But here's the good news: the clock is "now running." No word on which time zone this discussion is in, though, relative to Iran's progress. "Iran running out clock on US: Mullen," from Agence France-Presse, December 20:
The top U.S. military officer said Sunday he does not assume Iran's brief seizure of an Iraqi oil well is part of an orchestrated plan in Tehran to threaten its neighbors.
Adm. Mike Mullen also said he's worried about "the clock now running" on the Obama administration's efforts at trying to keep the lines of communication open with Iran. The administration had given a rough deadline of the end of 2009 for Iran to respond to an offer of engagement and show that it would allay world concerns about its nuclear program.
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supports that offer, and has said any military strike on Iran, whether by Israel or the U.S., should be a last resort.
Washington and others worry that Iran's program is intended to develop nuclear weapon. Iran says its work is peaceful and designed to generate electricity but has defied international demands to prove it is not trying to build an atomic bomb.
The administration is now beginning a push to get international support for additional penalties against Iran as a result, and Mullen suggested he thinks that backing was there.
"I think signals are very clearly in the air that another set of sanctions, another resolution, that that's coming," he said.
"I grow increasingly concerned that the Iranians have been non-responsive. I've said for a long time we don't need another conflict in that part of the world," he said. "I'm not predicting that would happen, but I think they've got to get to a position where they are a constructive force and not a destabilizing force."
The administration is concerned about Iran's refusal to carry through on a tentative deal struck in October that called for Iran to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for fuel to run a research reactor.
The deal was seen by the U.S. and its negotiating partners as a step toward building confidence in Iran's claim that its nuclear program is designed entirely to generate power, not weapons.
The administration also stepped up the momentum toward sanctions after the revelation in September that Iran was secretly building a second uranium-enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom.
Mullen, who spoke to reporters while flying from Germany back to the U.S., said the oil well incident adds to his concerns about Iran's intentions toward neighboring Iraq and the rest of the world.
"I worry a great deal about ... Iran and destabilizing as opposed to stabilizing," he said.
"And I worry about, you know, the clock now running on the dialogue and the engagement and sort of, where are we if that doesn't finish well? And certainly recent indications are ... they're not very responsive."
Meanwhile in Washington, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said time was running out for Iran to cooperate.
"The international community is going to have to deal with that if they don't change their minds," he said. "I think that the world is united and is willing to take additional steps if the Iranians don't turn around. ... Plainly, there are going to be consequences if they don't turn around."
Republican Sen. John McCain said the administration should act on its own to punish Iran and demonstrate support for Iranian dissidents.
"The president should stand up for the people who are demonstrating and risking their very lives on behalf of freedom on the streets of Tehran," he said. "Let's make it very clear we are with these people who are struggling for freedom as we always have."
Axelrod spoke on ABC's "This Week," while McCain appeared on "Fox News Sunday."
Adm. Mike Mullen: "The administration had given a rough deadline of the end of 2009 for Iran to respond to an offer of engagement and show that it would allay world concerns about its nuclear program...[Please note: this deadline is only 10 days away. Apparently the Iranians are encountering real difficulties in the simple act of agreeing to the "offer of engagement."]
"I think signals are very clearly in the air that another set of sanctions, another resolution, that that's coming,"
If the Islamic Republic of Iran doesn't meet this deadline, it will surely be possible to help them meet the deadline by setting it back to sometime in 2010, or maybe 2011, or maybe 2012...
Deadline? What deadline? The reference here must be that line in the sand the desert winds keep blowing way. Must be natures way of leveling the ground so the glass forms smoother.
If the US government makes peace with Iran and co-opts the Ayatollahs as President Reagan co-opted Saddam Hussein, there will be one less enemy in the world, but that will not sit well with the those who want as many enemies as possible in order to keep the fear level high enough so that the American public will not question that 68 cents of every hard earned tax dollar or more than a trillion dollars is going every year to the bloated, greedy, wasteful, corrupt military/industrial pork laden corporate welfare entitlement complex.
The rich and powerful in the military/industrial complex are "laughing all the way to the bank " while the average American has to forgo a better and healthier standard of living due to a trillion dollars or 68 cents of every hard earned tax dollar being squandered every year on projects that have little value with the actual safety or security of the American people.
The yearly trillion dollar looting of hard earned taxpayers' money from the treasury by the military/industrial complex and its puppets in the US govt is giving us neither security or safety as evidenced by 19 hijackers using box-cutters on a half million dollar budget, infiltrating all our trillion dollar defenses and that is one reason the guilt-ridden US govt had to compensate the families of the victims on 9/11.
The entire US govt. is corrupt, especially in the area of "defense" which will eventually make the US govt. insolvent and in order to prevent insolvency the US govt will dramatically increase taxes and/or dramatically cut essential services like oversight, medical research, health care, pollution controls, food inspections etc etc.
Not only is the US govt corrupt, its foreign policies make it dangerous to the safety and security of the American people and all the people outside of America who are adversely affected by US foreign policy.
From the destruction of innocent Japanese cherry blossom trees during World War Two in Washington DC to the presence of US nuclear weapons that "tell" foreign governments that if they kill our children with a nuclear attack, the US government has the right to kill all their children with our nuclear weapons, is a testimony to the similarity between the terrorists and what the US government has at least done in the past in which both the terrorists and the US government have punished or wanted to punish collaterally or otherwise, "trees" and the general population (of innocent men, women, children and babies ) for the evil doings of a few.
Yawn...
45ch, check your conspiracy theories at the door. They don't work here.
Does the administration really expect Iran to cooperate? The fact that David Axelrod says that he thinks that the world is united is a stunningly fatuous statement, as though Russia and China are going to go along with sanctions. At least McCain understands that if there is going to be any action, we will have to act alone, though I would think France would be amenable. Sarkozy actually thinks Obama lives in Fantasy Land, and has said as much.
Somehow I find it strange that we would spend almost a trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan and allow Iran, clearly the most dangerous country in the region, to develop nukes. Surely it's a relative bargain to just bomb their nuclear installations? That creep Ahmedinejad needs to be humiliated.
Don't bogart that joint my friend, pass it over again.
Boneshack,
What the US govt. is doing is not conspiracy, its pure corruption at the highest levels of govt.
JD,
Here is a video of a muslim militant who admits that muslims are divided and not united :
http://www.blip.tv/file/1621826
Did anyone watch the Vali Naser interview on CNN today? What a load of outright lies or wishful thinking. Especially the bit on Turkey ... almost as if he has no idea of who Erdogan is. His claim is that capitalism will cause an Islamic reformation. This seems contradictory to almost everything I hear Muslims saying about our society.
Erdogan : "“Assimilation is a crime against humanity”, addressing an audience of Turks in Germany. Source
....and in a related article, MSNBCCNNCBSNBCABCPBSNPRNYTLAT and Al Jazeera reports that the administration has issued a purchase order for approximately 35 million metric tons of sand, to be used exclusively in the shovel-ready created and/or saved job of 'line-drawing'.
The sand was purchased from suppliers located in Kenya, Hawaii and on the lake shores of Chicago Illinois.
No other documentation or information has been provided, including the cost to the taxpayers for this material and it's logistics for delivery.
However, the media has been assured everything with the purchases was on the up and up.
Kenny Solomon
Senior Expediter
The 72 Virgins Club Travel Agency
Offices throughout the 57 states of America.
"Plainly, there are going to be consequences if they don't turn around."
A joke wrapped in a jest inside of a farce.
Ethoman,
Here is a video of a muslim militant who admits that muslims are divided and not united :
http://www.blip.tv/file/1621826
Maybe I missed it, but has there been any report of Iran actually building nuclear power plants? If that's what all that enriched uranium is for shouldn't there be at least one reactor in the construction stage, and wouldn't they be proudly inviting the world to come see it?
here is a pdf written by this Vali Nasir guy .... seems our entire foreign policy is being written by this man, this should be worthy reading
http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/gratis/Nasr-16-2.pdf
How's that tin foil hat working out.
45ch,
Don't make me repeat myself.
CONSPIRACY. Do I need to provide a definition?
"I grow increasingly concerned that the Iranians have been non-responsive. I've said for a long time we don't need another conflict in that part of the world," he said. "I'm not predicting that would happen, but I think they've got to get to a position where they are a constructive force and not a destabilizing force...
"I worry a great deal about ... Iran and destabilizing as opposed to stabilizing," he said...
"And I worry about, you know, the clock now running on the dialogue and the engagement and sort of, where are we if that doesn't finish well? And certainly recent indications are ... they're not very responsive."
....................
I seem to dimly recall a time when top American military figures were not so...tentative...in stating their concerns...
Beast,
We built it.
"The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility—fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3096
boneshack,
Please give me a definition of conspiracy and also a definition for corruption.
Corruption is what motivates politicians to funnel over a trillion dollars every year to their supporters in the military/industrial complex.
By keeping the fear level of terrorism and Iran high enough, the politicians hope that the hard working Americans do not question the yearly trillion dollar looting of hard earned taxpayers money and while the rich and powerful in the military/industrial complex "laugh all the way to the bank", their puppets in the US govt will have to prevent the insolvency of the US govt. by eventually raising taxes dramatically and/or dramatically cutting essential services like health care, social security, medical research, essential research on curing deadly diseases, pollution controls, poisons controls, terrorism prevention, infrastructure maintenance , food safety inspections, utilities maintenance, traffic congestion prevention, gun violence prevention, gang violence prevention etc etc
flower,
Here is a militant muslim confronting moderate muslims :
http://www.blip.tv/file/2747315
From the destruction of innocent Japanese cherry blossom trees during World War Two in Washington DC to the presence of US nuclear weapons that "tell" foreign governments that if they kill our children with a nuclear attack...
..................
For anyone who may wonder what "45ch" is on about, the "destruction of innocent Japanese cherry blossom trees" he refers to was an incidence of vandalism in late 1941, where vandals chopped down *four* trees—out of 3,020 in all.
There has been speculation that this was in retaliation for Pearl Harbor—but no one was ever caught. The act of vandalism was widely decried at the time, the trees were replanted, and were maintained by the city of Washington D.C. throughout the war.
So—"45ch" is comparing an act of civilian vandalism almost 70 years ago to the mass murder of children. Rather flagrant moral relativism, even from a Mohammadan.
http://www.nps.gov/cherry/cherry-blossom-history.htm
45ch,
Corruption is what motivates politicians to funnel over a trillion dollars every year to their supporters in the military/industrial complex.
