It certainly does not preach tolerance. To quote: "Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends. They are friends with one another. Whoever of you seeks their friendship shall become one of their number. Allah does not guide the wrong-doers." : Koran 5:51 "The Jews call 'Uzayr-a son of God', and the Christinas call 'Christ the Son Of God'. That is a saying from their mouth; (In this) they but intimate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are decluded away from the Truth." : Koran 9:30 Moses, Jesus and others are prophets in the Koran, but the Koran is very clear about how to treat people that do not follow the teachings of Islam. That is not what I said at all, don't try to set up a straw man argument here. I said that the people of Iraq have voted in their own government. The US should remain to protect said government from being overthrown by Iranian influenced insurgents. They should leave when the country is at peace or when the country can defend itself. America has a large number of political and financial interests in the middle east. The world is a small place these days and a country's interests can and often do extend across the globe rather than with only its direct neighbours. The reason Iran sending defense to Cuba would look odd is because they have no relation whatsoever, except perhaps a common enemy.
Make your point directly. It is obvious to anyone that follows international news that America has political alliances in the middle east and is heavily dependent on oil. Just because those facts hold true, doesn't mean American doesn't also want to see peace in the middle east or in Iraq itself. There is an obvious agenda for the US involving itself with Iraq, but that doesn't remove the fact that Iraq now has a democratically elected government and is no longer under the thumb of Saddam. That is a very positive progression for Iraqi history. I think it is imperative that the new government and the country of Iraq is allowed to continue along this new route and that it is able to see this through.
I don't think anyone denies that... the question is whether it was justified to enter the war in the first place. I would give a stearn "fuck no". That is a very positive progression of Iraqi history for the west. I think it was said on the first page. America thinks it always knows what's best for cultures that are it's polar opposite. Was Saddam a cruel lunatic? Yes. Did we do the right thing and overthrow him the right way? Obviously not. I still find the funniest thing in international law books the "no assasination" law. It's okay to tear the ass out of multiple cities, mortally wound thousands including children, but it's not okay to simply snipe the one person causing the problems? Yeah, that makes sense.
Oops! Did I just see someone quoting a verse from the Koran? Is that one verse meant to convey a notion of the entire faith? Have you read it, from cover-to-cover? I haven't, I don't think I know anyone who has, but I do know enough about both the Koran and the Bible to know that they are both incredibly complex, abstract texts and easily maniupulated and taken out of context in order to convey a particular message. Dipping into a single passage and returning it as gospel is a dangerous thing to do. If you accept that Christianity is not a dangerous dogma, you might wish to consider the different strings of the Christian church and their various interpretations of the Bible, the aspects they leave in, the details they leave out. They all turn to specific, very individual passages to prove that their version of Christianity is THEE version of the Bible. If you follow the path they prescribe, heaven will open ahead of you. If not, you are a sinner in the eyes of god and as such wars have been waged through hundreds of years over points-of-view. Little by little, the Christian faith has settled into a relatively peaceful co-existence, but that does not mean it has always been as such. Education was the key. At one point in our own western history, the church was more powerful than the state and you had to live by very strict rules, which have slowly disappeared. Other religions by comparison have steadfastly stuck to their original interpretation and we look upon those religions with contempt, purely on the basis of our own freedoms. Firstly, the Qu'ran is actually incredibly contradictory. It has swathes of poetic & beautiful passages amongst vast texts that to anyone but a scholar of the Koran could be interpreted in any manner of ways. For instance the Koran clearly indicates that suicide, just as in the Bible, is against god and therefore un Islamic. How it has turned from a clear and distinct message of tolerance and peace, to one of blood shed and violence comes down to a number of things. The Koran does have passages that appear to convey intolerance & violence, but scholars have disagreed and argued over this point long before anyone shouted "terrorists". If you go back to the 1940's the Church in Britain actually supported anti-semitic text. There was even a delegation sent to Germany in support of the Nazi party. Throughout history the Bible has been perverted, twisted and used as a tool to convince it's followers to conduct themselves in a particular manner bent to the needs of the establishment. Dare I say the inquisitions to anyone? The Old Testament was full