I think most sensible people understand that the current uproar in Afghanistan over the desecration of the Quran isn’t really just about the defiling of a holy book.
But if there’s sense in the world, there’s also nonsense. Enter Tom Friedman’s New York Times column today (2/29/12):
U.S. troops accidentally burned some Qurans, and President Obama apologized. Afghans nevertheless went on a weeklong rampage, killing innocent Americans in response–and no Afghan leader, even our allies, dared to stand up and say: “Wait, this is wrong. Every week in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslim suicide bombers kill other Muslims–holy people created in the image of God–and there’s barely a peep. Yet the accidental burning of holy books by Americans sparks outbursts and killings. What does our reaction say about us?” They need to have that conversation.
Yes, Mr. Friedman–when are those people ever going to come out against suicide bombers?
The political act he’s recommending would be, in any country in the world, bizarre. In Afghanistan, though, it’s downright insulting. That country has been under a deadly military occupation for over a decade (not to mention the previous military occupation, the periods of deadly civil war, and so on). The current occupation has led to thousands of deaths, either at the hands of the military occupation or in other attacks. To demand that anyone living under such circumstances denounce their own people for being the real problem is just bizarre.
All this, of course, takes Friedman’s claim of Afghan silence at face value–a dangerous proposition, to be sure. In 2003 he demanded to know why anti-war protesters in London weren’t expressing any outrage over attacks on British targets in Turkey. They actually had done so, but Friedman was unaware–as he explained in a subsequent correction. Why people opposed to their own government’s war should stop opposing that war because of other violence in the world was unclear anyway.
But the demand that Muslims finally speak out against terrorism is a regular feature of Friedman’s work. On October 12, 2005, he wrote:
When a Sunni Muslim jihadist blows up a Shiite mosque–a mosque–during Ramadan–Ramadan–and virtually no one in the Sunni world utters a word of condemnation, it means there is no controlling moral authority in the Sunni Muslim community anymore.
He added that a “civilization that tolerates suicide bombing is itself committing suicide.”
A suicide bombing in Iraq in 2007 led him to write (3/2/07):
But worst of all, Muslims, the very people whose future is being killed, are also mute. No surge can work in Iraq unless we have a ”moral surge,” a counternihilism strategy that delegitimizes suicide bombers. The most important restraints are cultural, societal and religious. It takes a village–but the Arab-Muslim village today is largely silent
And on December 16, 2009, Friedman wrote:
How many fatwas–religious edicts–have been issued by the leading bodies of Islam against Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda? Very few. Where was the outrage last week when, on the very day that Iraq’s Parliament agreed on a formula to hold free and fair multiparty elections–unprecedented in Iraq’s modern history–five explosions set off by suicide bombers hit ministries, a university and Baghdad’s Institute of Fine Arts, killing at least 127 people and wounding more than 400, many of them kids?
Spelling out the terrible burden of the colonial superpower, Friedman demanded: “So please tell me, how are we supposed to help build something decent and self-sustaining in Afghanistan and Pakistan when jihadists murder other Muslims by the dozens and no one really calls them out?” Then he finished that, umm, thought: “If we want a peaceful, tolerant region more than they do, they will hold our coats while we fight, and they will hold their tongues against their worst extremists.”
Of course, there are always voices condemning violence of any sort. The fact that Friedman doesn’t hear them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
His problem is much deeper. In the current round of violence, for instance, Friedman cannot believe that these people get so upset about some books thrown in the trash. A more rational observer would understand that Afghans have deeper grievances against the presence of U.S./NATO forces. You can get the point of HDS Greenway’s column in the GlobalPost (2/28/12) from the headline alone: “It’s the Occupation, Not Just the Quran Burnings.” As Greenway wrote:
There have just been too many wedding parties bombed, and too many homes broken into by men-from-Mars-looking foreign soldiers, and too many foreigners telling Afghans what to do.
