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Subject: Americans must respect Islam
salaam al-aqaaid    5/13/2004 10:18:35 AM
The outrageous atrocities commited by Americans at the Abu al-Grayyib prison complex speaks to a need for the United States Americans to give sensetivity training to its entire military so that they will no longer offind Muslims with the contemptious use of women as prison guards and unsavery adiction to homosexual pornographies. These things are offinsive to the Muslims community. Have you no shame? You must remove all women and homosexuals from contact with Muslim prisoners. This is offinsive.
 
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NewGuy    RE:Americans must respect Islam   10/15/2004 10:28:52 PM
fnord -- arguing over who had an empire whenever in a period a 1000 or more years ago is simply a red herring. The issue is that in todays world a large number of terrorists have hijacked the religion of Islam and are using it as a tool/excuse/reason/what-have-you to commit crimes and horrid acts. These terrorists obviously have some degree of support in some sections of the Muslim world. Those who support these terrorists are wrong, and no excuse can change that fact. Simple, yes? NewGuy
 
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realpolitik    Cult of the Warrior   10/16/2004 3:02:36 AM
Interesting article, sanman. I wonder though about the last point "Western governments have consistently tried to deal with one manifestation of the cult of the warrior - terrorism - by building up Muslim strongmen who are just another manifestation of the same phenomenon." Aside from the obvious checkered history of the U.S. installing or supporting Dictators in various 3rd world countries, which is in my view was a policy motivated by Anti-Communist geostrategy, I don't think that Western Governments have deliberately tried to deal with radical Islam by supporting military strongmen. In the case of Musharraf, he came to power through the intrigues of his own countries politics, and he's the guy we have to work with. Overall, I would agree with the implicit point of the conclusion, which is that the way to deal with the problem is to try to foster more democracy and less autocracy. .
 
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chemist    Sorkoi- elcid's papers   10/16/2004 3:09:21 AM
Website? I have some web links for stuff he's written about chinese naval events/plans/ambitions, but his paper on lawfullness of nuclear weapons? No. That I only have a hard copy of(and I still owe cid money for it, shhhh.). Wait, I've got some emails he sent me on MAD doctrine. Yeah, it's the same as my hardcopy version. It's not a web link though. It's a file on my 'puter. It's a 90 some odd page document when you include the bibliography and notes, and so I can't just place it here. Let me bug sysops collective to see if they'll forward it to you or cough up one of our email adresses to the other.
 
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chemist    RE:Americans must respect Islam   10/16/2004 3:38:51 AM
What's funny is that the theory of "the Moslems saved Western Civ" is false. There's a book out there about how Irish monestaries had the same works, faithfully transcribed many times(that's something monks did back then), all over th country. "How the Irish Saved Civilization" I think is the books title. The recapture of the library at Cordoba altered when this knowledge would be restored in full, as there were partial manuscripts found in Europe, and not if they would be restored. Was it a major event in history? Yes. But it isn't what the myth that has sprung up about it says it is. Medieval Warfare: A History lists Europe using blackpowder cannon earlier than 1300(1221, the Siege of Bytham, pg. 181 in the Chapter Fortifications and Sieges in Western Europe.). Hanson asserts in Carnage and Culture that the Muslims were having to copy European weapon designs(from crosbow on up to ships cannon) as late as the Battle of Lepanto(1571). It doesn't seem that the Dark Ages were as dark as everyone thought. It wasn't so much an intellectual dark age as it was a moral dark age. Revolutions in construction(the cut brick as opposed to random stones) and metalurgy occured furing the Dark Ages. I'm not saying that the Moslems weren't smart for saving the works of Aristotle. But it isn't the event that many want it to be..
 
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elcid    RE:Americans must respect Islam   10/16/2004 5:34:15 AM
Sanman - you are not informed about Islam in a detail way. There is a female academic professor at Yale who is Islamic - and very, very liberal and secular and sophisticated. She took a view very much like yours about the veil, until American Islamic women began to talk to her about their experiences. I will not attempt to oversimplify the matter here - it is in a nice NPR series if you wish to look it up. The point is, the viel can be quite liberating, and can result in better treatment in public. The veil is not used in private, with regular members of the family association (meaning those who regularly deal with the family). If a feminist could change her mind, maybe you might too. She found she was making assumptions - as you are - and not dealing with all the details of the reality women face in our society. And while my child was not raised to wear a veil, I promise you, she was deliberately raised innocently. I have no problems with parents who think children should have a childhood - and our society is not doing well at honoring that. Too much inappropriate stuff to casually thrown around, from speech to television advertising, to a wide range of other things. If you think you can restrict parents religious freedom, in this country, you are going to lose.
 
