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Wow, terror acts unrelated to the antagonism of George W Bush? Who'da thunk it?
Purple Hawk
Posts: 1,300
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/opinion/16manji.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Muslim Myopia
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By IRSHAD MANJI
Published: August 16, 2006
New Haven
LAST week, the luminaries of the British Muslim mainstream — lobbyists, lords and members of Parliament — published an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling him that the “debacle” of both Iraq and Lebanon provides “ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.” In increasingly antiwar America, a similar argument is gaining traction: The United States brutalizes Muslims, which in turn foments Islamist terror.
But violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed, that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.
If Islamists cared about changing Iraq policy, they would not have bothered to abduct two journalists from France — probably the most antiwar, anti-Bush nation in the West. Even overt solidarity with Iraqi suffering did not prevent Margaret Hassan, who ran a world-renowned relief agency in Baghdad, from being executed by insurgents.
Meanwhile, at least as many Muslims are dying at the hands of other Muslims as under the boots of any foreign imperial power. In Sudan, black Muslims are starved, raped, enslaved and slaughtered by Arab militias, with the consent of an Islamic government. Where is the “official” Muslim fury against that genocide? Do Muslim lives count only when snuffed out by non-Muslims? If not, then here is an idea for Muslim representatives in the West: Go ahead and lecture the politicians that their foreign policies give succor to radicals. At the same time, however, challenge the educated and angry young Muslims to hold their own accountable, too.
This means reminding them that in Pakistan, Sunnis hunt down Shiites every day; that in northern Israel, Katuysha rockets launched by Hezbollah have ripped through the homes of Arab Muslims as well as Jews; that in Egypt, the riot police of President Hosni Mubarak routinely club, rape, torture and murder Muslim activists promoting democracy; and, above all, that civil wars have become hallmarks of the Islamic world.
Muslim figureheads will not dare be so honest. They would sooner replicate the very sins for which they castigate the Bush and Blair governments — namely, switching rationales and pretending integrity.
In the wake of the London bombings on July 7, 2005, Iqbal Sacranie, then the head of the influential Muslim Council of Britain, insisted that economic discrimination lay at the root of Islamist radicalism in his country. When it came to light that some of the suspects enjoyed middle-class upbringings, university educations, jobs and cars, Mr. Sacranie found a new culprit: foreign policy. In so doing, he boarded the groupthink express steered by Muslim elites.
The good news is that ordinary people of faith are capable of self-criticism. Two months ago, 65 percent of British Muslims polled believed that their communities should increase efforts to integrate. The same poll also produced troubling results: 13 percent lionized the July 7 terrorists, and 16 percent sympathized. Still, these figures total 29 percent — less than half the number who sought to belong more fully to British society.
Whether in Britain or America, those who claim to speak for Muslims have a responsibility to the majority, which wants to reconcile Islam with pluralism. Whatever their imperial urges, it is not for Tony Blair or George W. Bush to restore Islam’s better angels. That duty — and glory — goes to Muslims.
Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University, is the author of “The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith.”
Muslim Myopia
Sign In to E-Mail This Print Save
By IRSHAD MANJI
Published: August 16, 2006
New Haven
LAST week, the luminaries of the British Muslim mainstream — lobbyists, lords and members of Parliament — published an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling him that the “debacle” of both Iraq and Lebanon provides “ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.” In increasingly antiwar America, a similar argument is gaining traction: The United States brutalizes Muslims, which in turn foments Islamist terror.
But violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed, that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.
If Islamists cared about changing Iraq policy, they would not have bothered to abduct two journalists from France — probably the most antiwar, anti-Bush nation in the West. Even overt solidarity with Iraqi suffering did not prevent Margaret Hassan, who ran a world-renowned relief agency in Baghdad, from being executed by insurgents.