One Trillion dollars is a lot of money. Last time I heard the "military/industrial complex" was the root source of governmental and military corruption that should have been ended in 1963. November 22nd, to be exact.
Let's start from here. The ball is in your court.
45ch is just another Islamist Enabling LEFTY TROLL who HATES this country.
Nah.
45ch is a Mohammedan in a (badly-fitting) 'christian pacifist' mask.
Many years have been wasted in attempts to try for a peaceful resolution. It's not possible, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has all along been playing for time. Much squandering of men, money, materiel in Iraq, and Afpakistan, and the deflection of attention from Iran, may make some reluctant to act, but attention should never have been deflected away from Iran, and its nuclear project. There are only two important goals when it comes to the war of self-defense against the Jihad (whether from Sunni or Shi'a hardly matters):
1. Prevent the acquisition of the kind of weaponry we call "weapons of mass destruction" by any Muslim polity or people, and in the one case where such acquisition was not prevented, in Pakistan, make sure that the ability to deliver such weaponry effectively is not acquired. Iran, that is the Islamic Republic of Iran, cannot be given more time after the end of this year. The game is, or should be, up.
2. Limit the presence of Muslims in the Western world, and especially, without a moment to lose, in the countries of Western Europe, whose elites so negligently allowed a large-scale presence to develop. Now not only must a halt in Muslim migration be instituted, but measures undertaken to diminish that presence, by making the practice of Islam harder, and by making the peoples in these countries much more aware of what the texts and tenets of Islam inculcate. The appropriate defensive measures will naturally follow.
Vali Nasr is an apologist for Islam, and the son of a similar apologist. That he has been given a job in the Administration, where in any councils of power he will certainly inhibit easy discussion of measures undertaken to weaken the Camp of Islam -- there he sits, right there, a Muslim in front of whom few are likely to speak openly of such matters, but it is exaclty such matters that must be spoken about. He has to be shifted away from any real center of power and, ideally, his background, and his defensiveness about Islam, thoroughly understood. He does not wish to see Islam, the Camp of Islam, divided and demoralized. He does not wish for Americans, or other Westerners, to study too deeply the texts and tenets of Islam. He would wish that he, and other apologists (preferably, in his view, Shi'a Muslims)would have the field to themselves, and that no outright opposition to Islam be allowed. He is, therefore, a menace to the formulation of a much more intelligent, and far less expensive, policy of containment of the Camp of Islam.
"Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supports that offer [of engagement], and has said any military strike on Iran, whether by Israel or the U.S., should be a last resort." -- from the article.
This was not a careless slip of the tongue by Mullen, but his way of signaling to Iran that military action, including by the U.S., is one of the options under active consideration if Iran continues its program of development of a nuclear weapon. Given this administration's perceived weakness because of Obama's incessant apologizing, which Mullen has also contributed to by his general wussiness, the question is whether Iran will think Obama is bluffing and will simply ignore these warnings.
I would guess that our military planners, who work up plans for all kinds of scenarios, would by now almost certainly have worked up a very detailed embargo, or even attack, plan for taking out the uranium processing and associated facilities. And I would further guess that this planning is being done in coordination with Israel. If we do decide to take action and were smart we would leave the E.U. out of it, and in the event of hostilities inform the E.U. via NATO to coincide with the strikes. It goes without saying that the U.N. should not be consulted, although Iran will certainly go crying to them after the fact.
Adm. Mike Mullen . . . officer said Sunday he does not assume Iran's brief seizure of an Iraqi oil well is part of an orchestrated plan in Tehran to threaten its neighbors.
Who are these admirals/generals? Shooting their mouth off about this oil drilling incident. Even if what he said is true, he is a total fool for saying it.
No subordinate in command should be voicing US policy and that is the way it is being written whether intended or not. This is just another example of the multi-headed nature of this hater of the military, head in the sand diplomacy and appalling ignorance on just about everything else. I have noted before everything and I mean everything that this administration says or does is always filtered through public opinion or what they consider as their support. It is always slanted toward making the leader look good and sound sincere. Lying is the method used in all pronouncements.
The Iranians are just playing along to see how weak we are. This attack on the oil site is just to see what we do. If they see strength they will move one way if not the other. The west has not, and I wonder if it ever will, come to the understanding that they will produce an nuclear weapon and developed the means to deliver it. Most likely Israel. At the very least they will us it as a threat against any actions it supports world wide to force our hand into submitting to their will. This administration along with the world will submit for the sack of what they would call peace. I can think of a number of words that better say it.
Oh, 45 you don't know what you are talking about and have not proved a thing. I know a Muslim in Turkey and they hate the Sonnie's (I might have it backwards). However when I asked if they would denounce these terrorist actions. The reply was that it was none of their business. Regarding businesses that provide material and support to the defense department there needs to be constant monitoring but it is not the bad guy. We need a strong defense last I looked and I would sooner error on stronger than weak. I want my military to kick Islamic arrogance back to the seventh century were it belongs. And not be a threat to us any more. You don't sound like you want that? Is that because I am referring to your ass?
Don't bother to answer. You can debate with boneshack.
Graven,
Are you talking about the mass terrorist attacks of collaterally killing Japanese children by the US govt. fire and atom bombing of Japan in which hundreds of thousands of children were either burned alive or were maimed, deformed, blinded, disfigured or paralyzed for life ?
Or are you talking about the genocides of over a hundred million civilians in non-muslim lands as compared to the genocides in muslim lands ?
If you are talking about something else, let me know, thanks
45ch,
Essentially most arguments regarding who has killed, and for what reason are pointless. In the end what our governments, and Muslims are asking the free peoples of the west to do is to give up their freedom in order to accommodate large populations of Islamic immigrants. The real impetus for civil strife will come from the horrifying examples the Islamic world has set for how they treat non-Muslims, and the importation of this supremacist ideology into western society. This is something that can't be asked of us, you have to understand how dangerous this will be. Ask yourself .... what will western society do to protect their freedom? (long pause) You have to have a pretty BIG imagination huh!
Look at the Middle East for crying out loud, look at how they treat the Copts, religious minorities in Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, Morocco to name a few that even have any left that, whom have survived your religious persecution.
How do you fight people that see you as sub-human, and second class by scriptural doctrine, and enforce this supremacism with violence and totalitarian regimes? Do you integrate them? Do you show them tolerance?
None of it matters, unless there are major changes in the Islamic world very soon, any debate we have in the west with western Muslims will be mute, we can't trust it. No need to over complicate it at all.
There isn't much time left, perhaps 5-10 years .... maybe, if we don't see an end to religious persecution in the Islamic world it will be too late.
Boneshack,
The corruption did not end in the 60s and neither did it start in the 20th century.
It actually started when the founding fathers borrowed money in order to finance the US revolutionary war.
Centuries of fear mongering by politicians has resulted in the tremendous expansion of government, ever since the founding fathers started deficit spending on the revolutionary war to "free" themselves from Great Britain.
Would the American people have paid for the revolutionary war out of their own pockets ? ... They probably would have told the founding fathers to be as patient as the Canadians and not rebel against Britain
OOPS
"debate we have in the west with western Muslims will be mute"
SHOULD READ: "debate we have in the west with western Muslims will be moot"
for those that care :-).
Choi,
I don't hate America.
Americans are a great and generous people
and I don't even hate anybody in the US govt or military/industrial complex,
but I am highly critical of the US govt and its supporters in the bloated, corrupt, wasteful, greedy, military/industrial, pork laden, corporate welfare, entitlement complex.
The US govt. is not always interested in preventing war
but rather more interested in keeping its supporters happy in the bloated, greedy, wasteful, corrupt military/industrial pork laden, corporate welfare entitlement compelex
by keeping the fear level of terrorism
and Iran high enough, the politicians
hope that the hard working Americans do
not question the yearly trillion dollar
looting of hard earned taxpayers money
and while the rich and powerful in the
military/industrial complex "laugh all
the way to the bank, their puppets in the
US govt will have to prevent the
insolvency of the US govt. by eventually
raising taxes dramatically and/or
dramatically cutting essential services
like health care, social security,
medical research, essential research on
curing deadly diseases, pollution
controls, poisons controls, terrorism
prevention, infrastructure maintenance ,
food safety inspections, utilities
maintenance, traffic congestion
prevention, gun violence prevention, gang violence
prevention etc etc.
I thought this was jihad watch...I must have accidentally clicked on 'US government criminality watch'...
It would seem to me that 45ch is another Islamic bandwidth thief...
DDA,
How would you refer to Cain and King David ?
Did they not believe in God and if so, they were believers.
Christians do murder and when they murder, do they cease to be christians ?
Muslims do murder and when they murder, do they cease to be muslims ?
I submit to you that most christians follow the teachings of Muhammad than they follow the teachings of Christ because Christ taught to take up the "cross", whereas Muhammad taught to fight for a just cause.
Duh,
It should not surprise you that the US govt is corrupt and always was corrupt.
I wish it were not true, but I have to face the truth and the truth is that The US govt. is not always interested in
preventing war but rather more interested
in keeping its supporters happy in the
bloated, greedy, wasteful, corrupt
military/industrial pork laden, corporate
welfare entitlement complex
by keeping the fear level of terrorism
and Iran high enough, the politicians
hope that the hard working Americans do
not question the yearly trillion dollar
looting of hard earned taxpayers money
and while the rich and powerful in the
military/industrial complex "laugh all
the way to the bank, their puppets in the
US govt will have to prevent the
insolvency of the US govt. by eventually
raising taxes dramatically and/or
dramatically cutting essential services
like health care, social security,
medical research, essential research on
curing deadly diseases, pollution
controls, poisons controls, terrorism
prevention, infrastructure maintenance ,
food safety inspections, utilities
maintenance, traffic congestion
prevention, gun violence prevention, gang
violence prevention etc etc.
From post above...Muhammad taught to fight for a just cause.
Who determines what is 'just'?
Every 'cause' of a bully is a 'just cause'...Among his other charming attributes, Mahound was a bully...All his 'causes' were 'just', even rape, robbery, torture, murder...all of them were 'just'...'just awful'... But after all, he was the Prophet, so we let him slide with a few 'just atrocities', and 'just criminal behaviors' racked up on his side of the scoreboard...
Author Profile Page 45ch replied to comment from duh_swami |
Duh,
It should not surprise you that the US govt is corrupt and always was corrupt.
Nothing surprises me...Even if your right, so what? This is jihad watch...Frankly I would rather talk about Allah and 'His' causes...Some political talk is fine, but your insistent condemnations of America get boring...You sound like a clone of Rosie O'Donnell...
