London Bombing

[Radar]

No problem. Just provide me with an accurate body count from all the crusades (when Christians attacked Muslims without cause....again), and I'll add it to the total.

[dar512]

Don't look to me kiddo. You're the one that made the assertion. It's your job to back it up or fold.

[Undertoad]

Radar's construction assumes that Iraq 1/2, Afghanistan, and etc. were specifically Christian actions and nobody calls him on it.

vsp, you whiffed on this obvious blatant grouping of these actions as representative of an entire religion. What do you see and what do you not see?

[vsp]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

vsp, you whiffed on this obvious blatant grouping of these actions as representative of an entire religion. What do you see and what do you not see?

Not sure what you mean by that.

Noodle's rants kept returning to a central argument of "9 out of 10 Muslims hate us and wish we were dead." That is not only a fallacy, but a dangerous one, because what would I wager that a hell of a lot of those Muslims believe in return?

"9 out of 10 Westerners hate us and wish we were dead." (Would've said "Americans" until yesterday's attacks broadened the target circle significantly.)

How many stop and think about WHY the other side "hates" them, much less as to whether that "mass hatred" actually exists? How many scoff at that kind of thinking as "embracing the attackers" or "putting them in therapy for their anger issues?"

99% of these people spouting this nonsense have never even _met_ anyone from the country or countries they're tarring. If not for the actions of these extremists, 99% of these people would live their entire lives without affecting the lives of the other side's inhabitants in any way. (It's difficult to even define "sides" in this argument. Is this Christianity vs. Islam? America vs. Islam? America vs. Iraq? Christianity vs. al-Qaeda?) They're basing their opinions on the actions and statements of these extremists rather than on what everyday people think. Unfortunately, bombs and bullets can't tell the difference between extremists and everyday people.

Are there extremists on both sides? Obviously. But the rank-and-file on both sides are seemingly caught up in this I Hate Them Because They Hate Us Because We Hate Them Because They Hate Us Because We Hate Them Because They Hate Us propaganda loop that collapses when a bit of critical thinking is applied.

That's why I twigged on the phrase "these people" in the first place, because it was an obvious euphemism for a demonization of a hell of a lot more people than the terrorists themselves, and I can't say that my instincts were wrong about that.

Originally Posted by Hobbs

What we don't see, and this is one part I agree with mrnoodle, is the tens of thousands of muslims marching in the streets to take back the good name of islam. What we don't see is people ratting out their neigbors because they are busy making car bombs in the garage. What we don't see is a very loud voice of the muslim imams denouncing the violence. This to us in the U.S. paints a very grim picture of islam. It's all we have to go on.

And what picture do Middle Eastern Muslims have of America, its leadership, or its Christian citizens? What news do THEY get?

They get the same blurry picture that most Americans get -- that there are Hordes of Scary People Over There From A Violent Religion Who Want To Kill Us, wherever "There" is.

The average Muslim doesn't believe the "Allah wants America dead" bullshit any more than the average Christian believes that "God's word must dominate the world" bullshit. But they don't make the news. Osama and Dobson do.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Radar's construction assumes that Iraq 1/2, Afghanistan, and etc. were specifically Christian actions and nobody calls him on it.

_Specifically_ Christian? No. Iraq 1 had a lot more to do with region politics and oil than any religious concerns. Afghanistan was "Someone hit us hard so we need to bomb something." Iraq 2, well, does _anyone_ have good answers as to why we should've gone there? Dubya hasn't provided much of any, IMHO.

But the elephant in the corner is the religious influence that's in the ear of the Republican party and drives chunks of their agenda, including foreign policy. (A lot in Washington want Israel protected and promoted for reasons that have nothing to do with region politics, the spread of democracy or oil, for instance.) Discount the evangelicals at your peril, particularly when the President and many in his administration are receptive to the This Is A Christian Nation crowd.

[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by vsp

Noodle's rants kept returning to a central argument of "9 out of 10 Muslims hate us and wish we were dead." That is not only a fallacy, but a dangerous one, because what would I wager that a hell of a lot of those Muslims believe in return?