And it’s a bit much to listen to Tom Friedman complain about people who do not speak out against terrorism, since he’s explicitly endorsed it. In 2009 Friedman endorsed as “logical” the Israeli attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon–as he had done in 1999 when he called for “12 weeks of less than surgical bombing” in Serbia. To say nothing of his endorsement of the Iraq War–“American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad,” as he so famously put it, telling people there to “Suck. On. This.”
To turn Friedman’s question around: What does it say of a society where someone who calls for such violence is treated as an important and wise foreign policy thinker? And what does it say about the people who print this stuff in newspapers?
I’d assume Friedman’s conception of a “holy book” would be Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
He certainly is faithful to its tenets.
He is the voice of American Empire. Pathetic.
Friedman is a moron and a blowhard. No wonder they give him so many awards all the time.
The burning of the Korans was not “accidental”. The entire library at the detention center in Bagram was burnt because “detainees were passing incendiary remarks”. Every media outlet continues to state the burning of the Korans was “inadvertent”. This is false. They meant to burn them for “security reasons”. The detention center at Bagram is a triple Gitmo where people are held without charges indefinitely and tortured. It’s not surprising that torturers would burn an “ENTIRE LIBRARY” as a means to punish their detainees.
No doubt the Afghans are protesting more than the Koran burning. They are protesting mass murder, torture, and the daily brutality of occupation. Friedman’s words continue the “suck on this”(a rifle) refrain for Iraqis. He’s a sadist who believes Muslims have to “suck on” the brutality of US/NATO intervention as a punishment to better teach them “civilization”.
“Of course, there are always voices condemning violence of any sort. The fact that Friedman doesn’t hear them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
In other words, if a Muslim denounces sectarian violence in the middle of a forest and Mr. Friedman is not around to hear it, does he make a noise?
Western fear of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Islam is not a new phenomenun. It has been there for many centuries. However, it’s been raised to its current high-levels since WW II – for the benefit of western new colonial project within heartland of Muslim world, Palestine. As Israeli professor, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, proved in his book The Israeli Connection that one will see Israeli hands behind most of troubles in the Muslim world.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/western-fear-of-islamic-faith/
Mr. Friedman, Isn’t it obvious after 10 years that they just don’t like us? Time to give up trying to reform them. Oh, you might be worried that they might attack us? Never fear. We could bomb them from afar into a Better Age.
He’s a fool or a con, and has always been, but unfortunately so many people have thrown enough kudos and awards his way that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution could probably be proved invalid. How well I recall his suggestion that France be booted from the UN Security Council for its refusal to join in our criminal enterprise against Iraq. I suggest that if Mr. Friedman declares that the sun is shining, you quickly grab your raincoat and umbrella.
Years of U.S. occupation and prior to this, occupation by the Russians and the British. Could it possibly be that these people are sick of it and want us out of their country? Does Friedman ever wonder how the U.S. would feel if we had years of the same thing right here?
To them, we are the occupiers,– the imperial power,– and we are regarded as infidels tramping on their sacred soil. They want us out.
As I understand this critique, Muslim violence against Muslims is not really that bad and needs no apologies, in fact, may be justified because American violence is worse. Or should it be understood simply as a call for the condemnation of American violence and the overlooking of the reaction to the accidental Koran burning, since it was a perfectly rational behavior in consideration of the the characteristic behavior of the barbaric West versus the civilized Islamic world?
“â┚¬Ã‚¦civilization that tolerates suicide bombing is itself committing suicide.”
He could also say that imperial overstretch is committing suicide as well. What Mr. Friedman misses, that from a military tactical perspective a suicide bomber is a low tech human missile. Same principle of high tech sophisticated missile trying to accomplish the same thing: kill people. If a suicide bomber is to be condemned and delegitimized, than a missile from a drone, or a Tomahawk missile fired from a ship, or cluster bombs dropped from a plane or any other form on military bomb and missiles should be condemned and delegitimized as well. Instead, the latter is often glorifiedâ┚¬Ã‚¦ I’m for delegitimizing both.