Meanwhile, at least as many Muslims are dying at the hands of other Muslims as under the boots of any foreign imperial power. In Sudan, black Muslims are starved, raped, enslaved and slaughtered by Arab militias, with the consent of an Islamic government. Where is the “official” Muslim fury against that genocide? Do Muslim lives count only when snuffed out by non-Muslims? If not, then here is an idea for Muslim representatives in the West: Go ahead and lecture the politicians that their foreign policies give succor to radicals. At the same time, however, challenge the educated and angry young Muslims to hold their own accountable, too.
This means reminding them that in Pakistan, Sunnis hunt down Shiites every day; that in northern Israel, Katuysha rockets launched by Hezbollah have ripped through the homes of Arab Muslims as well as Jews; that in Egypt, the riot police of President Hosni Mubarak routinely club, rape, torture and murder Muslim activists promoting democracy; and, above all, that civil wars have become hallmarks of the Islamic world.
Muslim figureheads will not dare be so honest. They would sooner replicate the very sins for which they castigate the Bush and Blair governments — namely, switching rationales and pretending integrity.
In the wake of the London bombings on July 7, 2005, Iqbal Sacranie, then the head of the influential Muslim Council of Britain, insisted that economic discrimination lay at the root of Islamist radicalism in his country. When it came to light that some of the suspects enjoyed middle-class upbringings, university educations, jobs and cars, Mr. Sacranie found a new culprit: foreign policy. In so doing, he boarded the groupthink express steered by Muslim elites.
The good news is that ordinary people of faith are capable of self-criticism. Two months ago, 65 percent of British Muslims polled believed that their communities should increase efforts to integrate. The same poll also produced troubling results: 13 percent lionized the July 7 terrorists, and 16 percent sympathized. Still, these figures total 29 percent — less than half the number who sought to belong more fully to British society.
Whether in Britain or America, those who claim to speak for Muslims have a responsibility to the majority, which wants to reconcile Islam with pluralism. Whatever their imperial urges, it is not for Tony Blair or George W. Bush to restore Islam’s better angels. That duty — and glory — goes to Muslims.
Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University, is the author of “The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith.”
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Clearly, there are many factors at play here and radical Muslims and their unique variation of Islam, have quite the responsibity to shoulder, for their own actions.
The demented, bastardized ideology of these radical/extremist Muslims has been around for a very long time. It dates back thousands of years. So there is a history and pattern of their bigotry, rascism, violence and hatred, which is rooted long before there was even an United States of America.
" In the book "Victory in Tripoli," Joshua London writes about the Muslim Barbary pirates.
They attacked American shipping vessels in the 18th century, often boarding ships and enslaving crew members. Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. ambassador to France, and John Adams, then ambassador to Britain, visited the resident ambassador from Tripoli (modern-day Libya) in London to negotiate a treaty to protect American ships from Barbary pirates. Why, asked Adams and Jefferson, is your government so hostile to the fledgling United States of America? After all, we have no quarrel with you, nor you with us.
The Tripolitan ambassador told them -- as reported to the Continental Congress -- "that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise."
Yeah this is what I believe...
That argument is valid. The counter-argement is that attempting to create a democracy in Iraq was worth the risk of creating more of these terrorist.
Our foreign policy was too idealistic, and not realistic enough. The cause is very noble... but given our capabilities and especially our leadership, I doubt we could have pulled it off or will pull it off.
Has it been worth it?
I agree it they will never pull it off.
Who knows if it has been worth it, the story is far from over. But you don't start an endeavor by asking "has it been worth it" because you won't know that until you try.
You start an endeavor by asking "will it be worth it if we succeed?" The answer is and was yes.
Of course it has contributed to it. It would be irresponsible to suggest it hasn't. But in no way did America or Israel create or start this. The movement started a long time ago.
America (Bush and Cheney) in my opinion, would have been much better off, (through diplomacy and non-violent displays) in letting these extremists (through their own actions) turn everyone against them. Then, if no other option was available, use military force. Maybe delaying the use of military force and letting them show their true colors to the world, for just a little bit longer; would have made a difference. But ultimately, this ideology has been utilized for the purpose of eliminating infidels, non-believers and anyone who does not accept Islam and Muslims as superior human beings, above all others; for a long, long, long time. And they would have continued to raise, teach, groom and prepare their Jihad soldiers; regardless of what the USA and Israel did.