Im,
Switzerland has a strong military and terrorists do not attack Switzerland.
The US govt.'s so-called defenses could not stop 19 hijackers on a half million dollar budget with box-cutters on 9/11/01 because the puppets of the military/industrial complex in the US govt are more interested in spending money on their supporters in the military/industrial complex that help their puppet politicians get re-elected than actually doing the practical and inexpensive programs to protect the American people
I would rather have Switzerland's defense policies which are inexpensive compared to the yearly trillion dollar US "defense" budget.
By keeping the fear level of terrorism and Iran high enough, the politicians hope that the hard working Americans do not question the yearly trillion dollar looting of hard earned taxpayers money and while the rich and powerful in the military/industrial complex "laugh all the way to the bank, their puppets in the US govt will have to prevent the insolvency of the US govt. by eventually raising taxes dramatically and/or dramatically cutting essential services like health care, social security, medical research, essential research on curing deadly diseases, pollution controls, poisons controls, terrorism prevention, infrastructure maintenance , food safety inspections, utilities maintenance, traffic congestion prevention, gun violence prevention, gang violence prevention etc etc.
"Millions of consumers are being made ill, hundreds of thousands hospitalized and thousands are dying each year from preventable food borne illnesses," according to The Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Unfortunately, the FDA is saddled with outdated laws, and lacks the authority, tools and resources to fight unsafe food."
ref : http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Dangerous-foods-list-includes-cnnm-1143667599.html?x=0
Instead of keeping Americans safe from pollutants, poisons in every day household items and deadly pathogens, the US govt directs trillions to unnecessary wars and unnecessary "defense" projects.
The US govt. will not give up the American empire even while the American economy is suffering and has just approved 805 billion ( eight hundred thousand million plus another five thousand million ) to the military/industrial complex which does not include the hundreds of billions going to homeland security, maintenance of nuclear armaments, the veterans budget, and the interest payments on the debt borrowed on behalf of the military/industrial complex.
Interest payments alone on the debt incurred by funding past unnecessary wars and bloated unnecessary projects of the military/industrial complex amounts to about $250 billion a year.
ref : http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/anglewicz-brauer062005.html
and at this rate of spending, the US will eventually become a third rate economy with lower standards of living for the average American while social security benefits will be cut, health care rationed, cuts in high quality education and cuts in all essential projects and essential services like medical research, essential research on curing deadly diseases, pollution controls, poisons controls, terrorism prevention, infrastructure maintenance , food safety inspections, utilities maintenance, traffic congestion prevention, gun violence prevention, gang violence prevention etc etc.
Duh,
If I am right, so what ?
The corruption of the US govt will affect you while terrorism will most probably not affect you unless the US govt keeps up with its instigation policies.
You would be safer living in Switzerland than you would in the US due to the instigation policies of the US govt.
At the rate of spending, annually, 68 cents of every hard earned tax dollar on the military/industrial complex, your life is going to be affected.
And at this rate of spending, the US will eventually become a third rate economy with lower standards of living for the average American while social security benefits will be cut, health care rationed, cuts in high quality education and cuts in all essential projects and essential services like medical research, essential research on curing deadly diseases, pollution controls, poisons controls, terrorism prevention, infrastructure maintenance , food safety inspections, utilities maintenance, traffic congestion prevention, gun violence prevention, gang violence prevention etc etc.
Duh,
85% of the American public thought the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a "just war", but I could not find anywhere where Muhammad killed women and children en masse.
You seem to have 'fixations'...I guess they are hard to shake...must be painful...This is jihad watch...do you have anything profound to say about jihad? You're getting boring...I'm starting to nod off...
45ch....I meant to mention this...
'but I could not find anywhere where Muhammad killed women and children en masse'.
He was too smart for that...women and children were taken as slaves and whatever, while the males were killed enmass...
I think you will find evidence of this in your scripture...
If Mahound had a nuclear weapon, he most certainly would have used it...
When the deadline is reached, Iran will get another deadline...This is the way it has been, and this is the way it will be...Unless Israel decides to stop playing musical chairs, and go's for the throat...
ethoman , you stated :
Essentially most arguments regarding who has killed, and for what reason are pointless.
Comment :
Why is it pointless ?
Reasons to kill have a lot to do with "just war", just as 85% of the American public thought it was just to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, showing that war brings out the worst in people and if it can bring out the worst in the American public that was hardly affected by Japanese bombs, can you imagine the affect war has on a muslim population under fire from US bombs ?
ethoman , you stated :
In the end what our governments, and Muslims are asking the free peoples of the west to do is to give up their freedom in order to accommodate large populations of Islamic immigrants.
Comment :
American muslims have contributed a lot to the US and that is why American muslims earn a lot more than the average American.
U.S. Average income is $42,158 per year (U.S. Census 2000)
66% of American Muslim HH's earn over $50,000 / year
26% of American Muslim HH's earn over $100,000 / year
ref : http://www.allied-media.com/AM/
ethoman , you stated :
The real impetus for civil strife will come from the horrifying examples the Islamic world has set for how they treat non-Muslims, and the importation of this supremacist ideology into western society.
Comment :
Millions of non-muslims live in peace in muslim countries and all the violence is not anymore different than violence experienced by non-muslims from non-muslims.
here are 10 different areas that points to the fact that non-muslims might be more violent than muslims :
I wish the opposite were true but here are ten areas where the evidence seems to point to the fact that non-muslims are more violent.
Here are 10 areas pointing to non-muslims being more violent :
(1) 1400 islamic terrorist attacks should be compared to the number of attacks by the US military on targets and the number of sorties run by the US air force every day since 2001 which have resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilians dead according to the Lancet report and that is only in Iraq and does not include the tens of thousands dead in Afghanistan due to the US govt.'s collateral actions.
The US govt. can guarantee the collateral deaths of civilians, women, children and babies and in fact, before every war, the US govt. estimates the number of civilian deaths, so in what way is that different from terrorists plotting attacks ?
Yes, some terrorists target civilians, but there is no evidence that the majority of terrorists do because terrorists also want to win the hearts and minds of the people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties
(2) More than a hundred million have died due to genocides in non-muslim countries compared to the genocides in muslim countries
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
(3) in non-war zones :
I am sure you have heard of stories or read the news about your town's murders etc and most of them were done by non-muslims and probably non by Al-Qaeda, so you are more in danger from your fellow citizens.
If you were living in a muslim country, there is a good chance you could be a victim of a muslim but at the same time, the murder rates in a place like Saudi Arabia (rank : 61) is much lower than in the US ( rank : 24) and several muslim countries have lower murder rates than the US.
ref : http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
(4 ) In fact, the countries with the most murder rates, the top 12 are non-muslim.
ref : http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
(5) Here is a site that records the fact that there are more non-muslims committing mass murder than muslims :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_murderers_and_spree_killers_by_number_of_victims
(6) you do not find American muslims killing "infidels" in America today and in fact all the killing sprees in the world are overwhelmingly committed by non-muslims
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_killer
(7) Compared to American muslims targeting non-muslims, many more of the non-muslim majority target muslims in America .
The targeting of innocent minorities for alleged crimes/sins perpetrated by others is common everywhere, including the US : In 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, Arab Americans, Muslims, and Sikhs were victimized in nearly five percent of the total number of hate crimes reported that year (481 out of 9,730), a seventeen-fold increase over the prior year.
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/hatecrimes/arab-americans.html
(8) Jewish militias forced palestinians to flee their homes during the war of independence in 1948 when the Israeli army committed more atrocities and killed more civilians than the Arabs did, in large part because the Israelis captured 400 Arab towns and villages, whereas the Arabs took fewer than a dozen Israeli settlements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_and_massacres_during_the_1948_Palestine_War
Regarding genocides committed by Jews in Old Testament times :
A Jerusalem-based Holocaust Studies Professor Yehuda Bauer stated : "As a Jew, I must live with the fact that the civilization I inherited ... encompasses the call for genocide in its canon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Before_1490
(9) Here are the facts from the US dept. of justice:
American men and women who have killed their own children or loved ones or relatives or ex-spouses between 1976 and 1997 number at 116,814 ( annual rate of 5562 )
ref : http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/wo.txt
Annual worldwide high end estimate of honor killings : 5000 per year
ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
Tragically, Muslims don't follow sharia as much as non-muslims follow the ideology of hate in killing their daughters/children, loved ones, intimate partners or ex-spouses or relatives.
No matter how much sharia is out there, the sad fact is that non-muslims have been more violent towards their relatives/daughters/loved ones/ex-spouses/children/intimate partners than muslims have been been
ref : http://crime.about.com/b/2004/10/29/parents-killing-their-children.htm
(10) Both violent and non-violent muslims in prison number about 9,600 Muslim inmates in federal prisons in 2003 out of a US prison population of 7.3 million, so out of one muslim (either violent or non-violent ) going into prison, there are about 760 non-muslims in prison, not considering converts to islam in prison since the crime was committed before their conversion.
ref : http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/02/record.prison.population/
ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States%27_prisons
Conservative estimate of the muslim population in the US taken from the Pew Research Center instead of the figures reported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations which reports 6-7 million muslims :
2.5 million muslims in 2009 out of 300 million Americans, meaning for every 1 muslim, there are about 120 Americans according to the Pew Research Center
ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States#Demographics
So muslims in prison ( both violent and non-violent) 1 for every 760 non-muslims
Muslims in the general US population : 1 muslim for every 120 Americans meaning there are about 6.3 times less muslims in prison as compared to the general muslim population in the US.
Non-muslims in the general US population : 297,500,000 which is about 99% of the population according to the 2009 data from the Pew Research Center
ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States#Demographics
Non-muslims (before converting in prison) in the prison population : 7,290,400 which is about 99% of the prison population.
If muslims in prison are 6.3 times less in number than the general muslim population in America and non-muslims in prison represent about the same proportion as the general population,so is it right to say that muslims are on the whole much less violent than non-muslims ? or even if the data is horribly skewed for some inconceivable reason, we still cannot say that muslims in America are more violent than the non-muslims in America.
ethoman , you stated :
None of it matters, unless there are major changes in the Islamic world very soon, any debate we have in the west with western Muslims will be mute, we can't trust it. No need to over complicate it at all.
There isn't much time left, perhaps 5-10 years .... maybe, if we don't see an end to religious persecution in the Islamic world it will be too late.
