picture credit: mac4arabs
Ramadhan Kareem!
May Allah bless you all this Ramadhan
Ramadhan is set to start on Friday October 15th, 2004 this year. This is the Hijra year 1425.
We should at least organise a Mahmood.TV Sheesha Night!
Ramadhan Kareem!
picture credit: mac4arabs
May Allah bless you all this Ramadhan
Comments
Re: May it be a blessed month for all muslims…
Nah, I’ll do away with the date! 😉
Ramadhan Kareem!
Ramadan Kareem all! I think a Sheesha night is very much in order. Let the bellydancing begin!
– Chan’ad
Have some respect
How pathetic. The holiest month of the year is here and all you guys are thinking about is the sheesha and the bellydancers. I know your probably joking but I mean can’t you at least PRETEND that this month might have an ounce of spiritual meaning for you. You have all year to party, drink and smoke. This month is meant to be purily for God and submission to him, sacrifice and reflection. I dont give two peanuts about how sinful you are but its your flagrant and overt declaration of transgression when claiming to represent a ‘muslim’ voice.
If you dont at least have that much respect then leave out the customary greetings for another occasion less important.
Not meaning to preach but i’m finding Mahmood’s attitude and Chan’ad’s very condescending.
Re: Have some respect
And this is respectful?
Although it presupposes that I will not fast nor observe the norms of this holy month, I took it as a joke, I hope as you intended. So don’t go preaching Insurgent, it just comes back and bites you in the ass.
Re(1): Have some respect
I really dont see how it does.
Allah yahdee iljamee3.
Ramadhan Kareem!
Chill out Insurgent 🙁 In the benevolent spirit of the month, perhaps you should not chastise others. Allah has made our religion without compulsion and each of us do represent Muslim voices — even though none of us represent the perfection of Islam.
So Ramadan Kareem and insha’Allah, although I will not be drinking, will be fasting and will not be watching belly dancers, I will be more than happy to share the sheesha (after iftar, of course) in the spirit of brother/sisterhood.
Salaam,
PM
Ramadhan Kareem!
As’salaam u Aleikum,
My best wishes to all who will observe the Holy Month.
May the Almighty see fit to reward your sacrifice and devotion with peace and goodwill from all mankind.
As for the rest of you, better get to the BMMI (or the African & Eastern) before the Saudi’s get there!
(Sorry, I gotta plug the A&E for my uncle. You know I got this great story about him, though. You see until he got married, he was pretty much the biggest lush anyone had ever met. Then his wife set him straight and he hasn’t had a drink since like, 1984. So about 10 years later he starts working for A&E, in their liqour wholesale department. How did he keep sober for all these years, you ask? Simple, he passed the free booze off to my Father!)
But I digress….
Peace and Blessings to each and everyone you, especially to those who will observe the Holy Month of Ramadhan!
Re(2): Have some respect
If you find Mahmood’s and Chanad’s attitudes condescending, then I think that you will find that yours is intolerant. And, as a partial observer, I am not sure which is worse.
Easy does it Insurgent. Spiritualty and religion is between God and man, or God and woman. It isn’t right for us to point fingers at each other and make judgements about who fasts and who doesnt, or what people choose to break their fasts with, or whose prayer counts more than the other. It is not up to us to be judge and jury.
Also, whoever said that to be a good moslem one had to lose their sense of humor?
Let people be. And as you say, allah yahdee al jamee3. It is for Allah to do so, not us … 😉
Ramadhan Kareem!
I will definitely come over for a Mahmood.TVG Sheesha Night, if Mark gets my passport back to me! Remember my teaching schedule has me working Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings…. 🙁
Ramadan Mubarak!
PM
May it be a blessed month for all muslims…
Just a quick thought Mahmood, what do u break your fast on? A date and a shot of vodka? 😉
Many happy returns
Ramadhan Kareem!
well it’s that time of year again… People starve themselves all day to stuff their mouths once the cannon fires… I personally can’t wait for one thing: luqaymat (fried dough balls) with that black dibs syrup… mmmm (in a homer simpson tone)…. I bet I can eat 100 if I tried… hey… new challenge…
Ramadan Kareem to you all, ho ho ho and a cup of mint tea.