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realpolitik    How the Irish Saved Civilization   10/16/2004 5:37:11 AM
I read that book: How The Irish Saved Civilization The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe author: Thomas Cahill From the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne - the "dark ages" - learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from the European continent. The great heritage of Western civilizations - from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of the unconquered Ireland. Here, far from the barbarian despoilation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the West's written treasury. With the return of stability in Europe, these scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on Western culture. isbn: 0-385-41849-3 One of the important take aways of the book, is that not only did the Irish monks transcribe many famous works of Western Civilization, and preserve them through the dark ages, but that itinerate monks then proceeded to travel throughout Europe re-seeding the knowledge back on the continent, rather than keeping it as some sort of buried treasure in Ireland. great book - highly recommended. .
 
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elcid    RE:Americans must respect Islam   10/16/2004 5:40:54 AM
Rainmaker - your revised remarked noted - and your position as amended is reasonable. The prison in question was indeed the site for atrocities, for decades, under Saddam, and it would have been wise to turn it into a memorial so all could see exhibits about them. It is indeed significant that several different soldiers reported witnessing criminal behaviors, and that the system was able to investigate and proceed. Whatever one thinks of the final outcome (which is not yet known), it did stop the practices. This is night and day different than what would have happened under Saddam, or to prisoners in Islamic terror groups. As long as you do not appear to minimize the wrongs done, you can wax as eloquent as you like about how our system is one that corrects wrongs, rather than tolerates them.
 
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sorkoi2003    RE:Cult of the warrior    10/18/2004 5:02:22 PM
"I don't think that Western Governments have deliberately tried to deal with radical Islam by supporting military strongmen...." Supporting military strongmen how about Mubarak, the Algerian juanta, leadership of most of the central asian republics, Saddam Hussein... Of course support does not mean that these figures are mere creatures of the US- but it certainly means that in choice between representatives of the Islamist movement and their opponenet the US has been more than willing to deal with the 'military strongmen'. Constrast what the US attidude towards the respective leadership of Egypt and Iran means for those countries. No doubts the US is right to act in its own interest but let us not be blind to the fact that American interest are not by defination the same as the national interest of all countries at all times, and certainly are not always the same as interest of the populations of these countries. While one could explain the US support for 'authoritarian' regimes vs totalitaraian regimes during the cold war... it does not explain the history of US intervention in Western hemisphere prior to 1917 and its limited capacity to spread democracy. " In the case of Musharraf, he came to power through the intrigues of his own countries politics, and he's the guy we have to work with." The same case could be for all the governments of the 'axis of evil' does that mean the US should deal with Islamic Republic of Iran, the Baathish Alawite regime in Syria, North Korea... surely, there is more at play than the simple pragmatism of having deal with Musharraf because he is there- imagine an Zia in charge of Pakistan or even more far-out a Islamist general... I am not sure the pragmatism of having deal with how in charge would be order of the day...
 
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sanman    RE:Cult of the warrior    10/19/2004 11:52:50 AM
Regarding the USA's so-called pursuit of national interests, I'd point out the old song about The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly. She swallowed a spider to catch the fly, swallowed a frog to catch the spider, swallowed a cat to catch the frog, etc. The song ends with the line "There once was an old lady who swallowed a horse -- she's dead, of course." Americans always like to align themselves with a new nutcase to help them get rid of the old nutcase they'd previously aligned with. Getting into bed with the Commies to stop the Nazis, then getting into bed with the Fundies to stop the Commies, etc. Each former buddy becomes the next new dire threat. Eventually you get to the point of that little old lady who swallowed the horse. Perhaps the healthier and more effective method would be to align with like-minded democracies with healthy political systems. Instead, the United States always goes for expediency and shacks up with whomever it has a whim for at the moment. I don't understand the US zeal for supporting a dictatorship like the Musharraf regime, which is only making half-hearted and halting efforts to capture Islamic terrorists while they pad their pockets with US arms and aid in the meantime. The more the "War on Terror" is prolonged and drawn out, the more they can milk it for cash and arms. The USA claims to have learned all sorts of lessons from Vietnam, including about "fighting with one arm tied behind your back", inflated body counts, but clearly President George Lyndon Johson Bush doesn't seem to know not to commit the same mistakes all over again.
 
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mike_golf    RE:Cult of the warrior    10/19/2004 1:05:17 PM
sanman wrote: "The USA claims to have learned all sorts of lessons from Vietnam, including about "fighting with one arm tied behind your back", inflated body counts, but clearly President George Lyndon Johson Bush doesn't seem to know not to commit the same mistakes all over again" Actually, over the past few months my view of the action in Iraq has changed as the US military's approach has changed. What I am more interested in, though, is what things, specifically, you view as repeating the "same mistakes all over again"? The point, by the way, of Iraq, is to try and avoid "swallowing the horse". Instead of dealing with the known bad in hopes of it helping us with the even worse, we are getting rid of the bad. In just 2 years we have managed to remove two of the most onerous regimes in the world, ones that not only murdered their own people and deprived them of their rights, but also exported war and terrorism. Even the US military power has a limit. Is your argument that Pakistan is worse than Iraq? Or that Pakistan would somehow be more strategically appropriate than Iraq? Or that you just don't like the US working with Musharaf?
 
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