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MikeWaters · 07-31-2006, 04:26 PM

I do think there are many extremists. I just don't come to the same generalizations and conclusions.

tooblue · 07-31-2006, 04:27 PM

or rather as nihlist and not helping the situation ... the fact of the matter is, it is a perspective that can help the West understand where to begin with attemps to win hearts and minds of muslims the world over.

How many times have you heard members of the church --in fact it is a dominant theme of Mormon subculture-- say I wish the world in general just tried to understand us!

tooblue · 07-31-2006, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I do think there are many extremists. I just don't come to the same generalizations and conclusions.

It is not a generalization Mike ... there are tens of thousands, backed by millions of muslims who are willing to die in the name of Jihad while the majority of the muslim world watches Fox news style news that daily revels in the defeats and deaths of Americans in Iraq and elsewhere.

ute4ever · 07-31-2006, 04:56 PM

Doesn't Revelations state the final war will kill one-third of the world's population?

RockyBalboa · 07-31-2006, 07:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

"due"

I've talked with moderate and considerate Muslims before and after my mission. Maybe you run in the wrong circles.

it's like you guys are arguing for starting WWIII. I'm arguing that we should try to head it off. I'm not a fatalist like you all. I actually believe that people ought to live in peace.

Does defending our livelihoods make us fatalists? I strongly disagree with your assertion that those of us who believe that defending ourselves and pre-emptives strikes are in any way remotely associated with fatalism.

Most of us believe that we ought to live in peace, but you, I, and most people know that especially with prophecies for the future, that no matter how much we want it to be, that ultimately it's just not in the cards.

Does that mean we just throw our hands up and say "F it!"? No of course not, but it seems you automatically and erroneously assume that is how many people think in regards to the Muslims as a whole and this is just not the case.

Mike, I wonder if it has registered with you that these Extremists...note I said Extremists would have zero reservation about cutting your head off, murdering your familiy and feeding the blood to their children just because you believe in Jesus Christ. They have in a literal sense already declared war on you.

You seem much more interested in playing Devil's Advocate here, and I don't understand that.

ute4ever · 07-31-2006, 11:17 PM

I wonder how many X's on a global map that can be placed where the United States has come in, on our own personal belief, and have killed innocent men, women, and children.

What are those muslims fighting for, in the first place? I don't agree with them... but before I curse and hate another man, I must first make sure I am without offense, and I can't do that. My country is as bad, if not worse, than the rest of them.

I hate ignorant arguments about the Arab world. I completely admit that I'm not the foremost scholar on Arab studies or what's going on over in the Middle-east, but I can use at least a small portion of my brain to say, "These men we're fighting, are men just like myself: they live, breath, eat, and have families... what have made them so 'evil' as to do these things to other countries? what has possessed them? Have they been injured and are retaliating?"

We don't hear of their plight or how we have slaughtered thousands of them without cause-- and not just under the Bush admin. Not that I'm siding with "the enemy" here, but I can see they have a point. If we can say that there are militant muslims in the middle east that are simply hell-bent on world domination and will do anything to get it... then we have to fully admit that there are Christians in our own land hell-bent on the same. Before we condemn them for all of their attrocities, why don't we admit our own? Because, come to find out, they're comitting their acts in large response to our strikes from the US.

For instance: Israel and the Muslim world... they will be at war until Christ comes-- they are so full of hate, trying to blame each other on who did the first "worse" thing to the other, that they will never come to terms. However, when talking about America and the Muslim world, we aren't told of our own attrocities. However, we are reminded daily of how bad the militant muslims are against us. We are never ever ever told what we have done to the innocent muslim world, and not just in our Iraqi war.

There have been a lot of things we have done, one of the more prominant examples was blowing up factories in Africa that were "weapons storage" but, turned out to be a diaper factories that killed hundreds of women and children. There are cases all over the place of the American Empire reaching out its grasp over the world... becoming the international policing power.

Looks like some people got fed up with it. If you weren't an American, wouldn't you? We know that the ATF, FBI, CIA, and other government agencies have unjustly killed innocent people in their "line of duty"... how would we like it if Germany came in and declared that we weren't democratic enough, and invaded our country?

Now, surely we know that Saddam was a really bad guy... no doubt about it... he killed thousands of his own citizens; but, as the evidence is starting to show, so has Bush. And what about the IRS? It's a rogue agency. Should another country then invade us because our monetary collection system is corrupt and is unjustly putting innocent people in jail all over our country? Shoot, if another country came in to overthrow my country, even if my country was 10X worse than it is now... I'd fight back. And in that case, what do you think the media would say in the invading country? Wouldn't the invading country's media promote them as doing a great thing in liberating a corrupt society? Of course. Once we flip the tables on ourselves, we can all of a sudden realize why there are so many "terrorists" and people who want to do us harm.