of fire & brimstone, throwing down the law of God in words full of fear and venom. Do you see many people in Christian countries literally living by the maxim of an eye for an eye? It was a passage, a text, an abstract. The Bible is not the pleasant Sunday afternoon stroll in the garden of Eden that many seem to assume all religious texts should be, and neither is the Koran. Hell, we are seeing that in some Christian quarters that the Bible is being read in such myopic terms that evolution & Darwinism is being torn down as anti-Christian and unrealistic. It says in the Bible that the World and all that is in it was created in 7 days, but unless you are a half baked numbnuts you simply cannot accept that text as anything other than a simplification of a society unable to convey or prove the science of evolution some 2000 years ago. It was an analogy, not the final word! That America even listens to these narrow minded people is beyond me! It is a very clear example of how stupidity, religion & the interpretation of texts can lead to remarkable ends. This is in an educated, literate & scientifc region of the world! The existance of material that predated their somehow significant date when god allegedly winked us into existance is neither here nor there. It is cast aside as part of a huge conspiracy to discredit the Bible and he word of God. Considering that many regions that we are seeing in violent conflict the levels of education, access to education and literacy is relatively poor, you can begin to see how interpretation becomes a key aspect of control. The interpretation of the Koran is generally passed by word of mouth and taught by whomever is capable of reading it. It is easy to appreciate that those who are taught are regrettably in no position to challenge the teachings of the Koran and accept the version presented to them. In fact it is unthinkable to challenge those who are considered religious leaders. They might as well be reading the Haynes manual to the 1976 Ford Capri for all that these people are able to read & challenge it. Considering the numbers of people willing to blow themselves up and commit suicide in the name of this very diluted and twisted version of Islam, it isn't hard to see that these people are brain washed into the belief they are acting in a faithful manner and will be blessed as martyrs in heaven. Many of these followers don't have any yardstick by which to measure their beliefs. They certainly are not being educated in the way of the Koran that the vast majority of Muslims are. To lump the Muslims in with the terrorists is naive. To present a passage from it as evidence is pointless. You could take any number of religious texts and find questionable tracts. We are talking about small, but dangerous pockets of leaders utilising fear, ignorance and dipping into specific passages like a lucky dip of gods will to empose their will on the minds of those who are willing to die for what they have been led to understand is a higher cause. It is not the Muslim faith that is being taught, it is a narrow, dangerous, fanatical vision born of reading very specific passages and giving very narrow interpretations of those words to a small brethern born of hate and malice towards the west. The people drawn to such extremes are generally in no position to appreciate the con that is being played on them.
However, it undeniably proves the point, does it not? I do not doubt every other religion presses for said religion to be the be all and end all, with dire consequences if that rule is not obeyed. In this case the quote backed the argument, which in itself was attributed to an argument barc0de offered to a statement I made, saying: Please see my post as the continuation it is, rather than an independent musing of the Islamic faith.
Miss read the previous text, yes I agree, we are in agreement, which is fine cause it's 2am here and I am exhausted and can no longer argue, so we win! Yay! If only it were that easy..... I am off for toast, tea and then bed. One last thing before I go, and this is definately off topic. Why are those people even being entertained as anything more than as some kind of side show freak stall at a Hick convention? How could the notion that evolution never occured, and that Darwin was a liar be even remotely considered in such a fantastically scientific and exacting country as USA?
Be careful as you might have opened a whole new can of worms I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but you have to remember that a large majority of the US is Christian, and the general consensus is that Darwin went too far to apply evolution to humans. In the Bible, the very first book, Genesis, details the creation of the world as we know it by God. However, there's a problem - the whole book could be a symbolic story, while most people take it very literally. Things will be lost in translation, the original scripts might have meant something a little different. However, as a Christian myself I think it's entirely possible for large elements of evolution and creationism to co-exist. The Bible is so inherently complex that, like the Quran, it's possible to misconstrue crucial bits of it. Parris has a good point though about taking things out of context, though. I can't count how many times people have "quoted" bits of Scripture and it takes on a whole new meaning just be itself.