Comment :
Muslims can reform :
Islam does not have a hold on muslims as seen in numerous muslims leaving Islam and Islam does not make muslims follow Sharia as can be seen in numerous muslim countries that do not have sharia :
Burkina Faso
Chad
Gambia
Guinea
Mali
Senegal
Somalia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgystan
Tajikstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Albania
Azerbaijan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kosovo
Turkey
If muslims are bound by sharia, how do you explain the following countries who do not follow sharia but are also democratic :
Albania
Turkey
Kosovo
Azerbaijan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kazakhstan
Burkina Faso
Chad
Tajikistan
Gambia
Mali
Kyrgyzstan
Senegal
Turkmenistan
SOLUTION :
The US govt should practice pragmatic pacifism.
I am not against the "rendition" of dangerous criminals like Hitler in order to prevent another world war.
In order to prevent war, the US govt. has to either co-opt those already in power or prevent a dangerous criminal like hitler from acquiring power.
But the US govt. is not truly interested in preventing war because war is good business and helps their supporters in the military/industrial complex.
Time and time again, the US govt. has instigated war, not caring about the lives of our beloved soldiers who are used as pawns in the power games played by old men who are puppets of those in the military/industrial complex.
An example of instigation policies :
Stimson, the Secretary of War confided in his diary after a meeting of the war cabinet on November 25, 1941 : “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves".
After the Pearl Harbor attack, Stimson confessed : “my first feeling was of relief ... that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people."
duh,
My scripture ? My scripture are the Words of Jesus, the Lord Christ, your Savior and my Savior.
If you think Muhammad was genocidal like the Jewish armies were in Deuteronomy 20, then why did Muhammad have peace treaties with numerous Jewish and Christian tribes ?
ch45 seems to be stuck in an endless loop of repetition of conspiracy buzz words...
1. Start
...the US govt and its supporters in the bloated, corrupt, wasteful, greedy, military/industrial, pork laden, corporate welfare, entitlement complex (etc., etc., blah, blah, blah).
2. Go to 1.
...effectively outshouting the more reasonable posters and creating a sort of Denial of Service on this thread by saturating it with his rants.
As for me, time for a brandy and cigar. G'night all.
East,
here is a video of a moderate muslim confronting a militant muslim, showing that the Koran is open to interpretation :
http://www.blip.tv/file/2154159
Duh,
Yes, I have something to say about Jihad.
Jihad is the equivalent of "just war" that most christians practice.
Reasons to kill have a lot to do with "just war", just as 85% of the American public thought it was just to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, showing that war brings out the worst in people and if it can bring out the worst in the American public that was hardly affected by Japanese bombs, can you imagine the affect war has on a muslim population under fire from US bombs ?
ref : http://www.gallup.com/poll/17677/majority-supports-use-atomic-bomb-japan-wwii.aspx
45ch, cab driver arguements probably belong more at the mosque.
Smith,
here is a video of a militant muslim confronting moderate muslims, showing that the Koran is open to interpretation :
http://www.blip.tv/file/2747315
45ch, you are an idiot.
The horrible conclusion to the Japanese conflict which ended WWII was the result of Japan firstly attacking the US. An attack very similar to what America experienced in 911.
In conflicts such as Korea and others, even though the US could have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives and quickly achieved military victory by using nukes it did not.
Your attempt at demonising the Military that fought Nazis, and resisted communist world domination is childish if not retarded.
Iran on the other hand is foolishly blinded by koranic inspired rage dreaming of great power and prestige by holding nukes but this will only turn them into a very large target and not just from the US , trust me.
Does the word regret exist in farsi? how about phantom-less regret?
wakingwest, you stated :
45ch, you are an idiot.
The horrible conclusion to the Japanese conflict which ended WWII was the result of Japan firstly attacking the US. An attack very similar to what America experienced in 911.
Comment :
Firstly, the attack on Pearl Harbor was instigated because the US govt knew that America had 100 times the industrial production of Japan and any war would lead to the utter destruction of Japan.
If the Japanese govt embargoed oil to the US, froze US assets, helped the Filipino rebels against the US govt., do you think the US govt will think of the Japanese actions as an act of war ?
Yes, the US govt did instigate the Japanese to attack.
The US govt instigated Japan by freezing Japanese assets, helping the Chinese military against Japan and as the McCollum Memo from US naval intelligence and Stimson, the Secretary of War admitted that the US govt. did everything short of all out war, to instigate the Japanese govt to attack, since only if the Japanese attacked first would that unite the American people for war, since the American people did not want another world war since WW1.
Stimson, the Secretary of War confided in his diary after a meeting of the war cabinet on November 25, 1941 : “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves".
After the Pearl Harbor attack, Stimson confessed : “my first feeling was of relief ... that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people."
Here are two examples of the US govt's actions against Japan that did not help matters with Osama Bin Laden :
(1) Osama Bin Laden read about the US govt. fire and atom bombing Japan in 1945 when Japan was already defeated as early as July of 1944 when Tojo resigned and Japan was negotiating concessions to the communists but FDR did not care about communists either killing tens of millions of civilians or that the crushing of Japan enabled communism to expand in Asia resulting in hundreds of thousands of US soldiers either dying horrifying deaths or being maimed, disfigured, deformed, blinded or paralyzed for life during the cold war.
(2) Osama Bin Laden must have read about US/Allied POWs in Japan and hundreds of thousands of Japanese children being terrorized, tortured and burned alive in the US fire and atom bombings of Japan and must have concluded that if the FDR/Truman did not care about the plight of their own US soldiers captive in Japan and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese children, why should Osama bin Laden care about lives when strategic goals were more important.
Secondly, as noted above the fire and atom bombing of Japan was totally an act of terror on a defeated and defenseless Japan which was fighting to survive an invasion of the Japanese home islands.
wakingwest, you stated :
In conflicts such as Korea and others, even though the US could have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives and quickly achieved military victory by using nukes it did not.
Comment :
MacArthur and others wanted to use nuclear bombs in the Korean conflict but the US govt finally decided against their use due to world wide negative public opinion after atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So what was the result of not using atom bombs in the Korean conflict ?
Although napalm was very new - the US govt.'s air war leveled North Korea and killed millions of civilians. North Koreans tell you that for three years they faced a daily threat of being burned with napalm: "You couldn't escape it," said a survivor in 1981. By 1952 just about everything in northern and central Korea had been completely leveled. What was left of the population survived in caves.
ref : http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/0503A_Cumings.html
wakingwest, you stated :
Your attempt at demonising the Military that fought Nazis, and resisted communist world domination is childish if not retarded.
Comment :
I am not demonizing anybody.
I am highly critical of the US govt and its policies.
The US govt created the Nazi and the communist problem.
Two ways the US govt could have stopped Hitler and the Nazi and communist problem :
(1) US govt. not getting involved in WW1
(2) US govt. having a covert operation to apprehend Hitler when it became obvious he was planning to murder his opponents or during the time when Hitler and his thugs were in prison for treason.
The US rendition program is in existence today and is intended to stop every terrorist attack around the world, so if the US govt. had a similar program in the early 1900s, the US govt could have prevented the massacre of the "night of the long knives" and apprehended Hitler and his thugs and thus prevented WW2 and prevented democratic Germany into becoming a dictatorship.
The US govt. could have easily stopped Hitler and the expansion of communism if the US govt. never got involved in WW1 but because the US govt. was involved in WW1, WW1 resulted in the defeat of Germany , the expansion of communism since Germany could no longer contain communism from expanding and because of the involvement of the US govt in WW1, a defeated Germany could not mitigate/prevent the advances of either Nazism or Communism or the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the result of a defeated Germany was WW2, the Cold War and the eventually the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Without the US govt as a military power; WW2, the Cold War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would never have happened since a strong and triumphant Germany would have prevented the rise of Nazism after WW1, dominated the communists during and after WW1, prevented the Ottoman Empire from being defeated in WW1 and thus Germany would have prevented WW2, the Cold War and the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
So why did the US govt get involved in WW1 ?
The only explanation is the re-election power agendas of war mongering politicians and the profit agenda of the military/industrial complex because war is not all about saving lives but has more to do with power and money as the "old men" politicians send our young and beloved soldiers deliberately into harm's way, all in the name of patriotism, honor, freedom and duty, while the rich and powerful in the military/industrial complex "laugh all the way to the bank" as our beloved soldiers die horrifying deaths and women, children and babies are collaterally killed as the US govt pretends to save them from tyranny.
wakingwest, you stated :
Iran on the other hand is foolishly blinded by koranic inspired rage dreaming of great power and prestige by holding nukes but this will only turn them into a very large target and not just from the US , trust me.
Does the word regret exist in farsi? how about phantom-less regret?
Comment :
Do you believe everything the US govt. tells you ?
Do you really think that Iran would use its nuclear bombs against the west or Israel or hand them over to terrorists ?
Iran would never want to hand over WMD to terrorists because of the following :
(1) the reason tyrants want WMD is as a deterrent against those who would want to take away their power and why distribute WMD to terrorists and have less WMD at hand, which no tyrant would ever do.
(2) the reason tyrants want WMD is as a symbol of power which brings them respect from the west. Kim Jong Il wants WMD because that is the only way the west will give him attention and respect. Why would tyrants want to share the attention and respect that comes with having WMD by giving some of them to the terrorists ?
(3) why would tyrants want to hand over WMD to terrorists who could use the WMD against the tyrant ? why take that kind of chance, that a terrorist group feeling powerful might use the WMD against the very tyrant who gave them the WMD ?
(4) why would tyrants want to hand over WMD to terrorists, knowing that there is a very good possibility that the tyrant would lose his country if the WMD were to be used against the west or Israel ?
(5) no tyrant would want to share the spotlight with any terrorists because handing over WMD to terrorists would be like sharing power and no tyrant would want to share power with anybody, especially with terrorists.
(6) In the history of nuclear weapons, there has not been any case where a state handed over its nuclear weapons to non-state terrorists or even to another state, so why do you think it might happen now ?
Even during the Cuban missile crisis, nuclear missiles were solely under Soviet control in Cuba, just like our missiles in Turkey were under our control and we compromised with the Soviets by removing our missiles from Turkey when the Soviet missiles from Cuba were removed.
(7) Iran has not handed over any of its chemical weapons or nuclear material (for a dirty bomb) to Hezbollah or any other terrorist group for almost thirty years now, even though these past 30 years or so, it had excuses or reasons to hand over WMD to Hezbollah or Palestinian terrorists .
IN CLOSING :
If the US is really scared about Iran misusing its nuclear bombs, why don't we normalize relations with Iran and make sure their nuclear arsenal is secure and give them the security, financial and economic incentives to disarm.
