1996, the Taliban seized control of
Afghanistan's government, and, as Kaplan observed during his April, 2000, trip,
it now continues to exert a powerful, destabilizing influence on the border
regions of Pakistan.
The Taliban embody a lethal combination: a primitive tribal creed, a fierce
religious ideology, and the sheer incompetence, naiveté, and cruelty that are
begot by isolation from the outside world and growing up amid war without
parents. They are also an example of globalization, influenced by imported
pan-Islamic ideologies and supported economically by both Osama bin Laden's
worldwide terrorist network (for whom they provide a base) and a
multibillion-dollar smuggling industry in which ships and trucks bring consumer
goods from the wealthy Arabian Gulf emirate of Dubai (less a state than the
world's largest shopping mall) through Iran and Afghanistan and on to Quetta and
Karachi.
In addition, we've included an Atlantic Unbound interview from August, 2000, in
which the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid discussed his book, Taliban:
Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, and shared insights
gained from his extraordinary access to Afghanistan and its radical Taliban
movement.
Today, the U.S. has a "get Osama bin Laden policy" but no effective Afghan
policy.... Afghanistan is now a major regional threat not just because the
Taliban are harboring Islamic extremists from more than twenty countries in the
Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia but also because of the proliferation
of heroin exports, the sales of arms and other weapons, and the cross-border
smuggling which is destroying all the economies in the region. Afghanistan is a
black hole sucking in all its neighbors.
>>
Ixnay
<BVQu7.15283$ev2....@www.newsranger.com>:
Yup, pretty much reinforces what I said to Ev. What we have is a small
group of religious zealots imposing their view of "the will of Allah" on a
larger group of war wearied, frightened Afghans. In the early 70's
Afghanistan was making some pretty impressive progress in the right
direction. Over 20 years of conflict have destroyed all that and opened the
door for the Taleban.
Assuming bin Laden's network can be busted up and assuming the Taleban can
be driven out of power there's still going to be issues around who is going
to rule Afghanistan and how. The tribalism issue seems to be the greatest
stumbling block to setting up a secular democracy.
I wonder whether bin Laden is really a guest of the Taleban or the Taleban
is in power due to the good graces of bin Laden. Many Islamic
fundamentalists rever bin Laden as a messianic figure. There are images on
TV of Pakistani's carrying pictures of bin Laden and chanting "Death to
America". These people are dying to cross the frontier to fight a holy war
against the west. Not for the Taleban but for bin Laden. My guess is that
if the Taleban were to try to sell him out bin Laden could easily convince
these people that the Taleban had fallen under the influence of the west.
DharmaTroll
September 11th was the inevitable result of America's arrogant and imperialist
foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has it, America is now reaping what
it has sown."
<< Treason of the intellectuals?
Oct 4th 2001
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=806289
The anti-war movement is growing. It could do the left more harm than good
BACK in Vietnam days, the anti-war movement spread from the intelligentsia into
the rest of the population, eventually paralysing the country's will to fight.
At first sight, the danger of the same thing happening now looks slim. The
overwhelming majority of Americans are solidly behind George Bush. Yet the
drumbeat of opposition, already fairly deafening in parts of the European left,
is building up in America.
At first Susan Sontag was almost alone in going public with her view that the
terrorists were merely offering a critique of America's foreign policy. But last
weekend saw peace protests in Washington, New York and San Francisco that took
up her theme. Ralph Nader has asked people to put themselves “in the shoes of
the innocent, brutalised people of the third world”. Op-ed articles brimming
with peace or appeasement (according to your taste) have begun to migrate from
the Guardian and Le Monde to those of the Los Angeles Times. Howard Zinn, the
author of “The People's History of the United States”, says that he is
“horrified and sickened” by all the talk “of retaliation, of vengeance, of
punishment”.
Such voices will grow louder when people are killed. The television news already
shows harrowing pictures of Afghan refugees. If Mr Bush's war is a drawn-out
affair, it will impose great demands on the patience of a not very patient
people.
In the 1960s, the anti-war movement struck a chord because many Americans,
rightly or wrongly, thought it was saying something substantial. What about its
successor? The peace movement starts off with the assumption that Americans need
to understand why so many Muslim fundamentalists hate them. There is nothing
wrong with this (and many people who are not remotely pacifists are looking at
the same thing). But all too often, the pacifists leap to another argument—that
the tragedy of September 11th was the inevitable result of America's arrogant
and imperialist foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has it, America is
now reaping what it has sown.
This is woolly thinking at best. Perhaps the critics of America's foreign policy
are referring to its interventions in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, when it was
trying to help the local Muslims? These actions were as close to altruistic as
you can get in the real world (which is why so many people on the left supported
them at the time). Even in the areas where American policy has been less
successful—for instance in the still unsolved Israel-Palestine tangle, or the
effects of sanctions in Iraq—there is a worrying confusion between (legitimate)
explanation and (unwarranted) justification of last month's terror. And there
are few signs that America's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol played much part
in Mr bin Laden's calculations.
A muddled message, though, would not necessarily limit the success of the peace
movement. During the Vietnam war, protesters said a lot of things that now seem
silly. This time, though, it will be harder for the anti-war left to hold its
troops in line.
The problems begin with the nature of the enemy. Islamist fundamentalists don't
object to the things that campus leftists dislike about America. They object to
the things that they like, such as freedom of speech, sexual equality and racial
diversity. Ho Chi Minh's communists had a sort of revolutionary chic. The
Taliban's penchant for throwing acid in the faces of women who fail to wear
veils and its lively debate as to whether the proper way to deal with
homosexuals is to hurl them from tall buildings or bury them alive does not
endear it to Berkeley.
This has already divided the left. Groups such as the Feminist Majority
Foundation were among the first to condemn the Taliban regime. Some of the
fieriest polemics against “Islamic fascism” have come from left-wing luminaries
such as Christopher Hitchens and Ms Sontag's son, David Rieff. Even the area of
Arab grievance that has received most succour on the European left—Israel's
heavy-handedness—finds much less sympathy among American liberals. The New
Republic is unlikely to call Ariel Sharon a war criminal, at least in this
century.
In the 1960s, the arguments between anti-war campus radicals and pro-war trade
unionists introduced bitter splits into the Democratic Party, which contributed
to its catastrophic defeat in 1972. This time, the workers seem even more
solidly behind the troops—not least because the homeland is under far greater
direct threat. Canvassers from the AFL-CIO, originally dispatched to drum up
support for the anti-globalisation cause, are now collecting donations on behalf
of the terrorism victims instead. On Capitol Hill, some of the left's fiercest
firebrands, including Marcy Kaptur, the congresswoman from the rust-belt city of
Toledo, in Ohio, have become the Democrats' leading hawks.
The question of the flag may be an indicator of the gulf between intellectuals
and the rest of a frightened and increasingly patriotic country. The people who
spontaneously bought the American flag to show their solidarity with those who
were killed probably do not share the worry of Barbara Kingsolver, a leading
feminist, that it “stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry,
sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder”; and
they may not empathise with one writer at the Nation when she frets about her
daughter wanting to hang a flag out of the living-room window.
The widespread fear of more domestic attacks that underpins this patriotism also
points to the biggest weakness of the anti-war movement. Even if things go badly
for Mr Bush, the pacifists' lack of any plausible answer to the challenge of
terrorism will surely limit their effectiveness. With Vietnam, the left could
argue that, if America withdrew, the war would be over. That is not true this
time. The terrorists are likely to strike again regardless of whether America
retaliates or not. Terrorism has escalated from the mid-1980s onwards, despite
the fact that America's response has either been feeble, non-existent or
symbolic. The true comparison is not with 1969, but with 1939.
>>
Scion of Buddha
> it has sown."
>
> Treason of the intellectuals?
It's so pathetically lame to accuse pacifists of treason.
America's covert policies invariably have blowback (the CIA admits this is one such case).
--
S.o.B.
DharmaTroll
>
>> "...As the cliché of the moment has it, America is now reaping what
>> it has sown."
>>
>> Treason of the intellectuals?
>
> It's so pathetically lame to accuse pacifists of treason.
Why is it "pathetically lame" to speak the truth?
Also, only pacifists who claim that the US 'deserved it' are treasonous.
Try reading the article next time, you pathetically lame S.o.B.
--DT
But all too often, the pacifists leap to another argument—that the tragedy of
September 11th was the inevitable result of America's arrogant and imperialist
foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has it, America is now reaping what
it has sown."
<< Treason of the intellectuals?
Oct 4th 2001
and imperialist foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has it, America is
now reaping what it has sown.
This is woolly thinking at best. Perhaps the critics of America's foreign policy
DT
>
> At first Susan Sontag was almost alone in going public with her view that the
> terrorists were merely offering a critique of America's foreign policy. But last
> weekend saw peace protests in Washington, New York and San Francisco that took
> up her theme.
Not if you know where to look, she wasn't; the mainstream presses just
weren't interested in covering "alternative" viewpoints. And the first
anti-war rally in Austin was four days after the attacks.
Dale
news.tvd.be
extreme right wings.
Such declarations of superiority is a provocation and a direct attacks on
our Islamic brother and sisters.
Ixnay a écrit dans le message ...
Dirk Bruere
"DharmaTroll" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:WN3v7.16331$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
>...
> At first Susan Sontag was almost alone in going public with her view that
the
One of the two most morally revolting women on the planet.
The other one, IMHO, being Sandra Bernhardt.
> The problems begin with the nature of the enemy. Islamist fundamentalists
don't
> object to the things that campus leftists dislike about America. They
object to
> the things that they like, such as freedom of speech, sexual equality and
racial
> diversity. Ho Chi Minh's communists had a sort of revolutionary chic. The
> Taliban's penchant for throwing acid in the faces of women who fail to
wear
> veils and its lively debate as to whether the proper way to deal with
> homosexuals is to hurl them from tall buildings or bury them alive does
not
> endear it to Berkeley.
I love to watch the 'intellectuals' squirm when subjected such cognitive
dissonance.