However, it could have prolonged the inevitable and created a very unwelcome, uncomfortable and unaccepting environment for the Jihadists.
Of course this is me playing Monday morning Quarterback and hind-sight is 20/20.
Attempting to create a democracy in Iraq, while perhaps the Bush administration's true purpose (I'm not buying it, but I'll throw it out there anyway), was not the stated purpose at the beginning of the Iraq war. Nor would it have been considered a very realistic goal had it been stated at the time. It simply wasn't worth the risk. And had they sold the idea as "spreading democracy" it wouldn't have gotten the support it did, anyway.
I honestly think we've made it worse for ourselves by invading - and it wouldn't have mattered who our leadership was - Dem, Rep, Indi, etc. Wars defeat nations, not beliefs.
This passage negates the whole article.
What are Al-Quedas alleged, stated aims?
The removal of US forces from the land of the two holy cities.
i.e. Saudi Arabia. US forces were in Saudi in 1993, and in 2000.
Article dismissed. End of.
Not to say that Irshad Manji her self is an unbiased wirter, well, she is, she's the author of a book on my shelf called "The trouble with Islam today."
She has had death threats and all that from a handful of extremists who do not agree with her being a Lesbian Muslim. So, not really a flawless case for attacking Islam. Especially when taken into account her deep misunderstanding of Al-Queda and its stated aims, and her unhandedness to the dates and actions she details above.
Nothing more to say on the article, really.
Maybe those who oppsoe even the idea that US Foriegn Policy has contributed to the rise in "terror" threats should refer to the Pentagon's latest adviser, Robert Pape. He briefed Washington last Tuesday.
Heres a little something about his research and his findings
What we still don't understand about Hizbollah
This week, world terrorism expert Robert Pape will share with the FBI the findings of his remarkable study of 462 suicide bombings. He concludes that such acts have little to do with religious extremism and that the West must engage politically to halt the relentless slaughter
Sunday August 6, 2006
The Observer
Israel has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hizbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won't work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.
In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable with, say, a religious cult such as the Taliban than to the multi-dimensional American civil rights movement of the 1960s. What made its rise so rapid, and will make it impossible to defeat militarily, was not its international support but the fact that it evolved from a reorientation of pre-existing Lebanese social groups.
Evidence of the broad nature of Hizbollah's resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hizbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks, which included the infamous bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, involved 41 suicide terrorists.
Researching my book, which covered all 462 suicide bombings around the globe, I had colleagues scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and biographies of the Hizbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. We were shocked to find that only eight were Islamic fundamentalists; 27 were from leftist political groups such as the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union; three were Christians, including a female secondary school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.
What these suicide attackers - and their heirs today - shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hizbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.
Previous analyses of suicide terrorism have not had the benefit of a complete survey of all suicide terrorist attacks worldwide. The lack of complete data, together with the fact that many such attacks, including all those against Americans, have been committed by Muslims, has led many in the US to assume that Islamic fundamentalism must be the underlying main cause. This, in turn, has fuelled a belief that anti-American terrorism can be stopped only by wholesale transformation of Muslim societies, which helped create public support of the invasion of Iraq. But study of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism shows that the presumed connection to Islamic fundamentalism is misleading.
There is not the close connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism that many people think. Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist campaigns have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.
Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organisations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective. Most often, it is a response to foreign occupation.
Understanding that suicide terrorism is not a product of Islamic fundamentalism has important implications for how the US and its allies should conduct the war on terrorism. Spreading democracy across the Persian Gulf is not likely to be a panacea as long as foreign troops remain on the Arabian peninsula. The obvious solution might well be simply to abandon the region altogether. Isolationism, however, is not possible; America needs a new strategy that pursues its vital interest in oil but does not stimulate the rise of a new generation of suicide terrorists. The same is true of Israel now.
The new Israeli land offensive may take ground and destroy weapons, but it has little chance of destroying Hizbollah. In fact, in the wake of the bombings of civilians, the incursion will probably aid Hizbollah's recruiting.
