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Don't criticise Islam, says UN

Darth Rotor said:
Yes it did, if you check the words of the draft, and if you find "defame" and "criticize" to be synomyms, and for that matter, any other than complementary reference and "criticize" to be synonyms.
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I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or if the trans-atlantic language barrier is at work. But "defame" and "criticize" are not synonyms as far as I'm concerned.

I went to the trouble of googling the defs:
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=criticise
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=defame

And I'm sure there are art-critics who wouldn't want to be called art-defamers. Picking fault isn't the same as kicking ****.
 
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danielk said:
Wait, that was the target not the source. They view the West as a decadent culture which needs to be destroyed, and attacked what they perceived of as a symbol of decadence.
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There's no denying there's a distaste for the way women are treated in the West, for the salaciousness of media and so on.

But if that were the dominant, overriding factor that drives them - why didnt they hit Amsterdam? That city is a cesspool of drugs and sex (and bless them for it!) - why not hit there?

Why hit the US, the UK, Madrid, Indonesia?

Political reasons - combined - with the whole decadence thing.

You can bet if great powers weren't carving up the region for centuries that we wouldn't hear all that much about these crazies - they'd be entirely domestic problems of countries in a far off place.
 
The stupid, it burns.

There is a difference between rightful criticism and defamation.

Get a dictionary.

From my POV, the commie that I am, I read it as being against discrimination against Muslims such as believing them all to be terrorists/supportive of terrorists.

Was it another silly non-binding resolution type bill? Sure.

Is it this "OMG, UN says we can't speak ill of Islam!!!" bull? No.
 
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Upchurch said:
You lost me there. What?
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The targets were the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and Washington D.C. Two of the three are absolutely targets we'd classify as "military targets", and not specifically attacks on civilians. The WTC attack can also be viewed as a military target, designed to disrupt our economic infrastructure. I'm saying it was more like Pearl Harbor than like the sarin attack in Tokyo, which was more obviously a terrorist action.

I'm mostly being nitpicky about the terminology... but the terminology also has shaped the way we view things, and has to an extent incorrectly shaped that view, IMO.
 
JoeEllison said:
The WTC attack can also be viewed as a military target, designed to disrupt our economic infrastructure. I'm saying it was more like Pearl Harbor than like the sarin attack in Tokyo, which was more obviously a terrorist action.
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Well, that makes a little more sense, but I still have to disagree.

I can't believe they honestly thought they would have made a significant impact on our military capability (unlike the attack on Pearl Harbor made on our Pacific fleet). If they did, they're idiots. Plus, they had no way to significantly follow up on the attack to take military advantage of the chaos. I think the term "terrorist attack" is the only appropriate one.
 
Upchurch said:
Well, that makes a little more sense, but I still have to disagree.

I can't believe they honestly thought they would have made a significant impact on our military capability (unlike the attack on Pearl Harbor made on our Pacific fleet). If they did, they're idiots. Plus, they had no way to significantly follow up on the attack to take military advantage of the chaos. I think the term "terrorist attack" is the only appropriate one.
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I can agree with you to an extent, but it is one of those nuanced things. For instance, the goal of the attacks was most likely propaganda and provocation, two things that are hallmarks of terrorism.

I just think there was way too much "crazy Muslims!!" thinking, and not much real and useful thinking at all... and there still isn't.
 
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JoeEllison said:
The targets were the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and Washington D.C. Two of the three are absolutely targets we'd classify as "military targets", and not specifically attacks on civilians..
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And.... cue Pomeroo and the unavoidable Ward Churchill rant...;)
 
JoeEllison said:
The targets were the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and Washington D.C. Two of the three are absolutely targets we'd classify as "military targets", and not specifically attacks on civilians.
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The civilians on the planes?
If they had driven a truck bomb into the pentagon, then you might have had a point. A passenger-plane is not a weapon of war.
 
FireGarden said:
The civilians on the planes?
If they had driven a truck bomb into the pentagon, then you might have had a point. A passenger-plane is not a weapon of war.
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Yeah... but would it be if they had stolen an empty plane? I'm flashing back to a discussion I had with a War College graduate, and something called "fourth generation warfare."

This is way off-topic anyhoo. Can we just agree that the 9-11 attacks were more complex than "crazy Muslims hate us for our freedoms", which was the point I was trying to make?
 
Upchurch said:
That's aimed at our politics, not our culture or our religion.
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I agree, but our politics are sometimes unavoidably an extension of our culture. Take the idea of universal human rights for individuals, for example. I'm not saying we hold the copyright to that idea, but if we indeed attempt to follow this ideal, we will inevitably come into conflict with group-based concepts of ethics.

Upchurch said:
Decadence was not their only motivation. I'd go so far as to say it wasn't even their primary motivation. If they were looking to attack our culture, they would have aimed at Broadway or maybe Hollywood, not at the WTC, the Pentagon, and the White House.
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The Broadway? Nah. Maybe I should have said civilization instead of culture. In any case, I gather you do agree that they attacked a symbol?

Regarding motivation, you quote UBL:
"Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people"
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Well, two problems: I strongly suspect he mentions Israel only because he's well aware that Israel makes for a perfect opportunity to drive a wedge between the political entities representing the West. Of course, I cannot prove this without the ability to look into his mind, thus we'll have to agree to disagree here. The other problem is that I happen to not agree with his assessment of the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is a separate debate where opinions diverge widely, but whichever compromise position we might reach, I don't think bin Laden's demands should be a factor in it.

He said that the attacks were carried out because, "We are a free people who do not accept injustice, and we want to regain the freedom of our nation."
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Ah, but his idea of justice differs widely from our idea of justice.
 
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Earthborn said:
[qimg]http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=v&chs=200x100&chd=t:100,1,0,100,100,0&chdl=Christianity|KKK[/qimg]
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I made a chart of my own showing how the KKK analogy is overly simplistic and inadequate.
 

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JoeEllison said:
Yeah... but would it be if they had stolen an empty plane?
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The weapon they DID use makes it terrorism, regardless of the target.

Can we just agree that the 9-11 attacks were more complex than "crazy Muslims hate us for our freedoms", which was the point I was trying to make?
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You and I agreed on that to begin with. I hardly ever post to say I agree. It makes me seem more argumentative than I am.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
The stupid, it burns.

There is a difference between rightful criticism and defamation.
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I would agree, if it weren't for the problem that the UN resolution seems to use a different definition. According to the text, the Western media has defamed Islam after 9/11. However, in my book it wasn't so much defamation but criticism. Not to mention that Western politicians have since then bent over backwards in their public statements, and excused Islam in advance as much as possible. Even George W. Bush himself!

I'm not even saying that this was necessarily wrong -- it's certainly a good idea to caution against overreaction and violence. But in that light, the accusation that the Western media defamed Islam is utterly laughable.

Tsukasa Buddha said:
Is it this "OMG, UN says we can't speak ill of Islam!!!" bull? No.
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It definitely says that the depiction of Islam in the Western media after 9/11 was defamatory.
 
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JoeEllison said:
I'm "defaming" bigots.
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You are? From here, it looks like you're defending the bigots who hate free-speech and consider Islam beyond criticism.

Do you have a problem with that, or are you saying that bigots are somehow NOT people with something wrong with them.
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Yes, bigots have something wrong with them. Hence the criticism of the bigotry of Islam.
 
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