Normalizing relations would also pave the way for moderate elements in Iran to push for democratic reforms.
But the US govt is not interested in solving the "problem" of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons because the US govt is too busy involved in looting the treasury of over a trillion dollars every year in order to provide for the corporate welfare of the bloated, corrupt, greedy, wasteful military/industrial pork laden, corporate welfare, entitlement complex in order to make sure of the re-election of the military/industrial complex's puppet politicians in the US govt. while the average American has to forgo a better and healthier standard of living and eventually and at this rate of spending,
the US will eventually become a
third rate economy with lower standards
of living for the average American while
social security benefits will be cut,
health care rationed, cuts in high
quality education and cuts in all
essential projects and essential
services like medical research, essential
research on curing deadly diseases,
pollution controls, poisons controls,
terrorism prevention, infrastructure
maintenance , food safety inspections,
utilities maintenance, traffic congestion
prevention, gun violence prevention, gang
violence prevention etc etc.
Eastview
45ch has been 'spamming' selected threads for weeks now.
I think s/he - I'd say 'he' - should be classified as a Bandersnatch - a bandwidth thief.
He pretends to be a Christian pacifist but...I am a Christian and have been for years and years and he just sounds *all wrong*. Once he gets going, he sounds much more like a Mohammedan than a Christian; his vocabulary is subtly 'off'. And he *argues* (if it can be called 'arguing') just like many of the avowed Mohammedans who have come in here in the past. When asked a straight Yes/ No question; he always avoids it by spewing forth a mass of evasive verbiage (which again makes me doubt he is a Christian, for he has been asked questions that *any* genuine Christian, even the most convinced pacifist, would naturally answer with a plain Yes or No.)
Indeed 45ch resembles nothing so much as the Interrogator in a Mohammedan prison, such as I read about in an article that Gravenimage linked here recently, ranting on and on at us in hopes of wearing us down by sheer volume and repetition of nonsense and half-truths and outright lies. I never fully understood the meaning of those biblical passages that refer to the Satan as the 'Accuser' until I encountered Mohammedan turnspeak in the shape of 45ch and his ilk.
If he is caught in an outright lie, he ignores it and merely repeats the lie with brazen aplomb as if nothing has happened. FredMk1 nailed it when he likened 45ch to the 'Black Knight' that Arthur meets in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And Smithers, above, also got it to rights when he remarked, "cab driver arguements probably belong more at the mosque."
I think that if in the next month 45ch insists on spamming, say, a dozen more threads with more than three of his monotonously repetitious semiliterate cut-and-pasted space-stealing rants, we should all get together and request that he be banned, on grounds of the sheer boredom he induces. He usually adds *nothing* to the discussion.
I think we should *all* refuse henceforward to reply to him directly; anyone who chooses to 'call' him out on one or the other of his more obvious confections of taqiyya-and- tu quoque should do so strictly in the third person, addressing the non-Muslim readers in the room.
45ch,
Do you believe that the Koran is perfect?
45ch,
Do you believe that the Koran is perfect?
45ch,
Is Mohammed the ideal Muslim?
Should Muslims pattern their life after Mohammed?
45ch,
Do you think that we, the non-believers, are kafirs?
Over 60 million Christians have been killed in jihad.
Christians are persecuted daily in Islamic lands.
"Have you ever apologized for this?"
45ch,
Islam sold black slaves on the West coast of Africa, the east coast of Africa and the Mediterranean".
Islam enslaved over a million Europeans.
"Why does Islam never take any responsibility for slavery?"
45ch,
"Do you consider the war against Israel as jihad?"
"Why?"
Blam spamorama!!!!
Blah blah blah LOL cut and paste, cut and paste ooohhh wow! Yeah we feel better now thanks for that. Spamorramahah!
"Why are Muslims the only people in the world who don't have to be asked difficult questions about what they believe?"
Why is it that Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists all seem insensitive to criticism and can answer questions about their beliefs and yet Muslims are so violently sensitive to criticism or questioning even to the point of demanding the beheading of artists who sketched cartoons of their prophet?"
Is it because Islam is intolerent?
So, I am waiting for answers to the questions...
"Spamorramahah"?
Were you referring to me, ethoman?
Talk about Spamorramahah...at least I didn't take up gigs of bandwidth like "45ch"
We really don't know the exact details of Iran's nuke program progress. We are told what the various entities want us to know, rather than for them to say nothing. They give us an answer to prevent us from getting upset.
The only way to try to understand the enemy is to place yourself in his shoes. Much like hunting wild animals. You have to get into the mind of the beast. Right now, the beast couls already have nukes as far as we know.
But getting into the head of Iranian beasts is a scary proposition. They would take delight in killing all non believers. They would dance in the streets if they could. I would listen to Israel's comments on the situation more than anyone elses comments. Further, I would trust Israel's judgement on the matter more than anyone else's judgement. They have the most, near term, to lose.
DDA,
The fact that 85% of "christian" America approved of the atom bombing of Japan shows that most christians believe in the "just war" teachings of Muhammad than the pacifism of Christ
45ch you have not answered the above questions? do you believe that muhammud the perfect man and should muslims follow his examples?
and about your attacks on the US military, freedom is not cheap, our ancestors and presently family fight hard to keep them. in fact between the US/Western Nato military and IDF
fight with one or both arms ties behind their backs, while iranian backed thugs hizboys and hamas attack unarmed civilians while hiding among their civilians. if l had my l would do a Dresden on iran and Gaza, these islamists would be begging for peace. Peace through victory, ie end of WW2.
oh by the way "45ch" your views on Jesus are ignorant, Jesus said what belonged to Ceasar ie military,goverement belonged to Ceasar and that the heavens ie religion belonged to him Jesus/God the Father. Jesus knew that the military was needed and there are other words in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament where there is a time for war, a time for peace, you see we Christians understand evil and that you cannot talk your way out of it, and need to destroy evil. iranian clerics and their ruling elites are evil and need to be destroyed. and if you knew the history of islam, spread by the sword, the only way to stop it is by destroying them with the military.
"I think that the world is united and is willing to take additional steps if the Iranians don't turn around. ... Plainly, there are going to be consequences if they don't turn around."
Axelrod is either ignorant or else he is covering up because the world is not now and never has been united when it comes to Iran. The Russians and the Chinese will run interference for the Iranians, just as they always have.
al-Kidya, you stated :
45ch,
Do you believe that the Koran is perfect?
Comments :
the Koran is not perfect because it contradicts the Bible in important aspects regarding Jesus.
But compared to the genocidal commands in the Jewish texts of Deuteronomy 20, the Koran seems to be a more progressive text.
al-Kidya, you stated :
45ch,
Is Mohammed the ideal Muslim?
Comments :
I do not believe that Muhammad was an ideal muslim.
I would say that the ideal muslim is someone who believes in pacifism and who believes that Jesus died for the sins of mankind and rose from the dead.
al-Kidya, you stated :
Should Muslims pattern their life after Mohammed?
Comments :
No, muslims should not pattern their life after Muhammad because Muhammad believed in "just war", just as almost all christians believe in "just war".
al-Kidya, you stated :
45ch,
Do you think that we, the non-believers, are kafirs?
Comments :
As long as a person believes in Jesus dying for their sins and believes that Jesus rose from the dead, those people should not be called kafir.
al-Kidya, you stated :
Over 60 million Christians have been killed in jihad.
Comments :
In war people die, so i am not surprised.
Islam is nothing unique among religions, as all religions engage in war and hundreds of millions have died over the centuries.
al-Kidya, you stated :
Christians are persecuted daily in Islamic lands.
"Have you ever apologized for this?"
Comments :
Christians are persecuted daily in islamic lands ? what kind of persecution are we talking about ?
Blacks in America still feel persecuted today, so are you talking about the persecutions that all minorities feel in any country ?
Has the US govt. ever apologized for persecuting blacks or native Americans ?
al-Kidya, you stated :
45ch,
Islam sold black slaves on the West coast of Africa, the east coast of Africa and the Mediterranean".
Islam enslaved over a million Europeans.
"Why does Islam never take any responsibility for slavery?"
Comments :
The same reason why the US govt has not taken responsibility for slavery or the massacres of native Americans or the same reason why the US govt has not apologized for the atom or fire bombings of a defeated and defenseless Japan.
al-Kidya, you stated :
45ch,
"Do you consider the war against Israel as jihad?"
"Why?"
Comments :
If you mean, do I approve of Jihad, I am a pacifist christian so I don't approve of any kind of violence even if the terrorist Romans ruled Palestine as Jesus never said to rebel against anybody, so I would not approve of the jihad against Israel.
If you are asking whether the palestinians are engaged in jihad, I would say yes, just as the American revolutionaries were fighting the British and some of the American revolutionaries did terrorize their fellow Americans who were loyal to the British.
al-Kidya, you stated :
"Why are Muslims the only people in the world who don't have to be asked difficult questions about what they believe?"
Comments :
I am sure if your questions are just like the questions you asked me, you will get 99% of muslims who would answer your questions.
As for the 1% of muslims who would get angry with you, its up to the US govt to start a dialog with all militant muslims in order to co-opt them into our fight against terrorism.
here is a video of a moderate muslim confronting a militant muslim; its not a pretty picture but the right approach by the US govt will pay off in co-opting these militants :
http://www.blip.tv/file/2154159
al-Kidya, you stated :
Why is it that Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists all seem insensitive to criticism and can answer questions about their beliefs and yet Muslims are so violently sensitive to criticism or questioning even to the point of demanding the beheading of artists who sketched cartoons of their prophet?"
Is it because Islam is intolerent?
Comments :
I guess you have not met some jihad watch members that have threatened my life.
I guess you have also not met white supremacist "christians", militant jews, militant hindus or militant buddhists.
Each group is sensitive to different issues.
All the "cartoon" riots resulted in deaths confined to muslim countries where muslims were killed by police.
Some Americans get sensitive over issues not related to religion.
here in America we had deadly riots over police officers being acquitted for beating a black man.
Also, right wing mobs lynched thousands of blacks and several deadly riots occurred in the 20th century.
Some people are sensitive about frivolous issues like soccer and there have been deadly soccer riots.
Islam is just as tolerant as any other religion or ideology if you put all religions in their historical context.
You have to remember that christianity had a 600 year head start on islam and had 600 years to reform sooner than islam and even though christianity had a 600 year head start, full human rights only happened during the 1960s when Jim Crow Laws were abolished.
In fact, Islamic Malaysia which does have Sharia has more human rights than compared to a similar time period in American history when, 50 years after American independence from Britain, the US still had the terrorist institution of slavery and only white males could vote.
