The war on Terror

Smash
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Post by Smash » 29 Jul 2005 02:05

steampunk wrote:Interesting news from the religious side of things.

First, the Pope on Monday (from <a href='http://unspun.mithuro.com/content/view/319/36/' target='_blank'>here</a>):
Pope Benedict XVI today refused to declare Islam a religion of peace.

Asked by journalists whether Islam could be considered a religion of peace shortly before entering the church of Introd for a meeting with priests and deacons of Valle d'Aosta, the region of northwest Italy where he is spending a brief holiday, the pontiff refused reply positively.

"I would not like to use big words to apply generic labels," he replied. "It certainly contains elements that can favor peace, it also has other elements: we must always seek the best elements."
Uh-oh. That's fighting dirty. He didn't call Islam a religion of peace!

Second, from a leading Imam in Mecca, on the 15th of July, a week after the London Tube bombings (from <a href='http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD93905' target='_blank'>here</a>):
Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam of Islam's most holy mosque, Al-Haram in Mecca, holds one of the most prestigious posts in Sunni Islam. Following the terrorist attacks in London, Al-Sudayyis's controversial June 2004 visit to the U.K. for the opening of the London Muslim Centre has been headlined in the British media.

A month before his visit to London last year, Sheikh Al-Sudayyis had been barred from Canada, where he planned to give a series of lectures. The ban followed a report about his sermons by MEMRI that included Al-Sudayyis calling Jews "the scum of the earth" and "monkeys and pigs" who should be "annihilated." Other enemies of Islam were referred to by Sheikh Al-Sudayyis as "worshippers of the cross" and "idol worshipping Hindus" who must be fought.

In his Friday sermon of July 15, 2005, Sheikh Al-Sudayyis said: "Oh Allah, liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque from the defilement of the occupying and brutal Zionists… Oh Allah, punish the occupying Zionists and their supporters from among the corrupt infidels. Oh Allah, scatter and disperse them, and make an example of them for those who take heed."

It should be noted that the website www.alminbar.net, which regularly posts Al-Sudayyis's sermons, edited out the above segment, as did the Saudi Gazette, which regularly reports on his sermons.
I'm sure the Sheikh meant, ". . . Allah, punish the occupying Zionists and their supporters from among the corrupt infidels. Oh Allah, scatter and disperse them, and make an example of them. . ." in a very peaceful way. :P

Funny when its not 30 million lines long...I actually read it. :D

steampunk
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Post by steampunk » 29 Jul 2005 02:54

I highlighted just for you, Old. Don't want you to strain your eyesight and all...

ruprechtjones
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Post by ruprechtjones » 29 Jul 2005 12:20

This war is being lost. The "terrorists" are having a good chuckle at us because of shit like this:

<a href='http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/pu ... 1932.shtml' target='_blank'>http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/pu ... 2.shtml</a>

"She claims that she had made repeated verbal efforts to tell the security person that she didn't want to be felt up. When the security person said that she wasn't feeling Phyllis up, Phyllis responded, "My husband has been feeling me up for 40 years, I know what its like to be felt up".


I fucking hate my government.

steampunk
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Post by steampunk » 19 Aug 2005 00:03

<a href='http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/security_saudi_clashes_dc' target='_blank'>More news from the war on terror</a>:
Security forces killed the leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia in a gun battle in the holy city of Medina just hours before a visit by newly crowned King Abdullah.

An Interior Ministry statement said security forces had also killed three other militants and arrested at least 10 in a series of raids in the capital Riyadh and in Medina.
And <a href='http://www.business-standard.com/common ... ono=197612' target='_blank'>more news from the religion-of-peace</a>:
About 400 small bombs, suspected to have been planted by an Islamic militant outfit, exploded almost simultaneously in cities and towns across Bangladesh today killing at least two persons, including a child, and injuring 138. . .

The leaflets found at the sites of the blasts said "It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law," and "(US President George W Bush) and (British Prime Minister Tony Blair) be warned and get out of Muslim countries."

While calling on the people, government and the political parties represented in Parliament to implement "Allah's laws", the leaflets said that "currently laws are formulated by infidels".

TheGoodReverend
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Post by TheGoodReverend » 19 Aug 2005 01:03

The question of whether the war on terror is being won or lost of course depends on what measuring stick you are using. Only when you know your goals can you know how close you've come to achieving them. If our goal is not having another large scale terror attack in the US for almost four years, it's unquestionably been a success. If our goal is decreasing rather than increasing the chance of terror attacks in the US, the war's been sort of a mixed bag. If our goal is the preservation of freedom and liberty in the midst of terrorist threats, again, there are some good signs and some bad signs.

The situation in Iraq is similar. If our goal was or is making sure Saddam Hussein didn't give WMDs to terrorists, we've certainly acheived it. If it's making Iraq a better place, yet again we have a mixed bag.

