In the latest example of a faded celebrity who just can't keep his or her mouth shut, Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam,) speaking at Cardiff University in the UK, suggested that it was really Britain's foreign policy which invited the London terrorist attacks, according to the Associated Press (thanks to DC Watson).
British foreign policy played a role in motivating the July 7 London bombings, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens said Tuesday.Yusuf Islam, who had a string of pop hits in the 1960s and '70s, said an al-Qaida video claiming responsibility for the attacks and linking them to Britain's role in the Middle East showed foreign policy "was not the only factor but it was a major contributory."
Of course, Stevens/Islam also reminded his audience that those who taught Islam had a responsibility to make sure extremism did not arise among the greater community.
"At the same time we have to look at how the teaching of Islam has been distorted," he added.
Such equivocation has become a familiar tactic among terrorist apologists, who lead with an attack on "Western foreign policy" and then, ever so half-heartedly, suggest Islam be taught in a more effective way.
Such drivel! Such utter drivel!
This is typical Muslimspeak: justify the evil deeds of Muslims by throwing the excuse for those misdeeds back to the innocent party and his deeds. This strategy is used repeatedly. Why do we have to tolerate this balderdash?
In his hey day, Cat Stevens made a fairly good singer; as he ages, he makes a poor politician! Therefore, he ought to go back to his mosque and pray for forgiveness, for the man knoweth not of what he speaketh!
Ride on the peace train.
It never fails to amaze - I know a lot of people, myself included, who have deep misgivings about, or objections to, "British Foreign Policy".
That doesnt make me or any of my friends, not even when we're drunk, want to strap on some C4 and kill a random selection of people on tubes and busses.
So, mr islam, what is the difference between my friends and I, and your good friends, the murderers? I think we can answer that one by a close examination of your name...
Why dont you shut up, you scumbag?
"Cat" and George Galloway http://slate.msn.com/id/2126121/
must study the same play book. George also said that the west "must reverse their policy in the middle-east". In other words support the murderers of "palestine" and forsake the people of Israel.
It's quite strange, with hindsight, how prophetic the lyrics of his 2 earliest hits (1966/7) were. And they are not usually mentioned in any quick search of his catalogue.
From :-
I love my dog
As much as I love you.
But you make me think
My dog will always be true.
(the website gives "But you may fade, my dog will always come through" which I am not sure about)
To :-
I'm gonna get me a gun.
And all the people who put me down.
They better get ready to run.
Thank goodness Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin came along when they did.
I'm going to bring this translation from MEMRI to Spencer's attention, but in case he doesn't post it, here's the link to a pair of Op-Eds published in a Swedish newspaper -- the first being that made by the Imam of Stockholm's Great Mosque, in which he condemns terrorism and extremism without the usual "buts" and the response from a secular Muslim who outs the Imam as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and explains how they are commandeering status as the representives of a Muslim community that is overwhelmingly secular. I think this is fascinating as it both confirms what has been going on over the last 20 years in Muslim communities in the west, and that it comes from the community itself and not outsiders looking in:
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD98805
From my link above, (sorry I just couldn't resist quoting Hitchens)
Study the photographs of Galloway from Syrian state television, however, and you will see how unwise and incautious it is for such a hideous person to resort to personal remarks. Unkind nature, which could have made a perfectly good butt out of his face, has spoiled the whole effect by taking an asshole and studding it with ill-brushed fangs.
I found his songs rather boring to tell the truth and I find his endless drivel on Islam even more tedious, he and his views are irrelevent, most people of my generation snigger everytime we hear his name, its that berk who converted to that daft religion...
I haven't really followed Cat's (sorry,Yusuf's) career since he went off the deep end and joined up with all those peaceful people. Does he make appearances with the wealthy American entertainers/movie stars who have taken their millions made from the unwashed masses in the US and fled to Britain because of the unbearable American foreign policies? Or is Cat (sorry Yusuf) so pure in his Islam that he could not join an movie star on a stage, even if it was for the lofty purpose of jointly trashing America?
Daffersd: "I found his songs rather boring to tell the truth and I find his endless drivel on Islam even more tedious, he and his views are irrelevent.."
King: As always, your inability to digest an opinion that's different than your own surfaces as an ad hominem based dismissal as "drivel".
Anyway - as you all stay lulled asleep while foreign policy continues to wreak havoc in the Middle East, we will all remain in danger as the swamp fills. Its as simple as that. Stomping your feet about Islam or Cat Steven's songs aint gonna change one solitary thing...
Daffersd said: Yawn...
Didn't Yusef once release an album titled "Tea and the Killerman"?
He can kiss my ass. How's that for being tolerant King?
Carolyn2
I like that quote, even in pulchritudinally challenged company he is exceptional
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/45/925/640/6.jpg
KING TOLERANCE: "as you all stay lulled asleep while foreign policy continues to wreak havoc in the Middle East, we will all remain in danger as the swamp fills. Its as simple as that. Stomping your feet about Islam or Cat Steven's songs aint gonna change one solitary thing."
COTNELIUS: As you all stay lulled to sleep while Islamic intolerance continues to wreak hacov throughout the world, we will all remain in danger as the swamp is full. It's as simple as that. Stomping your feet about Western foreign policy ain't gonna change one solitary thing.
King Tuts Wankfest Hut
Ali Cat Stevens is irrelevant as a human being, as all Western converts are.
In light of the fact that you neglect to return to threads where you seem to just park your breakfast & run:
I have never said that "Islam is a cancer" - but thanks for the analogy, its a good one & quite prescient.
So DW / JW is "like the Third Reich"?
Really?
I think that likening Mohammed to the Third Reich carries more weight as a comparison.
Both were guilty of spreading their evil iddddeology (Princess Blairs spelling) by military action.
How is DW / JW, or any of the contributors like that?
Really King, defending the faith through reasoned argument seems to be a skill lacking in most Muslims - you especially.
I suggest you revert to true type & just start beheading those who disagree with you, taking their women as slaves & concubines & of course taking their property & wealth as your own.
Go on, its what Mohammed would want you to do, to live your life impersonating the "perfect man" & living to his word.
You are a good Muslim aren't you, Kingy?
Perhaps this is the start of a whole new type of defence for, well, any sort of crime, really.
Stolen a car? 'It was the government's environmental policies what made me do it guv, honest'. Burgled someones house while they were on holiday? 'Government health policies just made me soooo angry'. Murdered some people on a tube train? "Government foreign policy just drove me to it'.
"Yussuf Islam" and "King Ignorance" are being followed by a
'moon-cult-shadow'
Tell us, Mr. King: The profit Mo, did he throw a shadow at all or not?
You would know, I guess...
As John Walker Lindh or Adam Gadahn represent the white face of the front-line shock troops of Islamic Jihad, Cat Stevens represents the white face of the moderate cultural battalion wing of Islamic Jihad.
The Umma of Islam is a vast army, with various levels: there are front-line foot-soldiers, there are generals, there are lieutenants, there are boosters of morale, there are strategists, there are propagandists, there are Disinformation specialists & their amateur comrades [here's the niche into which we fit Cat Stevens], and there are minions of a rank-and-file population who by their mere existence as Members-Only as well as a continued contribution to increasing the population of Members-Only, do their part in the relentless struggle for the ultimate Raison d'Etre of Mohammed: to make Islam reign supreme over the Ecumene.
Considering that KingTolerance didn't even know that mainstream clerics such as al-Sistani consider us Infidels to be excrement and urine, and that when he did find out, couldn't offer an explanation as to why that should be, his opinion on Cat Stevens or anything else relating to Islam is of no consequence. Just scroll on by.
No, Cat/Yusef, it wasn't the governmental policies as you assert that caused the men to bomb the trains and bus.
This article struck me as the perfect time to use Flip Wilson's old line, "The Devil made me do it" as the real reason the men wreaked havoc in London and in all the other places we've heard terrorist actions taking place around the world.
Dr. Phibes,
I've learned to scroll by the posts of King Tolerance, since I reached a point where I can't tolerate his tendentious cherrypicking and irrational obstinancy. His style also makes it easy to whiz on by, since as soon as my eye alights on one of those paragraph-broken, colon-headed [an apt adjective for the King himself...] posts I can immediately move past, e.g. --
Phibes: Islam is obviously contributing to violence around the world today...
King: You could say the same about America, or Western Europe: look at World War II, World War I, Colonialism, Slavery, Hiroshima, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the massacre of innocent peasants in South and Central America, the injustices of the ancient Romans, the intolerance of the ancient Greeks, the war-mongering of the ancient Israelites, the barbarity of all the white representatives of Homo Erectus when they indiscriminately slaughtered our green brothers and sisters the Dinosaurs...