Be patient and eventually all muslim countries will not have sharia and will be democracies, just like the following muslim countries do not have sharia and are presently democracies :
Albania
Turkey
Kosovo
Azerbaijan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kazakhstan
Burkina Faso
Chad
Tajikistan
Gambia
Mali
Kyrgyzstan
Senegal
Turkmenistan
SOLUTION IN PREVENTING TERRORISM :
The US govt should practice pragmatic pacifism.
I am not against the "rendition" of dangerous criminals like Hitler in order to prevent another world war.
In order to prevent war, the US govt. has to either co-opt those already in power or prevent a dangerous criminal like hitler from acquiring power.
But the US govt. is not truly interested in preventing war because war is good business and helps their supporters in the military/industrial complex.
Time and time again, the US govt. has instigated war, not caring about the lives of our beloved soldiers who are used as pawns in the power games played by old men who are puppets of those in the military/industrial complex.
An example of instigation policies :
Stimson, the Secretary of War confided in his diary after a meeting of the war cabinet on November 25, 1941 : “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves".
After the Pearl Harbor attack, Stimson confessed : “my first feeling was of relief ... that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people."
Has anyone mentioned John McCain? How lucky we are to have him in the Senate. It's too bad that he didn't win the White House but he is doing his best for America as always.
Question 45ch.
If someone attacked your child or wife would you use violence to save their lives, or would you just stand by and watch them die?
45ch wrote:
"I would say that the ideal muslim is someone who believes in pacifism and who believes that Jesus died for the sins of mankind and rose from the dead."
I would agree, but then again, they already exist, but as Christians, not as Muslims.
lkeevy1, you stated :
45ch you have not answered the above questions? do you believe that muhammud the perfect man and should muslims follow his examples?
Comment :
Yes, I have already answered all his questions.
lkeevy1, you stated :
and about your attacks on the US military, freedom is not cheap, our ancestors and presently family fight hard to keep them.
Comment :
I am not attacking the US military.
I am highly critical of the US govt which has made a business of looting the treasury over the centuries for unnecessary wars.
What country is actually invading the US ? when were our freedoms ever in jeopardy ?
Freedom at the expense of collaterally killing women and children is not worth having and that is why Jesus did not value earthly freedom but rather valued spiritual freedom which is eternal.
Your family is fighting for the profits of the military/industrial complex all in the name of so-called freedom , patriotism and honor and while your loved ones are deliberately sent into harm's way , the rich and powerful in the military/industrial complex are "laughing all the way to the bank" as over a trillion dollars are being looted every year from the treasury on behalf of the greedy, corrupt, wasteful, bloated military/industrial pork laden, corporate welfare, entitlement complex.
As one wise Samuel Johnson said on the evening of April 7, 1775, "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".
If any defense contract gets reduced or canceled, you can bet the war profiteering defense contractor and his puppet in the US govt. will rally up his supporters and say its not patriotic to cancel a defense contract.
lkeevy1, you stated :
in fact between the US/Western Nato military and IDF
fight with one or both arms ties behind their backs, while iranian backed thugs hizboys and hamas attack unarmed civilians while hiding among their civilians.
Comment :
Hezbollah and Hamas attack unarmed civilians ? why would they do that ? you mean like when the American revolutionaries attacked their fellow Americans who were loyal to the British ?
Both sides do not fight in the open.
The US and IDF forces fight behind heavy armor and the safe distance of tens of thousands of feet in the air while Hezbollah and Hamas are supposed to come out in the open to fight but instead they fight from highly populated areas.
Both the US govt and the IDF know that urban guerrilla fighting is all about hiding in populated areas and yet the Israeli govt invaded Gaza and ended up collaterally massacring 400 children in Gaza, knowing that the Gazan population was comprised of 50% children and knowing also that palestinian militants will not come out in the open to fight since the IDF would hide behind the heavy armor of tanks and shoot by aircraft from tens of thousands of feet in the air, including the use of heavy artillery.
ref : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljmQLSPSonk
lkeevy1, you stated :
if l had my l would do a Dresden on iran and Gaza, these islamists would be begging for peace. Peace through victory, ie end of WW2.
Comment :
A "Dresden" on Iraq and Gaza ? So you are willing to collaterally kill thousands of women, children and babies ?
What is the difference between some terrorists who target civilians and the US/israeli govt that knows that its collateral actions will guarantee the death of at least one innocent child or baby ?
but sadly and tragically, because of the use of heavy weaponry, for every israeli killed, over a hundred palestinians lost their lives in the Gaza war, a war in which over four hundred children lost their lives and countless others were maimed, disfigured, deformed, blinded or paralyzed for life.
In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives.
lkeevy1, you stated :
oh by the way "45ch" your views on Jesus are ignorant, Jesus said what belonged to Ceasar ie military,goverement belonged to Ceasar and that the heavens ie religion belonged to him Jesus/God the Father.
Comment :
"Render unto Caesar" is what Jesus said in telling the Jews to pay taxes to the terrorist, pedophile Caesar who murdered children after the children were sexually abused.
Why did Jesus not rebel against the terrorist Caesar ? because Jesus only came to save the souls of men.
Jesus did not come to save the Jews from being slaves of Rome.
lkeevy1, you stated :
Jesus knew that the military was needed and there are other words in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament where there is a time for war, a time for peace, you see we Christians understand evil and that you cannot talk your way out of it, and need to destroy evil.
Comment :
You are a christian who believes in "just war" , just as Muhammad believed in "just war".
Jesus knew the military was needed ? How could that be when Jesus told the Jews to flee jerusalem and not fight the Roman army ?
Jesus destroyed evil by saving the souls of men instead of using violence against the terrorist Romans.
lkeevy1, you stated :
iranian clerics and their ruling elites are evil and need to be destroyed.
Comment :
So you do not believe in what Jesus said about "love your enemies" and " pray for those who persecute you " ?
How would you propose to destroy the Iranian clerics ? would there be the collateral deaths of thousands of innocent Iranian children and babies ?
War destroys human rights more than anything else known to man because war takes the lives of thousands or tens of thousands or even millions of innocent men, women, children and babies.
War is not the solution to the problem, WAR IS THE PROBLEM
lkeevy1, you stated :
and if you knew the history of islam, spread by the sword, the only way to stop it is by destroying them with the military.
Comment :
There is nothing unique about Islam.
All religions waged war against the enemy and millions died.
Are you saying that you want to destroy all muslim countries ?
Hey pacifist, you haven't answered my question.
KK,
You stated :
If someone attacked your child or wife would you use violence to save their lives, or would you just stand by and watch them die?
Comment :
I was once going to be attacked by a thug and I stopped him cold by saying the following " in the Name of Jesus, I order you to stop " and because I totally relied on the Holy Spirit for my protection, the thug just stopped and walked away.
If you totally rely on God for your protection, He will either warn you of danger or give you the strength and the wisdom to confront danger for His Glory.
The reason the early christians were able to change the hearts of the terrorist Romans is because when the christians spoke, those words were filled with Power from the Holy Spirit and for other christians, their testimony was the ability to withstand torture, so God knows best whether to give you the ability to stand torture for His Glory or the ability to speak the Words of God boldly, as the Holy Spirit states through Paul :
"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and Power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the Power of God." Amen !(1 Corinthians 1-5)
That was not the question was is it, pacifist? I asked you if your loved ones were being attacked would you use force to save them, if need be?
KK,
You are asking hypotheticals.
I do not know what messages I would get from the Holy Spirit, if what you say comes true.
I do know as a christian, we can never use force against anybody.
Maybe God will tell me to use the same commands I used against the thug who tried to attack me.
So you're not sure if you're a pacifist or not? If the voice in your head said to stab the attakers to death, would follow the instructions?
KK,
Did you read my previous comments ?
No matter what happens, a christian can never use violence against anybody
You're not even willing to speculate 45? If the attackers would not stop as you yelled incantations at them, would you just stand there and shit in your pants as the attackers killed your family. Or, would you take physical action to save them?
Whether garden-variety antisemite or garden-variety Muslim appologist, the poster above hardly merits such attention being paid to him. The dog barks, the caravan moves on. Why not refuse to take his proffered bait, on purpose laid to make the taker mad?
I didn't ask what a Christian would do 45. I asked what YOU would do.
What would you do?
KK,
I think you are actually looking for a good muslim to answer your question because a christian can never use violence, no matter what.
I suspect you would rather depend on a good muslim than a pacifist christian when it comes to your security.
You're right Hugh the lying moslem troll should be ignored.
Pinging Marisol!!!!
Do you folks ban for SPAMMING? Good Lord I hope so.
Thanks,
ABS
Hugh,
Why would anybody be anti-Semitic ? I can understand being anti-Zionist but not anti-semitic.
Here is a video of Jews and Muslims praying together :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVEt-hOQytQ&feature=related
No I wasn't talking to you, it was for 45ch ... it was tagged as such :-)
I just didn't see 45ch talking about anything substantive, just more denial.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/hot_links/310.php?nid=&id=&pnt=310
9 of 10 Pakistanis want an Islamic democracy, inculcating sharia norms through democratic means. This is an odd dichotomy, using democratic means to install a theocracy based on Islamic law, which advocates a societal hierarchy based upon religious affiliation. Non-Muslims can not have authority over Muslims, apostasy law, etc. I think the trend in the Islamic world is for democracy, but not against sharia norms, which is a very bad thing for all of us that live in democracies, and have increasing populations of Muslims.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brasiapacificra/440.php?nid=&id=&pnt=440
"While 37 percent of young British Muslims (16-24 years old) would prefer to live under Sharia law, only 17 percent of those 55 or older would, according to the polling firm Populus."
This is an interesting trend we are seeing for many Muslims around the world, including places like Pakistan. Increasingly Muslims see democracy as a means to attain power over non-Muslims, Like in Bosnia which he mentions. Which is why R.S. has to maintain its independence through hook and crook in spite of the Wests best efforts in regards to diplomatic Islamization. Even in Bosnia there was a recent poll, the verbiage was a little slippery, but a similar percentage of Muslims in Bosnia said their faith had been "influenced" by Wahhabism. Things aren't going so well for the Islamic panacea of Bosnia. The non-Muslim Croatians, and Serbs want nothing to do with a Muslim majority central government, and who can blame them ... just look around.
Increasingly Muslims would use democracy to install sharia based systems, which at their core are against democratic values such as the equality of all people under the law. This will be a subject which we will have to deal with in the future, for now people seem to think democracy=human rights in a simple equation, but reality shows this isn't the case. If large segments of your society thinks religious law should be implemented by democratic means, then this society is in for serious trouble.