"9 out of 10 Westerners hate us and wish we were dead." (Would've said "Americans" until yesterday's attacks broadened the target circle significantly.)
________________________________________
Are there extremists on both sides? Obviously. But the rank-and-file on both sides are seemingly caught up in this I Hate Them Because They Hate Us Because We Hate Them Because They Hate Us Because We Hate Them Because They Hate Us propaganda loop that collapses when a bit of critical thinking is applied.

That's why I twigged on the phrase "these people" in the first place, because it was an obvious euphemism for a demonization of a hell of a lot more people than the terrorists themselves, and I can't say that my instincts were wrong about that.
_________________________________________

The average Muslim doesn't believe the "Allah wants America dead" bullshit any more than the average Christian believes that "God's word must dominate the world" bullshit. But they don't make the news. Osama and Dobson do.

You're applying "critical thinking" but completely disregarding the realities that are occurring on your doorstep. How nice that ALL 1.3 billion muslims don't want us dead. I'm sure ALL Germans didn't want us dead in WWII. Yet they all suffered as a result of war. A war, interestingly enough, that we had no stake in -- what the hell do we care about Poland, anyway? So I suppose, using you and Radar's interpretation of things, we were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents, and the fact that Nazism was eliminated as a world power doesn't come close to justifying our actions.

Of course, 60 years later we find ourselves again standing between the Jews and another bunch of wackos, which I must admit gives me a bit of a gagging feeling in my throat. However, they have fired upon us, and we should be concentrating on eliminating the muslim extremism that caused them to do so. We don't need to swat at the individual ants that bite us on the feet, we need to get rid of the nest before we're eaten alive (it would be comforting to think that we're not in danger of that, wouldn't it?)

Oddly, that sounds alot like what the muslims say about us. Guess what? We have diametrically opposing values and goals. Of COURSE one side wants the other to fail, because the existence of one threatens the existence of the other. The shop owner in America has no reason to hate the shop owner in Afghanistan. But that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. We have been publicly identified by the leadership of these supposedly "small" groups of extremists as Allah-approved targets of violence. Maybe that's okay with you, but it's not okay with me.

Still, you are very right -- not all muslims want to continue the cycle of violence. They are the ones lining up to work and fight with us in Baghdad, and they're the ones to whom the country of Iraq will be turned over. The "insurgents" (a misnomer, as insurgency is carried out by local citizenry, not by foreign terrorists) won't ever go away, but their efforts can be muted, and the job of keeping them at bay can be turned over to the country of Iraq, once a certain level of training has been achieved.

But now, the liberals are in a quandary. At first, they tried to marginalize the muslims fighting with us and building the new Iraqi govt. as pawns of Bushco, operating a puppet regime for Republican oil-grabbers. Of course, as the number of Iraqis willing to fight for their freedom swelled, that started to look kind of silly, even for the left. So they had to fall back on the second line of defense: "Yeah, well we should've never been there in the first place. It's still all Bush's fault, and no matter what the outcome of the war (a non-extremist government in the heart of the middle east, hopefully), we have to remember to demonize America's presence there.

From that perspective comes the notion that we must never fight muslims, because Not All Muslims Are Bad. Instead, we need to find individual warlords and bring them on Judge Judy to let them know that they've been very naughty and must never do "it" again. That's a fabulous way to lose wars, and I'm really glad that the cut-and-run Democrats are not in charge of this effort.

edit: I interned in the civil engineering department at my college for 3 or 4 years. I saw more muslims in a day than you're likely to see in a year. Most didn't use deodorant, considering it to be unmanly. I'm not saying they're "wrong", but they certainly smelled manly.

[jaguar]

I'm not going to reply to noodle's comments because they make me very, very angry and it's been a stressful enough couple of days as it is. A number of friends were caught in the tubes when this happened and everyone is still kind of in shock, everyone feels very unsafe in in the inner city which is essentially where I live (back in london now). Amazingly parts of the underground are working, busses are running as normal and trains are running as normal, massive props to the authorities on getting things back to normal so quickly.

I spoke at some length of a friend of mine that acted as part of the legal team defending some of the guys in the Ricin Plot case that collapsed over here. He had a few interesting things to say.
1: There is a big fear of a huge crackdown of some sort on the Muslim community, there have already been many, many arrests.
2: The majority of those guys will be completely innocent but the hurt and anger that will come from their harsh treatment while they are arrested will do nothing to help relations.
3: One of their ex-clients or friend thereof as a thank-you warned them to stay off the tube. He has since been arrested.