For the rest of you cynics: BMMI closes at 7 for next 30 odd days – you better run…
Re(3): Have some respect
One more thing Insurgent, you say “‘can’t you at least PRETEND that this month might have an ounce of spiritual meaning for you.”
Does pretending to be someone that we are not make it easier for you? Aren’t you sick of everyone pretending to be someone that they are not? Aren’t you sick of Saudi Arabia prentending to be the bastion of religion and piety when we all know that they probably have worse alcohol problems than most people enrolled in AA? Aren’t you sick of the ME governments pretending to be human rights oriented when we all know the truth? Aren’t you tired of the Bush pretending to give a real damn about Arab Israeli peace when we all know that it is laregly lip service?
Lets stop pretending. If Mahmood wants to break his fast on vodka – let him. If Chanad wants to watch a belly dancer, let him do that as well. Remember, the Prophet Mohammed liked having a good time himself – and we Arabs invented alcohol (date wine?) Let people be. And let our societies evolve and start respecting the individual, and not use ‘propriety’ to dull individualism, tolerance and advancement. The effort we all put into ‘pretending
Re(4): Have some respect
hear hear!
Re(5): Have some respect
That was a kick arse statement. You go!
Re: Have some respect
[quote]How pathetic. The holiest month of the year is here and all you guys are thinking about is the sheesha and the bellydancers. [/quote]
This comment reminds me so much of religious people in the UK at Christmas, cross about all the feasting, gift-giving and partying the rest of us engage in. But “Christmas” is just the Christian name attached to the much older festivals of Saturnalia and Winter Solstice, which were entirely about drinking and feasting in order to celebrate life in the midst of the dark, cold winter, so we decadent party types (which is most of us) are in fact more in tune with the spiritual meaning of “Christmas” than are those few who bemoan our wicked pagan ways every year.
Ramadhan Kareem!
I wish all of you a happy holiday and a Ramadan full of joy, family get togethers, feasting (after the cannon, of course), and goodwill. I’m in favor of any expression of Islam that does not spill blood.
We’re celebrating Ramadan here in Washington, DC by posting extra guards on the Metro. I saw my first one this week as I walked into the station to ride to work. He wasn’t a regular policeman, maybe a park service policeman, and he was posted outside the station, probably to spot bombers before they get in among the crowd. It’s been common in the last couple months to see armed metro police standing out of sight in nooks in the stations, watching. Sometimes I notice police in light SWAT gear riding the train when I get off. Now and then, there’s an officer with a bomb dog. And there are the insistent messages on the loudspeakers to report unattended bags or suspicious actions immediately to the station master. The announcement is getting steadily longer and more detailed. When I got off the train Friday it lasted from the moment I got off the train, rode the escalator, passed through the turnstile, and walked out the station.
All of this security is necessary because Muslims want to repeat their glorious victory in Madrid with a similar slaughter in Washington, DC. I rarely pass a day where I am not reminded that Muslims want to kill me, an American infidel.
When I drive by the Capitol, there are police in the street to stop you and give your car a quick inspection. That’s because Muslims want to drive a truck bomb into the center of our blasphemous democracy and destroy it. Our intelligence types say that there is a lot of chatter among Muslim terrorists, of which there are many, to launch a catastrophic attack on America to disrupt our election.
There is a wild report this week that 25 Chechens infiltrated the Mexican border into Arizona, perhaps to repeat their glorious victory in Beslan. It’s hard for me to believe that Chechens are coming to America to shoot up our schools but then it was hard for me to believe that Muslims would crash American jets into New York skyscrapers to establish a Second Caliphate. Recent events prove it is unwise to ever underestimate the hatred Muslims bear us. They will murder Americans to the absolute limit of their ability, which, thankfully, is limited.
I flew out to Iowa for a wedding a couple weeks ago out of Washington Reagan airport. Unlike any other city, when you leave a DC airport, nobody can get out of their seats for the first thirty minutes of the flight nor the last thirty minutes of the flight when approaching DC. If they do, the aircraft immediately diverts to another city. This is a defense against Muslim barbarians who want to repeat their glorious victory on Sep 11 by hijacking American jets to murder American men, women, children, and infants.
We have to wait in line to pass through a metal detector to board an aircraft. We have to empty our pockets for security to examine their contents. We even have to take off our shoes for security to inspect because Muslims put bombs there, too. All of this is necessary as a defense against Muslim hatred for other religions and political systems.