Cornelius: "As you all stay lulled to sleep while Islamic intolerance continues to wreak hacov throughout the world, we will all remain in danger as the swamp is full. It's as simple as that."
King: Many, many people are of the opinion that the swamp is being filled due to Western foreign policy. Moreove,r nobody is asleep, at all, to the real threat and danger radical Islamists pose. I've never denied this. What I do oppose is the lumping of all Muslims into the same catagory as the extremists.
Cornelius: "Stomping your feet about Western foreign policy ain't gonna change one solitary thing."
King: Oh, but it has changed many things! Gaza is now evacuated & peace talks are being organized. Palestine is being funded so it can stand upright and secure its own population. Lebanon is slowly on the mend. You were saying?
albion: "You are a good Muslim aren't you, Kingy?"
King: No. That's about all you're worth wasting time on.
Phibes: "Considering that KingTolerance didn't even know that mainstream clerics such as al-Sistani consider us Infidels to be excrement and urine, and...couldn't offer an explanation as to why that should be"
King: I don't care what al-Sistani thinks of me or anyone else! He's free to think whatever he wishes. Perhaps you're bothered by this because you think he's right? Maybe you should have followed your own advice and kept on scrollin' instead of sayin' sumtin' at all.
Dr. Peppe: "His style also makes it easy to whiz on by, since as soon as my eye alights on one of those paragraph-broken, colon-headed [an apt adjective for the King himself...] posts I can immediately move past"
King: Once again, if you really felt this way you would not have even posted anything to me at all. Incidentially, I have commented rather extensively on some of the issues you toched on in your post to me. Perhaps you would have known that had you not "move past" my posts.
Drs. Pepper and Phibes:
"Whiz on by..." (or "scroll on by" for that matter) has a nice ring to it.
Do you think we could come up with a few more lyrics and get Dionne Warwick to record it?
albion: "You are a good Muslim aren't you, Kingy?"
King: No. That's about all you're worth wasting time on.
...& after briefly dipping his toes in the waters of reason, King, the man with no brain, no coherent arguments & a monster for a role model returns to frollick merrily on insanity beach.
Why won't you address the questions Kingy?
Is it because you know, deep down, that following Mohammed as a lifestyle example is actually akin to Nazism?
You are a waste of time as an intellectual adversary, & with every post here you confirm all our deep suspicions with regards to "moderate" Muslims in the West.
Waterdragon: Love the Dionne Warwick angle....
"If you see King posting on this site,
don't start to boil & start a fight..just
scroll on by..."
Waterdragon, Could also vary the lyrics of the 1958 childrens favourite by the Southlanders, I am a mole:-
I'm not a hog or a frog or a dog,
I'm not a bus or a hip-potomus,
I am a troll and I live in a hole. I am a troll and I live in a hole.
Cat Stevens and George Galloway are the two most prominent apologists in the United Kingdom for Islam and for both the Lesser Jihad (that against Israel) and the Greater Jihad (that against the entire non-Muslim world).
One is a pop singer who had a declining career, and may have had other problems, and so, like so many, went off on a Spiritual Search and discovered Islam. It had everything he needed. It offred Total Regulation of Life, from food (soup to nuts) to hairstyles, dress, and the way one washes here and there and everywhere. It offred the soothing ready-made Community of Believers. It offered a Complete Explanation of the Universe that can be so comforting. It offered this all, furthermore, in the guise of a "world religion" that was far more than a religion, but a geopolitical system that encouraged, while also channeling, aggression and hostility toward that "Western" world of Infidels.
Islam is also -- and that must have helped Cat Stevens "revert" to being Yusuf Islam -- the preferred vehicle for expressing that alienation, and that hostility, which so many of the economically and psychically marginal must feel, and which if not soaked up by other things, other belief-systems (Marxism helped pitch in, for a while, but it has lost its cachet and its appeal to all but the hawkers of those Trotskyite newspapers still found in college towns like Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Cambridge). For Cat Stevens, and for all the little mewling kittens who just can't take the pain of existence -- well, Islam was perfect.
Then there is Georgeous George Galloway, the wide boy, the Glesca keelie here to see "me and my mates" (but really just me, me, me) get justice, which is to say -- get money, get power, get -- whatever the others have helped themselves to, all these years, those people on the take and on the make who haven't "stood up" for the humble and the downtrodden, in this case the Muslims and the Arabs, who along with being the self-proclaimed victims of world Zionism and Colonialism and Amerika and post-colonialism and just about everything bad that can happen to a poor group of a billion people in the whole wide world, also just happen to possess, and make good use of, the largest slush funds in history, those dispensed by the Saudis (a dynasty that perhaps will be going), Saddam Hussein (definitely going), and Yassir Arafat (gone).
He's full of bluff and bluster, is the unmitigated Galloway. A little los-de-abajo warmed-over hint of Alistair Grey, some class-warfare Lenin-Prize-winning hint of Hugh MacDiarmid (but spare the poetry, even George realizes that doesn't matter anymore), makes people forget his living standards, his villa in southern Spain, the car he drives, the liquor and wine he drinks the life he leads in London, that most expensive of cities. Where does it come from -- all that money? It has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? None of your business. But if those poofs, those Oxbridge ex-diplomats and former intelligence agents -- Alistair this and Sir Kenneth that, can get on the Muslim (usually Saudi or U.A.E.) dole, then why can't George Galloway? It isn't fair not to let him share the swag. It shouldn't be just for those accustomed to rule, for homo balliolensis (or more pedantically correct, for those who like to go way back, "baliolensis"), any more.
The psychically marginal True Believer, and the man with something to sell -- himelf -- are two of the Seven Types of Unambiguity -- of unambiguous treason -- to whatever it is the West once was, and might, here and there, still manage to be.
The feline and the gallovidian are different in outward aspect and appeal, in impulse and origins and in the terms with which each promotes Islam. Only one is a real Believer, the other just a boy-on-the-make. But they are doing the same work in the path of Allah. And both are making the world less safe and less pleasant for Infidels. That is to say, less safe, and less pleasant -- for us.
KING: Many, many people are of the opinion that the swamp is being filled due to Western foreign policy. Moreove,r nobody is asleep, at all, to the real threat and danger radical Islamists pose. I've never denied this. What I do oppose is the lumping of all Muslims into the same catagory as the extremists.
CORNELIUS: First of all, many, many people are indeed sleeping when it comes to the danger of radical Islam. They may be aware of the threat of terrorism, but are impervious to the broader threat of Islamic intolerance, the depredations of dhimmitude and the barbarities of Sharia. Might you fall into this catagory?
I too oppose lumping all Muslims into the same catagory as the extremists. Perhaps the difference between us is our definition of extremists. You seem to think - and hopefully I'm wrong about this - that extremists are exclusively violent jihadis. I feel that extremists also encompass non-violent groups like CAIR and the AMC who espouse the eventual triumph of Islamic law and mores in the USA through peaceful means.
KING: Oh, but it has changed many things! Gaza is now evacuated & peace talks are being organized. Palestine is being funded so it can stand upright and secure its own population. Lebanon is slowly on the mend. You were saying?
CORNELIUS: For the record, I'm a proponent of territorial compromise in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...but I am only so because even the chance for peace is preferable to interminable conflict. But if you really believe that Islamic-inspired violence directed at Israel will cease once Palestinians have control over the West Bank and Gaza, you are every bit as naive as your opinions indicate.
The larger issue is the motive for Islamic terrorism. Certainly Muslims have legitimate grievances in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc.
But almost every ethnic and religious group in the world has a legitimate grievance of one kind or another. How about the Copts of Egypt who face systemic discrimination and periodic pogroms? What of the Bahia of Iran, who suffer untold persecution by the Ayatollahs? How about the Christians and animists in southern Sudan who have lost 2 million souls in 20 years of jihad directed from Khartoum?
Palestinian hardships were indeed a Sunday-school picnic in comparison to the genocide in Sudan. But no Sudanese Christians flew planes into Saudi skyscrapers, even though Saudi petrodollars bankrolled the gov't in Khartoum. No Copts walk into crowded market places in Cairo to detonate bombs strapped to their body. No Bahais blow up buses or trains filled with commuters. Why is that King?
What is it that distinguishes the Muslim response to grievance? They are not exclusive in resorting to violence. But Muslims ARE exclusive in that their targeting of non-combatants is SYSTEMATIC. Even the IRA - with few exceptions - targeted mostly British soldiers and the RUC.
Have you asked yourself the penetrating question of why Muslims are so predisposed to attacking non-combatants? Is this barbarous TACTIC the resposibility of US foreign policy? Or might it possibly be due to an ethos derived from an intolerant theology, one that demonizes those outside the faith and glorifies death and killing in the name of God?
Think about it King. Perhaps you're ready to turn a corner.
albion: "Why won't you address the questions Kingy?"