Incredibly, Friedman doesn’t get it. Another ignominious, blaring proof of his prejudice and foolishness. No wonder clowns like Chris Matthews think the world of him. All the murder and mayhem we visit upon those occupied Afghanis, and he expects them to behave irrationally; that is, he’s utterly incapable of putting himself in their position. The bone-headed Koran burning* simply lit the tinder that’s been smoldering for years. We never should have gone in, and need to get out, now. After all, we need those warm bodies for the up-coming Iran war.
*Really, how fucking stupid and ignorant does an occupying army’s leaders have to be to do something like that? Our people literally don’t understand, at all, how to behave in the world. we like to pretend, or really think, that we’re saving these people, or spreading goodness and democracy. Afghanis, not blind and often rational, perceive otherwise: they see our utter recklessness and dripping, life-taking contempt for them. We’re good at two things: Starting long, very expensive and illegal wars, and then blaming all our self-generated problems on others when things inevitably go bad.
Tom Friedman is one of a long line of shills for Israel. His blatant prejudice against Muslims would be enough to silence him in any fair-minded, decent society, but he can get away with his thinly-cloaked hatred and bigotry because Zionists control the American Mainstream Media, and people like him and Chris Matthews merely spout the accepted line. His contempt for Muslims is cloaked in the usual phoney solicitude for “the very people who are being killed,” but he neglects to mention that it is his own country, America/Israel which is doing the killing.
Jovanni has it right. We seem to believe we can drone, bomb, missile, etc. wherever we like, especially if where we like is an Islamic Country. Friedman has simply joined the blaspheme an Arab today bandwagon so he can warm up to promote war with Iran. Funny how we never had any of the “trouble” before the discovery of oil and the need for more, more, more, more….
Here we go again.
Im amazed that this article hits one point(US occupation is the real reason )but misses another.This goes on all the time ,and for many years.This is not an aboration.Anytime anyone, anywhere, disses the Koran- he is subject to attack or worse by certain groups.Do we have to remember the fatwas against Rushdie?Van Goghs great grandson?Joke all you want about christianity(life of Brian).Burn bibles all you want anywhere in the world.Bur the pope in effigy and torch the Tora.People get upset but not much more.There is simply a different standard of violence concerning Muslims and the Koran.You will notice few comedians using Muslim humor.Kinda bad for ones health.Why is it so hard to look at the levels these people go to over such a bizarre incident ,such a nothing…and not call them what they are?Bonkers.Nuts.Maniacs.Looney tunes.People actually make their excuses for them by saying maybe it is our fault.How can we change.Well whether you agree or not, our president has apologized and explained.Maybe it is time the Afghan president came out to apologize to us for the loss of our soldiers in this maylay at the hands of bloodthirsty religious fools.We are there to help.But by God our soldiers should not be slaughtered by these maniacs.If they can’t control these animals we should be prepared to defend ourselves.I would hope our men are on the highest alert ready to deal with anything thrown against them.I hope they are not so hopped up as to forget we are not lambs to be led to their slaughter.This is the most advanced fighting force in the world.Able to defend itself.
I side with Tom Friedman. Moslem fundamentalists are difficult to understand and their violence lacks all sense of logic and proportionality to the “offence.” Frankly, I believe that there is little that we can do to change their opinion and beliefs. Whether we stay for 2 years, 10 years or 100 year as soon as we leave their will be civil wars on a scale that will out distance all previous violence as they have bigger and better ways to destroy their “enemies.” Bush unleashed this Pandora’s box of evil unto our world and for generations of Americans to come Americans will face a menace unlike anything that has come before.
What you said doesn’t make a lick of sense, Evelyn–try thinking of this line–” Moslem fundamentalists are difficult to understand and their violence lacks all sense of logic and proportionality to the “offence.” (emphasis mine-T.N.)–but think about what the USA has done. In proportion to the “offence.”
