Tony
Penultimate Amazing
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- Mar 5, 2003
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Another Reason For Muslims to Dance in the Streets
Reginald
Graduate Poster
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- Nov 26, 2002
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- 1,621
You know, I'm not even going to put my argumentative hat on for this one.
Two more US hostages beheaded. The British hostage's family pleading with Tony Blair to do something. Now the hostage himself doing the same thing. You can't blame them, you can't help but feel that you would do anything to get your father/Husband back. But we can't release female prisoners that we don't hold and to be honest if we did hold them we should not release them under these circumstances. I saw the very first video of the death of the first hostage, I can still see it in my mind. It's a terrible thing, but it's not a "Muslim" thing, it's an extremist thing, this lot happen to claim to be Muslims. Terrorists have this habit, of claiming to be the real and representative face of whatever cause they are fighting for. Often they are not.
My Sympathies go out to those who have died in this terrible way. My sympathies go out to the family of Kenneth Bigley, I can't imagine for a second what they are going through. My sympathies go out to the Innocent Iraqi's who have lost adult family and children.
But something has occurred to me today, while listening to a radio show about unemployment of trained people in Iraq. I don't know why people choose, or allow themselves to go there to work. It could be humanitarian reasons, it could be the lure of big money. It may be that they fear for their job if they don't, but let me say this...you don't need to go. If your reasoning is humanitarian, then you have in Iraq a number of highly trained Iraqi's. Engineers, scientists.........this workforce is just waiting to work on rebuilding projects, they should be allowed to. If your motives are Profit, then work out the gain your family will make in your absence, the pain, the horror of seeing a repeat of this week's atrocity with you as the victim. What amount of money is worth that? If you feel you have to go for your job's sake......get fired and sue.
My apologies for letting a bit out there. Sorry.
Two more US hostages beheaded. The British hostage's family pleading with Tony Blair to do something. Now the hostage himself doing the same thing. You can't blame them, you can't help but feel that you would do anything to get your father/Husband back. But we can't release female prisoners that we don't hold and to be honest if we did hold them we should not release them under these circumstances. I saw the very first video of the death of the first hostage, I can still see it in my mind. It's a terrible thing, but it's not a "Muslim" thing, it's an extremist thing, this lot happen to claim to be Muslims. Terrorists have this habit, of claiming to be the real and representative face of whatever cause they are fighting for. Often they are not.
My Sympathies go out to those who have died in this terrible way. My sympathies go out to the family of Kenneth Bigley, I can't imagine for a second what they are going through. My sympathies go out to the Innocent Iraqi's who have lost adult family and children.
But something has occurred to me today, while listening to a radio show about unemployment of trained people in Iraq. I don't know why people choose, or allow themselves to go there to work. It could be humanitarian reasons, it could be the lure of big money. It may be that they fear for their job if they don't, but let me say this...you don't need to go. If your reasoning is humanitarian, then you have in Iraq a number of highly trained Iraqi's. Engineers, scientists.........this workforce is just waiting to work on rebuilding projects, they should be allowed to. If your motives are Profit, then work out the gain your family will make in your absence, the pain, the horror of seeing a repeat of this week's atrocity with you as the victim. What amount of money is worth that? If you feel you have to go for your job's sake......get fired and sue.
My apologies for letting a bit out there. Sorry.
epepke
Philosopher
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2003
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- 9,264
Mycroft said:
I thought Cat Stevens was a Buddhist. I also thought this latest event must have been perpetrated by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. After all, don't we constantly hear that they're just as bad? Surely they must have got some of their minions to put a couple of black hoods on and hack people's necks off by now. It's getting harder to stretch mileage out of a shooting of an abortion doc a decade ago.
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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- Sep 10, 2003
- Messages
- 20,501
epepke said:
It is. We need to find some article about a woman suffering severe post-partum(sp?) depression who kills her kids because she's become delusional and thinks they're spawn of Satan. That should be enough to prove equivalence for another decade or so.
epepke
Philosopher
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Reginald said:
Mycroft and I and maybe Tony are dealing with this horror with a common defense mechanism: humor. Sometimes the humor gets as dark as the horror.
