Sharing the Blame et al

Many thanks, Goodthief, for your kind advice, but my near 87 years experience of life, growing up in the outback, broken by nearly five years in the military in WW2, back to the bush building up a family, and the latter 25 years as a political scientist and an active philosopher, makes one though even less sure of himself, still with the sense of hope that looking for a compromise is far more sensible than letting hatred shape our future, which surely is happening with much too much of our world today.

As mostly former Germanic barbarians, us whites must admit we have made rapid progress in this world, and sometimes wonder whether our possibly jumped up elitism is going to hold out.

Here we are worried so much about China treating the Tibetans so harshly, yet it was not so long ago that we were peddling the same procedure, when I was going to school in the late 20s and early thirties, so proud to point out to other white kids and one or two black kids, how much of that spinning school globe was coloured in our proud British colonial pinky red.

Though under our suspicion through having to be shocked into entering WW2, we now find America on the same elitist colonial jag as the Brits but preaching the American Way as is happening so much in the northern ports of the Mediterranean, mostly all illegally grabbed by the Brits as booty after WW1.

Only hope the same thing doesn’t happen to a formerly proud Iraq, as well as Iran, what was once a proud and illustrious Persia.

Anyone who has studied Western history thoroughly, cobber, must surely feel the way I do, holding Churchill’s original belief that Jaw Jaw is always superior to War War, especially when it is religion that is the Cause Cause.

Best Regards, BB.

PERICLES... I'm quite appreciative of the 'extra mile' of research you did on the murder in Turkey.

All I did was present a typical report of the events.

What you miss, is that serious Christians will seek the real truth, and don't see any advantage to the gospel in mis-potraying events.

The fact that these brothers who were actually on the scene, and inspected the bodies, then took the trouble to publically set the record straight should tell you something about their hearts.

"Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (IICor4:2)

Now.. I have no problem with accuracy, I seek it, but don't always attain it to my own satisfaction. You might view some of the material I've presented about Islam, as the very opposite of the verse above, but to me, I present material which is the very essense of that verse.
Being human, and not perfected in Christ, there will be blips on the verbal radar... moments of high passion, concern etc..

I regard the approach you and CJ in particular take, as very deceptive, but in a naive fashion. I simply don't think you have sufficient understanding of Islam either doctrinally or historically to properly assess the information I provide. Further, the absense of faith in your lives (by your own confession) will also determine how you view a faith based perspective.

Hence it is obvious, that from this lack of understanding on your and CJ's part, you will view controversial material in a very negative light.

This...goes with the territory of public debate.

If I say "Islam permits child abuse" and back it up doctrinally and historically, and then support it further from contemporary Muslim interaction...you cannot imagine how starkly and nakedly 'naive/biased/in-denial/head_in_sand/prejudiced' etc it appears.

You usually come back with your usual "You tar all Muslims with the same brush/You are exacerbating the problem/You are Mosely/you are dangerous" mantra

Yikes!

that last post was mean't to say:

If I say "Islam permits child abuse" and back it up doctrinally and historically, and then support it further from contemporary Muslim interaction...you cannot imagine how starkly and nakedly 'naive/biased/in-denial/head_in_sand/prejudiced' etc it appears... WHEN YOU DISPUTE it......

CJ....you still are in denial over the good sense in goodthiefs post.

You are STILL equating all religions!

You should (if you were honest and sufficiently knowledgable) be making the clear distincion between the 'political' nature of Islam and the 'non political' nature of Christianity. (i.e.. one requires a 'State', the other does not)

You should also realize that Buddhism does not even have a concept of God.. and that many other faiths have their own differentiation points.

You are just loathe to condemn Islam for its racist hatred of non Muslims... for reasons known only to yourself..... but I'm sure that in time they will become apparent to all.

If Christianity contained 'racist' doctrines or permitted child abuse, or permitted domestic violence, or allowed sexual abuse of captive women....then you would be quite right in having an extreme fear of it.

But you, like Pericles can only point to 'bad moments in history' rather than 'bad doctrines' which underpin them.

sad..but true.
cheers

A little bit of further deconstruction might be in order here, Boaz.

>>All I did was present a typical report of the events<<

No, Boaz, you chose to present a report that was factually inaccurate, in order to make yet another point in your game of "whack-a-mozzie".

