And only the rising force of Islam will prevail
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Sunday, May 3, 2026 22:41
VIEWED: 6566
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It's like you guys who are so fucking afraid of Islam you don't understand how religion works at all.
Organized Religion can only preach a message that people are receptive to. It's purpose is certainly control and power, and it can certainly help to inform a public's perception of reality, but to act like it is the sole driving force of the arab world is to be dismissive of historic examples of all religions, both in their most fundamentalist states and in their evolution towards something more progressive.
Make up whatever bullshit you want about how it's the religion that is the problem. If it weren't islam it would be something else, and the results would be fundamentally the same. Because inspite of whether or not many of the followers of these extreme beliefs know it or not, the driving force is economic in the end.
When you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to protect. All you have is some make believe Sugar Candy Mountain to look forward to in the after-life. At that point you are ripe for the picking for people with real world, personal and political(power brokering) agendas. Those people aren't crazy. Those people don't strap bombs to themselves. They make calculated risks towards specific gains. They preach or allow to be preached these extreme doctrines because it benefits them.
That doesn't mean some of them wouldn't rejoice loudly if the U.S. were to implode or be taken down from outside...but it does mean that they will only pursue such an agenda for as long as there is something in it for them. There has never been something in it for them in the commodity that it is today. We were hated in some circles and apprciated in others, but now we're hated in all of them.
What we have done is to make demonizing us an easy sell. We have never done what we should have when we could have, which was to do business with these nations on the condition that they adopt certain democratic principles. We have aided and abetted in succesful feudal systems where all the resources are held by the rulers who can then allow their clerics to demonize America for the people's woes instead of their own regimes.
My guess is we benefitted from that structure because bribing one person for oil was always better terms than negotiating with a nation - that such nations with one leader in our pockets were always more "loyal" to our wishes.
But back to religion. Come on! What's the difference between catholicism and Islam? Not a whole lot in our country. We don't have a disproportionate cross-section of American Mosques going on about the evil of the U.S. any more than we have crazy Catholic or Christian Churches preaching that tolerance has been vice in this country and that is why Katrina happened and that is why 9/11 happened.
But over there where the culture is different and the economics are different, go figure that the religion would reflect that as much as inform it. Duh.
I know black and white is the way you want to frame things. It's easier for you to understand...I'm sorry it isn't that way.
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Interesting, thanks for the image because that just revealed the truth of the matter.
Erm, y'all DO know that MEMRI has a long history of translations so distorted they border on outright fiction, and is run by people with a vested interest in playing sides, right ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/12/worlddispatch.brianwhitake
r
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Media_Research_Institute
http://www.irmep.org/research_notes/7_23_2003_Americas_Middle_East_Thi
nk_Tanks.html
I wouldn't believe anything translated through MEMRI until I had two neutral sources confirm every word of it, they have ZERO credibility outside of policy circles intent on pushing that agenda anyway.
So it might be interesting to compare an actual straight-meaning translation versus what MEMRI just tried to shovel, and I'll lay damn good odds they DON'T match.
Bets ?
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Quote:Exactly. You don’t assume wolves are not a threat simply because they are far away or you’re not the one they are attacking. Downplaying threats like this is exactly the kind of mindset that brought us 9/ll. If you ignore the wolf population long enough, sooner or later, one will find its way into your camp.
Originally posted by Kirkules:
The Islamists are clearly telling us what their goals are. It may be true that they are incapable of pulling off their plans currently, but if we ignore and downplay the threat like many here do, we will see more catastrophic attacks in the future. Those that are realistic about the threat are not the ones with the sheets pulled over their heads, it's those that pretend there is no threat. The chance of Islamists taking over the world is close to zero, but the chances of them eventually pulling off another large attack is nearly 100%, if we do nothing. So there are those with their heads in the sand telling us we're scared of our own shadows, and those that use scare tactics to try to get the others to pull their heads out. The only ones out there that actually believe that Islamist will take over the world is the Islamists themselves.
6ixstringjack really hit the nail on the head in my opinion. If the Islamists want a fight, they don't have any idea of what they'll be in for when we all pull together.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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I'm not ignoring anything Finn. I'm aware of the problem, but it doesn't justify imperialism or flushing billions of dollars we're borrowing from the FED a month down the shitter either.