King: Demonstrate maturity, my good man, and perhaps we'll have a working relationship. If not, no worries. You can feel free to turn the website into romper room. Other passers by can either read your provincial comments and jump in in kind, adding to the morass, or simply whiz right on by as well. Win-win for me.
albion: "You are a waste of time as an intellectual adversary, & with every post here you confirm all our deep suspicions with regards to "moderate" Muslims in the West."
King: Clinging to the thought that I am a Muslim (I am not) shows me all I need to know about your "intellectual" capabilities. You are not thinking with your head.
Cornelius: "Have you asked yourself the penetrating question of why Muslims are so predisposed to attacking non-combatants?"
King: Why must you right away equate a militant action with Islam and leap to the conclusion that Islam catagorically endorses such bevaviors as killing non-combatants? This is where you lose me, Cornelius. The Koran has many pasaages about this very issue. It turns out that the militants ignore those.
Cornelius: "Is this barbarous TACTIC the resposibility of US foreign policy?"
King: The tactic is first the responsibility of an individual acting on their own free will. I will also add that thousands of non-combatants have been slaughtered by US/UK weapons in Iraq. Innocent Iraqis see the US/UK as terrorists. Equally, many, many innocent people in Palestine have been killed by Israel. All other circumstances about the conflict notwithstanding, it boils right down to the death of a loved one. You see it your way, they see it theirs. Its all terrorism driven by politics. Nothing more.
Cornelius: "Or might it possibly be due to an ethos derived from an intolerant theology, one that demonizes those outside the faith and glorifies death and killing in the name of God?"
King: Again, you are allowing the interpretations of militants to define your entire view of Islam. If you are going to do this, you should also be preparred to let fundamentalis Christians define Christianity. Sure, militants kill people in the name of Allah. Sure, these militants are scum and are dangerous. These scum are also thriving in a wamp made, in large part, by Western policies and previous blunders that are only now surfacing.
However, there are also many, many, many innocent, peaceful Muslims who reject militant bvehaviors as you and I do, and wish an end to the bloodshed as you and I do. These innocent Muslims are also killed in numbers far exceeding anything the West has ever recognized. This is one thing that infuriates the Arab world - the double standard so to speak.
Many Arabs see the West as nothing more than money-grubbing pigs who want their oil and will stop at NOTHING to get to it even if it means occupying their nations or propping up oppressive thug dictatorships to do it. True? False? Let's discuss it.
Cornelius: "Think about it King. Perhaps you're ready to turn a corner."
King: I invite you to do the same, Cornelius. I think you'd be socked to learn that you and I are not only on the same team but actually only a few pages apart. I want the same things as you all do but I am approaching things from an entirely different perspective and lay the blame at the feet of things I can actually change...
KT: "...I am approaching things from an entirely different perspective and lay the blame at the feet of things I can actually change."
CORNELIUS: In other words, since you cannot transform a 1400-year theological tradition of intolerance, you blame those who are targeted by that tradition. This is the classic mindset of the dhimmi.
Certainly, if we give the Muslims everything they want, they will be pacified...who wouldn't be?...at least until their next set of demands weren't met.
Let's presuppose we push for the destruction of Israel to mollify the Palestinians; compell India to turn Kashmir over to the Pakistanis; insist upon Chechnyan independence from Russia; demand separation of the Southern Philippines and Southern Thailand so Muslims there can live inside their own polities; allow for the forced conversion or extirmination of Christians and animists in southern Sudan; allow for a similar policy in Indonesia; look the other way at the persecution of Copts, Maronites, Bahais and Ahmadis in Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Pakistan respectively (much as we currently do); etc.
At what point will the swamp be effectively drained KT? What happens when Muslims start agitating for Sharia in Europe and America? If we refuse to allow for the stoning of adultresses and the killing of apostates, wouldn't we just be re-filling the swamp?
When we reach that point, according to your logic, since we'll be unable to change Muslim desires and expectations of the society they wish to live in, we then must lay the blame at what we can change, i.e., the obstinacy of Western governments in trying to protect personal freedom and maintain gender equality.
No my friend, we aren't on the same side. I am on the side of an aggressive defense of our civilization; you are on the side of appeasement and capitulation. I don't begrudge you your motives KT, I think they are benign. But benign motives can still result in tragedy.
But you don't lay the blame at the feet of those that you can not change, which is your problem and the problem of many others like you.
I tend to agree with Ali Sina, as I said to you in earlier thread, that what moderate Muslims there are , are moderate in spite of Islam and certainly not due to it. You just called me a Nazi!!!
Islam is a most effective ideology for the strong to abuse the weak, for that reason I see it as totally against Western values.
King: You could say the same about America, or Western Europe: look at World War II, World War I, Colonialism, Slavery, Hiroshima, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the massacre of innocent peasants in South and Central America, the injustices of the ancient Romans, the intolerance of the ancient Greeks, the war-mongering of the ancient Israelites, the barbarity of all the white representatives of Homo Erectus when they indiscriminately slaughtered our green brothers and sisters the Dinosaurs...
Posted by: Dr. Pepper at September 21, 2005 12:35 PM
Very good D.P. You gave me a good out-loud laugh!
King: Clinging to the thought that I am a Muslim (I am not) shows me all I need to know about your "intellectual" capabilities. You are not thinking with your head.
Posted by: KingTolerance at September 21, 2005 02:43 PM
Now, where have I seen that response before? Lying is a small matter to the RoP®
After 7/7, a friend asked me, 'Where's Cat Stevens in all this?'. Yes, it was true, he seemed conspicious by his absence. I was wondering why no newspaper had quoted his views on the atrocity, then it occurred to me that perhaps this was because, when asked for a quote, Stevens had not said what the mainstream media had wanted to print.
the liquor and wine he drinks
Hugh, George Galloway is teetotal. He has been described as not 'clubbable', and has manic, staring eyes. These things together more or less prove he is a Muslim or at least on the cusp. Married to Arafat's niece, he would have to be.
I've often wondered why this unprepossessing piece of human flotsam is called Gorgeous George. Apparently it relates to his shenanigans in the 80's when he was in charge of War on Want. When asked about a conference in Greece, he replied:
Priceless!
Cornelius,
your patience 'debating the troll' is admirable.
But as you can see, nothing penetrates, not logic, not common sense, not reason, but instead some idiotic attempt at making da'wa, trying to doctor the "image" to make the moon cult more palatable to the infidels:
Kingkerling sez:
It's "not Islam because of the interpretations of militants" -" its not Islam because he just can't find those sura's in the Koran..."
The definition of a 'moderate muslim' reminds me of the "good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere..."
The "moderate muslim" is an invention of western appeasers and apologists, those who just can't get themselves to accept that, which Jack Straw claims is "too terrible to contemplate:"
The "good muslims" are the ones that blow themselves up amongst us, and the "bad muslims" are like Kinkerbell weaseling and whining around the issues, but they also want to drive the Jews into the sea, they want the west to lie down and "revert" to Islam, because that is all they know, this is what they believe their 'duty' is, and Cat Stevens/Yussef Islam is doing his Jihad just like KT:
agitating, deflecting, obfuscating...etc.etc.
Steven's has long been suspected of being a pedophile. Seems that he follows the mad profit to the letter...
King Tolerance, riddle me this...which came first...muhammad's marriage to 6 year old Aisha (but he waited until she was 9 to "have his way with her") or his proclamation that all muslimas must shave their nether regions?
Galloway a teetotaler? Now you tell me, not before but after a friend of mine put arsenic in the expensive bottle of single-malt I had convinced him to part with in order to send it to Gallawi as a "present from an admirer"? Gosh, as Napoleon Dynamite would say.
cat never went on a spiritual search. After a recording session in Nashville, Tennessee, he ended up passed out on a street in the 'hood, drunk and stoned on hard drugs (coke? smack?). The brothers of the nation of islam found him and gave him the muslim detox treatment.
He "reverted", became yusef and gave the seed money for the first mosque in Music City. It's now the islamic center of nashville and is ruled by the muslim brotherhood and led by a wahabbi imam who used to be at al-farouq mosque in Brooklyn where all the al-qaeda jihadis gathered and plotted. He's a bad piece of work, ole cat is.
Well, you can do a lot of spiritual searching as you recover from an overdose of this or that, or both this and that, and the bruvvers are hovering, bringing you The Truth, day after day, and you listen intently because, after all, what else can you do?