You know Kevin, I don't want to offend you becasue you're someone I respect, and I know you live in New York and thus have a view from the front row on what happened and what's going on. Truth is, we should have been fighting Al Queda and not Iraq. Those people in that country had nothing to do with the WTC. The people who attacked us were based out of another country. I'm not saying this becasue I'm a pacifist, far from it. I'm with the rest of the country who is still angry over what happened to us. My own father has completed three tours of duty over there, putting his life at risk for his country. But this doesn't change the fact that the war is going badly becasue it should not have happened in the first place. Osama is still out there. What they should have done back in 2002 is take all of the troops that are now in Iraq and blanketed those mountians on the Afgan/Pakastani border until they found the son of a bitch. And yes, in that particular situation, the deaths of the people who harbored that criminal were justified. But Iraq, it's a target of opportunity. I'm a loony leftist, but that doesn't mean I don't love my country, nor that I'm a pacifist. Those people who did that to us deserve to die. But Iraq wasn't responsible. And did we really "lose?" I don't think so. We lost the public relations war maybe. But most of the major objectives our government wanted were achieved. Truth is if we withdraw to surrounding military bases we can continue to make forays into Iraq to destroy whatever presence Al Queda may have there (Just remember, there was no Al Queda presence there until we created the conditions for them.) It would be no different than the last ten years when we contained Saddam. There's no need for rage, nor do you have to feel like your country is worthless. The only thing worthless about America is it's president, who got greedy and used that tradegy to his advantage. We tried to prevent it, and by that I mean me, myself, actually went out and marched before the stupid war even began along with a million other people to try and prevent it. And it wasn't just here, there were millions of people protesting world wide in the months leading up. Why do you think so few of our allies joined up in this little endevor? Yeah, "marching" doesn't solve anything. But what it does do is get your agenda on the table, unfortunately our media choose to ignore public setiment before the war. Truth is most people were in support of it, but that's becasue they were told lies that somehow Iraq was responsible. If we go back to what we're supposed to be doing, that is hunting down and destroying terrorist organizations like Al Queda and finally executing Ossama and his Taliban Cohorts, then we would not have "lost" anything. But as for this occupying another country crap, business that we should have no hand in, I totally agree with you. That will directly lead to our decline.
In the defence of American troops, I don't see why American blood should be spilled for 'maintaining peace' or 'protecting the elected government' - The US is in already too much expenditure with war and human material being wasted, I don't think Altruism is what mr.Bush has in mind when he keeps his troops there, do you? As such, if the motives are not altruistic and unconditional, they re not objective - which in turn means that if the newly elected government was not to the benefit of the US, would they still stay and 'protect' it? Let's not use such a big and loving word such as "to protect" in the context of war, because there's nothing protective about opening your door and being faced with civil war. I m certain many people will appreciate the fall of Sadam, but as an Iraqi student I know believes, America is no better than any third country trying to make a deal for itself amidst political and financial chaos. You mention that there are interests, without doubt, yet you further go on to describe the nature of the "protection" and the "duty to protect" out of the "interests in the Middle East" context. Well, you cannot seperate the two. To assume that there may be chinese walls inside American foregn policy, ie to trully believe from deep down that Americans are there for peace and - at the same time without affecting peace- are thinking about their interest, is to deny the obvious. How is it possible to make claims about a peace process disregarding the political and financial benefits ? You make it sound as-if America's interest lies mainly in achieving stability and peace. You forget that the PR of war is to label all the winner's actions in a favourable light. Are you also denying the fact that the US interprets "peace process" and "political stability", in its own way? A way that ultimately falls in line with US benefits ? Well sorry, i just don't buy that. Whoever had a hand in messing something up and still sticks around, has also got a plan for re-building in his own interest and image - you can't say that American influence is more objective than Iranian one. It's your word against the supporters of Iranian rule. Peace -as defined by the US in this case -is not a term to be taken literally without considering the ulterior motives of an agenda. If the US keeps their soldiers (Their own people) there, despite them dying every day, I don't see how they would care for Iraqis all of a sudden, with "unconditional love and affection" for their newly acquired freedoms. Don't forget that if the newly elected government was not favourable to the US, the whole legitimacy of the voting and the results would be questioned till a suitable result would be achieved. You talk about Iraq being able to defend itself. Well good luck keeping US troops there long enough for that to happen. Defending itself would mean practically to buy weapons from the US in order to protect its borders, right? Another sovereign nation with a Sky-high debt to boot. And you know how the lender in these cases can shape the government of those countries. That's not freedom, that's the freedom to do as you're told - and for some reason you think the Iraqis want that.