FFF
Dirk
Dirk Bruere
"news.tvd.be" <bruno....@tvd.be> wrote in message
news:PL5v7.21$TX2...@news.chello.be...
> The Italian prime minister is a pure racist, fascist and is from the
> extreme right wings.
>
> Such declarations of superiority is a provocation and a direct attacks on
> our Islamic brother and sisters.
It is also true.
Western civilisation is in general superior.
Do you prefer to hide the truth? Do you think Politically Correct lies are
the basis for making the world a better place?
FFF
Dirk
punnadhammo
This is so pathetic.
Whenever the war drums start beating, the media pulls in to lock-step.
Pacifists are called "treasonous". Dissent is shouted down. The pattern
is as old as the hills. When are people going to wise up? Expect more
propaganda and patriotic pap than hard facts the more we slide into
war.
I say hurray for the few intellectuals who have the courage and
consistency to refuse to jump on the bloody bandwagon. We need them now
more than ever.
Scion of Buddha
Dirk Bruere
"punnadhammo" <arcc@STOPSPAM_baynet.net> wrote in message
news:041020011913430273%arcc@STOPSPAM_baynet.net...
I admire people who will not kill for their beliefs, as part of their
beliefs.
What I really feel contempt for are those who would lay down their life for
nothing, and hide behind the convenient mask of the moral 'peacemaker' while
enjoying the protection of the military and police they so revile.
Strangely enough, Salman Rushdie springs to mind. Only too happy to smear
the institutions of Britain and the West, until he mouths off once too often
in the direction of his fellow countrymen and co-religionists. Then he is
only too happy that all he previously abhored about us turns into his
personal life support machine, financed by the taxpayer.
He and Bin Laden should get together one day.
Of the two, I expect the one I most respect would be the survivor.
FFF
Dirk
DharmaTroll
>
> This is so pathetic.
>
> Whenever the war drums start beating, the media pulls in to lock-step.
> Pacifists are called "treasonous". Dissent is shouted down.
Pacifism is one thing. This anti-US lefist pacifism is quite another.
See what my left-wing liberal hero Christopher Hitchens has to say about it.
Hitchens is the only liberal I know of who is in touch with reality.
--DT
http://www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=special&s=hitchens20010924
<< Of Sin, the Left & Islamic Fascism: Minority Report
by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Not all readers liked my attack on the liberal/left tendency to "rationalize"
the aggression of September 11, or my use of the term "fascism with an Islamic
face," and I'll select a representative example of the sort of "thinking" that I
continue to receive on my screen, even now. This jewel comes from Sam Husseini,
who runs the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington, DC:
"The fascists like Bid-Laden could not get volunteers to stuff envelopes if
Israel had withdrawn from Jerusalem like it was supposed to -- and the US
stopped the sanctions and the bombing on Iraq."
You've heard this "thought" expressed in one way or another, dear reader, have
you not? I don't think I took enough time in my last column to point out just
what is so utterly rotten at the very core of it. So, just to clean up a corner
or two: (1) If Husseini knows what was in the minds of the murderers, it is his
solemn responsibility to inform us of the source of his information, and also to
share it with the authorities. (2) If he does not know what was in their
minds--as seems enormously more probable--then why does he rush to appoint
himself the ventriloquist's dummy for such a faction? Who volunteers for such a
task at such a time?
Not only is it indecent to act as self-appointed interpreter for the killers,
but it is rash in the highest degree. The death squads have not favored us with
a posthumous manifesto of their grievances, or a statement of claim about
Palestine or Iraq, but we are nonetheless able to surmise or deduce or induct a
fair amount about the ideological or theological "root" of their act (Husseini
doesn't seem to demand "proof" of bin Laden's involvement any more than the Bush
Administration is willing to supply it) and if we are correct in this, then we
have considerable knowledge of two things: their ideas and their actions.
First the actions. The central plan was to maximize civilian casualties in a
very dense area of downtown Manhattan. We know that the killers had studied the
physics and ecology of the buildings and the neighborhood, and we know that they
were limited only by the flight schedules and bookings of civil aviation. They
must therefore have been quite prepared to convert fully loaded planes into
missiles, instead of the mercifully unpopulated aircraft that were actually
commandeered, and they could have hoped by a combination of luck and tactics to
have at least doubled the kill-rate on the ground. They spent some time in the
company of the families they had kidnapped for the purpose of mass homicide.
It was clearly meant to be much, much worse than it was. And it was designed and
incubated long before the mutual-masturbation of the Clinton-Arafat-Barak
"process." The Talibanis have in any case not distinguished themselves very much
by an interest in the Palestinian plight. They have been busier trying to bring
their own societies under the reign of the most inflexible and pitiless
declension of shari'a law. This is known to anyone with the least acquaintance
with the subject.
The ancillary plan was to hit the Department of Defense and (on the best
evidence we have available) either the Capitol Dome or the White House. The
Pentagon, for all its symbolism, is actually more the civil-service bit of the
American "war-machine," and is set in a crowded Virginia neighborhood. You could
certainly call it a military target if you were that way inclined, though the
bin Ladenists did not attempt anything against a guarded airbase or a nuclear
power station in Pennsylvania (and even if they had, we would now doubtless be
reading that the glow from Three Mile Island was a revenge for globalization).
The Capitol is where the voters send their elected representatives--poor things,
to be sure, but our own. The White House is where the elected President and his
family and staff are to be found. It survived the attempt of British imperialism
to burn it down, and the attempt of the Confederacy to take Washington DC, and
this has hallowed even its most mediocre occupants. I might, from where I am
sitting, be a short walk from a gutted Capitol or a shattered White House. I am
quite certain that in such a case Husseini and his rabble of sympathizers would
still be telling me that my chickens were coming home to roost. (The image of
bin Laden's men "stuffing envelopes" is the perfected essence of such brainless
verbiage.)
Only the stoicism of men like Jeremy Glick and Thomas Burnett prevented some
such outcome; only those who chose who die fighting rather than allow such a
profanity, and such a further toll in lives, stood between us and the fourth
death squad. One iota of such innate fortitude is worth all the writings of Noam
Chomsky, who coldly compared the plan of September 11 to a stupid and cruel and
cynical raid by Bill Clinton on Khartoum in August 1998.
I speak with some feeling about that latter event, because I wrote three Nation
columns about it at the time, pointing out (with evidence that goes unrebutted
to this day) that it was a war crime, and a war crime opposed by the majority of
the military and intelligence establishment. The crime was directly and sordidly
linked to the effort by a crooked President to avoid impeachment (a conclusion
sedulously avoided by the Chomskys and Husseinis of the time). The Al Shifa
pharmaceutical plant was well-known to be a civilian target, and its "selection"
was opposed by most of the Joint Chiefs and many CIA personnel for just this
reason. (See, for additional corroboration, Seymour Hersh's New Yorker essay
"The Missiles of August").
To mention this banana-republic degradation of the United States in the same
breath as a plan, deliberated for months, to inflict maximum horror upon the
innocent is to abandon every standard that makes intellectual and moral
discrimination possible. To put it at its very lowest, and most elementary, at
least the missiles launched by Clinton were not full of passengers. (How are you
doing, Sam? Noam, wazzup?)
So much for what the methods and targets tell us about the true anti-human and
anti-democratic motivation. By their deeds shall we know them. What about the
animating ideas? There were perhaps seven hundred observant followers of the
Prophet Muhammed burned alive in New York on September 11. Nobody who had
studied the target zone could have been in any doubt that some such figure was
at the very least a likely one. And, since Islam makes no discrimination between
the color and shade of its adherents, there was good reason to think that any
planeload of civilians might include some Muslims as well. I don't myself make
this point with any more emphasis than I would give to the several hundred of my
fellow Englishmen (some of them doubtless Muslims also) who perished. I stress
it only because it makes my point about fascism.
To the Wahhabi-indoctrinated sectarians of Al Qaeda, only the purest and most
fanatical are worthy of consideration. The teachings and published proclamations
of this cult have initiated us to the idea that the tolerant, the open-minded,
the apostate or the followers of different branches of The Faith are fit only
for slaughter and contempt. And that's before Christians and Jews, let alone
atheists and secularists, have even been factored in. As before, the deed
announces and exposes its "root cause." The grievance and animosity predate even
the Balfour Declaration, let alone the occupation of the West Bank. They predate
the creation of Iraq as a state. The gates of Vienna would have had to fall to
the Ottoman jihad before any balm could begin to be applied to these psychic
wounds. And this is precisely, now, our problem.
The Taliban and its surrogates are not content to immiserate their own societies
in beggary and serfdom. They are condemned, and they deludedly believe that they
are commanded, to spread the contagion and to visit hell upon the unrighteous.
The very first step that we must take, therefore, is the acquisition of enough
self-respect and self-confidence to say that we have met an enemy and that he is
not us, but someone else. Someone with whom coexistence is, fortunately I think,
not possible. (I say "fortunately" because I am also convinced that such
coexistence is not desirable).
But straight away, we meet people who complain at once that this enemy is us,
really. Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed
"we" did. Well, does this not double or triple our responsibility to remove them
from power? A sudden sheep-like silence, broken by a bleat. Would that not be
"over-reaction"?
All I want to say for now is that the under-reaction to the Taliban by three
successive United States administrations is one of the great resounding
disgraces of our time. There is good reason to think that a Taliban defeat would
fill the streets of Kabul with joy. But for the moment, the Bush Administration
seems a hostage to the Pakistani and Saudi clients who are the sponsors and
"harborers" the President claims publicly to be looking for! Yet the mainstream
left, ever shuffling its feet, fears only the discomfort that might result from
repudiating such an indefensible and humiliating posture.
Very well then, comrades. Do not pretend that you wish to make up for America's
past crimes in the region. Here is one such crime that can be admitted and
undone -- the sponsorship of the Taliban could be redeemed by the demolition of
its regime and the liberation of its victims. But I detect no stomach for any
such project. Better, then -- more decent and reticent -- not to affect such
concern for "our" past offenses.