Admittedly this is not the same as the Spiritual Search of the Trotskyite (at least, that's what he calls himself) who goes through the Summer of Love, and perhaps one or two other incarnations, before finding Islam in Bosnia, and not only Islam, but Respect, and a Calm, and an Explanation, and a Complete Regulation, and not inconsequentially, a new shtick -- the shtick, with all expenses or at least many of them, paid for by grant-money, used to support such
"moderate Muslims" as a "revert" to Islam who wandered around and finally found the somebody who/could make him feel sad/Make him feel glad/make him feel blue -- if he didn't obey the rules, didn't struggle on the path of Allah. I am describing of course, those comical sufferers from Weiss-Schwartz Syndrome, about which, by googling, you can learn more.
But I'd still call the notimmediate metamorphosis of flighty Cat into caterpiller Yusuf as a Spiritual Search, albeit on fast forward.
Cornelius: "In other words, since you cannot transform a 1400-year theological tradition of intolerance, you blame those who are targeted by that tradition."
King: Uh, not even close. Indeed, you or I cannot change a 14oo year old ideology, nor can we change the fact that a substantial number of the global population follows it. No amount of whining on a website like this will achieve this.
What we can do is acknowledge that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are peaceful people, do not accept a hard-line radical approach to Islam and who wish to live in the world with their brothers and sisters free from radicalism of any sort.
Cornelius: "Certainly, if we give the Muslims everything they want, they will be pacified...who wouldn't be?...at least until their next set of demands weren't met."
King: Again, please stop using the word "Muslims" when you are referring to militants. This is part of what is clouding your perspective and making you sound bigoted. As for pacifying the "militants" it would be a hell of a lot more effective to see that they do not have a place to thrive, like that swamp we discuss. What drives these militants? Hint: Islam is the wrong answer....
Cornelius: "At what point will the swamp be effectively drained KT?"
King: When the West realizes that Muslim nations are soverign and should be free to govern themselves as they see fit without interference and input from outsiders. They've been capable of it before, then oil was discovered. It has never been the samew since. There has been so much meddling and jockying for oil in that part of the world that things have gotten so corrupt, so corrosive, so complicated that things like soverignty and the right to live under Islamic law, if they so choose, have been long forgotten. Throw in extra tensions with Israel and displace over a million Palestinians to APPEASE zionist Jews and there you have it. A powderkeg.
Cornelius: "What happens when Muslims start agitating for Sharia in Europe and America?"
King: Nothing happens. Sharia would never work in the West and you know that. Drop the doomsday guise Cornelius. Sure, some Muslims will try and some may try to live a Sharia lifestyle. If that's what they want, let them live it! What do I care? Jews managed to convince food producers to mass produce kosher goods to accomodate the kosher diet. So? This being said, rabble-rousers of any sort shall not be tolerated and shall be deported be they Muslim or not.
Cornelius: "I am on the side of an aggressive defense of our civilization; you are on the side of appeasement and capitulation."
King: Sorry you perceive it this way, but you could not be more wrong. I never said to appease or capitulate nor am I on "that side." I am a pragmatist who knows that there are many reasons driving anti-West aggression in the Muslim world. I also know that not all Muslims subscribe to this aggression so I do not fall into the trap of blaming all of them and their religion.
Moreover, have you ever thought that some Muslims feel the exact same way as you, that is, they feel that their civilization is under scourge from Western infiltration? You can discount this all you want but it does not change a thing. Only when each side understands the other can things change.
Cornelius: "I don't begrudge you your motives KT, I think they are benign. But benign motives can still result in tragedy."
King: My motives are not only benign they are also proactive and effective. I caution you as well about motives backed by aggression, as they, too can and do result in tragedy. They also fill that swamp.
Sheik Yerbooty: "Kingkerling sez: It's "not Islam because of the interpretations of militants" -" its not Islam because he just can't find those sura's in the Koran..."
King: I've posted numerous passages from the Koran that support the sanctity of life and denounce the wreckless killing of innocent people. They are there for you to find yourself.
I've devoted more than enough time to dealing with you, your racist moniker and your ad hominem piffle. The more you post, the more you make this website look like romper room. Those who wish to join with you in kind will drive this site further into the gutter. Those who actually wish to engage in a debate, as Cornelius has demonstrated, shall be met with respect and time from me. Indeed, there will also be thsoe who stop by this site, read the piffle you post and move on as I shall do now.
In an interview I saw Stevens claim that he had made a deal with God while being carried out to sea by undertow currents. The deal was he would do anything for God, if God saved him. Well, he survived, assumed God saved him, and then, at some later time, decided that the God who saved him was Allah in the Qur'an.
That is what he said in the interview. I remember it distinctly. But, when it comes to such minds, such confusion, such 'God-knows-what thoughts", and God probably does not know even with complete foreknowledge, given obvious random firings of neurons, and more than usual in this mind, after all, one can only know what one can, including God, who knows what caused Cat Stevens to turn to Islam?
In any case, he said it. I heard him say it, and the tides off LA had something to do with it.
Whoopie.
JTF, as Hugh intimated in his inimitably circuitous way (mirror-imaging his Moriarty "Anonymous" over at the Examined Life philosophy forum), Cat Stevens was floundering in the treacherous, rudderless shallows of that Super Nebula labeled, with appropriate amorphousness, "New Age". The New Age movement is not deep, but it is broad, and among the millions of other sea creatures it has spawned are the likes of Karen Armstrong, not too far downstream from where the Catfish found his salvation from the West.
I'm almost dumbfounded with admiration at the patience and tolerance so many of you show for that insufferable succotash, King T.
I can't even bear to read him anymore, let alone engage in logomachy with him.
I always wondered if the death of his relationship with Patti D'Arbanville played a part. Certainly the contrast with her liberated career independence and the hijabette he married (arranged by the mullah - he apparently had never met her until the day of the wedding) is striking.
You may be onto something Granny, the ol' babe to burqa syndrome, or hottie to hijab, as the case may be.
Like Mohammad, he wants her, a semblance of her, or them, (in the plural if one can get away with it) all to his little self, or, uh, big self, that is. That's the word going round the caravan anyway.
`I also know that not all Muslims subscribe to this aggression ` - posted above by a pragmatic tolerant.
Just an e.g. on how to be pragmatic:
"Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi is the highest religious authority of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the spiritual leader of most of the religious movements that have become bloodthirsty terror organizations. He is religious and financial advisor to over 20 financial companies operating according to Islamic financial tenets, which are known to have destroyed the businesses of most small investors in Egypt. It was he who came up with the idea of establishing the Al-Jazeera cable channel and he who has been the spiritual leader and senior religious advisor of this channel.``
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/002417.php
I haven`t mentioned al sudais.
Some `pragmatists` remind of the one who asks the rapist raping his mother/sister if an aphrodisiac is needed.
BTW What's this nonsense on his website http://catstevens.com/ about his being inducted shortly into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame?
1 Even when I liked his music (I was only 12 at the time, forgive me) he was not what I call Rock and Roll. That was The Yardbirds and The Stones. At his best he was a sort of quirky folk/pop.
2 He has done nothing in donkey's years to merit a fame award which suggests some kind of lifetime career.
3 How ironic that one of his best known albums is Buddha and the Chocolate Box and his best known single is a Christian hymn, Morning has Broken.
In his case the Devil does not have all the best tunes.
Mashari Al-Dhaydi, columnist for the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote: "The time has come for those who turn a blind eye to notice that the enemies of freedom have, unfortunately, exploited the atmosphere of freedom provided by the European countries, to destroy the foundations of freedom and to strangle any possibility that freedom would be born as a concept, and subsequently as a reality, in Arab and Muslim countries.
"They have used [European] freedom to spread religious fanaticism everywhere. People who disseminate the ideological and political platform of bin Laden …are the greatest enemies of the freedom that the European countries defend…
"Fundamentalist terrorism knows no borders. Whoever thinks he can be comfortable near a wolf and can turn him into a domestic puppy will be astounded when one day it falls upon his flock. A wolf is a wolf, and can be nothing other than itself…" [2]
http://www.memri.de/uebersetzungen_analysen/themen/europa_und_der_nahe_osten/eu_londonattack5_28_07_05.html
Now that is pragmatic.
Livingstone has in the past labeled Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi a "man of peace" and a "moderate," despite the fact that Al-Qaradawi has supported suicide bombings and the targeting of American allies.
Al-Qaradawi is a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood and his fatwas, or theological rulings are said to influence millions of followers who consider him an authoritative scholar on Islamic issues.
Pavel Sudaplatov, Soviet spymaster & Stalin's personal intelligence operative who arranged the 1940 assassination of Trotsky in Mexico - characterized the nature of this danger very succinctly in his autobiographical work, Special Tasks.
"You in the West have your weaknesses as well. The diversity in America, the plethora of foreign-born immigrant communities within your population, are the pride of your melting pot. Yet within these communities we were able to enlist thousands of agents ready to destroy you in case war broke out between us."