An interesting case article here.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/pdf/Amadi.pdf
The truth is Muslims don't want to live on a level playing field with non-Muslims as equals and they will use democracy as a weapon to install sharia over Muslims, and non-Muslims, this dichotomy has yet to be addressed substantively, and you can see by the article above this isn't a new issue either. Note the section on the article addressing colonial period issues around minority human rights ... interesting how things are coming full circle now.
I'd say this is a major glitch in the fabric of our society as a whole, I doubt our "melting pot" concept is going to work out so well in the west with this trend.
KK,
here is a video of a militant muslim confronting moderate muslims, showing that the Koran is open to interpretation.
http://www.blip.tv/file/2747315
Ethoman,
Here are non-sharia democracies in muslim countries which shows that Islam is open to interpretation :
Albania
Turkey
Kosovo
Azerbaijan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kazakhstan
Burkina Faso
Chad
Tajikistan
Gambia
Mali
Kyrgyzstan
Senegal
Turkmenistan
45ch is off topic and spamming for the most part. I hope that the room operator takes the appropriate action, since this really detracts from the actual subject of the thread.
Why do you have to repeat yourself again and again on the same thread? Your remarks do not become more convincing with repetition. You are simply spamming and being disruptive now, rather than convincing anyone.
Yeah, that's more than enough of that.
I think I'll grant another Christmas wish.
Worry,
Ethoman says that democracies are moving towards sharia but he does not ask the question : why did numerous muslim countries move away from sharia in the first place ?
If all muslims want sharia, why the move away from sharia in the first place, in numerous muslim countries ?
Thank you.
::does happy dance on the tabletop::
DDA,
If all muslims want sharia, why the existence of numerous non-sharia muslim democracies ?
Marisol
Seems I celebrated a little too soon.
the Bandersnatch is back under a different name, all ready to keep on chewing up vast amounts of bandwidth with mindless repetitions and forcing those who do not want to read its rants, to waste a great deal of time scrolling on down past said rants, to try to find out whether anyone else has been able to get a word in edgeways.
'loveverybody' = '45ch'.
Something to think about: the Mohammedtrolls are not equally active in all threads. Only certain of the posted articles seem to attract them. If there is anyone here who has the time and the inclination it *might* be interesting to stroll through the archives for, say, the past three months, and make a list of those posted articles in whose discussion threads 'loveverybody' alias '45ch' has spammed most persistently; and/ or in which 'dave742' has been most active, and those in which 'Abdullah mikail' was most active (until his description was given to the bouncers). Easy enough to find such: just look for the ones with a vastly disproportionate number of comments.
Then one could look closely at the content of those articles/ news reports, and see if one can discern why it might be that just those particular ones, and not others, required such an inordinate amount of sand-throwing.
Re: Dumbledores comments:
Probably Iranian operatives. I usually go for their throat and get in their face real quick and they usually quit.
I vote that the Mohammedtroll calling itself '45ch' or 'loveverybody', should be encouraged to leave the United States (it claims to reside in Oklahoma - poor Oklahomans!), to renounce its American citizenship (if it possesses such) and to become a naturalised citizen of Iran.
Let it practise what it preaches. Let it become a citizen of Iran and then join the Persian underground church - most of them apostates from Islam. I wonder why Marzieh Amirizadeh and Mariam Rustampoor, for example, left Islam at the risk of their lives, if Islam is (as 45ch/ loveverybody seems so intent on 'proving') no particular problem? Or if it really makes no difference 'on the ground' as to whether most people in a society are Muslim or Christian?
Alternatively, in light of the topic of this thread - Iran and Iran's nuclear project - 45ch/ loveverybody should find some way to spend the next few months resident in Israel, which *is* the declared primary target of Iranian hatred.
Perhaps it can join the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniers program and hang out in the villages of the Poor Palestinians [TM], writing letters home about how the Evil Jooz - by insisting on all those pesky checkpoints and security fences that get in the way of the wannabe murder-martyr - are depriving Muslims of their divine right to kill Joooz,
(I doubt it would be interested in spending oh, three months camping out in a school playground or on the rooftop of a Jewish house in Sderot; though any Western pacifist who wants people to trust in God and put up *no* verbal, legal or physical resistance to the Jihad, should be asked whether they would be willing to spend a month in Sderot, *in a tent in an exposed location*).
DDA,
Here is a video of muslims helping Jews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diz3FqI4Tpg&feature=related
Spot,
Here is a video of an American who says muslims are a joy to be around :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfNrGXSX7Xc&NR=1
DDA,
In this video, the natives of Australia say that the govt took their lands and violated their human rights :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbwvwRkVtPI&feature=channel
45ch when challenged on his ostensible position of radical pacifism, responds with a mish-mash of disingenous incoherency and consistent lunacy.
The former manifests itself in his waffling weaseling on the challenge of what he would do if his family were mortally threatened by a killer. At times, 45ch appears to be afraid to simply admit the consistent lunacy of his radical pacifism. In this specific instance, he was apparently afraid to simply admit that he would completely permit the killer to torture, rape, sodomize and murder his wife and children and not stand in his way, even if he, 45ch, had the ability to stop that killer through using violence -- so 45ch types the lame response:
"You are asking hypotheticals.
I do not know what messages I would get from the Holy Spirit, if what you say comes true."
His addition then of:
"I do know as a christian, we can never use force against anybody"
betrays the disingenuousness of the weaselly stalling of the aformentioned.
Secondly, more generally speaking, 45ch persists in playing an incoherent game that oscillates between two positions:
1) trying to prove that a given enemy (i.e., the Muslim du jour of any number of JW articles) is not really our enemy and thus we have no justification for self-defense
2) asserting that (as I showed above) self-defense is never justified, even when the enemy really is your enemy and means you mortal harm.
Why does 45ch spend so much of his time laboring to do #1, when his #2 by its radically blanket judgement completely cancels out the need for #1? #1 only makes sense within a context where one believes that sometimes self-defense is justified; but 45ch otherwise asserts that it is never justified. Only two answers to my question come to mind: He is dim-witted; or he is generating obfuscatory static on purpose. Actually, both explanations can be the case simultaneously, and I vote for that.
Seconded.
Nice piece of analysis.
Re. pacifism - I think the classic film 'High Noon' together with Peter Weir's 'Witness' (which extends and deepens the themes in High Noon), brilliantly crystallise reams of theologising and philosophising by Christianised civilisation, on the relative roles of persuasion/ peace and force, and the practical limits of pacifism under certain circumstances.
St Paul told us to 'be angry and sin not'; St James told us to be 'slow to anger' (which means imitating YHWH, who is also described as being 'slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love'), but he didn't tell us we weren't allowed to get angry at all.
What most people don't realize, either, is that John the Baptist - who did not tell either soldiers or tax collectors to renounce their jobs, but merely to perform them honestly and without indulging in abuses - was Jesus' cousin, and that Jesus never condemns or criticises his cousin's teaching. He praises his cousin.
Something people don't understand about what Charles Williams calls 'the metaphysical civilisation' of pre-modern Christendom, is that it honours both the Knight and the Hermit, both of whom appear together in many of its stories. Neither excludes the other.
Both Jacques Ellul and David Bentley Hart - than whom, in certain ways, two more different Christian thinkers could hardly be found, though they also have much in common - are to some extent 'pacifists' in that they prioritise peace over violence (that is, they regard peace as original and final, rejecting both the postmoderns like Foucault, and also all pagan systems of thought that view violence as a kind of fundamental metaphysical necessity) but both accept that in dealing with active evil, in this life and this present dispensation, the use of force is sometimes necessary.
Jacques Ellul was a member of the Resistance during WWII. He does not condemn the choices of, for example, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, nor the self-defence of Israel against the Jihad.
Pursuant to my posting above, on peace and force as traditionally thought in western civilisation, I will add this passage from theologian David Bentley Hart's 'Beauty of the Infinite' [pp. 341-42], who has no truck with the usual definitions of 'pacifism':
"...there really is small room in theology for political 'realism' of the sort advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr, which chooses to accommodate itself to the 'tragic' limits of history on the grounds that the church of Christ (not only his kingdom) is not of this world, and that Jesus - in his perfectionism and strictly 'interpersonal' morality - could not understand the harsher conditions or more insoluble perplexities of political existence.
(Now for the kicker - dda)
"A less obvious implication to many, however, but one that seems to me to follow every bit as ineluctably, is that *there is also small room in theology for that passive collaboration with evil that often only flatters itself with the name of 'pacifism'* {my emphasis - dda}.
"However primary the path of nonviolence is for the Christian,
the peace of God's kingdom is exhaustively described in Scripture,
and it is the peace of a concrete condition of justice;
it is neither the private practice of an 'ethical' individual jealous of his own moral purity,
nor the special and quaint regime of a separatist community that stands aloof from (in ill-concealed contempt for) its 'Constantinian' brethren.
"Where the justice of the kingdom is not present, and cannot be made present without any exercise of force,
"*the self-adoring inaction of those who would meet the reality of, say, black smoke billowing from the chimneys of death camps with songs of protest is simply violence by other means* {my emphasis - dda},
"and does not speak of God's kingdom, and does not grant its practitioners the privilege of viewing themselves as more faithful members of Christ's body
"than those who struggle against evil in the world of flesh and blood where evil works.
“that is why I say that the path of obedience is anything but easy or clear:
in either case – that of the realist who resigns himself to the impossibility of justice in human affairs, and so lends his hand to prudential acts of violence,
and that of the pacifist, who presumes that the history of sinful humanity is too corrupt for any struggle to be just or in the service of peace and so dares obscenely to choose martyrdom for others
{yup - sounds like a good description of the assumed persona of 45ch [which, however, I suspect, is not his real self, but merely a mask, so exaggerated as to resemble caricature, assumed for purposes of 'split the camp' and in an attempt at spiritual jiu-jitsu] – dda}
the style of thought is not Christian but Gnostic, informed by so profound a despair over the world that God became incarnate in, and so absolute a division between history and eternity, that Christ’s presence in time is reduced to a nullity and the church to precious historical marginality.
“But the church must be resigned to nothing: it must act not out of realism or purism but – in defiance of both – out of a passionate and even militant commitment to the truth of the kingdom, in excess of prudence and in pursuit of a peace more tangible than personal or communal ‘guiltlessness’.