I've got several months supply of food, I've got tools, I'm armed and I'm always looking for ways to better my position in the off chance that anything happens one day that screws with the infrastructure here so badly that these things we take for granted aren't so easily accessable.
Knowing this, and knowing that I don't work in any tall buildings or other likely targets for a terrorist attack, I feel relatively comfortable with the notion of them bringing it again. The truth is though, I don't think that will ever happen.
I've got a neighbor in my apartment, a black man living with a woman and children who are obviously of middle-eastern descent. He wears one of those Muslim hats on occasion and after he moved in there was 8 Querans in the general mail box, one of which I had picked up but haven't gotten around to reading at all yet. What am I to do in this situation Finn? Not that he or I go out of our way to visit each other, but we know each other by name and say hi whenever we see each other. He's even signed for packages from UPS sometimes for me because I work nights and I'm not always up to get them. I've lived in 4 apartments before and I've never seen anyone do that, let alone have I ever felt the desire to go out of my way signing for packages for somebody else.
I'll admit that with my general distrust of anyone who I don't share blood with, and even a lot of them folk too, the thought has crossed my mind on more than one occasion that he could very well be putting on an act to earn my trust and the trust of all around him; the thought that this kind of thing could be happening around the world. To not hold on to the thought of that possibility would be foolish, even if I hold it deep in the dark secret place in the back of my mind. I would just hope that if this really is happening that while he and millions of Muslims around the world are doing this, they're realizing that on an individual level that more often than not, we're really not that bad. I am not George Bush, he is not Osama Bin Laden. This is not my war, this is not his war.
My biggest problem with the events that have taken place since 2001 is the dethroneing and murdering of Saddam Hussein. I'm not arguing that he wasn't a good guy... I'm just saying that having a powerful secular person out there in the Middle East kinda made me feel a lot better then the extremist religious alternatives. We really screwed the pooch there dammit. If we pull out now after removing him from power, I'm sure Iraq will be run by a bunch of Allah worshiping lunatics. Nice job there BushCo. Thanks a bunch.
Hopefully we get MTV on all of their TV sets in the next decade and they'll be too busy sodomizing their imaginations to sexy girls in rap videos to make it to Terror 101.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
What we have done is to make demonizing us an easy sell. We have never done what we should have when we could have, which was to do business with these nations on the condition that they adopt certain democratic principles.
Yes because democratizing them has worked so well. You ever wonder why Iraq is such a clusterfuck now, when it was nice and quiet before? It's because we've given people there the freedom to act on their old hatreds.
Under Saddam, the warring sects wouldn't dare to bring their chaos to Iraq's streets, or their balls would get the electroshock treatment until they fell off. Was Saddam brutal? Yes. Amoral? By the standards of most Americans, yes. But was he effective at keeping order? Hell yes.
You see, Saddam understood Iraq in a way that most Americans seem to be incapable of. Iraq is patchwork of people, wildly diverse. Much like the U.S., really, except that the different groups that occupy the country are all out for each-other's blood. The Arabs think the Persians are mongrels, the Sunnis think the Shiites are blasphemers, and vice-versa, and the Kurds despise anyone who tries to alter their way of life, which is pretty much everyone else in the Middle East. If you give enough freedom to these groups, the best case scenario is they fight a brief civil war, and the country fragments, and maybe gets gobbled up by Iran. More likely, you'll get a full-on multi-sided civil war/extermination campaign.
Saddam understood that the only way to rule a united Iraq was with an iron fist, and he did quite successfully, at least until he made an enemy out of his former ally, the U.S.
You see, democracy only works in a culturally united society, or at least one where the various subgroups don't all want to slaughter each other. We shouldn't have propped up a democratic republic in Iraq. In doing so, we invited the extremists on all sides to take advantage of their newfound freedom. We should have set up a U.S. friendly, slightly less bloodthirsty (but still ruthless) version of Saddam. It's not like there's no historical precedent. The U.S. did it all the time during the Cold War to keep communist regimes out of power. And in most cases it worked.