Given our bitter recent experience with foreign born architects of domestic terror we no longer have the luxury to assume that all alien philosophies are harmless and that all immigrants mean us well – the weapons these renegades might wield, in a nuclear world, are far too fearsome and our highly integrated society – for all of its military and economic strength - too fragile, to be able to any longer afford the risk.
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/18
Back to the Gruesome Georgie Galloway discussion above, I agree, there are only two reasons why he could be a teetotaler, coming from a catholic Irish/Scottish background as he does. Either he is an alcoholic and dare not drink ever again (no laughing matter, recovery is a painful business) or, and I am inclined to agree with you, it is another sign of his conversion.
His reputation with the ladieez is mostly in his head. But I do know that the atmosphere in his Glasgow office was such that at least one temp did not stay long, while others were more impressionable.
Dr. Pepper:
..."dumbfounded with admiration at the patience and tolerance so many of you show for that insufferable succotash, King T..."
How right you are!
A nuisance and a pest he is, when he is at his 'best', like above.
Go and get a suntan, King.
And don't forget:
UHU might work in your case! Just try it once...
Cat Stevens is half Greek, half Swedish. It is often the case that people from a mixed background grow up feeling that they don't really belong anywhere. The fact that his parents split up can't have helped matters.
I heard that he was due to perform in Greece, but the night of the concert clashed with some important football match, so very few people turned up to hear him sing, so he felt very piqued. As a Greek, it is very likely that his family told him how terrible the Turks had been, so what better way to spite his own kind than to convert to the Turks' religion?
So, King Tuts Wankfest Hut,
Romper room is the latest non insult you throw about here, whilst still not addressing the questions politely asked of you many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
Please, the argument for you is lost - now be a good Muslim & do as you have said - MOVE ON!
(or is this another blatant untruth? I guess if you are back later we will know).
Have a good day in the free West.
KING: Uh, not even close. Indeed, you or I cannot change a 14oo year old ideology, nor can we change the fact that a substantial number of the global population follows it. No amount of whining on a website like this will achieve this.
CORNELIUS: Agreed. The value of this website is mostly in educating non-Muslims about the dangers of Islam.
KING: What we can do is acknowledge that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are peaceful people, do not accept a hard-line radical approach to Islam and who wish to live in the world with their brothers and sisters free from radicalism of any sort.
CORNELIUS: What we can also do is acknowledge that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are committed to living under the "laws of Allah", which as I hope we both can agree are antithetical to our own concepts of freedom and equality.
KING: Again, please stop using the word "Muslims" when you are referring to militants. This is part of what is clouding your perspective and making you sound bigoted.
CORNELIUS: It is you with a clouded persepective KT. You don't think a majority of Palestinians want an Arab/Muslim polity that encompasses all of the British mandate of Palestine? You don't think that a majority of Kashmiri Muslims want to break away from India's yoke? You don't think a majority of Chechen Muslims want independence from Russia? Your problem is that you associate only violence with radicalism...when millions of Muslims who are not violent share the political aspirations of the radicals.
KING: As for pacifying the "militants" it would be a hell of a lot more effective to see that they do not have a place to thrive, like that swamp we discuss. What drives these militants? Hint: Islam is the wrong answer....
CORNELIUS: Yes, resolving outstanding grievances will mitigate some of the impetus for radicalism in Islam. I'm all for Palestinian statehood for example, for both utilitarian and ethical reasons (the Palestinians have every right to their own state). But you never answered my question: do you actually believe Palestinian violence towards Jews will completely cease after they have attained control over the West Bank and Gaza? This is the problem with your "swamp" theory; it becomes a paradigm for a never-ending series of demands and resulting concessions.
KING: When the West realizes that Muslim nations are soverign and should be free to govern themselves as they see fit without interference and input from outsiders. They've been capable of it before, then oil was discovered. It has never been the samew since. There has been so much meddling and jockying for oil in that part of the world that things have gotten so corrupt, so corrosive, so complicated that things like soverignty and the right to live under Islamic law, if they so choose, have been long forgotten.
CORNELIUS: Iran lives under Islamic law. The Saudis too. Jordan, Pakistan and in fact most Muslim countries employ a combination of secular and religious law. Nobody is stopping them.
The USA has episodically intervened in the internal affairs of Muslim countries such as the overthrow of Iran's Mossadegh (sic) in 1953. But to blame the West for the dismal state of political development and the endemic corruption in the Muslim worldis simply leftist and Islamic obfuscation. Isan't it possible that these pathologies are home-grown?
KING: Throw in extra tensions with Israel and displace over a million Palestinians to APPEASE zionist Jews and there you have it. A powderkeg.
CORNELIUS: How did the plight of those refugees come about? Had the Arab world agreed to the UN partition of Palestine in 1948, there would have been no independence war for Israel and no subsequent refugee problem. The Arab world has had 57 years to absorb those refugees, but they prefer to allow them to languish in camps to use as propaganda fodder in their war with Israel.
Please address these points instead of ignoring them.
KING: Nothing happens. Sharia would never work in the West and you know that. Drop the doomsday guise Cornelius. Sure, some Muslims will try and some may try to live a Sharia lifestyle. If that's what they want, let them live it! What do I care? Jews managed to convince food producers to mass produce kosher goods to accomodate the kosher diet. So? This being said, rabble-rousers of any sort shall not be tolerated and shall be deported be they Muslim or not.
CORNELIUS: This is your arrogance and myopia in full display. Neither one of us have any idea what Europe is going to look like in 50 years. Only one thing is certain, unless immigration curbs on Muslims is instituted, they will comprise a majority by the end of the century.
Additionally, I'll bet 30 years ago, no Malay - except the most devout - would ever have conceived of Sharia becoming the law of the land in that moderate, modern country. Today, certain northern states have elected Islamist governments and formally instituted Sharia.
Finally, you might not care if Muslims living in the West want to live the lifestyle of Sharia, but when those Muslim women and apostates who run afoul of the strictures of Sharia are dealt with in an extra-judicial manner, this is a pathology that can't be ingnored. I'm sure you're aware of the growing incidence of honor killing in Germany. Perhaps you you could care less about this?
KING: Sorry you perceive it this way, but you could not be more wrong. I never said to appease or capitulate nor am I on "that side." I am a pragmatist who knows that there are many reasons driving anti-West aggression in the Muslim world.
CORNELIUS: I hope among those reasons you include the literally hundreds of verses in the Quran that demonize non-believers and exhort enmity towards them.
KING: I also know that not all Muslims subscribe to this aggression so I do not fall into the trap of blaming all of them and their religion.
CORNELIUS: Neither do I. But I reiterate, just because a Muslim isn't violent doesn't make him/her progressive and assimilable.
KING: Moreover, have you ever thought that some Muslims feel the exact same way as you, that is, they feel that their civilization is under scourge from Western infiltration? You can discount this all you want but it does not change a thing. Only when each side understands the other can things change.
CORNELIUS: Of course I acknowledge this. But the difference between us is that I acknowledge the intrinsic differences between the civilizations and having been raised in the West and inculcated with Western values such as intellectual and political freedom and gender equality, I trumpet my belief in the moral and utilitarian superiority of my civilization. My great hope IS that Islamic society is thoroughly infiltrated by the West and transformed. If you value freedom and gender equality, you should feel the same.
KING: My motives are not only benign they are also proactive and effective. I caution you as well about motives backed by aggression, as they, too can and do result in tragedy. They also fill that swamp.
CORNELIUS: Yes, aggression can bring tragic results. That's why our response to the challenge of the Islamic resurgence has to be multi-pronged. Diplomatic and political concessions are sometimes in order...as is occasional military action.
I appreciate your repsonses, Cornelius. I disagree with most you have said and that's OK. I think we're both adults and can/should respect each other's thought process. I would like to focus on this one comment, however:
Cornelius: "I acknowledge the intrinsic differences between the civilizations and having been raised in the West and inculcated with Western values such as intellectual and political freedom and gender equality, I trumpet my belief in the moral and utilitarian superiority of my civilization."
King: What you are doing here is refusing to see that other cultures do not necessarily subscribe to the same package of values that we in the West do. This does not make your utilitarian superiority belief correct! In fact, there are a lot of values the Western culture has that others in the world, namely many Arabs, find repugnant and want no parts of as these values go against centuries of their own culture and belief system. Western business practices come to mind, as many Arabs see the West as virulent money grubbers who will stop at nothing to suck people dry, as they see us do with the oil riches on which they live. Some Arabs see the spread of Western culture as offensive as you find the spread of Islam. Again, nobody is right or wrong here.
albion: "Romper room is the latest non insult you throw about here, whilst still not addressing the questions politely asked of you many, many, many, many, many, many, many times."