This is not an article about grand strategy, but it seems to me to go without
saying that a sincere commitment to the secular or reformist elements in the
Muslim world would automatically shift the balance of America's up-to-now very
questionable engagement. Every day, the wretched Arafat is told by Washington,
as a favor to the Israelis, that he must police and repress the forces of Hamas
and Islamic Jihad. When did Washington last demand that Saudi Arabia cease its
heavy financing of these primitive and unscrupulous organisations? We let the
Algerians fight the Islamic-fascist wave without saying a word or lending a
hand. And this is an effort in which civic and social organizations can become
involved without official permission.
We should be building such internationalism whether it serves the short-term
needs of the current Administration or not: I signed an anti-Taliban statement
several months ago and was appalled by the eerie silence with which the
initiative was greeted in Washington. (It ought to go without saying that the
demand for Palestinian self-determination is, as before, a good cause in its own
right. Not now more than ever, but now as ever. There are millions of
Palestinians who do not want the future that the pious of all three monotheisms
have in store for them.)
Ultimately, this is another but uniquely toxic version of an old story, whereby
former clients like Noriega and Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and the
Taliban cease to be our monsters and become monstrous in their own right. At
such a point, a moral and political crisis occurs. Do "our" past crimes and sins
make it impossible to expiate the offense by determined action? Those of us who
were not consulted about, and are not bound by, the previous covert compromises
have a special responsibility to say a decisive "no" to this. The figure of six
and a half thousand murders in New York is almost the exact equivalent to the
total uncovered in the death-pits of Srebrenica. (Even at Srebrenica, the
demented General Ratko Mladic agreed to release all the women, all the children,
all the old people and all the males above and below military age before
ordering his squads to fall to work.)
On that occasion, US satellites flew serenely overhead recording the scene, and
Milosevic earned himself an invitation to Dayton, Ohio. But in the end, after
appalling false starts and delays, it was found that Mr Milosevic was too much.
He wasn't just too nasty. He was also too irrational and dangerous. He didn't
even save himself by lyingly claiming, as he several times did, that Osama bin
Laden was hiding in Bosnia. It must be said that by this, and by other lies and
numberless other atrocities, Milosevic distinguished himself as an enemy of
Islam. His national-socialist regime took the line on the towelheads that the
Bush Administration is only accused, by fools and knaves, of taking. Yet when a
stand was eventually mounted against Milosevic, it was Noam Chomsky and Sam
Husseini, among many others, who described the whole business as a bullying
persecution of--the Serbs!
I have no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat,
as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible with
such people and, I'm thankful to say, no political coalition with them is now
necessary. It no longer matters what they think.
>>
Scion of Buddha
> >> Treason of the intellectuals?
> >
> > It's so pathetically lame to accuse pacifists of treason.
>
> Why is it "pathetically lame" to speak the truth?
The title asks "Treason of the intellectuals?" Inflamatory, ill-chosen and broad, if the title doesn't intentionally seek to villify dissident critique and pacifist dissent, the title clearly states a bias, up front.
Later the article says:
>the pacifists leap to another argument—that
>the tragedy of September 11th was the inevitable result of America's arrogant
>and imperialist foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has it, America is
>now reaping what it has sown.
First of all "reaping what you have sown" is different from "you deserved it." Secondly, it generalizes the 'blow-back' (CIA's OWN TERMS!!!!) critique of US foreign policy as strictly a "reaping what you have sown" cliche'. Let me quote a few articles for you:
=========================
From various sources (counterpunch is one of them):
"...In the summer of 1979 the US State Department produced a memo making it clear how the US government saw the stakes, no matter how modern minded Taraki might be or how feudal the Muj...:"
"The United States' larger interest would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever set backs this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviets' view of the socialist course of history being inevitable is not accurate."
"...Fearing a fundamentalist, US-backed regime in Afghanistan, the Soviets invaded in force in December 1979.
===============
Bin Laden comes home to roost
His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story
By Michael Moran, MSNBC International Editor
NEW YORK, Aug. 24, 1998 — At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback. And the fact that he is viewed as a hero by millions in the Islamic world proves again the old adage: Reap what you sow.
BEFORE YOU CLICK on my face and call me naive, let me concede some points. Yes, the West needed Josef Stalin to defeat Hitler. Yes, there were times during the Cold War when supporting one villain (Cambodia’s Lon Nol, for instance) would have been better than the alternative (Po Pot). So yes, there are times when any nation must hold its nose and shake hands with the devil for the long-term good of the planet.
But just as surely, there are times when the United States, faced with such moral dilemmas, should have resisted the temptation to act. "
"...As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow’s invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation.
"... Indeed, to this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. “It was worth it,” he said. “Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union,” he said.
"...It is also worth acknowledging that it is easier now to oppose the CIA’s Afghan adventures than it was when Hatch and company made them in the mid-1980s. After all, in 1998 we now know that far larger elements than Afghanistan were corroding the communist party’s grip on power in Moscow.
Even Hatch can’t be blamed completely. The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its “mission,” had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director Robert Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual “Soviet Military Power” report right up to 1990. ..."
===========================
Oh, so when we actually *KNOW* the history of the problem, we can see it has, as the CIA would say, "Blown back" on us. WORSE YET, it all started because the USA *deliberately* planned to use Islam as a weapon against the USSR. Strategy of this nature, exploiting the Soviet's fears of fundies in Afghanistan so to throw them pull them into a nasty ethno-religious war & throw them off-balance, was brinksmanship at best and despicable at worst. Another little country caught between the superpowers that got fucked to hell with MILLIONS dead. But it was worth it if it meant speeding the eventual demise of the USSR. Nice.
I don't suppose you know the histories of Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Manuel Noriega, the Contra drug runners, Lucky Lucionne, Pol Pot, Anastasio Somoza, Ferdinand Marcos.... if you did, you'd probably have a pretty firm understanding of the term "Blow back." "Blow back" was a term cited during the 1996 Contra drug-running hearings by congressional investigator Jack Blum (whose opinion was corroborated by such lame pacificists like DEA agents Micheal Levine & Cellerino Castillo). Let me see, what does the term "Blow back" not express that "Reap what you have sown" does? A little less moral irony, perhaps?
> Try reading the article next time, you pathetically lame S.o.B.
Being called that by the likes of you is a GIFT, because you illustrate my point SO WELL! Try reading up on the strategy of the war, the trans-cultural background & problems of the region, the history of the problem before cheering for a war that even has our top warriors gravely worried.
We aren't talking about a nice little war that will let everyone feel good about 'getting even.' It's a far worse situation, and this is just the beginning. We *WILL* have to fight this war, and probably several more in the next 50 years, I'm afraid, before some semblance of normality returns to the world. This *IS* the beginning of a new world war which will either be series of small regional conflicts or one big one.
And although the Economist article had a bit of slant (and no where nearly as much as you), I agree with its final assessment:
> The widespread fear of more domestic attacks that underpins this patriotism also
> points to the biggest weakness of the anti-war movement. Even if things go badly
> for Mr Bush, the pacifists' lack of any plausible answer to the challenge of
> terrorism will surely limit their effectiveness. With Vietnam, the left could
> argue that, if America withdrew, the war would be over. That is not true this
> time. The terrorists are likely to strike again regardless of whether America
> retaliates or not. Terrorism has escalated from the mid-1980s onwards, despite
> the fact that America's response has either been feeble, non-existent or
> symbolic. The true comparison is not with 1969, but with 1939.
Regards,
--S.o.B.
DharmaTroll
> Later the article says:
>
>> the pacifists leap to another argument—that the tragedy of
>> September 11th was the inevitable result of America's arrogant
>> and imperialist foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has
>> it, America is now reaping what it has sown.
>
>First of all "reaping what you have sown" is different from "you deserved it."
Yes, it is. We didn't create Islamic fundamentalism. We didn't create people to
terrorise and murder as many civilians as they can. Rather, we helped unite the
Muslim nations to repel the invading Soviets from Afghanistan. The "reaping what
you have sown" is anti-American hatred that S.o.B.'s like yourself use to use
this act of terror as a way to propagate your anti-US crap.
> We aren't talking about a nice little war that will let everyone
> feel good about 'getting even.'
Again, you are way off base. We aren't "getting even". Rather, we are stopping
the threat of further violence by eliminating the criminals and the camps. There
is no hatred or revenge, or all the other crap you claim. This is about stopping
terrorism, and making our cities safe again, as well as those in England,
France, Germany, Italy, and everywhere else in the free world.
> And although the Economist article had a bit of slant
> (and no where nearly as much as you), I agree with its final assessment:
>
>> The widespread fear of more domestic attacks that underpins this
>> patriotism also points to the biggest weakness of the anti-war movement.
>> Even if things go badly for Mr Bush, the pacifists' lack of any plausible
>> answer to the challenge of terrorism will surely limit their effectiveness.
>> With Vietnam, the left could argue that, if America withdrew, the war would
>> be over. That is not true this time. The terrorists are likely to strike
>> again regardless of whether America retaliates or not. Terrorism has
>> escalated from the mid-1980s onwards, despite the fact that America's
>> response has either been feeble, non-existent or symbolic. The true
>> comparison is not with 1969, but with 1939.
>
> Regards,
> --S.o.B.
Since that is my main point as well, and you agree with it, fine with me.
--DT
Scion of Buddha
> Pacifism is one thing. This anti-US lefist pacifism is quite another.
> See what my left-wing liberal hero Christopher Hitchens has to say about it.
> Hitchens is the only liberal I know of who is in touch with reality.
You must not know many liberals. Hitchens is where most folks I know are. And just b/c Zinn & Chomsky don't know when to shut up & stop believing their own grand rhetoric, doesn't mean that the moral imperative of the pacifists isn't any less true. Zinn & Chomsky represent a *vocal* element of the pacifist anti-war left, but they don't represent all pacifists.
A Pacifist element is an important moderating element *needed* by *all* cultures. Just as the hawks, always shouting war and suspicion, are sometimes wrong and sometimes right, so are the pacifists. Neither are traitors for having different opinions (just like Ralph Nader isn't a traitor, as he was accused by mainline Liberals, for splitting tickets with Gore in an unusally close race).