----------------------------
"O' course, ya couldn't buy an invite with a diamond the size of a testicle, but luckily I got my hands on a couple." -Badger
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And. of course, since there's one guy saying it out loud on TV, it MUST be the main and only goal of everybody that shares that religion.
Would you accept such broad accuations against Christianity, based on what a nutsack like Donald Wildmon says in a TV interview? Would you accept it if Jerry Falwell said it ("America got what it deserved on 9/11"), or Reverend Hagee ("New Orleans had it coming")
One Muslim says it, and you're all running and ducking, completely ignoring that what you accuse him of, we have plenty enough of already, on the so-called "Christian" side...
Mike
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence[sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions
I can't help the sinking feeling that my country is now being run by people who read "1984" not as a cautionary tale, but rather as an instruction manual. - Michael Mock
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I wonder if the "Nation" of Islam hates us because of what Rush Limbaugh says or because of what Al Franken says? "A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Reaverman...
I slightly mistated so let me clear it up for you...
You're right...you take a desperate populace that has been given reasons to hate its neighbors and now you tell it its supposed to work with those people democratically, that plan is doomed to fail.
I typed that part fast so I didnt' choose my words carefully to fit my point. It's not the democracy we needed to force the regimes to impart, it was the equity...the improvement of the standard of living for the people. You create that, you create a populace that is far more stable, far more demanding of its own rights, far more capable of appreciating democracy and expecting something out of it.
We could look at the exploding wealth within the merchant class in England before the signing of the Magna Carta as an arguable example of what happens when you have a wealthier healthier populace with enough liesure time and mental nutrition to question the status quo. Granted, it was the barons that got pissed off but they enlisted the help of a populace with their own demands, some of which made it into the document.
Then you see, the common enemy of the people would be the regime. They would bond together enough to deal with that enemy. They would want stability, not fatwa, because they've seen the benefits of stability and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment first hand...they would all want to continue to perpetuate that...save a diminishing group of crazies that would eventually have to change their message of hate to something more palletable to a new world.
I know this is theorycrafting, but I think there are elements in history to support the kinds of outside influences that force change, because the populace begins to demand it once they get a real taste of it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Righteous9:
It's not the democracy we needed to force the regimes to impart, it was the equity...the improvement of the standard of living for the people. You create that, you create a populace that is far more stable, far more demanding of its own rights, far more capable of appreciating democracy and expecting something out of it.
Beauty of a post all around, that was Righteous9.
So now I wanna know why Haliburton is there making money hands over fist when we could be employing Iraqis to do anything they're doing and upping their quality of life in the mean time. Eventually, if these people were all starting to get decent jobs and some basic rights that come with true Democracy then their neighbors might become a little jealous of them and try to emulate what is happening there. If that was done right and people over there actually came to like us, we might even end up with a powerfull unified ally if a REAL threat like China or Russia ever decide they'd like to wipe us off the map.
Kinda reminds me of the story of Job. Of course these people are willing to die for Allah. A god, whatever name he/she/it goes by is always worshiped by people who have nothing and nothing to live for on this earth. The more decadent a people become the more secular they become. It is a direct correlation which could be plotted visually on a graph and proven time and time again in history. Even if you don't believe anything literally happened that is in the Bible, it definately does speak many truths of man.... strenghths, weaknesses, good and evil. It's all in there.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Quote:Well, this kind of proves my own point, I think. Basically what you’re telling me is that you’re prepared to weather an attack, but not interested in preventing it. I don’t think weathering the attack is the solution, that’s just the contingency plan if the solution does work.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm not ignoring anything Finn. I'm aware of the problem, but it doesn't justify imperialism or flushing billions of dollars we're borrowing from the FED a month down the shitter either.
I've got several months supply of food, I've got tools, I'm armed and I'm always looking for ways to better my position in the off chance that anything happens one day that screws with the infrastructure here so badly that these things we take for granted aren't so easily accessable.
Knowing this, and knowing that I don't work in any tall buildings or other likely targets for a terrorist attack, I feel relatively comfortable with the notion of them bringing it again. The truth is though, I don't think that will ever happen.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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