Violent Muslims are the problem? Hmmm. Afghanistan has been being invaded and occupied by Westerners with varying degrees of success, on and off since the time of Alexander of Macedon. How many people have White Westerners killed in parts of the world outside of Europe since, lets say, 1492? How many people has the United States and its allies and its legions of minions killed since it was founded nearly three centuries ago? How have the machine gun, napalm, or nuclear weapons, all of which were invented by Americans made the world a better or safer place? All of the suicide bombers who have been unleashed to this day have probably killed fewer civilians than the United States killed in Panama in a few hours during the invasion. The problem with condemning other peoples’ violence while being constantly involved in as many large scale acts of violence as the U.S. is that, even when such criticism is warranted, it carries no moral authority, because it is seen either as one-sided, or as propaganda which is being used to prepare the population to accept one’s own violent response or escalation.
I’m not a fan of Friedman, but I don’t entirely disagree with him about this. Over and over again, we’ve seen this kind of way-over-the-top violent reaction by Muslims, especially fundamentalists/extremists, to other perceived instances of disrespect to their holy book and to their religious beliefs and ways. This kind of reaction happens when muslims are offended in all kinds of circumstances, whether their countries are “occupied” or not (many Afghanis are glad we’re there, by the way). And Friedman’s right that “moderate” Muslims DON’T condemn the outrageous acts of extremists enough. I can remember only two times that I have heard anything like that from Muslim leaders.
“AlcibiadesSlim” says the koran burning was not accidental. Where’s the proof of what he says? Where do those quotes come from that he uses in his post above?
Often I think that many Americans are completely incapable of seeing anything except from their own point of view.
What have we done in the Muslim world? We’ve preached freedom and democracy but have propped up dictators who have oppressed their own people. We assist in denying Palestinians the rights that we espouse.
We have thousands of soldiers and bases stationed throughout the Middle East and to many Muslims, we defile their sacred soil by doing so.
We have a double,hypocritical standard when dealing with Arabs and Israelis. Thousands of Iraqi children died when we opposed brutal sanctions on Iraq. We demand inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites but remain silent when Israel will not allow a single inspection in their country.
We assisted Iraq in their war against Iran and then invaded Iraq, a country that never attacked us and never wanted war with us.
We try to steal their oil wealth and expand an American empire in the Middle East.
How would we feel if all of this was done to us? Do you understand how to many Muslims, we might be looked upon as the evil ones? Are we just so dumb and myopic that we can’t understand why they hate us and seem to overreact when Korans are burned? They are raging against us.
Meant to say, “Thousands of Iraqi children died when we imposed brutal sanctions on Iraq.”
Elaine, you got it super-right!
Evelyn Kiresen – When was the last time you read Zionist Jewish Dr. Bernard Lewis? He called Muslims “liberators” of Jews in Spain and created the “Jewish Golden Age”.
American Jewish film-maker, Norman Gershman, says: “To me Islam is poetry. is science, is to be with the Divine. Islam is beauty”.
Rabbi Haim Ovadia, Kahal Joseph Congregation in Los Angeles, wrote in 2008: “I am a Jew of Islam becuase Judaism under the rule of the Crescent took a different course than that under the rule of the Cross. The Jews of Islam, although decreed by the Pact of Omar as dhimmis or second-class cirizen, never experienced the same level of hatred, anti-Semitism or persecution, which were their daily bread in Christendom. They were not demonized as god’s (Jesus) killers and did not have to defend their religion in public deputations. They were not expelled en-masse on religious grounds from a Muslim country as they were from England, France and Catholic Spain.”
And who are extremists and terrorists? “â┚¬Ã…“Our task is to recruit a barrier and once again put the fear of death into the Arabs of the area,â┚¬Ã‚ Ãƒ¢Ã¢”š¬“ Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli defense Minister (later prime minister of the Zionist entity).
