After watching the back and forth I agree with you. I don't think that even professional wrestling could have come up with such a cartoonish stereotype. Maybe my first post was too subtle. I guess I was in a patronizing mood today. (it's Friday, you know) Regards, SC-.

You're absoloutly right, I was wrong to believe anyone with access to the internet and it's information cannot be so thick. I know very well of the Arab war propaganda, but tell me this: have you been to the Sinai between june '67 until April '82? I've been there a couple of years back, beatiful beaches. I haven't been to cairo though, we Israelis aren't that welcome there. BTW:casaulties in 67: 800 Israelis, 15k Arab, 80% of Egyptians war material lost in 73: 2650 Israelis, 74 tanks and 102 planes Egypt: 11,300 man, 1000 tanks and 240 planes.

>>...There is no central leadership of Islamdom- there is no established church<< a decentralized group can certainly have a common outlook or worldview. There is no central leadership for the major news networks and papers, yet they have remarkably coherent views. 90% of them voted democrat in a time when the rest of the country was electing Reagan in landslides. >>so there is practical problem of who or what is going issue a ‘collective condemnation of terrorism’<< The evangelical christian community does not have a central leadersghip. Lets take a look at at what happens when a christian extremist does something reprehensible. A few years back an anti-abortion extremist assassinated a abortion doctor. Every evangelical leader, all of them staunchly anti-abortion, issued clear and unequivical condemnations of the act. These condemnations were preached from pulpits. The condemnations were broadcast on television and radio, printed in newspapers and distributed on the internet. I want to hear this kind of united voice from the Islamic world when some act of IslamoFascist terrorism strikes down scores, hundreds or thousands of innocent victims. I do not hear this from the Islamic world. I know the Islamic world is capable of it. I hear it every time the Israelis assassinate a Palestinian assassin. I hear it every time the American military is accused of an atrocity in Iraq. I do not hear it when hundreds are killed in Spain, or Russia or Indonesia. >> Having said that there are many Muslims who have condemned terrorism repeatedly.<< Yes, and there were scattered objections to antisemitic violence in Germany in the 1930's. The Nazi's did not embody German culture, they just hijacked it. The IslamoFascists do not embody Islamic culture, but it looks suspiciously like they've hijacked it. There is also no central leadership of

Hehe, the fundies always give me a chuckle. They're like Reality TV crossed with a sitcom, where they don't know how goofy they sound. He's worried about images and pictures on TV? Hey, is this a real muslim fundamentalist, or is some joker just masquerading as one, just for laughs? A computer monitor is the same as a TV set, and even the strategypage site has "graven images" on it (eek! jpegs! the horror!) And these retards wonder why they lose all the wars. If you're afraid of technology, you'll end up in last place. So which is cause and which is effect? Do losers gravitate to silly religious beliefs, or do silly religious beliefs cultivate losers?

I wonder if there isn't a rule set mismatch going on here(to use the lexicon of TPM Barnett). Sure, there's the possibility of a really preactical reason for not making the near uniform condemnation of terror(like what many SOutherners dealt with: fear of the KKK.). But, I wonder if there's another angle: do their rules rcognize that such a condemnation of acts like terrorism are necessary to be considered 'civilized'? That's a critical question. Of course this also leads eventually to the question of effective resistance(they know they can't go head to head with a Western power, and so how can they 'pursue politics by other means'. No, I haven't gone daft OW.). Do they see the deck as stacked against them and hence root for AQ like kids used to root for Jessie James? Ultimately, they do need to understand that such a condemnation, a near unanimous condemnation, is required to be trusted..

This is the thread that keeps on giving.It's one of those "no end in sight deals".More or less if you are a Muslim or MOSLEM or whichever way it will be spelled next, you more or less want to go back in TIME and come up with some crazy REASON why you deserve to be a terrorist or terrorist supporter blah blah. And then there is the always present GREAT LIBRARY full of ASTRONOMICAL tips that the CRUSADERS stole. It begins and ends that way every single day right here. More or less you make up junk, and then it's crushed. This is kind of like a giant DEFRAG on StrategyPage..

"There is no central leadership for the major news networks and papers, yet they have remarkably coherent views. 90% of them voted democrat in a time when the rest of the country was electing Reagan in landslides." Consider the possibility that there is a central leadership directing the media, granted that it would be covert and indirect (and imperfect) in some of its control mechanisms. Such central leadership would be the current government in Moscow (composed and led largely of former KGB members). One test of this theory would be to see how consistantly the media favored Russia (they certainly aided the Soviets in the past). Have they tried to find a sympathetic side in Putin's support of a corrupt Ukranian election? (Unfortunately, I lack the stomach for monitoring the mainstream media directly anymore, so I don't know the answer at this time!)