The fact remains that you describe it as "typical", when those brave souls who were actually there describe "unfounded news reports and media exaggerations".

And the problem with all this is, as I have said many times before, is that you are stirring up hatred that will ultimately require some form of physical release.

At which point I have no doubt that you will step back and say - there, I told you there would be trouble.

Your friends in Turkey understand this.

"it appears that those who murdered or arranged for the murder of these brothers are getting what they hoped for. By means of our reactions we may unwittingly help them. If we do not bring the facts into the light, these people will end up getting what they desired"

And what is it they desire? Violent reactions that will further justify their own violence.

>>You usually come back with your usual "You tar all Muslims with the same brush/You are exacerbating the problem/You are Mosely/you are dangerous" mantra<<

But Boaz. You do. You are. You certainly sound like him. And I'm afraid you could well be.

Rache, all your allegations of US complicity in the establishment and development of the Taliban, Al-Quaeda and many other interesting things are well documented in Steve Coll’s Pultizer-Prize winning expose “Ghost Wars”.

In 1985 Reagan sent Senator Orrin Hatch, Fred Iklé and others to Beijing get China to pressure Pakistan into giving the Muslim radicals more sophisticated weapons. The Pakistan/China link was used to insulate the US from direct involvement, after their bad experiences in South America. The CIA was buying the weapons from China and shipping them to Pakistan for distribution.

As well as giving the Mujahidin C4, access to a satellite-linked targetting system, long-range sniper rifles, anti-tank weapons and stinger missiles he also built up Saddam Hussein as a balance to Khomeini and authorised US and Western companies to send him ingredients for chemical and biological weapons. Rumsfeld was also sent to Iraq to assure Saddam that it was all right if he used those chemical weapons against the Iranians. However, they also covertly armed the Iranians because they didn’t want a total victory by either side.

The Centre for Defence Information (CDI)says that the US “provided over $2 billion in weapons and money to seven Islamic mujahidin factions in the 1980s (via the ISI) , making this last Cold War battle the largest covert action program since World War II “ and describes how it all later backfired.

You’re also correct in assuming that no matter how some people try to distort the facts, the Taliban grew out of the Mujahidin and are essentially the same thing.

The US really created this mess and like the ISI, China, Pakistan and other contrived arms-length connections, they are now trying to hide behind some mysterious evil bogeyman they can point a finger at to take the whole blame and like all their previous fiascos, think they can bomb their way out of it yet again.

Funny thing about religious martyrs too. Muslims are strictly forbidden to drink alcohol. Not a clever thing to do if you expect to be getting fasttracked into heaven the next day.

Wobbles

It’s all very easy to post a quote from one source, analysis is another thing altogether.

You say >> In 1985 Reagan sent Senator Orrin Hatch, Fred Iklé and others to Beijing get China to pressure Pakistan into giving the Muslim radicals more sophisticated weapons.

Sorry, which Muslim radicals are you talking about? Do you mean the ordinary Afghans who were fighting the communists for their homeland? Those radicals? Because there was no Taliban in the 80’s and Al-Qaida was still three years from being conceived ( indeed it was the Saudi decision in 1991 to invite American forces to help defend their oil fields which earned America bin laden’s ire). Masouds northern alliance was the largest and most successful mujahedeen group operating at that time. They are still our allies today.

These weapons that you talk about allowed the Afghans to defeat the Soviet Army which in a very real sense led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. That collapse must rank as one of the greatest successes of liberal democracy over totalitarianism ever.

The Taliban are not the same thing as the mujahedeen or Al-Qaida. Afghan Machiavellian politics are far more complex than your naïve and simplistic analysis suggests.

It is also one-sided to suggest that this is all a result of American meddling. You forget that the Saudis matched dollar for dollar any American aid money. You forget that Pakistan was supporting the mujahedeen well before the US became involved. You ignore the fact that the Chinese were interested in doing damage to the Russians as well. None of these groups are US lackeys. It is far more accurate to note that they found a common cause in damaging the Soviets and supporting the afghan people.

Your analysis of martyrs and their behaviour is not only simplistic its plain wrong. By dying in Jihad all of a suicide bombers sins are forgiven and he will rightfully take his place with Allah. There is no accounting for your sins as in the western tradition. A martyr’s death is an automatic get out of hell free card.