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/terrorism-theirs-and-ours/
Elaine you need not go so far as to say”do you not see that we would be looked upon as evil by Muslims”….Using logic and history as explained by an American girl named Elaine who seems to see so much fault in her own country..No it is much simpler.Look at the press in the muslim world where the ginning up of hatred is done as well as any maker of fine wines.My favorites are the animated saturday cartoons showing brave suicide vest martyrs jumping among Jews that arab children watch.Or how about the endless signs in Tehran looking to the destruction of Israel and the great satan lining the streets – giant billboards.Everyday in Iran the Tv news and radio and print media spitting this out in unending streams.Death death destruction,hatred,deep unending twisted hatred.A story from history since you seem to look at that source so much of the time.Ben Franklin as the first secretary of state(in effect)spoke to a leader in the arab world in a great tent and was given a sumptious meal.He was treated well and talks began on trade with the emerging country of America.After it was over Ben asked if an accord could be reached.No no it could not.You see you are infidels.We must always be at war with you.You must be destroyed you see.He bid him well.Franklin left thinking them “brain addled”.Move forward to Nazi germany and her ties to this land.To the destruction of all jews.A rabbi once told me a story in Israel.A Turtle goes to the jordan to cross.A scorpion jumps on his back and says take me over or I will kill you.Half way across he sting him.As the turtle and he drown the turtle says why?Its the middle east comes the answer.Israel is a Democracy.They have brought a new life to a place that never knew this type of freedom.That is a threat to despots.We are a threat to despots.I heard in Osama bin Laden’s tape him say ‘we will cut their throats and get their own people to explain for us why we have done it.So will be the seeds of their destruction,praise allah”.So go on Elaine and explain for us how it is our fault.
@michael e:
So it is wrong for good people to stand idle in the face of evil and injustice unless the evil and injustice has been given a seal of approval by the good guys and girls in the West? I am so sorry that the true history of the barbaric behavior of people from America and the West towards people in other parts of the world doesn’t match its soaring rhetoric. I’m sorry that you, like so many others in the West, prefer to dismiss these facts rather than allow them to get in the way of your ideology or your agenda. Unfortunately, historical facts don’t support your view that the West is morally superior to any other cultures. In spite of what many in the West seem to believe, it is not, somehow, entitled to dominate other people and to impose change on them as it sees fit. The old, tired my country/my race/my religion/my ideology/my etc. right or wrong, which you and many others in America, Israel, and in other parts of the West espouse is every bit as dangerous and delusional and retrograde as anything which the Taliban or other so-called Muslim extremists believe. In spite of the Western tendency to write itself “get out of jail free cards”, for its behavior both in the past and in the present, history (not just the Holocaust) has consequences, and evil is evil no matter whom the perpetrator is. Every perpetrator whether Western or non Western will always use the “justification” that its evil “serves the greater good” while the evil done by the opposing side is the greater, unjustified evil.
Pleasehead….I don’t mean to condone any evil.I do think some of the people on these blogs spend a lot of time seeing all the bad America has done in the world, without seeing the immeasurable good.This is a liberal sickness.We do wonder if Obama and his wife(Im finally proud of my country)even like this country.
I would say that those innocents we have killed in our “drone” assaults for instance are one of the saddest things I could ever imagine.Ordering those assaults is the least presidential thing any president could ever do.Those who have lost loved ones I can understand hold no love for the country who caused it.When Germany lost 80 thousand in one bombing strike,I wonder if they ever forgave us.If they ever accepted it was the cost of fighting a tyrant.I doubt it.And so is the limits of human forgiveness.But on the other side of that coin we fight against people who’s DESIGN ….is to kill as many innocent people as they can.They will celebrate this loss as so many of them did on 911.I remember the Israelis weeping in the streets and the Palestinians dancing to their own sick twisted mardi gras.I see we are the elephant in a room of eggs, that sometimes stupidly stomps about.We can and must do better.But we must continue fighting against those who want to “do better” killing any innocent person they can.The idea here that this is a corporate war is nonsense.Go watch the films of 911.Re-aquaint yourself with the Enemy.iT IS NOT YOU!