From what I've seen, the best way to describe the Chomskyite crowd is "Old-guard socialist." But at first flush it seems they can't adapt their thinking. I've agreed with Chomsky on a few things, but seen him soft-pedal so many others or have such distorted arguments that I've had to wonder at times if he really doesn't still have ties back to the "Company" as some on the alt.conspiracy left *and* right have suggested. No shit.
Heaping generalizations reveal little about the scapegoat and plenty about the rhetorician.
--S.o.B.
Scion of Buddha
> > We aren't talking about a nice little war that will let everyone
> > feel good about 'getting even.'
>
> Again, you are way off base. We aren't "getting even". Rather, we are stopping
> the threat of further violence by eliminating the criminals and the camps. There
> is no hatred or revenge, or all the other crap you claim.
I never claimed "hatred or revenge" ... you are generalizing (as you always seem wont to do). All I said was... Oh, never mind, why waste words with you?
Jesus Christo DharmaTroll, I can't imagine you believe so much of everything you write with such wreckless abandon!
> This is about stopping
> terrorism, and making our cities safe again, as well as those in England,
> France, Germany, Italy, and everywhere else in the free world.
What, pervenshun? I thought we wuz gonna go nuke some AyeRabs!
> Since that is my main point as well, and you agree with it, fine with me.
No, that was not your main point, even if it is a point you endorse.
No, DharmaTroll, your main point is that anyone who disagrees with you is worthy of derision and contempt. Re-read your posts, that's your main point.
Apparently you, like SoM, find it more important to indulge in your ego & go out of your way to alienate your nominal allies by brandishing rhetoric than to engage in a calm a reasoned discussion.
Way to go, dude! That's the way to foster unity and understanding in difficult times! Good work!
<thud>
--S.o.B.
DharmaTroll
A Washingtonian Looks At His City
A Letter From America
By Christopher Hitchens
NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
Oct. 8 issue — Perhaps it’s just me, a Brit living in America. But Washington
had a distinctly orphaned feeling as September drew to its unhappy close. The
nation’s heart bled for those burned and buried in New York, and for the
all-American heroes dead in Pennsylvania—but not (or certainly not to the same
degree) for the Federal City and the loss of one of the Pentagon’s five facets.
My friends in New York received shoals of anxious e-mail to see how they were.
Those in Washington did not.
WHY? Certainly, the Twin Towers aflame and tumbling, and the last stand in the
skies over Pittsburgh, are inherently dramatic, even inspirational. Pity and
terror, it seems, are not so readily summoned by the image of civil servants
being dug out of bureaucratic wreckage. Yet think about it. If the passengers
over Pennsylvania had not resisted so gallantly, we might be looking at the hole
where the White House used to be, or at the stump of the Washington Monument, or
the shattered dome of the Capitol. Perhaps that would have cut nearer to the
quick.
We Washingtonians have always known our city is not loved. Even the President,
on that ghastly week, had been engaged in a provincial tour designed to
emphasize his suspicions of the place. Since so many “locals” are in fact from
somewhere else or in transit elsewhere, there’s even a certain reluctance to
identify with the city’s home football team, the Redskins. Still, as I walk the
streets I can’t shake the feeling, “What if?” What if that fourth plane had come
scything in? A near miss on the targets I just mentioned, or a comprehensive
on-the-ground conflagration, could have destroyed the Supreme Court, or the
Folger Shakespeare Library with its irreplaceable folios. Or the Library of
Congress, or the Nagasaki cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, or the memorial
to Mr. Jefferson. How would I be feeling now? I cannot begin to answer the
question.
But I’ve found a clue in the way Washingtonians have rallied to a different
symbol, not destroyed but nonetheless compromised. For the past several weeks we
have resided in what I call “the only other capital in the world that does not
have its own airport.” (“Other” because Nicosia’s airport has been closed ever
since it was placed in no man’s land by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.)
Our old National Airport was a wondrous thing; in its dinky pre-2000 incarnation
it looked rather like a railway station and was almost as easy to reach. The
updated glossy version, named for Ronald Reagan, is the proud and airy “hub” for
US Airways—even more convenient than the old, and a splendid shopping mall to
boot.
Now the national government is debating whether to close it, permanently, and
Washingtonians are springing to its defense. A huge meeting was recently held at
which our voteless congressional delegate, Ms. Eleanor Holmes Norton, and the
civic leaders of the adjoining states all spoke up. To close the airport would
be to “ground freedom.” It would be to surrender to terrorism and nihilism. It
would impede the flow of lobbyists and lawyers up and down the Northeastern
corridor. (Actually, I made that bit up.) But there were some banal economic
points to register as well: the airport is a major employer and an important
engine of the local economy. And while this was going on, and I was applauding
the protest, I couldn’t help thinking: what if the terrorists had hit the
magnificent overarching roof of Union Station? In the aftermath, Amtrak provides
the venue for random journalistic meetings, for our formerly airplane-based,
on-the-move conferences. Without it, Washington would be all but closed to the
world. But even with it, you cannot escape the question: will the capital city
become even more isolated from the nation? Talk of Potomac Fever.
The moral philosopher Michael Walzer once wrote, in his book “The Company of
Critics,” that he didn’t know anyone who had ever actually made a special trip
to Washington unless it was to protest. School trips and lobbying aside, this is
more or less true of every non-Washingtonian I know. I look up at the sky, or
out of my window at dusk, and I see a prospect quite clear of planes. If I hear
an aircraft, it is sure to be military, or a helicopter taking our chief
residents to a “more secure location.” This is something more than a crimp in my
travel plans. It’s more like a warning of a choked artery. I find myself echoing
cliches and agreeing with the conventional wisdom, something I am normally loath
to do. No, nothing will ever feel quite the same again. I teach in New York, and
I used to teach in Pittsburgh. I’ve paid my respects at Ground Zero on Chambers
Street, and I will in due course make a trip to the site in Pennsylvania, too.
But if I want to be sure that all is changed, I don’t need to turn on the
television—or leave home.
>>
DharmaTroll
by Christopher Hitchens
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4269059,00.html
Wednesday October 3, 2001
<< The search continues for the numinous or hieroglyphic significance of the
date September 11. Believers in propaganda by deed, like Gavrilo Princip and
Timothy McVeigh, usually choose to invest themselves with portentousness by
selecting an anniversary that will freight their murder with meaning. Often, it
is a date that only meant something to a very limited or arcane circle until its
true value was unveiled to a stunned world. Thus Princip chose the date of
Serbia's 14th century defeat in Kosovo and McVeigh chose the anniversary of
Janet Reno's bloodbath at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
I've also frequently heard it suggested that the timing of the recent attacks
was linked somehow to the signing of the Camp David agreement in September 1978.
I thought this sounded a plausible reason for the death-squads circling that
date in their diaries - until I discovered that the agreement was in fact signed
on September 17. Fanatics don't make mistakes like that.
I now think I can provide a more persuasive explanation, however. It was on
September 11 1683 that the conquering armies of Islam were met, held, and thrown
back at the gates of Vienna.
Now this, of course, is not a date that has only obscure or sectarian
significance. It can rightly, if tritely, be called a hinge-event in human
history. The Ottoman empire never recovered from the defeat; from then on it was
more likely that Christian or western powers would dominate the Muslim world
than the other way around. In our culture, the episode is often forgotten or
downplayed, except by Catholic propagandists like Hilaire Belloc and GK
Chesterton. But in the Islamic world, and especially among the extremists, it is
remembered as a humiliation in itself and a prelude to later ones. (The forces
of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza once published a statement saying that they could
not be satisfied until all of Spanish Andalusia had been restored to the
faithful as well.)
If my speculation is correct, then whoever wanted to destroy the hearts of New
York and Washington was animated by something more than a recent grievance over
the West Bank or the Iraqi sanctions.
Troubling times for the Washington hawks
It is noticeable that in today's Washington the recent and the local and the
immediate are the determinants of policy. Those who had a pre-existing
resentment against Saddam Hussein, for example, or against Syria and the
Hezbollah, are taking the chance to push their preferred bugbears.
At the defence department, a faction most identified with assistant secretary
Paul Wolfowitz has been pressing for an assault on Iraq and - while he is about
it - the forces of Hezbollah. For Colin Powell, whose own reputation as a man of
infinite moderation is extremely dear to him, the business of coalition-building
in the Arab world is of much greater importance. And, judging from the way
things are going, he must have the support of Dick Cheney in order to be
prevailing. I ran into one of the leading hawks at a television studio this
week; he wasn't even trying to look happy. "If you think it looks clueless and
confused from the outside," he said, "you should see it from the inside."
Of course, Powell was opposed even to moving some carriers into the Gulf on the
warning of an invasion of Kuwait (something his enemies never fail to bring up.)
And the idea of having Muslim allies is so crucial to the self-esteem of the
Bushies that they would rather handle the Pakistanis and Saudis with tongs than
run the risk of offending yesterday's (and probably today's) patrons of the
Taliban.
I had to confess my worries to another administration person the other night.
"So what you are telling me," I said, "is that the only ones apart from me who
worry about under-reaction are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Ariel Sharon
lobby?"
"That's about it," he replied, a touch too contentedly for my taste.
Security? It makes me nervous
I am keeping a list of things that don't make me feel any safer. Congressman
Gary Condit, whose public woes more or less came to an end on September 11, was,
at that point, in danger of losing his seat on the house intelligence committee.
He is now a key member of the new special house committee on counter-terrorism.
As they say, only in America . . .
Meanwhile, I was asked to produce a photo-identification when buying a ticket
for a train to New York. It seemed odd that they would want my picture when I
had gone to all the trouble of turning up in person, but once I had produced it
I was allowed to carry my unsearched bags straight on to the express.
And in the friendly skies, a friend, who flew business class, was given a
plastic knife and a steel fork with his in-flight food. The new rules only
specify no knives. Presumably the next generation of hijackers will employ
forks, or perhaps tridents, and be allowed to carry them on.
We're not all stupid
I am beginning to get irritated by the public-service announcements recorded by
various pop-culture icons which implore me not to go out and burn my
neighbourhood mosque or lynch my local Sudanese grocer.