Colly Wolly · 07-31-2006, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ute4ever

I wonder how many X's on a global map that can be placed where the United States has come in, on our own personal belief, and have killed innocent men, women, and children.

What are those muslims fighting for, in the first place? I don't agree with them... but before I curse and hate another man, I must first make sure I am without offense, and I can't do that. My country is as bad, if not worse, than the rest of them.

I hate ignorant arguments about the Arab world. I completely admit that I'm not the foremost scholar on Arab studies or what's going on over in the Middle-east, but I can use at least a small portion of my brain to say, "These men we're fighting, are men just like myself: they live, breath, eat, and have families... what have made them so 'evil' as to do these things to other countries? what has possessed them? Have they been injured and are retaliating?"

We don't hear of their plight or how we have slaughtered thousands of them without cause-- and not just under the Bush admin. Not that I'm siding with "the enemy" here, but I can see they have a point. If we can say that there are militant muslims in the middle east that are simply hell-bent on world domination and will do anything to get it... then we have to fully admit that there are Christians in our own land hell-bent on the same. Before we condemn them for all of their attrocities, why don't we admit our own? Because, come to find out, they're comitting their acts in large response to our strikes from the US.

For instance: Israel and the Muslim world... they will be at war until Christ comes-- they are so full of hate, trying to blame each other on who did the first "worse" thing to the other, that they will never come to terms. However, when talking about America and the Muslim world, we aren't told of our own attrocities. However, we are reminded daily of how bad the militant muslims are against us. We are never ever ever told what we have done to the innocent muslim world, and not just in our Iraqi war.

There have been a lot of things we have done, one of the more prominant examples was blowing up factories in Africa that were "weapons storage" but, turned out to be a diaper factories that killed hundreds of women and children. There are cases all over the place of the American Empire reaching out its grasp over the world... becoming the international policing power.

Looks like some people got fed up with it. If you weren't an American, wouldn't you? We know that the ATF, FBI, CIA, and other government agencies have unjustly killed innocent people in their "line of duty"... how would we like it if Germany came in and declared that we weren't democratic enough, and invaded our country?

Now, surely we know that Saddam was a really bad guy... no doubt about it... he killed thousands of his own citizens; but, as the evidence is starting to show, so has Bush. And what about the IRS? It's a rogue agency. Should another country then invade us because our monetary collection system is corrupt and is unjustly putting innocent people in jail all over our country? Shoot, if another country came in to overthrow my country, even if my country was 10X worse than it is now... I'd fight back. And in that case, what do you think the media would say in the invading country? Wouldn't the invading country's media promote them as doing a great thing in liberating a corrupt society? Of course. Once we flip the tables on ourselves, we can all of a sudden realize why there are so many "terrorists" and people who want to do us harm.

Please tell me this is tic?

Mormon Red Death · 08-01-2006, 01:39 AM

This article by the Rand institute sums up my position. Iran has been harboring terrorist for years.

The U.S.-Israeli Suicide Pact
By Ayn Rand Institute: (07/20/2006)

The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists' aggression is the logical product of U.S.-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to "diplomatic engagement" with Palestinians and Islamists--a euphemism for appeasement--is suicidal.

For decades America has urged Israel to placate and surrender to our common enemy. The U.S.-endorsed "Road Map to Peace," like the "Peace Process" and sundry initiatives before it, rationalized Palestinian terrorism as the result of a legitimate grievance. If only the Palestinians' wish for a civilized, peaceful state were fulfilled--Washington deluded itself into believing--terrorism would end. And fulfilling this wish requires not smashing their terrorist infrastructure, but showering them with land and loot.

But the majority of Palestinians actually seek the destruction of Israel, and the slaughter of its people. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. They abetted Arafat's terrorism and celebrated his atrocities. They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups--and when they had the chance, they embraced the even more militant religious zealots of Hamas. It is no surprise that, according to a recent poll, 77 percent of Palestinians support their government's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

But even as Palestinians mounted more attacks, Washington pressed Israel for more concessions--and bolstered the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in aid. The U.S. forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House. And when Hezbollah now fires rockets at major cities in northern Israel, President Bush demands that Israel show "restraint."

Depressingly, Israel has continually relented to American pressure to appease our common enemy. It has prostrated itself before the Palestinians, with flamboyantly self-sacrificial offers of land-for-peace; it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon, ceding ground necessary to its self-defense; it has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving its southern cities at the mercy of rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.