@michael e:
When did humanity elect America, Israel, and the West as the sole arbiters of who is good, who is bad, who is expendable, and when violence is good and just, and when the use of violence is unjustified? Who decided that Muslims in the Middle East must pay for crimes which were done by White Western Germans to other White Western people? I am sick and tired of of people in the West who fetishize the events of 9-11 and the Holocaust while trivializing the countless crimes against humanity which Westerners have done which are even more horrific in both their scale and in the numbers of innocents killed.
Immeasurable good? Once again,, who gets to make that judgement call? Do the 100 million victims of the African Slave Trade get a vote? How about the the numerous indigenous tribes which were repeatedly subjected to wars of extermination. Ten to Fifteen million people were murdered in the Congo just so that people in the West could extract the rubber and ivory and other products of the Congo basin. Because both the perpetrators and the beneficiaries were White Westerners, this sordid history has been largely been disappeared from history. Far more Black people have been lynched in the United States than were murdered on 9-11, by the extremists, yet, once again, because the perpetrators were White westerners, these deaths are treated as a national embarassment to be swept under the rug and expunged from historical memory. Ask the Vietnamese and the Algerians about how humane the French and the Americans are, and about how much respect they showed for their cultures or for the lives of their civilians. The idea that any American or Western leader who had been raised in this culture with its long history of mass violence against others actually agonizes over the deaths of those whom it has already dehumanized as “collateral damage” is not credible to me. How many deaths in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.etc.etc. will it take before Westerners decide that the blood debt for 9-11 has been satisified? Is the most murderous ideology in human history really Islamic extremism, or is it White supremacy/Western exceptionalism? Who is the enemy? In reality, that is not such a simple question, and it has more than one answer.
I once took a philosophy class where my Harvard prof said” this is a class with no answers,but endless thoughts about the answers”.Unless you understand the limits of this way of thinking, and are able to disengage from it to actually make a decision, I dare say you will be confused in a smokescreen of moral relativism.I would enjoy a theoretical /historical discussion about the failings of Western encroachment.Be a lot of fun.But the mindless fucks who claim to follow Allah(Of course they are simply mass murderers) and are trying to place a nuke lets say in New York’s harbor, should in my mind be slaughtered like the mad dogs they are,before they are able to carry out their plans.If you want to make excuses for them I will talk to you after they are dealt with.It is always nice to talk of such things from our easy chair while we sip lemonade.Now if you really want to compare president Obama and his advisors with this ilk then we have reached an impasse.And I would think you a very confused man.I would question your upbringing,education and life experience.I would hope your viewpoint is not reflective in our electorite process.
…And no one elected us anything.But they do seem to look to us.If you wonder why,maybe you should listen to the Australian leaders speech before the UN where she talked of Americas greatness.She did a job i wish our own president could do in reacquainting ourselves with ourselves.
The entire anecdote that Michael e attributes to Benjamin Franklin appears to be a total invention…I’m at a loss as to why someone would do that.
The only time Mr. Franklin mentioned Muslims in public was in a satiric letter comparing their justification to slavery to Southerners’ justification for slavery.
Well P.Ness…..I can’t say I was there,so I can’t bear witness But It is contained in a bio written on Ben Franklin that I quoted years ago to several radio personalities at that time that I knew- who used it as part of a conversation on how things have not changed so much in that part of the world.Actually I don’t recall him (Franklin)using the term Muslim in what was written.The inference was that it was a difference in religion and the terminology makes the deduction obvious.Now if you want me to find the book again and track down the trail that led to that information I have to be honest and say I won’t waste any time doing it.The book was a library book.Im not that interested in you believing me or not.If you want me to proof every recollection I have ……….I must warn you I have a stellar memory, if not quite photographic.You may loose those bets.
Now go listen to the speech by that australian leader to the UN.Beautiful
The entire anecdote that Michael e attributes to Benjamin Franklin, who never mentioned meeting with Arab leaders, appears to be a total inventionâ┚¬Ã‚¦and when called on it he can’t provide one shred of credible evidence.
The only time Mr. Franklin mentioned Muslims or Arabs in public was in a satiric letter comparing their justification to slavery to Southerners’ justification for slavery.