Neither I, nor anyone I know, was planning any such thing, and the fact is that
most Americans understand perfectly well what not to do without being told.
The shameful attacks on random Sikhs and other ethnic-minority citizens were
very few, and took place (as such things normally do) far from the scene of the
crimes.
The public doesn't expect praise for refraining from pogroms, but nor does it
expect ceaseless injunctions to abstain from them.
It's now been three weeks since the United States took a terrific physical and
emotional blow; that means it's not a moment too soon to say that the general
response has been exemplary.
>>
DharmaTroll
passifist pontificating of Bhante Punnadhammo, George Cherry, and Lee Dillion.
Comments?
--DT
THE SPECTATOR: COVER STORY
The fascist sympathies of the soft left
by Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens says that intellectuals who seek to understand the new
enemy are no friends of peace, democracy or human life
<< What is known in American psycho-babble as ‘denial’ strikes in many insidious
forms. It can express itself as the simple refusal to admit that a painful event
has occurred. It may manifest itself as a cheery rationalisation of something
ghastly. Or it can involve a crude shifting of blame. It’s actually a more
useful term than it sometimes looks.
The reaction of much of the Left to the human and moral catastrophe at the World
Trade Center, and to the aggression that lies behind it, has partaken of all
three variants. For me, the best encapsulation came in an angry email I received
shortly after I denounced the rationalisers in a column published in New York.
It came from Sam Husseini, who runs a dove-ish Washington outfit innocuously
called the Institute for Public Accuracy. (I hope it goes without saying that I
am not picking on Mr Husseini because of his Arab-American origins: he speaks
here for many a brow-furrowed Wasp and conscience-stricken Jew.) The forces of
Osama bin Laden, he wrote, ‘could not get volunteers to stuff envelopes if
Israel had withdrawn from Jerusalem like it was supposed to — and the US stopped
the sanctions and the bombing on Iraq’.
That neatly synthesised all three facets of denial. ‘Envelope-stuffing’ reduces
the members of al-Qa’eda to the manageable status of everyday political
activists with a programme; the same image obstructs the recognition of the full
impact of the attack; the diplomatic measures that supposedly could have warded
off the atrocity become, by an obvious transference, the source of
responsibility for it. This is something more like self-hatred than appeasement.
The death-squads of New York and Washington have not favoured us with a
posthumous manifesto of their grievances, but we are nonetheless able to surmise
or deduce or induct a fair amount about the ideological or theological ‘root’ of
their act.
The central plan was to maximise civilian casualties in a very dense area of
downtown Manhattan. Whatever Mr Husseini may say about Israel, the plan was
designed and incubated long before the mutual masturbation of the Clinton–
Arafat–Barak ‘process’. The Talebanis have in any case not distinguished
themselves by an interest in the Palestinian plight. (It ought to go without
saying that the demand for Palestinian self-determination is, as before, a good
cause in its own right. Not now more than ever, but now as ever.) They have been
busier trying to bring their own societies under the reign of the most
inflexible and pitiless declension of Sheria law.
The ancillary plan was to hit the Department of Defense and (on the best
evidence we have available) either the Capitol Dome or the White House. The
Pentagon, for all its symbolism, is actually more the civil-service bit of the
American ‘war-machine’, and is set in a crowded Virginia neighbourhood. You
could certainly call it a military target if you were that way inclined, though
the bin Ladenists did not attempt anything against a guarded airbase or a
nuclear power-station in Pennsylvania (and even if they had, we would now
doubtless be reading that the glow from Three Mile Island was a revenge for
globalisation).
The Capitol is where the voters send their elected representatives — poor
things, to be sure, but our own. The White House is where the elected president
and his family and staff are to be found. It survived the attempt of British
imperialism to burn it down, and the attempt of the Confederacy to take
Washington DC, and this has hallowed even its most mediocre occupants. I might,
from where I am sitting, be a short walk from a gutted Capitol or a shattered
White House. I am quite certain that in such a case the rationalising
left-liberals would still be telling me that my chickens were coming home to
roost. Only those who chose to die fighting rather than allow such a profanity,
and such a further toll in lives, stood between us and the fourth death squad.
One iota of such innate fortitude is worth all the writings of Noam Chomsky, who
coldly compared the plan of 11 September to a stupid and cruel and cynical raid
by Bill Clinton on Khartoum in August 1998.
To mention this banana-republic degradation of the United States in the same
breath as a plan, deliberated for months, to inflict maximum horror upon the
innocent is to abandon every standard that makes intellectual and moral
discrimination possible. To put it at its very lowest, and most elementary, at
least the missiles launched by Clinton were not full of passengers.
So much for what the methods and targets tell us about the true anti-human and
anti-democratic motivation. What about the animating ideas? The teachings and
published proclamations of the Wahhabi-indoctrinated sectarians of the al-Qa’eda
cult have initiated us into the idea that the tolerant, the open-minded, the
apostate or the followers of different branches of The Faith are fit only for
slaughter and contempt. And that’s before Christians and Jews, let alone
atheists and secularists, have even been factored in. As before, the deed
announces and exposes its ‘root cause’. The grievances and animosity predate
even the Balfour Declaration, let alone the occupation of the West Bank. They
predate the creation of Iraq as a state. The gates of Vienna would have had to
fall to the Ottoman jihad before any balm could begin to be applied to these
psychic wounds.
And this is precisely, now, our problem. The Taleban and its surrogates are not
content to immiserate their own societies in beggary and serfdom. They are
condemned, and they deludedly believe that they are commanded, to spread the
contagion and to visit hell upon the unrighteous. The very first step that we
must take, therefore, is the acquisition of enough self-respect and
self-confidence to say that we have met an enemy and that he is not us, but
someone else. Someone with whom coexistence is, fortunately I think, not
possible. (I say ‘fortunately’ because I am also convinced that such coexistence
is not desirable.)
But straight away, we meet people who complain at once that this enemy is us,
really. Did we not aid the grisly Taleban to achieve and hold power? Yes, indeed
‘we’ did. But does this not double or triple our responsibility to remove it
from power? A sudden sheep-like silence, broken by a bleat. Would that not be
‘over-reaction’? All I want to say for now is that the under-reaction to the
Taleban by three successive US administrations is one of the resounding
disgraces of our time. There is good reason to think that a Taleban defeat would
fill the streets of Kabul with joy.
The sponsorship of the Taleban could be redeemed by the demolition of its regime
and the liberation of its victims. But I detect no stomach for any such project.
Better, then — more decent and reticent — not to affect such concern for ‘our’
past offences.
Ultimately, this is another but uniquely toxic version of an old story, whereby
former clients like Noriega and Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and the
Taleban cease to be our monsters and become monstrous in their own right. The
figure of 6,500 murders in New York is almost the exact equivalent of the total
uncovered in the death-pits of Srebrenica. (Even at Srebrenica, the demented
General Ratko Mladic agreed to release all the women, all the children, all the
old people and all the males above and below military age before ordering his
squads to fall to work.) On that occasion, US satellites flew serenely overhead
recording the scene, and Mr Milosevic earned himself an invitation to Dayton,
Ohio. But in the end, after appalling false starts and delays, it was found that
Mr Milosevic was too much. He wasn’t just too nasty. He was also too irrational
and dangerous. He didn’t even save himself by lyingly claiming, as he several
times did, that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Bosnia.
It must be said that by this, and by other lies and numberless other atrocities,
Mr Milosevic distinguished himself as an enemy of Islam. His national-socialist
regime took the line on the towel-heads that the Bush administration is accused
by fools and knaves — of taking. Yet when a stand was eventually mounted against
Milosevic, it was Noam Chomsky, among many others, who described the whole
business as a bullying persecution of — the Serbs!
Lee Dillion
>
> I will let my guest troll, HH Christopher Hitchens, explain the problem with the
> passifist pontificating of Bhante Punnadhammo, George Cherry, and Lee Dillion.
> Comments?
I would simply note that the article has nothing to do with my
position. The essay is structured around the observation that the
American psycho-babble manifests itself in three forms: "It can express
itself as the simple refusal to admit that a painful event has occurred.
It may manifest itself as a cheery rationalisation of something ghastly.
Or it can involve a crude shifting of blame."
I have not asserted any of these positions, so the rhetorical force of
the essay is spent before its last period. The curious thing is why you
think the article has any relevance to what we have been discussing.
--
Lee Dillion
DharmaTroll
>
>DharmaTroll wrote:
>
>> Pacifism is one thing. This anti-US lefist pacifism is quite another.
>> See what my left-wing liberal hero Christopher Hitchens has to say about it.
>> Hitchens is the only liberal I know of who is in touch with reality.
> You must not know many liberals. Hitchens is where most folks I know are.
I'm talkin' about that bonehead Bhante on our list who doesn't want us to
respond to the terrorism and go in there and clean up Afghanistan.
> I've agreed with Chomsky on a few things, but seen him soft-pedal
> so many others or have such distorted arguments
Sounds just like our Bhante, except Chomsky uses bigger words.
Btw, below I have yet *another* quote from Washington's coolest liberal.
--DT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4264493,00.html
Christopher Hitchens writes:
<< Every liberal twit talks about the danger of "over-reaction" to the Taliban,
when the actual danger is, and has for some time been, one of under-reaction.
There's also non-reaction, or non-sequitur reaction.
The Federal Aviation Authority, which has been wrongly reported as having
forbidden Salman Rushdie to fly to or from the United States, has been even more
pseudo-vigilant than that. It has, for now, asked American domestic airlines not
to take him as a passenger. This capitulation actually occurred one week before
the WTC atrocity, in the name of the enhanced security measures that now apply
to everybody. But it hasn't been rescinded now that these measures supposedly do
apply. Most European airlines have been flying Rushdie to and fro for years, and
the Iranians (who rightly resent the filthy persecution of the Shia Muslims in
Afghanistan) are for the moment our allies against Islamist fascism.
So let's see if I have this right: an author with a long record of opposing
violence and fundamentalism is denied the right to travel freely, while two men
who were on international "watch lists" were able to buy tickets in their own
names. Feel safer now?