Equally important, Israel's incursion is also squandering the goodwill it had initially earned from so-called moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The countries are the court of opinion that matters because, while Israel cannot crush Hizbollah, it could achieve a more limited goal: ending Hizbollah's acquisition of more missiles through Syria.
Given Syria's total control of its border with Lebanon, stemming the flow of weapons is a job for diplomacy, not force. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, Sunni-led nations that want stability in the region, are motivated to stop the rise of Hizbollah. Under the right conditions, the US might be able to help assemble an ad hoc coalition of Syria's neighbours to entice and bully it to prevent Iranian, Chinese or other foreign missiles from entering Lebanon. It could also offer to begin talks over the future of the Golan Heights.
But Israel must take the initiative. Unless it calls off the offensive and accepts a genuine ceasefire, there are likely to be many, many dead Israelis in the coming weeks - and a much stronger Hizbollah.
· Robert Pape is professor of political studies at the University of Chicago. His book, Dying to Win: Why Suicide Terrorists Do It, will be published in the UK by Gibson Square this month, £18.99
I never believed invading Iraq to be the correct move, nor did I want such a thing to occur. So obviously, there's not a chance it was worth it.
Sadly, everything I predicted would happen in Iraq, did. Many people had similar opinions and made similar predictions.
And yet are still labelled as weak.
So why do you advocate a more hardline military direction to be taken?
The Europeans have lost god, they won't help you, so whats left, invade every single country that has muslims or the odd cleric who runs his mouth?
Why don't you start judging the religious leaders of your own country, you know, those who spout war and invasion rhetoric, who are actually responsible for death and destruction, by the same way you measure these "Islamic diseased" extremists you so evidently despise.
At the latest death count, Christian Fundamentalists and their Zionist friends have killed a hundred, nay a thousand times more people than Islamic extremists ever have !!
People from both sides of the argument love to throw around labels, preconcieved assumptions and misconceptions; without even really knowing their targets beliefs and where they stand on the issue. Just take a look at Silverstain's posts and that is all one needs to read to confirm.
Ultimately, truth falls somewhere in the middle. Those standing to the far left or far right, don't even realize the distance between themselves and reality.
You may want to read all of my previous 2,290 posts, before pretending and convincing yourself, that you know what I belief, stand for and advocate.
Talk to me when you've educated yourself.
Moderation is what is needed...to say a hyrbid of both sides....funny we talk about Muslim extremism...what many do not realize that currently there are two very extreme sides in our hemisphere...not the same type...but regardless extreme.....
Hey, fella, you want to address me, address me. Sly little posts like that have to be backed up with something. Like an example of where I have fallen to one extreme side.
1) Sunshine, I know my target fucking belief, and it is peace, it is love, its a world free from war and greed and profit, OF ANY KIND.
2) Where I stand? How dare you doubt where I stand? I cannot mak emyself any clearer on any issue I debate.
Muppet.
I currently know and call friends, those of the non-violent extreme.
Without a doubt extremists such the Phelps kooks, are equally disturbing and dispicable, to me.
Grasping, reaching, almost there, but not quite.
Your repeated attempts to paint Muslims and Islam in a negative, extreme light do nothing other than illuminate the rest of us to your racism.
What are you so afraid of?
Phelps kook? Pardon my ignorance but what?
See Post # 17, in this thread.
Utilize any pepto-bismol or other stomach-comforting medicines, before watching this nutjob (Shirley Phelps Roper). Fred Phelps is her husband...or father...or probably both
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D84Q6YGLeIs&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3PyoUPcobA&mode=related&search=
For some reason Phelps' organization was quoted as a source in the homosexuality thread recently. http://forums.pearljam.com/showpost.php?p=3624560&postcount=141
Fucking nutjobs.
There's no false dichotomy. I think it's really important to recognize that there's an agenda, and people with political power in the Middle East agree with this agenda, and world view. I think it's sad and short sighted to look past these ideologues and pin everything on President Bush.
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days