Considering the number of clear falsehoods Michael has posted here at FAIR in the last few days, I feel it’s safe to assume that this is just one more. I’m at a loss as to why someone would do that.
I also have no idea why an Australian speech to the U.N. has any relevance to his Franklin fabrication.
Your funny P.ness.I had my nephew over today(he is 13).I let him read what you just wrote,and from the mouths of babes I learned something.I explained to him about Ben Franklins comment and he said just look it up on google.I let him do that.He said look you can learn anything you want about Ben Franklin.Before him was about two pages on the man.The bio I quoted was a very thick book.Very comprehensive.And that is where you live on all this isn’t it.You know nothing more on any of this than what you can glean from google.Just enough info to make comfortable reading on the hopper.Can’t argue with that level of knowledge.Medical degree next?Google degree?On another story I referenced something about Gore.Was told my facts were wrong.Sure enough i looked it up on Google and it referenced a national inquirer article.Again …can’t argue with that level of info now can I?I worked for Bill Clinton for a time.My real job was to be a fact checker.Sift through the nonsense.Speaking of that lets move it along….
Sounds like you hit a raw nerve there, P. And yes, your speculation about the fella above is %100 accurate. Unfortunately. He’s never, not once, ever backed up his shit. You get the “hurt” feelings and some utterly inscrutable non-sequiturs, but that’s about it.
@ michel e:
If you, like so many others in the West, really believe that the aggression and the numerous atrocities which the West and its allies have repeatedly committed against people in other nations and cultures over many centuries are simply irrelevant, or are merely matters of opinion, that is your choice. As far as I am concerned, there is no greater example of the practice of self-serving “moral relativism” than your blanket dismissal of evil and its consequences whenever the practice of evil serves the interests of the West. I wish you and others who see the word as you do good luck with your project of erasing the scourge of Islamic fundamentalism and imposing your own brand of righteousness your enemies. After all, it’s been an on going project since the time of Alexander of Macedon. Maybe the West will finally get it “right” this time.
Well first this war against terrorism is not against muslims.It is against fanatics who use and twist the muslim faith to their own design.Here is another quote you can question me on.In Hitlers book “My struggle” he stated that is he could not gain power through political means, he would try religious.These people we are fighting are as far from Islam as a snowball in hell.Unfortunately muslims (innocents)are dying too.
I don’t disregard history sir.And I know the people in that part of the world carry a long memory.And I don’t doubt evil was done by us upon them.I simply am saying I don’t know a time when the enemy of good men the world over was not more clearly defined.Those who set out to kill woman and children along with men and exalt in this are the enemy.The purest evil.
I just “Googled” the words “Benjamin Franklin” and got links to 51 million articles…..
I’ve honestly never encountered someone who doesn’t understand how the website works.
No thoughtful, well-informed reader of the New York Times and Friedman, an immensely powerful journalist, could deny that he, by his support for the Iraq fiasco and its killing fields, is responsible for the the shedding of much more blood than all the Muslims that he condemns in all his columns. The idea of a man with so much blood on his hands–blood that didn’t need to be shed–taking a moral stance is pretty sickening. Morally, those who supported the Iraq intervention need to take responsibility for their collusion in widespread, pointless murder and war and then, shamefaced, maybe speak very softly, humbly, and apologetically. Of course in these troubled days of the brutal American Empire, that will not happen. Those who were so disgustingly wrong on Iraq now casually weigh the advantages of bombing Iran and waging war within the borders of Iran. It’s just nauseating what imperialism does to the Empire’s citizens.
In spite of our claims to the contrary, many of us who live in the West have become addicted to war, invasion, intervention and assassination. To such people it no longer matters (assuming that if it ever did) if such “solutions” are actually effective, or if they create as many problems as they “solve.” It is not about facing down evil, it’s about a troubled culture which believes, at some fundamental level, that it is uniquely great, and because of this, it has been chosen to control the world. All of those who disagree with the idea of Western or American domination, or who actively oppose it or resist it, are defined as insane, or as criminals or terrorists or as pure evil. It’s not about a clash between absolute good on one side versus unspeakable evil on the other. It’s about the biggest bullies on the international stage callously playing power politics with human lives in regions where the local governments are not strong enough to expel them, or to retaliate.