Such U.S.-endorsed appeasement by Israel, across decades, has enabled Hezbollah and Hamas to mount their current attacks. Yet America remains undeterred in its commitment to appeasement.

The U.S. is now trying to woo Iran with endless offers of economic "incentives," if only Iran promises to stop chasing nuclear weapons. Evading Iran's lust to "wipe Israel off the map," evading its funding of Hezbollah and Hamas, evading its avowed enmity to America, evading its decades of fomenting and orchestrating a proxy terror war against American civilians--evading all of this, Washington deludes itself into believing that paying Iran off will, somehow, wipe out its hostility.

Inevitably, this encourages Iran to continue its aggressive support for terrorists and its fervent quest for nuclear weapons. Merely by prolonging the negotiations endlessly, Iran gains time to acquire a weapon to wield against its neighbors, to provide to Hamas and Hezbollah or to other proxies to use against the United States. And were Iran eventually to accept some deal, American aid would merely be sustaining Iran's regime--and, inexorably, a covert nuclear program.

We are teaching the Islamic totalitarians in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that their goal of destroying us is legitimate; that aggression is practical; that the more aggressive they are, the more we will surrender. U.S.-Israeli policy has demonstrated that we lack the intellectual self-confidence to name, let alone condemn, our enemies--and that we lack the will to deal with threats mercilessly. It vindicates the Islamists' premise that their religious worldview can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees.

To protect the lives of our citizens, America and Israel must stop evading the nature of the enemy's cause: our complete destruction. We must stop appeasing our common enemy--and embrace self-defense as a matter of intransigent principle. To put an end to the current rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, America should urge Israel to annihilate the annihilators: Hamas and Hezbollah. And to thwart Iran's nuclear ambition, America must use as much military force as is necessary to dispose of that catastrophic threat and the regime responsible for it.

Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

MikeWaters · 08-01-2006, 01:56 AM

Here's the sad part:

we can't annihilate them. No more than we can annihilate the Iraqi insurgency.

Colly Wolly · 08-01-2006, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Here's the sad part:

we can't annihilate them. No more than we can annihilate the Iraqi insurgency.

Did Americans say this about Nazi Germany back in the day?

08-01-2006, 01:39 AM	#28
Mormon Red Death Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Clinton Township, MI Posts: 3,126	This article by the Rand institute sums up my position. Iran has been harboring terrorist for years. The U.S.-Israeli Suicide Pact By Ayn Rand Institute: (07/20/2006) The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists' aggression is the logical product of U.S.-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to "diplomatic engagement" with Palestinians and Islamists--a euphemism for appeasement--is suicidal. For decades America has urged Israel to placate and surrender to our common enemy. The U.S.-endorsed "Road Map to Peace," like the "Peace Process" and sundry initiatives before it, rationalized Palestinian terrorism as the result of a legitimate grievance. If only the Palestinians' wish for a civilized, peaceful state were fulfilled--Washington deluded itself into believing--terrorism would end. And fulfilling this wish requires not smashing their terrorist infrastructure, but showering them with land and loot. But the majority of Palestinians actually seek the destruction of Israel, and the slaughter of its people. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. They abetted Arafat's terrorism and celebrated his atrocities. They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups--and when they had the chance, they embraced the even more militant religious zealots of Hamas. It is no surprise that, according to a recent poll, 77 percent of Palestinians support their government's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. But even as Palestinians mounted more attacks, Washington pressed Israel for more concessions--and bolstered the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in aid. The U.S. forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House. And when Hezbollah now fires rockets at major cities in northern Israel, President Bush demands that Israel show "restraint." Depressingly, Israel has continually relented to American pressure to appease our common enemy. It has prostrated itself before the Palestinians, with flamboyantly self-sacrificial offers of land-for-peace; it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon, ceding ground necessary to its self-defense; it has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving its southern cities at the mercy of rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory. Such U.S.-endorsed appeasement by Israel, across decades, has enabled Hezbollah and Hamas to mount their current attacks. Yet America remains undeterred in its commitment to appeasement. The U.S. is now trying to woo Iran with endless offers of economic "incentives," if only Iran promises to stop chasing nuclear weapons. Evading Iran's lust to "wipe Israel off the map," evading its funding of Hezbollah and Hamas, evading its avowed enmity to America, evading its decades of fomenting and orchestrating a proxy terror war against American civilians--evading all of this, Washington deludes itself into believing that paying Iran off will, somehow, wipe out its hostility. Inevitably, this encourages Iran to continue its aggressive support for terrorists and its fervent quest for nuclear weapons. Merely by prolonging the negotiations endlessly, Iran gains time to acquire a weapon to wield against its neighbors, to provide to Hamas and Hezbollah or to other proxies to use against the United States. And were Iran eventually to accept some deal, American aid would merely be sustaining Iran's regime--and, inexorably, a covert nuclear program. We are teaching the Islamic totalitarians in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that their goal of destroying us is legitimate; that aggression is practical; that the more aggressive they are, the more we will surrender. U.S.-Israeli policy has demonstrated that we lack the intellectual self-confidence to name, let alone condemn, our enemies--and that we lack the will to deal with threats mercilessly. It vindicates the Islamists' premise that their religious worldview can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees. To protect the lives of our citizens, America and Israel must stop evading the nature of the enemy's cause: our complete destruction. We must stop appeasing our common enemy--and embrace self-defense as a matter of intransigent principle. To put an end to the current rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, America should urge Israel to annihilate the annihilators: Hamas and Hezbollah. And to thwart Iran's nuclear ambition, America must use as much military force as is necessary to dispose of that catastrophic threat and the regime responsible for it. Elan Journo is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. __________________ Its all about the suit