King: Perhaps if you tried asking me a question, POLITELY, I would answer you. The record will clearly show that I have answered more questions than I have asked here so you need to get your facts straight.
Romper room? You bet. As the insults and cute little name perversions roll in from those who lack the ability to formulate an argument, the comments are recorded for all to see. I've shown many folks the proceedings here and have watched them laugh and roll their eyes, wondering why I even bother with such parochial demagogues like yourself. The fact is that your nonesense dilutes itself right out when push comes to shove and the ad hominem shows that. I have and will be up for a mature, respectful debate with adversaries and I am also up for watching the lot of you reduce your own Blog into romper room. Win-win for me either way!
Yawn...still here KT? "Scroll on by".......
As you are only here to create mischief, & have no arguments or answers to any of the reasonable concerns our varied community has with regards to "moderate Muslims" such as your good self, I now choose to ignore you permanently.
Enjoy your life in the free west. Many of my family members fought & died to give you the freedom to live free & say what you wish in the West, a freedom I might add that many, many Muslims all over the world are denied by their own "Religion of Peace".
You have been served for the last time by me.
Best regards
Albion
King: What you are doing here is refusing to see that other cultures do not necessarily subscribe to the same package of values that we in the West do. This does not make your utilitarian superiority belief correct! In fact, there are a lot of values the Western culture has that others in the world, namely many Arabs, find repugnant and want no parts of as these values go against centuries of their own culture and belief system.
Prophet Geoff: And which ones? Money? Or merely interest rates? Freedom for women? This is not exactly a solid argument, unless you specify which Western traditions go against islamic ones and why, and then why these should be morally reprehensible to us as well. Moral relativism, frankly, is not particularly justified. It makes little moral sense to ignore the oppression of minorities in islamic countries because the majority of the population accepts this repression as integral to "Allah's great plan". Our having "different values" does not excuse this.
King: Western business practices come to mind, as many Arabs see the West as virulent money grubbers who will stop at nothing to suck people dry, as they see us do with the oil riches on which they live.
Prophet Geoff: This is polemics. I note, for example, that it is their own people that are responsible for the control of the oil flow, and that they (and Kofi Annan's son) receive the first benefit for doing so. The Saudi Arabian monarchy is the richest in the world. Are these people considered "Westerners" now also? They certainly don't seem to see themselves that way.
KT: Some Arabs see the spread of Western culture as offensive as you find the spread of Islam. Again, nobody is right or wrong here.
Prophet Geoff: And which culture? What parts? Freedom? Democracy? Human rights? Or blue jeans and coke? Which is it that they oppose, and why? If you consider them rational enough for islamic culture to oppose them, does that mean you agree with opposition to them?
By the by, show the site to as many others as you like. With every exposure, minds get changed, just a little, at a time. That's how it happened to me.
"Name perversions!" LOL. None more so than "King" Tolerance, I presume. And why 'perversions'? 'Modifications' not extreme enough for the mosque crowd? Why 'perversions'? Odd.
=)
Prophet Geoff
"As you are only here to create mischief..."
King: If that's the label you use to avoid a debate then permanent ignorance it shall be!
albion: "Many of my family members fought & died to give you the freedom to live free & say what you wish in the West"
King: (eyesrolling). You can stop the Battle Hymn of the Republic speech, I also have family members who have defended my great nation and given me the freedoms I deserve as a third generation American. What you cannot seem to stand is that I am not afraid to tell you that you are wrong.
Now go run off into your blissful ignorance, singing your hymn. I will be here to call you on your hypocricy. If this creates "mischief" for you thats your problem.
KING: I appreciate your repsonses, Cornelius. I disagree with most you have said and that's OK. I think we're both adults and can/should respect each other's thought process.
CORNELIUS: I respect your RIGHT to your beliefs. I don't necessarily respect the processes from which you formulate your opinions. I do make the presumption that deep down you are a decent human being.
KING: What you are doing here is refusing to see that other cultures do not necessarily subscribe to the same package of values that we in the West do.
CORNELIUS: Incorrect. I acknowledge that others hold different values. What I refuse to acknowledge is that their (specifically, Islamic) values are of equal moral and practical worth.
KING: This does not make your utilitarian superiority belief correct!
CORNELIUS: It is indeed a value judgment.
East Asian societies and India have incorporated many of our Western cultural values: They have democratized their political systems, accorded women equal rights, etc. Except for the impediment posed by the Islamic world, the Western concept of freedom has every possibility of becoming a UNIVERSAL standard on this small planet of ours. Latin America is already a sub-set of the West. Sub-Saharan Africa poses unique but not insurmountable challenges.
I want to see Western freedom adopted as a UNIVERSAL standard for both moral and practical reasons: Morally, because I believe in the intrinsic moral value of free choice; and practically, because I believe the adoption of universal values based upon freedom will foster economic progress, global unity and an end to man's history of bloodletting.
KING: In fact, there are a lot of values the Western culture has that others in the world, namely many Arabs, find repugnant and want no parts of as these values go against centuries of their own culture and belief system.
CORNELIUS: I understand. That is their prerogative. The pathology in your thinking is that you accord them every right to reject our cultural values but castigate those of us who advocate the rejection of theirs.
KING: Western business practices come to mind, as many Arabs see the West as virulent money grubbers who will stop at nothing to suck people dry, as they see us do with the oil riches on which they live.
CORNELIUS: More of your convoluted leftist myopia. Middle Eastern oil was discovered, extracted and paid for by the West and has brought unimaginable wealth to the Muslim world. The fact that this wealth has been squandered on corruption and Islamic religious philanthropy is not the fault of the West.
Western business transactions today are more transparent than those of any other culture in the world, including the Muslim world. Your statement above indicates an innate animus towards both capitalism and the West.
KING: Some Arabs see the spread of Western culture as offensive as you find the spread of Islam. Again, nobody is right or wrong here.
CORNELIUS: There is no right or wrong only if one cannot distinguish the moral and practical differences between a culture of freedom based upon evolving man-made law and a culture of intolerance based upon a static, 7th century construct.
geoff: "The Saudi Arabian monarchy is the richest in the world."
King: This sentence is one of the keys to the issue we discuss, Herr prophet/imam/geoff. Without going too far into history, suffice it to say that the discovery of oil in the M.E. and the ability to get it outta there laid down the groundwork to install or prop up governments that would "play ball" with those who wished to buy the precious oil under the sand. When billions, even trillions of dollars are at stake, governments are capable of striking deals with the strangest people and making sure those people have what they need to remain sympathetic to the cause. Weapons? Money? Whatever you want, just keep the crude coming in at 1,000,000 barrels a day. You can gas whom you wish to gas (Hussein, 1980's, US/UK made weapons), execute whom you wish to execute and even allow your clerics to whip up their base with militant Islam as long as they go to fight back the USSR invasion - we'll even fund the madrassas!
Little did we know that those same militants would come back to haunt!
So, the west has been seen as a vulture circling overhead by many Arabs, meddling in the politics of the Middle East, meddling with borders, empowering minority leaders, whatever needed to be done in order to keep the oil flowing out. The aftermath has been obvious as Middle Easterners feel they cannot trust a Westerner further than they can throw a crumpled dollar bill.
Following the same meddlesome, exploitative politics, the West introduced the zionist state of Israel which further inflammed and destablized the region.
You see, imam/prophet/geoff, many Arabs have only seen or dealt with the most corrosive parts of our culture. Some of those Arabs have answered back with the worst they have to offer as well.
There are many other backwaters in this world with putrid dictator thugs that run countries that would make Afghanistan look like Disney Land yet, we are not here discussing them. Why? They have nothing of use to us and could go scratch for all we care! Most of Africa comes to mind. Those nations in Africa that do have oil (Nigeria) endure the same meddlesome politics from the West to make sure the oil is in the OK Coral.
Cornelius: "I do make the presumption that deep down you are a decent human being."
King: Er, um. Gee, thanks - I think. Let me remind you that you only have access one of my thought processes here. This is on purpose. I caution you on jumping to counclusions on my decency as a human being.
Cornelius: "I want to see Western freedom adopted as a UNIVERSAL standard for both moral and practical reasons"
King: Ahhhh, the luscious center oozes forth. While this sounds great on paper, this statement boils down to square peg in round hole politics, similar to what I posted to imam/prophet/geoff, or whatever he calls himself today above. You simply cannot expect masses of people to accomodate YOUR idea of the perfect civilization. The more you force the peg, the more damage you sustain. People can and will accept things when they're damn good and ready. If not, they should be free to live in the culture they've created for themselves, including Sharia law.
While some some pompous popinjay may think I am not worthy of a serious response, I think the survival of my way of life and my freedom is reason enough to get a little snarkey on occasion. My last comment to said popinjay.