Get ready for more such stupidity: the brave American civilians who fought off
the hijackers over Pennsylvania would now not be allowed the in-flight cutlery
or the cellphones that permitted them to mount a desperate resistance and to
inform their families and friends that they weren't going gentle. Had it been
otherwise, I would be looking out at a gutted Capitol or charred White House,
and reading Pinter or Pilger on how my neighbourhood had been asking for it.
>>
DharmaTroll
> Jesus Christo DharmaTroll, I can't imagine you believe so much
> of everything you write with such wreckless abandon!
I don't 'believe' anything I write. I repeat arguments that I read and which I
find interesting. That doesn't mean that I believe them or don't believe them.
>> This is about stopping terrorism, and making our cities safe again,
>> as well as those in England, France, Germany, Italy, and everywhere
>> else in the free world.
> What, pervenshun? I thought we wuz gonna go nuke some AyeRabs!
And that is why you are a knave, a rogue, and a fool.
We are doing the right thing, and you are whining. Get your act together.
>> Since that is my main point as well, and you agree with it, fine with me.
>
> No, that was not your main point, even if it is a point you endorse.
It was my main point of that post, you ninny!
> No, DharmaTroll, your main point is that anyone who disagrees with you
Oh stuff it. Present a good argument and I will applaud you.
--DT
DharmaTroll
>
><DT>
> But all too often, the pacifists leap to another argument
> "that the tragedy of September 11th was the inevitable result
> of America's arrogant and imperialist foreign policy.
> what it has sown."
></DT>
> Yeah, yeah, we know it's really the inevitable result of our
> enviable economy, our freedom, and our democracy. It has nothing
> to do with our imperialism and arrogance.
>
> George W.
There you are again, blaming us for the acts of these savages. George, your
left-wing liberal masochism is of no use to us at a time like this. As HH
Christopher Hitchens points out, "The people who destroyed the World Trade
Center, and used civilians as accessories, are not fighting to free Gaza. They
are fighting for the right to throw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Kabul
and Karachi. They didn't just destroy the temple of modernity, they used heavy
artillery to shatter ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan earlier this year."
--DT
Christopher Hitchens wrote:
<< One needs to be unambivalent here. I have written-more criticisms of American
foreign policy than most people. I have no time for the way in which the Sharons
and Pinochets of the world profit from their Washington connection. (It was only
four months ago - and please feel free to pass this on - that the Bush
administration handed the Taliban a $43 million subsidy for its kind and
fundamentalist help in the war on drugs.)
When Clinton rocketed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, to give himself a
bounce in the opinion polls, I wrote in this newspaper that it was a war crime,
and I found the applause as sickening as last week's footage of destitute
refugees making a fiesta out of the news from New York.
But the mass murder of last Tuesday is in no sense a reprisal or a revenge for
past crimes such as that. The people who destroyed the World Trade Center, and
used civilians as accessories, are not fighting to free Gaza. They are fighting
for the right to throw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Kabul and Karachi.
They didn't just destroy the temple of modernity, they used heavy artillery to
shatter ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan earlier this year, and in Egypt have
plotted to demolish the Pyramids and the Sphinx because they are un-Islamic and
profane.
Look at what they do to their own societies, from Algeria to Afghanistan, and
then wonder what they might have in mind for ours.
Liberal masochism is of no use to us at a time like this, and Muslim self-pity
even less so. Self-preservation and self-respect make it necessary to recognise
and name a lethal enemy when one sees one. >>
Pete Watters
> I will let my guest troll, HH Christopher Hitchens, explain the problem with
> the
> passifist pontificating of Bhante Punnadhammo, George Cherry, and Lee
> Dillion.
> Comments?
Yeah. Why do you persist in cross-posting long articles that the otherwise
interested could find by looking at the usual media sites? Are you a
frustrated newspaper delivery boy?
Pete
--
"Oh stuff it. Present a good argument and I will applaud you."
-- a cross-posting DharmaTroll
Wanna read the absfg FAQ?
http://members.home.net/watters/faq.html
DharmaTroll
>
> DharmaTroll wrote:
>
>> I will let my guest troll, HH Christopher Hitchens, explain the problem
>> with the passifist pontificating of Bhante Punnadhammo, George Cherry,
>> and Lee Dillion. Comments?
>
> I would simply note that the article has nothing to do with my
> position. The essay is structured around the observation that the
> American psycho-babble manifests itself in three forms: "It can express
> itself as the simple refusal to admit that a painful event has occurred.
> It may manifest itself as a cheery rationalisation of something ghastly.
> Or it can involve a crude shifting of blame."
>
> I have not asserted any of these positions,
Glad to hear it, Lee.
> The curious thing is why you think the article has any relevance to
> what we have been discussing.
>
> --
> Lee Dillion
Well, because you quoted the wrong paragraph. Here is the relevant one:
<< But straight away, we meet people who complain at once that this enemy is us,
really. Did we not aid the grisly Taleban to achieve and hold power? Yes, indeed
‘we’ did. But does this not double or triple our responsibility to remove it
from power? A sudden sheep-like silence, broken by a bleat. Would that not be
‘over-reaction’? All I want to say for now is that the under-reaction to the
Taleban by three successive US administrations is one of the resounding
disgraces of our time. There is good reason to think that a Taleban defeat would
fill the streets of Kabul with joy. The sponsorship of the Taleban could be
redeemed by the demolition of its regime and the liberation of its victims. But
I detect no stomach for any such project. >>
--DT
Klaus Schmetterling
message news: dM9v7.16707$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
> I have no hesitation in describing this mentality,
carefully and without heat,
> as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political
coalition is possible with
> such people and, I'm thankful to say, no political
coalition with them is now
> necessary. It no longer matters what they think.
One can be hard on crime and hard on fascism or soft on
crime and soft on fascism, if one doesn't do anything about
or prevent the causes that draw people to
fascism/fundamentalism, one isn't dealing with the issue
properly. One can put fires out when they arise, but it is
better to have a good fire prevention programm and to
undertake action as soon as something gets heated. This will
cost money as well, but perhaps less human lives.
dharmatroll
>
>"DharmaTroll" <nos...@newsranger.com> a écrit dans le
>message news: dM9v7.16707$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
>
>> I have no hesitation in describing this mentality,
>> carefully and without heat, as soft on crime and
>> soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible
>> with such people and, I'm thankful to say, no
>> political coalition with them is now necessary.
>> It no longer matters what they think.
> One can be hard on crime and hard on fascism or soft on
> crime and soft on fascism, if one doesn't do anything about
> or prevent the causes that draw people to fascism/fundamentalism,
> one isn't dealing with the issue properly.
That's why we need to eliminate those who draw people to such fascism and train
them to hate and kill and die for some fantasy in an afterlife.
That's why we have to hit them and hit them hard, and let any country which
harbours them know that they will pay dearly for it.
"At the Haqquania madrassa, a student who says he has just attended one of bin
Laden's training camps, pulls out a training manual called the encyclopedia,
which U.S. officials say is used in the camps in Afghanistan." Quote, "'Now
listen, American, and listen well,'says Hussein Zaeef, 21. He reads from page 12
of the manual. 'Bomb their embassies and vital economic centers. That's what I
will do to you and your country. I'll get your children. I will get their
playgrounds. I will get their schools, too. I will get all of you.' Tempers then
flare. Several students begin yelling at once, pointing their fingers and
gesturing wildly. One yells out the name of Mohammed Atta, an alleged bin Laden
associate believed to have hijacked one of the two jets that crashed into the
World Trade Center. Another says he will kill more than Atta. A third student
then unfolds a picture of the Sears tower in Chicago. 'This one is mine,' he
says."
Got it? We must strike them hard with Operation Taliwhack, and we must wipe out
camps that breed hatred in children and glorify suicide murders.
Let's stop the cause before this happens again. Remember, Joey, dead terrorists
can't hurt anybody. Got it?
--DT
Klaus Schmetterling
message news: Bzev7.16909$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
> > One can be hard on crime and hard on fascism or soft on
> > crime and soft on fascism, if one doesn't do anything
about
> > or prevent the causes that draw people to
fascism/fundamentalism,
> > one isn't dealing with the issue properly.
> That's why we need to eliminate those who draw people to
such fascism and train
> them to hate and kill and die for some fantasy in an
afterlife.
That is to put out the fire.
> That's why we have to hit them and hit them hard, and let
any country which
> harbours them know that they will pay dearly for it.
That is to put out a fire while spreading potential future
seats of fire all over the place.
And where do those camps recruit those children? How come
those children can be recruited? Where does all the hatred
come from?
> Let's stop the cause before this happens again. Remember,
Joey, dead terrorists
> can't hurt anybody. Got it?
No, but new candidate-terrorists will arise and they can
hurt us. If no candidate-terrorists arise, only then will
we have destroyed the cause.
dharmatroll
>> Let's stop the cause before this happens again.
>> Remember, Joey, dead terrorists can't hurt anybody. Got it?
> No, but new candidate-terrorists will arise and they can
> hurt us. If no candidate-terrorists arise, only then will
> we have destroyed the cause.
Yeah, but that's a lot of nukes, you know.
I'd like a less harsh solution. Such as:
http://www.ucomics.com/laloalcaraz/viewla.htm
--DT
Evelyn Ruut
"Dirk Bruere" <art...@kbnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:zW5v7.6892$jE3.8...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
Dirk,
Bruno is just attacking any post I put up. He doesn't give a hoot about his
"Islamic Brothers" it is just an exuse to attack. He has become like Tang
and Geir.
Evelyn
Klaus Schmetterling
Exactly, but I don't want to buy an American flag as offered
on the splashscreen when accessing this site. I may be
interested if they sell flags standing for human rights and
civilisation.
Evelyn Ruut
"dharmatroll" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:9cfv7.16921$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
DT, I have a better one. This is a solution to what should be done when we
catch Bin Laden;
As for what to do with Osama bin Laden:
Killing him would only create a martyr.
Holding him prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages
and demand his release.