These attacks were highly indiscriminate, they probably hit as many devout Muslims as Christians or anyone else. The feel at the moment is these guys were 'home grown', brits radicalised at home rather than imported terrorists. If this is a war it's a war of ideas, not faith or nationality and it can't be won like one of those wars. It can only be defeated by defeating those ideas, you can't do that with bombs.

[Queen of the Ryche]

I think you hit the nail on the head there Jag. Thank you, and again, my sympathies.

[mrnoodle]

Fine, I've made someone angry again. I'll stop posting on this topic. If you want to take it in the ass from every movement or country that decides to take a dislike to you, fine. It must be a comfortable illusion to live under, wish I could share it.

You can't change minds until you've made your own people safe from the bombs.

[jaguar]

You can't make people safe from the bombs until you change minds.
What stopped the last group to terrorise london, the IRA? Certainly wasn't the security forces.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by vsp

_Specifically_ Christian? No. Iraq 1 had a lot more to do with region politics and oil than any religious concerns. Afghanistan was "Someone hit us hard so we need to bomb something." Iraq 2, well, does _anyone_ have good answers as to why we should've gone there?

http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml

[Queen of the Ryche]

you didn't make me angry - I just don't understand your logic - oh well. I still like/respect you and value your opinion, because it is usually well founded and based.
bad people do bad things no matter what their background is. nuff said.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by vsp

Not sure what you mean by that.

Noodle's rants kept returning to a central argument of "9 out of 10 Muslims hate us and wish we were dead." That is not only a fallacy, but a dangerous one, because what would I wager that a hell of a lot of those Muslims believe in return?

"9 out of 10 Westerners hate us and wish we were dead." (Would've said "Americans" until yesterday's attacks broadened the target circle significantly.)

How many stop and think about WHY the other side "hates" them, much less as to whether that "mass hatred" actually exists?

Oh I see; by saying "what would I wager" you admit you don't know what they think, but having "stopped and thought" what you would wager they think, you have far greater insight into the situation. Got it!

99% of these people spouting this nonsense have never even _met_ anyone from the country or countries they're tarring.

Tarring the 99%, however, is fair game. In fact it's 9% better than Noodle's "9 out of 10." Good work that.

That's why I twigged on the phrase "these people" in the first place, because it was an obvious euphemism for a demonization of a hell of a lot more people than the terrorists themselves, and I can't say that my instincts were wrong about that.

Discount the evangelicals at your peril, particularly when the President and many in his administration are receptive to the This Is A Christian Nation crowd.

Hey look, there's demonization in your playbook too.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by vsp

...
That's why I twigged on the phrase "these people" in the first place, because it was an obvious euphemism for a demonization of a hell of a lot more people than the terrorists themselves, and I can't say that my instincts were wrong about that.
...

vsp, your instincts were NOT wrong about that. You (finally) clearly say what fuels the hatred on all sides. It is largely a product lazy weak thinking. Do any of you for a moment think that the criminals responsible for this tragedy specifically targeted any of the victims? Of course not. To the perpetrators, the intended victims were "those people". That was good enough for them. Lazy. And that's practically a compliment compared to the other truthful characterizations of these acts.

This kind of stunted thinking is useful in many ways. It's easy. Conveniently, it is cheap and effective to produce and promote (think FOXNews). It is flexible; Osama bin Laden -> Saudia Arabia -> Afghanistan -> Saddam Hussein -> Iraq...whatever. "If I see brown, it's goin' down."

But useful and effective only applies if you wish to continue the struggle. It does not apply if your goal is to eliminate the conflict. If resolution is your goal, if you are a seeker of peace, then the path of the lazy is closed to you. A harder way lies ahead. This narrow path requires that you open your mind to the point of view of the other side. And I guarantee that those views are held by individuals.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

... scratch any muslim, underneath you are likely to find...if not a terrorist, someone who believes what the terrorists are doing is just.

The usefulness of labels in this way is very limited, and mrnoodle, you has driven them well past their end. Look here for a minute, 'k?

To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.

He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies—and what’s his reason? I am a Jew.