"I think the survival of my way of life and my freedom is reason enough to get a little snarkey on occasion"
King: OK, romper room, I'll respond to ya! Your wanting to stomp your feet about 'your' way of life requires no further comment from me.
Happy now?
KING: You simply cannot expect masses of people to accomodate YOUR idea of the perfect civilization. The more you force the peg, the more damage you sustain. People can and will accept things when they're damn good and ready. If not, they should be free to live in the culture they've created for themselves, including Sharia law.
CORNELIUS: There is a degree of truth to this on the surface, but a closer examination reveals that such a premise is ultimately incongruous to the survival of the West.
You have just used the square peg/round hole analogy to good effect. It was a clear admission that you agree the two cultures are incompatible. Yet, you blithely disregard the prospect that as Muslim immigration and fertility transform the demographic balance of Europe over the course of this century, there will be a movement to reorder Europe's culture and legal structure accordingly.
If the "the culture they've created for themselves" is being exported to us through terrorism and mass migration, it can only be accurately characterized as an existential threat. In the short term, that threat manifests itself through terrorism; in the long-term, it is the prospect for a whole-hog transplantation of their culture to replace our own.
I agree we can't just helter-skelter impose our values on the Muslim world. But we have to do everything we possibly can to defend and spread them. That's what this website is about.
Tolerance is moral KT. This is an abstract truth. But abstract truths, when applied indiscriminately, become nothing more than empty exercises in phraseology. Tolerance that enables intolerance is no longer tolerance, but something else.
Cornelius: "It was a clear admission that you agree the two cultures are incompatible."
King: Absolutely false! I never said anything of the "incompatible" sort. Whatr I did say is that cultures are different for reasons, some of which you may not like. What does make things incompatible is when things are forced. This certainly goes both ways and I do not deny that.
Cornelius: "you blithely disregard the prospect that as Muslim immigration and fertility transform the demographic balance of Europe over the course of this century, there will be a movement to reorder Europe's culture and legal structure accordingly."
King: I do not disregard it, I simply do not take the same reactionary gloom and doom stance as you do.
Cornelius: "If the "the culture they've created for themselves" is being exported to us through terrorism and mass migration"
King: Xenophobic, Cornelius. "Mass migration" is people seeking jobs as their nations offer them no opportunity. Indeed, immigrants have an obligation to assimilate into their host culture. Can take a while. Look how long it took the US to figure it out, but we now have kosher delis and halal butchers on the same block. Migration of foreigners is one of the hallmarks of living in a free, afluent society. Let's see how strong the EU really is.
As for "terrorism", I remind you that the 7.7 bombers were born and raised in the UK! They were political lunatics born and bred right in the UK.
Cornelius: "...we have to do everything we possibly can to defend and spread them [western values]. That's what this website is about."
King: I'm acutely aware of what this website is about, Cornelius. The agenda you describe in no uncertain terms is arrogant and there are people in the world who resent the West for precisely this. Square peg into round hole politics my friend. If this is the playing field you want to live on you must be prepared to understand that there will be people who will not accept the rules you dictate.
Cornelius: "Tolerance that enables intolerance is no longer tolerance, but something else."
King: Surprise! I agree with you. I utilize this premise in a completely different fahsion, however. It's easy: know who the enemy really is. The enemy is not the nice Muslim family down the street. The enemy is not the halal butchershop owner. The enemy is not the Imam who wishes to observe strict Islamic tradition. The enemy is even not the Holy Koran. People are free to do whatever they damn well please and I tolerate them even if I disagree with their ways.
The enemy really is anyone who wishes to impose their beliefs onto me by undermining my freedoms. The fundamental religious right of any flavor comes to mind, be they Jewish, Muslim or Christian. I already belong to several organizations to kep such folks at bay. Why not find one and join one yourself, Cornelius? I've just finished a letter writing campaign to stop a crazed move by fundamentalist Christians to have Adam and Eve taught in my public school system. Can you beleive the gall?
"Organizer: As the Prophet Muhammad said, Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam. A person who cannot wage Jihad with his soul is required to wage Jihad with his money, his tongue, his thought, and with any means at his disposal."
......mmmm, sounds like a certain troll we have crossed swords with in the very recent past here at DW / JW
KING: Xenophobic, Cornelius. "Mass migration" is people seeking jobs as their nations offer them no opportunity.
CORNELIUS: So what. The reasons for mass migration need not be conspiratorial in order to undermine host cultures.
KING: Indeed, immigrants have an obligation to assimilate into their host culture.
CORNELIUS: Not if the host culture has abandoned its own identity under the banner of multiculturalism.
KING: Can take a while. Look how long it took the US to figure it out, but we now have kosher delis and halal butchers on the same block. Migration of foreigners is one of the hallmarks of living in a free, afluent society. Let's see how strong the EU really is.
CORNELIUS: The Muslim "ghettos" of Europe are self-contained. They live mostly on public assistance. They watch Al Jazeera. The prognosis is not good.
KING: As for "terrorism", I remind you that the 7.7 bombers were born and raised in the UK! They were political lunatics born and bred right in the UK.
CORNELIUS: They were products of their Islamic culture. The fact that they were born and raised in Britain only further reinforces my argument that the two cultures are fundamentally incompatible and assimilation is not working.
KING: I'm acutely aware of what this website is about, Cornelius. The agenda you describe in no uncertain terms is arrogant and there are people in the world who resent the West for precisely this. Square peg into round hole politics my friend. If this is the playing field you want to live on you must be prepared to understand that there will be people who will not accept the rules you dictate.
CORNELIUS: There will be people who will never "accept the rules" (read: culture) of the West, whether we are accommodating or not. This is the difference between us...you want to give them a wide birth to expand; I want to facilitate their global contraction.
KING: Surprise! I agree with you. I utilize this premise in a completely different fahsion, however. It's easy: know who the enemy really is. The enemy is not the nice Muslim family down the street. The enemy is not the halal butchershop owner. The enemy is not the Imam who wishes to observe strict Islamic tradition. The enemy is even not the Holy Koran. People are free to do whatever they damn well please and I tolerate them even if I disagree with their ways.
CORNELIUS: You will tolerate the nice Muslim family down the street, even if they mutilate the clitoris of their youngest daughter?...even if the father murders her older sister in an 'honor killing' because the sister was seen talking with a stranger on the streetcorner? You will tolerate the halal butcher, even if he donates much of his income to terrorist organizations? You will tolerate the Imam who, while observing strict Islamic tradition, exhorts his congregants to maintain fidelity to the obligation of greater AND LESSOR jihad?
I'm not suggesting every Muslim family, every halal butcher and every Imam behave in this way. I am suggesting that some do. Tolerance that enables intolerance is no longer tolerance.
KING: The enemy really is anyone who wishes to impose their beliefs onto me by undermining my freedoms.
CORNELIUS: So as long as Muslims don't mess with YOU and YOUR freedoms, they should be left alone to oppress, abuse and even kill the weakest of their own. I see.
KING: The fundamental religious right of any flavor comes to mind, be they Jewish, Muslim or Christian. I already belong to several organizations to kep such folks at bay. Why not find one and join one yourself, Cornelius? I've just finished a letter writing campaign to stop a crazed move by fundamentalist Christians to have Adam and Eve taught in my public school system. Can you beleive the gall?
CORNELIUS: Those fundamentalist Christians are a grave threat...they become suicide bombers to kill and maim on a mass scale, they murder apostates, stone women for adultery, sexually mutilate young girls...oh wait, those are Muslims.
Well, Christians are just as bad. They want to change our schoolbooks.
Cornelius: "So as long as Muslims don't mess with YOU and YOUR freedoms, they should be left alone to oppress, abuse and even kill the weakest of their own. I see."
King: You do not see. How can you leap to think that I endorse oppression, abuse and killing of the weak based on my comment?
Cornelius: "Those fundamentalist Christians are a grave threat."
King: Sarcasm notwithstanding, they certainly are, and they are beginning to mess with my personal rights and freedoms. Just as you and your minions are worrying about the undermining of Europe into a "Eurabia", the very same thing is happening in the US by the far shores of the religious right. DO I blame all Christians? No.
Cornelius: "they become suicide bombers to kill and maim on a mass scale, they murder apostates, stone women for adultery, sexually mutilate young girls"
King: All of what you describe has been experienced within the confines of Christianity, too. Heretics were lavishly and publicly killed, women had their genitals locked by belts, indigenous peoples have been slaughtered en masse all in the name of the Bible. People even managed to justify their actions, at the time, with Bible verses. My point is that extremism of any sort thrives when government and religion combine. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Divide the two. Not easy, takes time, can be done.
KING: You do not see. How can you leap to think that I endorse oppression, abuse and killing of the weak based on my comment?