However, direct discussions are still possible, and you seem like a decent sort. What are you trying to say?
Let's get away from "Muslims," because as far as I can tell, that has special meaning and special protected status. Let's just say that there are terrorists of type Y who claim to be the real representative of X. You assert that often they are not.
Let's look at that.
First of all, while the claim that Y are representative of X may be true, that in and of itself does not mean that Y are not X. I try to evaluate your claim that they just happen to be X. No, I don't think so. At least not in the sense that they may just happen to need dental work. They are X, and they derive a great deal of personal identity from being X, and they think their actions are a representation of X.
That leads to the question of other people who are X. It's a less important question, inasmuch as it is unneccessary to claim that Y are X. However, it's valid for this thread.
The answer is that other people, not obviously connected to Y except that they share X, have been empirically shown to dance in the streets to celebrate former acts by people highly similar to Y. This is, I think, incontrovertable. It also provides an easy answer to The Fool's question: presumably, largely the same members of X who have already demonstrated that they are into that sort of thing.
That leaves open the question of what dancing in the streets in celebration of a beheading means. I suppose, given Mycroft's and my predilection for dark humor, one might suppose that it is a form of dark humor and really doesn't indicate any approval. However, I think that extremely unlikely, and furthermore, I haven't seen anybody put forth the thesis. I think it reasonable to examine possibilities, but one of the results is discarding them, which seems appropriate in this case.
What do you think?
Elind
Philosopher
The Fool said:
Most of them; who are not demonstrating in the streets against this supposed perversion of their "faith", that chants "Allah Akbar" while doing what they do.
From the Washington Times
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040924-120647-9243r.htm
So it seems that the terrorists, extreemists, fundamentalists, freedom fighters, or whatever they are called this week have almost twice the approval rating of GW Bush (93% vs. 50%) (from http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm) of their respective constituents.
Lets hope that their devotion and respect for their religion will overcome the desire and actions of some of their followers to do such acts. Sad though that is that only fear of tarnishing their religion may keep them from performing those acts rather than some moral belief or ethics.
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040924-120647-9243r.htm
So it seems that the terrorists, extreemists, fundamentalists, freedom fighters, or whatever they are called this week have almost twice the approval rating of GW Bush (93% vs. 50%) (from http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm) of their respective constituents.
Lets hope that their devotion and respect for their religion will overcome the desire and actions of some of their followers to do such acts. Sad though that is that only fear of tarnishing their religion may keep them from performing those acts rather than some moral belief or ethics.
93 percent of viewers said they approved of kidnapping foreigners in Iraq even though by then, one of the two American hostages had been decapitated.
Shame on you. How can you post such heresies when our religion, "progressive liberalism", says that only a tiny minority of Muslims support this sort of thing.
At least, you should post some analysis that "proves" the "root cause" of the 93% figure is "really" something awful the USA / jews / the West had done to them.
Now write 100 times:
"Islam is a religion of peace"
"Islam is a religion of peace"
"Islam is... "
Shame on you. How can you post such heresies when our religion, "progressive liberalism", says that only a tiny minority of Muslims support this sort of thing.
At least, you should post some analysis that "proves" the "root cause" of the 93% figure is "really" something awful the USA / jews / the West had done to them.
Now write 100 times:
"Islam is a religion of peace"
"Islam is a religion of peace"
"Islam is... "
Charlie Monoxide
Wag
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2003
- Messages
- 2,760
You can't blame them for dancing in the streets. Wasn't the local dance-hall bombed during the siege of Baghdad?
Charlie (yes, dark humor) Monoxide
Charlie (yes, dark humor) Monoxide
merphie said:
The 93% number is reportedly from Al-Jazeera - according to the Washington Times. How the survey was done by Al-Jazeera was not reported and could very well be biased. (one way or the other)
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Al_Jazeera
The Moonies own the Washington Times
http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/Unif12.html
Any suggestions for trustworthy news sources on the goings on in the Middle East?