07-31-2006, 04:26 PM	#21
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	I do think there are many extremists. I just don't come to the same generalizations and conclusions.

07-31-2006, 04:27 PM	#22
tooblue Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 4,016	or rather as nihlist and not helping the situation ... the fact of the matter is, it is a perspective that can help the West understand where to begin with attemps to win hearts and minds of muslims the world over. How many times have you heard members of the church --in fact it is a dominant theme of Mormon subculture-- say I wish the world in general just tried to understand us!

07-31-2006, 04:56 PM	#24
ute4ever I must not tell lies Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 5,103	Doesn't Revelations state the final war will kill one-third of the world's population?

07-31-2006, 11:17 PM	#26
ute4ever I must not tell lies Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 5,103	I wonder how many X's on a global map that can be placed where the United States has come in, on our own personal belief, and have killed innocent men, women, and children. What are those muslims fighting for, in the first place? I don't agree with them... but before I curse and hate another man, I must first make sure I am without offense, and I can't do that. My country is as bad, if not worse, than the rest of them. I hate ignorant arguments about the Arab world. I completely admit that I'm not the foremost scholar on Arab studies or what's going on over in the Middle-east, but I can use at least a small portion of my brain to say, "These men we're fighting, are men just like myself: they live, breath, eat, and have families... what have made them so 'evil' as to do these things to other countries? what has possessed them? Have they been injured and are retaliating?" We don't hear of their plight or how we have slaughtered thousands of them without cause-- and not just under the Bush admin. Not that I'm siding with "the enemy" here, but I can see they have a point. If we can say that there are militant muslims in the middle east that are simply hell-bent on world domination and will do anything to get it... then we have to fully admit that there are Christians in our own land hell-bent on the same. Before we condemn them for all of their attrocities, why don't we admit our own? Because, come to find out, they're comitting their acts in large response to our strikes from the US. For instance: Israel and the Muslim world... they will be at war until Christ comes-- they are so full of hate, trying to blame each other on who did the first "worse" thing to the other, that they will never come to terms. However, when talking about America and the Muslim world, we aren't told of our own attrocities. However, we are reminded daily of how bad the militant muslims are against us. We are never ever ever told what we have done to the innocent muslim world, and not just in our Iraqi war. There have been a lot of things we have done, one of the more prominant examples was blowing up factories in Africa that were "weapons storage" but, turned out to be a diaper factories that killed hundreds of women and children. There are cases all over the place of the American Empire reaching out its grasp over the world... becoming the international policing power. Looks like some people got fed up with it. If you weren't an American, wouldn't you? We know that the ATF, FBI, CIA, and other government agencies have unjustly killed innocent people in their "line of duty"... how would we like it if Germany came in and declared that we weren't democratic enough, and invaded our country? Now, surely we know that Saddam was a really bad guy... no doubt about it... he killed thousands of his own citizens; but, as the evidence is starting to show, so has Bush. And what about the IRS? It's a rogue agency. Should another country then invade us because our monetary collection system is corrupt and is unjustly putting innocent people in jail all over our country? Shoot, if another country came in to overthrow my country, even if my country was 10X worse than it is now... I'd fight back. And in that case, what do you think the media would say in the invading country? Wouldn't the invading country's media promote them as doing a great thing in liberating a corrupt society? Of course. Once we flip the tables on ourselves, we can all of a sudden realize why there are so many "terrorists" and people who want to do us harm.

08-01-2006, 01:56 AM	#29
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	Here's the sad part: we can't annihilate them. No more than we can annihilate the Iraqi insurgency.