Therefore it is suggest we do the following:
Let the Special Forces, Seals, or whatever, covertly capture him,
fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform
a complete sex change operation. Then we return her to Afghanistan
to live as a woman under the Taliban.
Scion of Buddha
> Oh stuff it.
:-)
> Present a good argument and I will applaud you.
Right. Ignore the salient points, stereotype and straw-man the opponent, gloss over the problems & resort to name calling. With applause like that who needs jeers?
DhamnaTroll, you have this unwavering tendency to latch onto the most controversial aspect of an argument, amplify it by an order of magnitude, erect an imaginery opposition, and engage in the most base and unoriginal of style of debate.
Putting it simply: You like to pick fights.
--S.o.B.
Scion of Buddha
> Let the Special Forces, Seals, or whatever, covertly capture him,
> fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform
> a complete sex change operation. Then we return her to Afghanistan
> to live as a woman under the Taliban.
Brilliant. Totally brilliant.
Lee Dillion
I have never asserted the position that Hitchens is criticizing. So I
will state again that the curious thing is why you think the article has
Scion of Buddha
al-Qaeda seeks to restore the 12th century pan-African system of Caliphs and Emirates. It's obvious the show doesn't stop in Afghanistan, but how far will this go?
There is a clear and strong undercurrent in the Muslim world that reflect the same religiosity as the Catholic-vs-Protestant passions of 16th century Europe, replete with atavisms justified by the militant texts of the early Koran. I'm not singling out Islam, in 16th century Europe the Catholic Guises in France & Elizabeth's Protestant luitenants in Scotland had no qualms about slaughtering entire cities (men, women & children). The biblical righteous justification for these attrocities cited the wanton slaughter and killing in the old testament.
But this is why this problem *will not* go away, because ambitious strongmen are going to exploit that reactionary and militant undercurrent of Islam to attain power.
--S.o.B.
Scion of Buddha
> The curious thing is why you
> think the article has any relevance to what we have been discussing.
Becuz this DhamnedTroll is looking to pick a fight & get attention.
--S.o.B.
Scion of Buddha
> >First of all "reaping what you have sown" is different from "you deserved it."
> The "reaping what
> you have sown" is anti-American hatred that S.o.B.'s like yourself use to use
> this act of terror as a way to propagate your anti-US crap.
It is? I am? How novel! You are evidently constipated upon the semantics of a phrase.
How is "Reaping what you have sown" different from "the victims deserved it?"
How is "Reaping what you have sown" different from "Blow back"?
Please take a deep breath and answer the question without resorting to insults.
--S.o.B.
Scion of Buddha
Lee Dillion wrote:
> I have never asserted the position that Hitchens is criticizing. So I
> will state again that the curious thing is why you think the article has
> any relevance to what we have been discussing.
What you don't like getting stuffed as DhamnaTroll's strawman?
Geez, that guy is *SO* full of hisself.
--S.o.B.
<unlike me, who is full of something else... but at least I KNOW IT!! >
jelich
Scion of Buddha wrote:
Right On, Sister!
Jonathan Jennings
> DharmaTroll wrote:
> > The "reaping what
> > you have sown" is anti-American hatred that S.o.B.'s like yourself use
to use
> > this act of terror as a way to propagate your anti-US crap.
Dharmatroll (via S.o.B's post) - "reaping what you have sown" comes form
Jesus of 'Nazareth' who also told someone to give all he had to the poor and
in various ways outlined an opposition between money (Mammon) and God and
between earthly power and God. This theme runs right through the Bible from
Egypt and Babylon being the representatives of wealth, power, tyranny and
enslavement to Rome (the 'Babylon' of the time of the Book of Revelation).
Looking round the world now for the modern equivalent - you would have to
choose America -
<<...the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her [dictators
too many to list] and the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the
abundance of her delicacies [centre of world trade and markets] ...How much
she hath glorified herself [!!] and lived deliciously [massive consumerism
to the extent of being in debt to the rest of the word to finance it] ...And
the kings of the earth...shall lament for her, when they shall see the smoke
of her burning...thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy
sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of the
prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.>>
I don't know why you think people need some excuse to vent their
anti-American sentiments. I mean God didn't when he wrote the Bible and
they're only saying the same as Him. Maybe you should take it up with him
directly if you're so anti-God and think he is wrong to hate America instead
of just taking it out on all of his servants.
Jonathan
Schlomo Corleone
><<...the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her [dictators
>too many to list] and the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the
>abundance of her delicacies [centre of world trade and markets] ...How much
>she hath glorified herself [!!] and lived deliciously [massive consumerism
>to the extent of being in debt to the rest of the word to finance it] ...And
>the kings of the earth...shall lament for her, when they shall see the smoke
>of her burning...thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy
>sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of the
>prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.>>
Wow, God beats Nostradamus with several lengths and makes Spengler a mere
plagiarist.
The above has been true for so many emperiums that considering it a prediction
would be obsolete. Then it can only be a universal law, right?
Schlomo Corleone
>>> Yeah, but that's a lot of nukes, you know.
>>> I'd like a less harsh solution. Such as:
>>> http://www.ucomics.com/laloalcaraz/viewla.htm
>>Exactly, but I don't want to buy an American flag as offered
>>on the splashscreen when accessing this site. I may be
>>interested if they sell flags standing for human rights and
>>civilisation.
>You realize those arnt Universal Values but Western values
>we've imposed on the planet as being Universal, which is
>what has gotten us into this mess.
I know, but I can stand behind most of these values.
>The French flag is red white and blue
>so i think here you can wave it too.
As far as flag waving and flag saluting is concerned, we have a lot to learn
from you lot. Anyway I am lost for nationalities and patrotisms, but my values
are Western, yes.
Schlomo Corleone
>>And where do those camps recruit those children? How come
>>those children can be recruited? Where does all the hatred
>>come from?
>Its manufactured,,,,
..or grown.
>If you take Chomsky's systems analysis and pull his nose out
>of his navel, true we dont like to look at ourselves, but he
>seems incapable of looking anywhere else, and turn his
>attention to Afghanistan that becomes readily apparent.
>Critters that live in gardens of eden, gardens of satisfied
>desire, tend to evolve into happy pets, but turn the garden
>into an arid desert of want, and you end up with scorpions,
>cactus and poisonous snakes.
Nothing wrong with those. You are looking at them with Western eyes. Afghanis
give scorpions to their babies for cuddly toys and they offer bouquets of
cactusses to their lovers at St Valentines day (or their equivalent).
>Afghanistan is Pakistans empty lot next door hothouse for
>breeding their hidden army of killers to use against their
>neighbour India in their continual holy war with the Hindus
>over the resources of Kashmir.
>With both nations being nuclear they took a page out of the
>cold war diaries to use proxies to do their dirty work for
>them. India attempted the using Sihk extremists.
>The taliban takes away everyhting from the people and make
>it impossible from them to blame you and then give them
>targets to direct their rage and rewards for doing so and
>you get a pool of trained assassins that can be turned in
>any direction you want.
>
>Beat a dog, you get a mean dog, unfortunately for Pakistan
>the dog trainers had plans of their own and got too good at
>harassing the eternal enemy the West, so much the better
>but like India the dog also bit the hand that feeds it.
All very likely.
>>No, but new candidate-terrorists will arise and they can
>>hurt us. If no candidate-terrorists arise, only then will
>>we have destroyed the cause.
>Perhaps our problem is our denial to see this in terms of
>what it is, since we go to such great pains to avoid
>admitting this is The Jihad vs. The Crusaders,,,
>round what?
No, I don't think so. Not seen from this end of the world. Until now we have had
a different relationship with Arab nations and where I live Christians, Jews and
Arabs live quite peacefully together, Marseille is a terrarium of all
Mediterranian cultures.
>Bin Ladin already has the propaganda posters ready for his
>martyrdom should that happen, eventually it will, to be an
>even greater rallying call as Saint Osma.
>I dont think it matters what we do,what proof we have, how
>rational and kind we are, we're dancing to his tune and
>will unite the radical Moslems and popular Moslem culture
>against us.
It depends on how intelligently *we* will deal with it.
>The architect of Pan-Arab politics with Pakistan taking the
>lead waits in the wings in Pakistan waiting to seize power
>and form a Moslem equivalent to Nato/Eu. Forget his name,
>he ran in the last Pakistani elections and came in about
>third.
Why not, sounds like a good idea.
>China will of course sit it out as its two enemies hack at
>each other and picks off what gains it can. They'll come in
>on the side of the Moslems if we ever get shaky since the
>gains they want have to come from us.
It sounds you are talking about the US: the Republicans, the Democrats and the
Green party/radical anti-US lefties lurking in the background.
>So all in all after the short Cold War bump we are returning
>to the planets traditional historical power and cultural
>blocks of the West, The Moslems and the Chinese.
Nothing wrong with that if the UNO gets a bigger role.
>Between God is on our side, Allah be praised , and
>the Celestial Kingdom there's no rationality or virtue to be
>found among the three of them, since it matters not what you
>believe but who you are in this one.
>So I'm pro west simply because im from there
>its as simply here as that.
Yes, in local elections I vote for the party that will not build a bypass in my
backgarden, regardless of their confession.
>I think it simply shocks our modern secular little minds
>that in spite of our alleged rational enlightenment that we
>find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century right
>back in the same Religious Wars that have plagued all
>human history.
In which religions obviously play a role in terms of deciding in which camp you
play, but I don't think that the adhesion to these religions is as strong as in
the good old days of the Crusades, or am I too naive?
>"God bless us, each and everyone one"
Depends on what God means by "to bless".
Scion of Buddha
> Wow, God beats Nostradamus with several lengths and makes Spengler a mere
> plagiarist.
>
> The above has been true for so many emperiums that considering it a prediction
> would be obsolete. Then it can only be a universal law, right?
Bwaahaahaahaah!
--S.o.B.
news.tvd.be
Evelyn Ruut a écrit dans le message ...
Again, Evelyn, by your anwers you continue the war between us. It is my
right to say I don't like extreme right wing ministers which are often
fascist or nazists.
True, I am a socialist-center belgium and I am for social progress and
integration of Arabs in Belgium.