CORNELIUS: Because you explicitly confined your identification of the enemy to those who would alter YOUR lifestyle...and exhibit no interest in passing moral judgment on the oppression, abuse and killing of the weak that is in many ways systemic and endemic in Muslim culture.
You refuse to accept responsibility for your own words. Earlier, you compared the West and Islam to a square peg and a round hole (an analogy I agree with by the way). Later, you deny the two cultures are not incompatible. Which is it? Was the analogy appropriate or not?
Then, you write:
"People are free to do whatever they damn well please and I tolerate them even if I disagree with their ways"
...and now you deny that you meant what your statement obviously implies.
Might I suggest you sharpen your debating skills by 1) becoming more explicit and 2) utilizing appropriate qualifiers.
KING: Sarcasm notwithstanding, they certainly are, and they are beginning to mess with my personal rights and freedoms. Just as you and your minions are worrying about the undermining of Europe into a "Eurabia", the very same thing is happening in the US by the far shores of the religious right. DO I blame all Christians? No.
CORNELIUS: And neither do I blame all Muslims. But unlike yourself, I don't just assume that the family down the street, the halal butcher and particularly the local Imam devoted to Islamic tradition are content to live in an infidel country under secular law without trying or at least wanting to change things.
KING: All of what you describe has been experienced within the confines of Christianity, too. Heretics were lavishly and publicly killed, women had their genitals locked by belts, indigenous peoples have been slaughtered en masse all in the name of the Bible. People even managed to justify their actions, at the time, with Bible verses. My point is that extremism of any sort thrives when government and religion combine. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Divide the two. Not easy, takes time, can be done.
CORNELIUS: You are the King of moral relativism: Because Christinanity was barbaric centuries ago, it is no different and no less of a threat to personal freedom today than Islam. Interesting logic. If I have given inference that is at varience with your actual views, please correct me by acknowledging explicitly that Islam is a greater threat to the freedom and personal well-being of Westerners than Christianity.
You devote your energies to undermining Christian fundamentalism (a worthy pursuit in my humble opinion) while defending the rights of Muslims to import their own fundamentalism into the West (very, very misguided, again in my humble opinion).
I haven't been trying as hard as I should to be finding common ground with you KT. I apologize for not being more conciliatory, but the subject matter is such that it goes right to the core what I feel to be the most important issue of our time.
Tomorrow, I hope to present you with a series of questions. Through your answers, I hope to know whether the narrowing of our differences is possible.
It's not Romper Room, but it's a happy song.
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songlist/song1_ra.html
KT,
Some questions for you under the thread 'Iraq Constitution opens door to problems says Christian Patriarch'
Lordy be! Oberst KT returns!
Do you speak to the Bronzed Head, all-Powerful one? Does he know where my keys are? Oh, all-Powerful KT, call off your hordes of minions - I do not wish to transfer millions out of unmarked African bank accounts, and I wish nothing to do with "farm moms" or whatever it is they email me with! Can I not be attacked constantly by thy gibeous hanker-afters? O! W'Allahwalla, deliver me from the infidel!
...
Anyway, a few enlightenments for the self-proclaimed famous fellow:
KING: It's easy: know who the enemy really is. The enemy is not the nice Muslim family down the street. The enemy is not the halal butchershop owner. The enemy is not the Imam who wishes to observe strict Islamic tradition. The enemy is even not the Holy Koran. People are free to do whatever they damn well please and I tolerate them even if I disagree with their ways.
This is utter moral relativity, and it is repugnant; the "ways" of others, where they lead to oppression and inequity, are to be scorned and undermined at all opportunities. People are indeed free (such as they may be "free" in the religion of "submission") to do as they wish, but not to do as they wish to others where that causes harm.
Not only that, KT's comments are misguided. It is precisely that one does NOT know who the terrorists are that has placed islam in its present position of scrutiny. The enemy is indeed - or may well be - the strict Imam (actually, this one is pretty damn likely), the halal butcher, the nice muslim family down the street ("By Allah, he was a good boy! Played lots of soccer! Liked chips! We surely did not expect him to be a suicide bomber. Incidentally, did you know the Jews were responsible for 9/11?") and specifically indeed the Unholy Quran - have you read the Quran?
"You see, prophet geoff [bbuh], many Arabs have only seen or dealt with the most corrosive parts of our culture. Some of those Arabs have answered back with the worst they have to offer as well."
/sarc
I see. Blue jeans, coke and oil profits stolen by their leaders = bombs and genocide of non-muslims. Of course! Response in kind, islam-style. After all, local Christian and Jewish populations are secretly in cahoots with the evil Americans, aren't they? And aren't "kufr" lives worth less in blood money than islamic ones? And some people say there's no such thing as moral parity!
/sarc off
KT: You simply cannot expect masses of people to accomodate YOUR idea of the perfect civilization. The more you force the peg, the more damage you sustain. People can and will accept things when they're damn good and ready."
This, just as practically speaking, is simply not acceptable. Should we just have waited until Nazi Germany (the inevitable comparison, just as it apparently is a neverending font of Star Trek episodes) began a slow decline into corruption, so as to avoid having to invade? The Jews could then have just been left to the German's devices. People, after all, will accept things when they're damn good and ready, no?
The islamic world can (and, seemingly, should) be dealt with either forcefully to ensure human rights, or statically, as was done with the Soviets. We simply do not have time to wait around while islam patiently decides whether or not all non-muslims deserve to die.
(BTW: We don't. Didn't know if you knew that.)
Prophet Imam Geoff
BBUM
Tomorrow, I hope to present you with a series of questions. Through your answers, I hope to know whether the narrowing of our differences is possible.
And after you finally know will you then try the same with IA567?
Seriously Cornelius, I can't believe that a person of a normal intelligence, that you obviously are, is unable to grasp, after the first exchange with KinkT, that he is dealing with an incurable idiot.
The muhammedan poser 'King:'
"My point is that extremism of any sort thrives when government and religion combine. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The Sheik sez:
Islam is when religion governs.
Kingko:
Your Caliphs would be absolutely corrupt. Look to any Islamic hell-hole and if you don't want to see it, it will bite you in the nose.
Thomas. h above sez:
.."unable to grasp, after the first exchange with KinkT, that he is dealing with an incurable idiot.'
Indeed.
Yet K.T. displays all the traits of the proper, dyed in the wool Mussulman and it is quite interesting to follow his postings. The idiocy, the Tu Coque, the circular reasoning, the lack of logic and common sense, and finally, when all fails, more absurdities, like "Racism" etc.
On the one hand he wants to tell us that sun and moon are the same, (they are planets, after all) So he thinks he makes a point.
Then, if you point out to him that you can't get a suntan from the moon he'll tell you that you can get moon-rays which will 'enrich your life beyond your imagination' meaning that Islam can replace civilization and an inquisitive mind with five prayers and Koranic 'wisdom'-,
when you tell him that interment and deportations will solve the terror-problem we have with the sons of Allah he grasps the last and only straw he's got: "Racist" - as if the moon-cult-terror was a racial thing!
How pathetic!
The muhammedan poser 'King:'
"My point is that extremism of any sort thrives when government and religion combine. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Islam is when religion governs.
Your Caliphs would be absolutely corrupt. Look to any Islamic hell-hole and if you don't want to see it, it will bite you in the nose.
Thomas. h above sez:
.."unable to grasp, after the first exchange with KinkT, that he is dealing with an incurable idiot.'
Indeed.
Yet he displays all the traits of the proper, dyed in the wool Mussulman and it is quite interesting to follow his postings. The idiocy, the Tu Coque, the circular reasoning, the lack of logic and common sense, and finally, when all fails, more absurdities, like "Racism" etc.
On the one hand he wants to tell us that sun and moon are the same, (they are planets, after all) So he thinks he makes a point.
Then, if you point out to him that you can't get a suntan from the moon he'll tell you that you can get moon-rays which will 'enrich your life beyond your imagination' meaning that Islam can replace civilization and an inquisitive mind with five prayers and Koranic 'wisdom'-
Well Thomas,
There are quite a few people very close to me, people I love - family, that are incredibly myopic in their political views...flaming liberals in the mode of KT (I don't for a minute think he's a Muslim). Part of the process of educating them is to give them a fair hearing and acknowledge those points they make that have some legitimacy. Additionally, KT made some conciliatory comments towards me in which I failed to reciprocate...so out of basic fairness, I wanted to give him a chance.
Apparently, he's not up to the task or is uninterested since I did post my 10 questions on another thread a day or two ago. That's ok, it's certainly his prerogative not to respond.
My real disappointment was in getting no response from Mr Spencer himself in a JW thread about Afghanistan. I'm sure he's a busy man fighting the good fight for all our sakes and can't be sidetracked by responding to every query from his supporters here. Se la vi.