I never thought the war was a good idea even when I believed, like everyone else, that Iraq had or was near having WMDs because I thought deterrence was a better option. That said, from my point of view I always saw the humanitarian reason as the more compelling, and, WMDs aside, I might have supported the war for that reason alone.

I don't, however, think the war in Iraq was handled perfectly from a strategic standpoint. Again, if our goal was merely taking out Saddam, removing him from power, and then eventually capturing him, the strategy worked. But I think we've had a larger goal of securing Iraq and making it a safe country, ideally a beacon among the Muslim nations. To achieve that goal, we probably needed to go whole hog. Whatever was the highest number of troops generals in Washington hypothesized we might need for invading, taking, securing, and rebuilding the country--we should have had 20% more than that. It's easy to say that now, I suppose. But we certainly could have foreseen that if we went in with whatever the bare minimum troop volume was, as we did, there would be problems. And there are, and now we have to deal with that.

I've always supported staying in Iraq and seeing things through. I firmly believed Powell's Pottery Barn rule; it is our responsibility, and we have to fix it. Now I'm starting to have my doubts. What is it that we are, the US and its military, are trying to achieve in Iraq today? I can't really say. I know that we are doing an awful lot of fighting against terrorist groups. But doesn't it seem like those terrorist groups are attacking us there because we are there? If we went away, who would they have to villify and terrorize? I think they'd lose a lot of momentum and recruits if they shifted their focus to the Iraqi government from US troops.

Violent muslim extremists, terrorists--sure they hate our freedom, if by freedom we mean our violent-sexual pop culture, our attitudes toward women, our sexuality, our tolerance of what some might consider loose morals. But that's not enough of a reason for them--most of them, anyway--to go psycho nuts on our asses. They mobilize against us not because of Britney Spears but because of our foreign policy. Think of it this way: we really don't like a lot of things about radical Islam, such as its deplorable treatment of women and its violations of human rights, but that's not enough to make us want to go to war with them; we go to war with them because they ram airplanes into our buildings and set off bombs on our trains. Similarly, they don't like a lot of things about Western or American freedom, but its that's not enough to make them want to go to war with us; they go to war with us because they don't like our policies in Israel, Iraq, and the Middle East in general, policies they see as killing Muslims.

rion
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Post by rion » 19 Aug 2005 07:46

I'd prefer to go live in a remote corner of the world where I'll be undisturbed than give a shit about anything anyone has said in this thread.

JustSumDude
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Post by JustSumDude » 19 Aug 2005 12:47

<span style='font-family:tahoma'><span style='color:green'>I'd prefer if you did, too.

DIS!</span></span>

heineken
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Post by heineken » 19 Aug 2005 13:24

TWAT?

Dairy
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Post by Dairy » 19 Aug 2005 14:17

Simple questions:
The US has nukes, right?
The US knows with in a copule hundred square miles where Osama is, right?
Then why doesn't the US nuke that couple hundred square miles?

Simple answer:
'Cause as long as Osama is around George W Bush claim that is the reason he is in Iraq (which is only part of the "War on Terror" in little George's monkey mind), and not to get back at the guy (Saddam) who tried to kill his daddy. All of this Iraq nonsense would have been solved if Bush's daddy took care of Saddam in the first Gulf War.

michlersoft
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Post by michlersoft » 19 Aug 2005 20:04

You Sir, are an idiot.

BlackMage
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Post by BlackMage » 19 Aug 2005 20:21

Dairy wrote:Simple questions:
The US has nukes, right?
The US knows with in a copule hundred square miles where Osama is, right?
Then why doesn't the US nuke that couple hundred square miles?

Simple answer:
'Cause as long as Osama is around George W Bush claim that is the reason he is in Iraq (which is only part of the "War on Terror" in little George's monkey mind), and not to get back at the guy (Saddam) who tried to kill his daddy. All of this Iraq nonsense would have been solved if Bush's daddy took care of Saddam in the first Gulf War.
Are you fucking stupid. Bush isn't a fucking idiot. He doesn't want to start WWIII. Simple answer.

michlersoft
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Post by michlersoft » 19 Aug 2005 20:27

I would also like to disagree with that statement. Bush is an idiot.

rick
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Post by rick » 19 Aug 2005 23:33

That doesn't say much for 50%+ of America, does it.

UncleMao
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Post by UncleMao » 20 Aug 2005 18:33

rion wrote:I'd prefer to go live in a remote corner of the world where I'll be undisturbed than give a shit about anything anyone has said in this thread.
Brilliant. Since that would be in a Bizzaro world to this one, where nobody gives a shit about anything you conjure out of that STD-riddled remote corner, inbred mouldy twat of yours.

Shazam!

BlackMage
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Post by BlackMage » 21 Aug 2005 01:12

That made me smile.

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