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian
is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

The Merchant of Venice
--Act III, Scene i, lines 43-61
William Shakespeare

These labels are old, but perfectly interchangable for the events of our own time. Indeed, they do bleed, just as they've shown we do. But when you refuse to acknowledge their very humanity, then you will fail to see a person, seeing only "those people". And the very slipperiness of that concept that drew you to it in the first place DOOMS you to be stuck with it forever. Kill one, bomb one hundred and another thousand anonymously stand up to replace them. You sow the seeds of your own destruction when you fight hate and ignorance with ignorance and hate.

[BigV]

Jaguar,

I apologize for having my priorities upside down, taking the bait here before I reached out to you. I am enormously relieved that you personally are well, and that your city and your leadership have responded so well. My thoughts and prayers are with you and yours.

[vsp]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

You're applying "critical thinking" but completely disregarding the realities that are occurring on your doorstep. How nice that ALL 1.3 billion muslims don't want us dead. I'm sure ALL Germans didn't want us dead in WWII. Yet they all suffered as a result of war. A war, interestingly enough, that we had no stake in -- what the hell do we care about Poland, anyway? So I suppose, using you and Radar's interpretation of things, we were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents, and the fact that Nazism was eliminated as a world power doesn't come close to justifying our actions.

There was that little "Pearl Harbor" thing. And that "Germany declared war on the US right after Pearl Harbor" thing. A lot of Americans _didn't_ give a rat's ass about Poland until after they themselves had been attacked, and quite frankly, if Germany hadn't declared war on us, a lot of Americans would've been satisfied to take out the Japanese and let Europe settle its own affairs.

Now tell me how Saddam Hussein was within lightyears of Adolf Hitler.

Of course, 60 years later we find ourselves again standing between the Jews and another bunch of wackos, which I must admit gives me a bit of a gagging feeling in my throat. However, they have fired upon us, and we should be concentrating on eliminating the muslim extremism that caused them to do so.

Take out the word "muslim" and I'm on board with you.

Here's a question: is al-Qaeda's primary motivation political or religious? Was 9/11 a strike against Christian America in the name of Allah, or was it a terrorist act in the name of specific political demands? The evidence points overwhelmingly to the latter.

Apply Occam's Razor. Which is the simplest explanation?

If Islam is such an inherently violent and xenophobic religion that its adherents may feel compelled to strike out violently against non-believers, if the calling to promote Allah and subdue all others is that strong... then why is 9/11 an aberration in American history rather than a recurring event?

Why did so many Americans think of terrorism as "something that happens Over There" on 9/11, rather than an everpresent threat? You can't say that our security was strong and vigilant for decades before 9/11, because it wasn't. You can't say that there were no Muslims living in or with access to the United States for decades before 9/11, because there were. So when you take Bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of the equation, why _haven't_ other Muslims heard the call and struck at America, The Great Satan, the most powerful Christian-dominated nation on the planet repeatedly in the name of spiritual conquest?

Is Bin Laden spiritually driven to the point of obliterating Christian America, or is he more interested in getting the United States' economic, military and political fingers out of the Middle Eastern pie? Which makes more sense, that this is a true religious jihad (with Bin Laden and his followers the only ones devout and wise enough to interpret the Koran correctly and be called to significant action), or that this is Bin Laden's way of trying to force US interests out of Saudi Arabia, out of Iraq, out of what he considers to be Palestinian land through violent terrorism?

Are there religious overtones? Of course. Bin Laden uses religious language in his speeches. So does Dubya. Is Dubya a raving evangelist? Both know that Joe Average is (sadly) more likely to buy into religion-themed arguments than sophisticated political arguments. It's an easy card to play. A lot of people hear "God/Allah wishes this" and portions of their brains shut off; it's such a _convenient_ self-justification for actions. Is much of their hatred for Israel religiously grounded? Of course. But much of America's _support_ for Israel has similar roots, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how a Christian-dominated nation plunking a new Jewish nation down on traditionally-Arabic land, no matter how laudable the reasons for doing so, could create some long-term grudges and prejudices.

There is a difference between "taking it in the ass from anyone and everyone" and responding to those responsible for terrorism instead of allowing it to escalate into a larger war. This is not some religious cage match, Christianity vs. Islam best of three falls to determine who's the World Deity Champion. This is terrorism by a distinct minority that _welcomes_ overreaction by its target, because that's the best recruiting tool they could ask for. "See? That's what I'm ON about! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"