How many of 56 member of ICO have not passed resolutions, or publicqally stated their opposition to 'terrorism' or been party to recent international resolutions condmening terrorism, since 9-11. Does anyone actually know?

..How many of 56 member of ICO have not passed resolutions, or publicqally stated their opposition to 'terrorism' or been party to recent international resolutions condmening terrorism, since 9-11... I'm pretty certain that Costa Rica, El Salvador, Columbia, Peru and the other Latin members have all voted in favor of curtailing such Islamic depredations, since it ruins the markets for their products, and has precipitated the current international crisis. However, they are more concerned with price supports, and defending against non-member usurpers and irrendentist poachers of their territories: http://www.ico.org/ swhitebull

I have refrained from replying to your unintelligible but meriflourious rants, since it amused me greatly to see how many hookah pipe cords you would entangle yourself in. However, it appears that you have almost outdone even the ravings of an illiterate, half-mad camel herder, in your attempts to apply logic and religious mumbojumbo to your patently inane pratterings. You accuse me of not understanding islam. Frankly, I dont NEED to understand the subtle nuances of female genital mutilation, institutionalized wife-beatings, stonings, rapes, etc from your enlightened menfolk - it exists and is supported by your clergy. That's enough for me to ensure that a religion such as this that permits - nay - ENCOURAGES such behavior is sufficient to lead a fight against this barbarism. I refer you to the discussion of wife beatings on the Saudi Arabia board. Please, knock yourself out justifying this primitive, misogynistic practice. If you Cant find the time to visit the thread on the Saudi board, here's a sample of WIFE BEATING, for your education: http://memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=392 In FULL - some comments on wife-beating from the Muslim cleric that London mayor Ken (endorsed by The Economist!) Livingstone apparently views as a 'moderate' "It is said there that one of the methods of treatments is, "And beat them." This is not obligatory, but it is permitted and it does not suit all wives. All Koranic commentators agree on this. Beating does not benefit all wives, but it is suitable for some." These comments were made, not one thousand years ago, but LAST WEEK. 11/28/2004 Clip No. 392 Sheik Al-Qaradhawi: Wife Beating Yes, Homosexuality No. The following are excerpts from an interview with Sheikh Yusouf Al-Qaradawi on Al-Jazeera TV (November 28, 2004) The West is not one entity. Can we accuse the entire west of being against the family? No. In the West there are people who defend the family. Religious people generally feel that the family is the basis for society. Not all Americans... even the extreme Christian right that fights us protects the family, but Allah decreed that they want to ruin our families. But there are strong tendencies in the West to destroy the family. An example of this is the marriage of men with men and women with women. Unfortunately, some clergymen welcome this and perform these marriage ceremonies in their churches. In addition, several Western parliaments have permitted this and issued laws about it so it has won legal recognition. This stands in contrast to Christianity, Judaism, and all religions. All international conventions and laws determine that marriage is a bond between a man and a woman in a legitimate and recognized fashion. Only this is considered marriage. Same-sex marriages are totally unacceptable. They want to make the perversion [ie homosexuality] widespread. It is one of the things I was accused of and that made a commotion this summer in London. The Zionist lobby organized a massive campaign against me. One of the main reasons for this campaign was that I object to the homosexuals. They said to me, "You hold a hostile position against homosexuals." When they asked me in the press, on television, on the radio, and in other media, "What is your opinion?" I said: "I don't have an opinion on homosexuals." My opinion is the same as decreed in Judaism, Christianity, and the Islam, and which appears in the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran, and which was announced by the Pope of the Vatican, the founders of Christianity, the rabbis of Judaism, and the moral philosophers. This is the opinion of all of these. I have no personal opinion on this matter. They want to make the pervert... They are called "perverts" and the phenomena is called "perversion." Perversion means a deviation from the norm. They want to make this perversion a natural thing. How can a pervert be natural? This is what they want. They attack Islam because of issues such as wife-beating, which is one of the things I was accused of. They claimed that I supported wife beating. I don't say that wives should be beaten and I don't like wife beating. The Prophet did not encourage wife beating. Out of more than 6,000 verses of the Koran, there is one verse that deals with a condescending and disobedient wife. It is said there that one of the methods of treatments is, "And beat them." This is not obligatory, but it is permitted and it does not suit all wives. All Koranic commentators agree on this. Beating does not benefit all wives, but it is suitable for some. The Prophet said, "The best among you do not beat." The best people do not beat their wives and the Prophet never beat a woman, a slave, or a beast. Even the beast--a donkey or a camel--he never beat a beast. He said, "Are you not ashamed to beat a wife and then sleep with her?" One contradicts the other. Even if it comes to beatings, with what does one beat? A hadith of the Prophet says that whe