Not entirely, though why couldn't that have been one of his intentions? The US has done the same thing many times in the last century or so. They wouldn't have gone in there in the first place if establishing peace was not an ultimate goal. It doesn't have to be the only goal. One opinion. I am sure there are many Iraqis that welcome the US military support and see the current troubles as a part of the transition - who knows? I remember very well the celebrations in Iraq when Saddam was taken down, I remember seeing civilians pulling down statues of Saddam and hitting them with shoes. Would they have been so enthusiastic had they known the turmoil that would begin soon after? I can't say. I have never lived under a dictatorship, nor have you I assume. Certainly the current situation is an absolute mess and must be hell to live through, but we can't see what the future is for Iraq. We can only speculate and point at the car bombings and the dead people on the street and tut and wonder what went wrong. The country is not undergoing complete civil war, mainly because of the efforts of the US and allies to sustain order. Progress is being made, even if it is slower than we would like. Who is seperating the two? Why can't the US be protecting Iraq with the purpose of gaining something out of the deal? As you so rightly mention, US blood is being spilt and large amounts of money are being spent, and that wouldn't happen without some kind of benefit at the end. At the same time, Iraq has a democratic government. Said government will no doubt owe the US several favours which it will repay in oil benefits, but there is no such thing as a free lunch. Again, obviously the US is working with an agenda. However, peace in the region benefits the US most because it means cheap oil and plenty of it. Stability is necessary to get the oil out of there, it needs to be drilled and transported. The gulf needs to be policed to protect oil cargos. This process cannot be done in a war zone or with the fear of terrorist actions against it, so America rightly wants this conflict to end in a peaceful way. The costs of war are carefully calculated and models and predictions are run to make sure the end result is a worthwhile exercise. There is also more to the conflict than just oil, Saddam or peace. The US has a myriad of interests that this conflict will satisfy one way or another. I have suggested a number of potential reasons earlier in the thread. Many of their reasons we probably don't appreciate or even realise, but for the soldiers to have marched into Iraq there would have been a very complex analysis to make sure the books balanced. True, but I'm a Briton living in the USA - why would I want an Iranian influence in Iraq? Iran is a dangerous enemy of the two countries I have direct interaction with - Iran is a proven supporter of global terrorism. Iran is helping kill our troops with the weapons and training they are providing the insurgents with. I would hope that Iraq can now develop its democracy into a lasting peace that allows the country to recover from the ravages of war and see growth, but if there is to be an outside influence on the country then I would much prefer it to be an American one. Iran wants to push Islam on the world, while America wants oil. Possibly, but you and I both know that it would be American aid money being used to purchase those weapons. That is how it works. Iraq has the 3rd largest oil reserve. If you think that Iraq will suffer a debt crisis once it can develop its economy and tap those oil reserves then I don't know where the logic is in that argument.
The only way to deal with extreme islamists is , in short, to avoid them or kill them all. They are completely willing to die.
And unfortunately avoiding them is not really an option in this day and age. They are everywhere and they want blood.
And being a nonbeliever and quoting from the quran. Is also forbidden, and well I have experienced the wrath of the extremists more than once. And well that was the reason why I stopped at the VUC. Since in some ways I had a fatwa over my head.
@ Taucias: Surely Iran has been linked with Terrorism, but even Blair stopped short of admitting there's enough evidence that Iran supports terrorism. There's a great distance between assumption and proven fact. Also, do not take lightly the convenience found in such an assumption. It's like Sadam's WMDs - although they weren't there, it was a hell of an argument to give the green light for troops to get into Iraq. Don't always take what the media tell you as granted - mass media control is a well known exercise and a very selective information route, that many times omits great details, distorting the meaning of things, and so on. Also, I wouldn't go too far with that argument, because the US has been known to pay various military insurgents at times, in order to suit its needs. Sadam , Bin Laden, and even the late Iranian mullah, Khomeini, have all been products of American capital. That's as much terrorism for the people they governed/govern as is any capital condoning acts of violence. Just because it's the opposite team, doesn't make it 'terrorism' whereas when its Western its 'peace process'. I m sure you understand what I mean. Having double standards isn't helpful.