“The justice of God – the peace of God – can be found and fought for in the heart of history; for the kingdom has already come – the tomb is empty – and will come again; the battle has been won, and we must seek to prepare the earth for a victory that has already claimed us as its spoils.
“However, the practical consequences of such words cannot be described here exhaustively…against personal offence we are still bidden to turn the other cheek, and against every evil to strive as far as possible without using coercive force, and to limit all coercion as far as possible *without allowing peacefulness to degenerate into that sentimental passivity that serves as one of evil’s most effective instruments* {my emphasis - dda}.” {Beauty of the Infinite – pp. 341-342].
I might add that a concrete example of the use of physical force - essentially, 'arresting' someone bent on murder - in order to save lives may be seen in the last actions of a humble Pakistani Christian, one Pervez Masih, who when a burqa-clad [male] murder-martyr attempted to enter a cafeteria full of young [Muslim] female students, 'rushed forward to grapple with the bomber and managed to hold him at the cafeteria entrance, preventing him from going right inside the dining hall. There the bomber detonated his explosives, killing himself, Pervez, and three students. 'There would have been dozens of deaths had the suicide bomber not been blocked by Pervez Masih', commented Saifur Rehman, a senior security official at the university'. {[Barnabas Fund magazine, Jan/ Feb 2010, p. 2].
This story of the self-sacrifice of Pervez Masih, who physically grappled with and held a suicide bomber, preventing the killer from detonating in the midst of a crowd of girl students, is parallelled exactly by the self-sacrifice of a Jewish security guard who did exactly the same thing to a [female] suicide bomber who was attempting to enter a busy Israeli supermarket. He seized her at the doorway, wrestling with her, and reportedly was recorded [on security camera?] saying, 'you and I are going to blow up right here'.
Presumably 45ch/ loveverybody would argue (in his assumed pacifist persona) that Pervez Masih and that Jewish guard should not have laid a finger on those who were clearly intending murder...since he pretends to believe that ANY use of physical force is unjustifiable, even to save life, even to save many lives.
I would regard pinpoint (but locally devastating) bombing raids by Israel or the USA, upon Iran's nuclear sites, as analogous to the actions taken by Pervez Masih or by the Jewish guard.
The alternative is, as Hart says, 'to choose, obscenely, martyrdom for others'...by permitting Iran to obtain nukes which it *will* use against Israel or other infidel targets, sooner or later, killing hundreds of thousands or even millions, and condemning countless others to slow and horrible deaths.
The troll has returned as loveverybody(formerly 45ch).
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/346.php?nid=&id=&pnt=346
"Most significantly, large majorities (of Muslims) approve of many of al Qaeda's principal goals."
"Equally large majorities agree with goals that involve expanding the role of Islam in their society. On average, about three out of four agree with seeking to "require Islamic countries to impose a strict application of sharia," and to "keep Western values out of Islamic countries." Two-thirds would even like to "unify all Islamic counties into a single Islamic state or caliphate."
"While wary of Western values, overall 67 percent agree that "a democratic political system" is a good way to govern their country"
Countries that think strict applications of sharia should be applied: all polled
Morocco 76%
Egypt 74%
Pakistan 79%
Indonesia 53%
Apologies for the delay: I banned 45ch, and then hit the road for a flight of several hours.
Let me see what I can do to hopefully keep this from turning into a slow-moving game of whack-a-mole.
Getting back to Iran and the illicit occupation of a defunct oil well. Announce a target practice in the area and recommend removal of personell. Then blow the heck out of it.
Hesperado :
In this specific instance, he was apparently afraid to simply admit that he would completely permit the killer to torture, rape, sodomize and murder his wife and children and not stand in his way, even if he, 45ch, had the ability to stop that killer through using violence -- I do not know what messages I would get from the Holy Spirit, if what you say comes true."
David :
If you can point to a pacifist christian whose wife was brutally murdered in front of the pacifist christian, then you will have a point but until that event happens, I will have to stand by my position that that kind of event will never happen because that kind of event does not Glorify God and I cannot believe that God will let such a tragedy happen.
Hesperado :
1) trying to prove that a given enemy (i.e., the Muslim du jour of any number of JW articles) is not really our enemy and thus we have no justification for self-defense
David:
My personal beliefs does not translate to what the US govt should do.
That is why the Word clearly states that the terrorist Roman govt. had the authority from God to dispense justice and even capital punishment but no christian has the right take the law into his own hands or be in a position to kill anybody, even in self defense.
As far as the US govt is concerned, the US rendition program should stop all dangerous criminals from acquiring power.
Ethoman,
How do you explain why muslims in numerous countries moved away from sharia by establishing numerous non-sharia muslim democracies and now you say, muslims want to move back to sharia ? why move away from sharia in the first place ?
DDA:
practical limits of pacifism under certain circumstances.
David:
Pacifism is not a choice for christians but the only way to evangelize.
Yes, I know you agree with "just war" as Muhammad taught but Christ taught to turn the other cheek.
But regarding the US govt, it should practice pragmatic pacifism in the following ways :
SOLUTION IN PREVENTING TERRORISM :
The US govt should practice pragmatic pacifism.
I am not against the "rendition" of dangerous criminals like Hitler in order to prevent another world war.
In order to prevent war, the US govt. has to either co-opt those already in power or prevent a dangerous criminal like hitler from acquiring power.
But the US govt. is not truly interested in preventing war because war is good business and helps their supporters in the military/industrial complex.
Time and time again, the US govt. has instigated war, not caring about the lives of our beloved soldiers who are used as pawns in the power games played by old men who are puppets of those in the military/industrial complex.
An example of instigation policies :
Stimson, the Secretary of War confided in his diary after a meeting of the war cabinet on November 25, 1941 : “The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves".
After the Pearl Harbor attack, Stimson confessed : “my first feeling was of relief ... that a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people."
Worry,
Here is a video of a honest muslim :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGivELEG0Ko&feature=related
dumbledoresarmy,
Thanks for your post and the time and care you took to write it. I agree with most of it, though I can't help getting the sense that David Bentley Hart is over-intellectualizing the subject. I see it more as a pragmatic issue, where we the West should believe in defending the West, and defending individuals in the West from what we know are regressive ideologies that endanger our physical well-being. If this sets up any dissonance whatsoever with the Gospel as certain Christians interpret that Gospel, then those Christians are obstructing our self-defense. So yes, Hart got that part right -- "the self-adoring inaction of those who would meet the reality of, say, black smoke billowing from the chimneys of death camps with songs of protest is simply violence by other means" -- but his concern about balancing that with what becomes its tensional counterpoint strikes me as an incipient infringement upon the public space, where on the contrary that concern and its lofty Beatitudinal goal should remain interior and personal (and communal within a church setting separate from the public space), not a matter of sociopolitical policy.
Apropos of the two examples you gave -- Pervez Masih "... who physically grappled with and held a suicide bomber, preventing the killer from detonating in the midst of a crowd of girl students" and "the self-sacrifice of a Jewish security guard who did exactly the same thing to a [female] suicide bomber who was attempting to enter a busy Israeli supermarket... He seized her at the doorway, wrestling with her, and reportedly was recorded [on security camera?] saying, 'you and I are going to blow up right here'." -- the precise circumstances may of course modify my response here, but from the descriptions you gave, these two, while heroic, seem to have strangely restrained themselves in those situations (especially the Jewish [Israeli?] security guard who one reasonably supposes was armed with a gun. In that kind of situation where the mass-murder of many innocents is direly imminent, nothing short of an immediate bullet through the head of the culprit is called for (or some other immediately brutal neutralization), and it seems rather absurd to be "grappling" with such a mass-murderous maniac and accord him the small victory of taking his grappler down with him along with a few others: had Pervez been armed and shot the maniac, or had he picked up something to bludgeon and crush that maniac's skull, then Pervez and three innocent people would be alive today. I wonder if a moral squeamishness did not inhibit these two who "grappled" with someone who should not be grappled with but immediately and utterly neutralized without a microsecond's thought as to how much violence it would take.
Clarification:
"If this sets up any dissonance whatsoever with the Gospel as certain Christians interpret that Gospel, then those Christians are obstructing our self-defense."
Of course, I mean to the extent that a Christian takes that dissonance seriously, and depending on the manner of his taking it seriously. I don't think it's a crime for someone who, in the process of trying to defend someone from attack, inhibits his own violence out of some moral code he is internally wrestling with; however, such a person, to the extent he or she is not helping to defend the innocent to the best of his ability because of his beliefs, should not be indiscriminately lauded, either.
Hesperado :
regressive ideologies that endanger our physical well-being.
David :
regressive ideologies ?
There is no proof that all muslims act as one and that is the reason there exist 57 different muslim countries with 57 differing agendas and numerous muslim countries do not have sharia and are democratic, showing that the Koran is open to interpretation.
here is a video where a militant muslim admits that muslims are divided and not united :
http://www.blip.tv/file/1621826
Hesperado :
In this specific instance, he was apparently afraid to simply admit that he would completely permit the killer to torture, rape, sodomize and murder his wife and children and not stand in his way, even if he, 45ch, had the ability to stop that killer through using violence -- I do not know what messages I would get from the Holy Spirit, if what you say comes true."
David :
If you can point to a pacifist christian whose wife was brutally murdered in front of the pacifist christian, then you will have a point but until that event happens, I will have to stand by my position that that kind of event will never happen because that kind of event does not Glorify God and I cannot believe that God will let such a tragedy happen.
Hesperado :
1) trying to prove that a given enemy (i.e., the Muslim du jour of any number of JW articles) is not really our enemy and thus we have no justification for self-defense
David:
My personal beliefs does not translate to what the US govt should do.
That is why the Word clearly states that the terrorist Roman govt. had the authority from God to dispense justice and even capital punishment but no christian has the right take the law into his own hands or be in a position to kill anybody, even in self defense.
As far as the US govt is concerned, the US rendition program should stop all dangerous criminals from acquiring power.
*cracking knuckles*
Whack-a-mole it is, then.
Most of those countries you have mentioned that are not operating on sharia, have elements in them that advocate sharia, and use the same terrorism seen all over the world to install it. In fact is was part of our Afghanistan policy to defeat the terrorist sharia elements within Uzbekistan. Of all the countries mentioned Pakistan has the biggest lead in installing sharia norms. Many of the others have only recently gotten the freedom to follow their faith again, which was in the late 90's with the fall of the Soviet Union. In time they will catch up with Pakistan. That is why. Simple.
Ethoman,
Are you saying that the Soviets were able to control muslims and so the muslims did not have sharia because of the Soviets ?