P ness In medicine we often tell patients to avoid google…..do you know why?Im sure you can get 50 million hits to any maledy one could think of.Now think about why anyone(let alone me) would tell you to avoid google?And strangely in med school saying you looked it up on google to explain a diagnosis will be met with a blank stare by the Doctor monitoring your work.But maybe students can have you along to explain what it is we don’t get in understanding how well the web works.Explain away those obvious limitations
War, war, war. Still in Afghanistan since when…..2001? Where’s the Afghan Security Force that we have been paying for and training for years? Disappeared at the first sign of big trouble?
This is, indeed, a troubled culture, Peasehead, and putting aside the devastation to other countries when unnecessary and useless wars are fought, none of the MIC and other assorted warhawks care one bit about the toll this takes on the people of America–not just a physical and financial toll but an emotional toll. Wars for every generation–that’s us. We’ll have kids growing up, knowing nothing but being in a state of war. The abnormal is now normal.
michael e wrote: “And strangely in med school saying you looked it up on google to explain a diagnosis will be met with a blank stare by the Doctor monitoring your work.”
___________________________________________________________
Interesting. What do they do when they challenge something you put forth and you respond with: “Well, it was in a very big book. But I don’t wanna provide a cite or anything. And I’m not just making shit up”?
Well john when I am working for someone or toward something ,I salute and cite the exact place I came by the information, or take the time to find it to prove where I came by my diagnosis.But see I don’t work for any of you.And it is not really my job to educate you or play prove it prove it like I do with my 4 tear old niece.I give my opinion here to counter what I personally consider to be an army of liberal num nut robots moving in lockstep.If you don’t like my opinion that is fine.As far as working for you believe me…..you cant afford it.
Elaine just asked a very important question.WHERE IS the trained security force?
@michael e: So this was your opinion that Ben Franklin had a meeting with an Arab leader, then?
Well, it’s my opinion that you’re making shit up.
Of course it was not my opinion.It is my recollection .My memory.A fine memory I thank my parents for every day that has allowed me to have fun with professors in some of our finest institutions of learning.I can thank my father especially for that gift.He had a truly didactic memory.Better than even my own.So It is from Franklins memoirs of his meeting as told in the voluminous Bio I read. But in your defense Maybe Ben made it up.Maybe he was out for a couple of weeks with the washer woman.Maybe the writer of the book lied his ass off.Im getting older but i was not there.Maybe Hitler did not really call his book Mein kampf(my struggle).Maybe it has been handed down wrong.Maybe it was called springtime for Hitler in Germany.Again I was not there.So if that is the criteria….believe what you need to.Movin on…..
@michael e: How ’bout getting that fine memory to work, then, and providing a cite for this book? Look, you’re putting forth the idea that a founding father wrote about unavoidable conflict with the Arab world, and you’re basing it on an event that does not appear to have ever happened.
I doubt Franklin lied. It’s far more likely that the author made it up. There’s been a few authors who have tried to sell BS about the founding fathers saying things they never actually said. With that awesome memory of yours, I’m sure this must sound familiar.
I suspect that there is no book that told the story of Franklin and the Arabs. I’m thinking that if the story actually existed, every online anti-Arabist in the world would have trotted it out by now, followed by a discussion from others checking its veracity.
Sadly, Micheal has a history in his commenting here at FAIR of simply inventing things to further his arguments.
“my father had a truly didactic memory.”
Not exactly a compliment, as didactic is defined as “inclined to teach or lecture others too much,” “Inclined to teach or moralize excessively,” and “In the manner of a teacher, particularly so as to treat someone in a patronizing way.”
I want to make it clear this is in no way intended to disparage his father, simply his imprecise use of language.