What is wrong against that ? Berlusconi is known in all Europa to be near
the extreme right fascists partys.
This everybody knows.
You see, I disagree with you and you are offended. Stay quiet. Try to react
quietly or you will create a never
ending conflict as with Tang or others.
I hate people who celebrate one race about another. This is a fact. I hate
rascism.
I hate people like Berlusconi, Sharon, Netanyahu, Bush, I prefer S.Perez,
Clinton, Rabbin, Romani Prodi
What is wrong about that ?
Bruno
>
>
dharmatroll
That's the best one you've come up with in a while, Evelyn.
Also check out this solution:
http://www.ucomics.com/laloalcaraz/viewla.htm
--DT
dharmatroll
>
>DharmaTroll wrote:
>> Present a good argument and I will applaud you.
>
> Right. Ignore the salient points, stereotype and straw-man the
No, I said present a good argument, not your other crap.
> DhamnaTroll, you have this unwavering tendency to
come up with facts and dispell unsupported accusations? Yes.
So, no good arguments, eh, you S.o.B?
--DT
Jonathan Jennings
Well it's interesting that you should say that Schlomo. I mean, it wouldn't
be too much of a stretch to translate 'Dhamma' as 'Universal Law' so we
might also usefully consult the Buddha on the subject of Almighty God hating
America and at Dhammapada 84 we find that "He who for himself or others
craves not sons or *power or wealth*, who puts not his own success before
the success of righteousness, he is virtuous, and righteous, and wise". The
implication being that one who craves wealth and power and places his own
success before that of righteousness is 'unvirtuous', 'unrighteous' and
'unwise' or 'the fool' of the previous section of the Dhammapada.
That section (60-75) summarises various actions e.g. "...'These are my sons.
This is my wealth' In this way the fool troubles himself. He is not even the
owner of himself: How much less of his sons and of his wealth !....he will
wish for reputation...for veneration among the people...'Let the householder
and the hermits, both, think it was I who did that work; and let them ever
ask me what they should do or not do' These are the thoughts of the fool
puffed up with desire and pride. But one is the path of earthly wealth, and
another is the path to Nibbana".
This behaviour also entails 'consequences' - "wrong deeds which in the end
bear bitter fruit. For that deed is not well done when being done one has to
repent; and when one one must *reap* with tears the *bitter fruits* of the
wrong deed...The wrong action seems sweet to the fool until the reaction
comes and brings pain, and the bitter fruits of wrong deeds have then to be
eaten by the fool".
This 'reaping' only deals with the individual but e.g. D.N.16 has an odd
passage thus -
> > http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/digha/dn16.html
> > For I beheld, Ananda, with the heavenly eye, pure
> > and transcending the faculty of men, a large number of deities, counted
in
> > thousands, that have taken possession of sites in Pataligama. In the
> regions
> > where deities of great power prevail, officials of great power are bent
on
> > constructing edifices; and where deities of medium and lesser power
> prevail,
> > officials of medium and lesser power are bent on constructing edifices.
> > Truly, Ananda, as far as the Aryan race extends and trade routes spread,
> > this will be the foremost city Pataliputta, a trade centre. But
> Pataliputta,
> > Ananda, will be assailed by three perils - fire, water and dissension".
- where the implication is of an causal relationship between its 'officials
of great power bent on constructing edifices' in a 'foremost city' and
'trade centre' and the 'perils' it will be assailed by much the same as the
section of Revelation on 'Babylon' implies the same sort of 'causal
relationship' between the same sorts of elements. Now since, as every
Buddhist schoolboy knows, unlike Spengler and Nostradamus, the Buddha was
Omnipotent like God and could see the fate of individuals, and probably also
saw the fate of groups according to the 'Dhamma' or 'Universal Law'.
Although the Book of Revelation is 'credited' to Jesus via John and there
are prophecies 'attributed' to Jesus in Matt, Mk and Luke, the Gospel of
Thomas answers the same questions in a more 'Universal Law' kind of way -
e.g. 18. "The disciples said to Jesus, 'Tell us how our end will be'. Jesus
said, 'Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end ?
For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will
take his place in the beginning: he will know the end and will not
experience death'". and 51. "His disciples said to him, 'When will the
repose of the dead come about, and when will the new world come ?' He said
to them, 'What you look forward to has already come, but you do not
recognise it'".
So what I'm saying here Schlomo is that you're right and moreover, Cupcake
on t.r.b. gave us a very sage piece of advice a while back which could also
be taken as 'prophetic' but should probably be taken as 'Universal Law'
instead (as you wisely councilled here) - "Don't mess with God !".
Jonathan
dharmatroll
Dirk Bruere says...
DT:
>> At first Susan Sontag was almost alone in going public with
>> her view that the...
>
> One of the two most morally revolting women on the planet.
> The other one, IMHO, being Sandra Bernhardt.
Yup. I'd have to agree with you there.
DT:
>> The problems begin with the nature of the enemy.
>> Islamist fundamentalists don't object to the things
>> that campus leftists dislike about America. They
>> object to the things that they *like*, such as freedom
>> of speech, sexual equality and racial diversity.
>> Ho Chi Minh's communists had a sort of revolutionary chic.
>> The Taliban's penchant for throwing acid in the faces of
>> women who fail to wear veils and its lively debate as to
>> whether the proper way to deal with homosexuals is to hurl
>> them from tall buildings or bury them alive does not
>> endear it to Berkeley.
> I love to watch the 'intellectuals' squirm when subjected to
> such cognitive dissonance.
>
> FFF
> Dirk
They tend to respond by insulting you rather than dealing with it.
--DT
Scion of Buddha
> How are things arcoss the little lake in Libya and Morocco?
From what I hear, very bad for bikini-clad women in Algeria. They tend to loose their heads.
> For them yes its a great idea.
> But do we really want to have to deal with such as a great
> power? I think we're happier with divide and conquor.
The problem is that the ambitious opportunists who would seek pan-Arab unity would do it under the aegis of the most atavistic, militant and virulent form of Islam in order to rally together the Muslim diaspora.
And yes great powers prefer divide and conquer when faced with an unpredictable and rising power.
> Islam was hijacked by radicals first after the death of the
> prophet
Mohammed was the other side of the persecution coin. Jesus' approach was a pacifistic 'turn the other cheek' and went almost willingly to his death. Mohammed was no pushover, he lead an army against his persecutors and made them pay.
> so i think we're kidding ourselves to think its
> something recent and we can fix it.
The only thing that can fix this is time. Most people don't want to be messed with or mess with anyone else, but passions are inflamed by those seeking more power. How long it has taken the West to moderate itself?
--S.o.B.
Boris Fuller
"DharmaTroll" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:385v7.16455$ev2....@www.newsranger.com...
> In article <3BBCD847...@yahoo.com>, Scion of Buddha says...
> >
> >> "...As the cliché of the moment has it, America is now reaping what
> >> it has sown."
> >>
> >> Treason of the intellectuals?
> >
> > It's so pathetically lame to accuse pacifists of treason.
>
> Why is it "pathetically lame" to speak the truth?
it is also "pathetically lame" to claim your position is "truth" whilst
offering only fallacious polemic in support of it.
>
> Also, only pacifists who claim that the US 'deserved it' are treasonous.
um, I think you might find that the word "treason" is innapropriate in this
case since these people are only expressing their constitutionally protected
right of free speach and NOT attempting to take over Governmental power
outside of the democratic process.
Oh....wait a sec....doesn't that put Dubya in a bit of a dodgy position...?
When did the USA last try someone for treason?
Boris
Boris Fuller
> In article <3BBD1A53...@yahoo.com>, Scion of Buddha says...
>
> > Later the article says:
> >
> >> the pacifists leap to another argument—that the tragedy of
> >> September 11th was the inevitable result of America's arrogant
> >> and imperialist foreign policy. As the cliché of the moment has
> >> it, America is now reaping what it has sown.
> >
it."
>
people to
> terrorise and murder as many civilians as they can. Rather, we helped
unite the
> Muslim nations to repel the invading Soviets from Afghanistan.
erm, actually we used Afganistan as a buffer zone between the west and the
Soviet block during the cold war then left them to it when the walls came
down. Berlin wasn't the only consequential result of the ending of the cold
war, you know.
There are a lot of loyal American citizens who have been outwardly critical
of the USA's foreign policies for a long time DT. In a Democracy that is
allowed, isn't it...?
The "reaping what
> you have sown" is anti-American hatred that S.o.B.'s like yourself use to
use
> this act of terror as a way to propagate your anti-US crap.
is there something wrong with speaking the truth?
>
> > We aren't talking about a nice little war that will let everyone
> > feel good about 'getting even.'
>
> Again, you are way off base. We aren't "getting even". Rather, we are
stopping
> the threat of further violence by eliminating the criminals and the camps.
There
> is no hatred or revenge, or all the other crap you claim. This is about
stopping
> terrorism, and making our cities safe again, as well as those in England,
> France, Germany, Italy, and everywhere else in the free world.
Oh right! This includes Belfast and Jerusalem and a few other notable cities
too does it? So the USA is going to cease arms sales outside its own
national boundaries and stop financial support of its own pet "terrorist"
projects in favour of more peaceful and less paranoid and destructive
foreign policy initiatives...?
sounds good to me....if only....
It kills me the way that some (quite a lot it seems) Americans seem to think
that there is such a thing as a "free world" distinct from some supposedly
"unfree" one (which usually is the current flavour of paranoia - it used to
be Communism now it's Islam aswell) that needs to be protected and rescued
and manipulated by the USA in order to preserve some clear boundary between
the two. If the USA really were concerned to preserve 'freedom'
unreservedly, they would be doing everything in their power to protect the
right of all people to live in what ever way they wished, believing what
they wished. As it is, it seems that the word/concept of "freedom" under
your current administration has very limited and narrow boundaries which
seems to exclude a large proportion even of your own citizens.
Boris
Scion of Buddha
> They tend to respond by insulting you rather than dealing with it.
I haven't seen anyone in these fora resort to throwing insults at you yet, even though they might've had good cause to do so.
--S.o.B.