When I was a kid, I would walk miles to the airport to watch the planes. I would walk out the concourse right to the jets. Sometimes the pilots, recognizing the aviator’s disease, would take pity on me and bring me up to the cockpit. It was great. That can never happen for the kids today because the planes must be guarded tightly against Muslim infiltration. It pisses me off that an ambitious kid today can’t touch an airliner.
As I walk around Washington, you can’t help but notice the whole place bunkering up against attack. Big concrete planters line the roads to guard against car bombs. Driveways are gaining sturdy gates. Security guards are multiplying. People who leave their doctor’s office and pass by the White House are stopped because sensors detected the radioactive isotope used to perform a cardiac stress test. All of this is a defense against Muslim terror.
There were a couple stories in the Washington Post where local Muslims complained that the level of trust for them was eroding, that they were receiving bad glances and sharp remarks. However, they all gave their names and some their photographs. Evidently, the oppression is not so bad that they feel they need to hide their identity when they complain in public. One local Muslim leader wondered if the beheadings may have something to do with it. I had to laugh at his moral obtuseness. Yeah, if your fellow Muslims are making snuff videos where they saw through infidel necks while shouting “Allah is Great”, it’s just possible that it could put Islam in disrepute in the civilized world. It might even cause a sharp remark about your head-cutting religion.
Islam brings nothing but negative things into my life. It threatens my life. It infringes upon my freedom. It steals money out of my pocket for security. It produces violent images worse than the sickest pornography, images of pure evil that will never leave your head until the day you die. I don’t respect it.
So while you are enjoying your Ramadan, perhaps late at night after the dishes are cleared away, you might have an earnest talk with your friends and family about what you personally are going to do to make Islam a respectable religion again, to stop it from being a vehicle for evil.
You may need a moral insurgency to recapture the center of Islam, something like Mao’s campaign to conquer China. You start in ones and twos, small covert cells, drawing moral boundaries and defending them in everyday life. No more winking at suicide bombings or high-fiving the deaths of Westerners in the office or street. Your weapon is quiet disapproval and reasoned condemnation of such attitudes. As the campaign succeeds, more public expressions can be made, gathering power until it is accepted by Muslim religious authorities everywhere and the savage Wahhabi view is defeated and rejected. It is a moral war which will take lifetimes to win. Maybe, with enough persistence, there may come a day when “Islam means peace” is not received in the West as a sick joke written in blood.
Steve
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
Mahmood,
Yes, it is true that only a small minority of Muslims are terrorists yet they enjoy varying degrees of support from the majority of Muslims. For Islam to enjoy respect from Westerners, that support has to stop.
You’re exaggerating when you claim I blame Islam for all the ills of the world. I do blame it for promoting itself via terrorism which affects me constantly in my everyday life. And justly so.
You can take my comment as a troll if you please, but it is a sincere statement from the heart. You may not like it, but there it is.
Steve
Steve .. what have you done?!
Sweetheart ..
The reasons why your ability to travel and move around safely in the US has been hampered so significantly has NOT been because of the Moslems. It is directly a result of how the US administration has chosen to respond to 9-11 by the lock down. Madrid did not change as drastically after the bombings as the US did. Madrid, on the other hand, has also had to deal with ETA and other terrorist acts. Ditto, my friend, for the UK and the IRA.
America went overboard. And that is the result of your government and how it choice to respond. And this ridicolous terror alert of code yellow, orange, and red. It is becoming a culture of fear. And obviosuly, it aint doing anything for either the average American or anyone else.
Yes, the moslems did 9-11. And yes, it was a terrorist act. And, yes, it was abhorrent. And no, terrorism did not start with the Moslems. Neither for your information, did suicide bombing. But, where the US government failed to lead and failed to lead in a spectacular way, is in how it chose to respond to the attack domestically. The Bush administration has cultivated a culture of fear, my friend. And, in doing that, you are giving those frigging terrorists victory on a silver plate.
Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve ..
You say ” Islam brings nothing but negative things into my life. It threatens my life. It infringes upon my freedom. It steals money out of my pocket for security. It produces violent images worse than the sickest pornography, images of pure evil that will never leave your head until the day you die. I don’t respect it. ”
Replace the word ‘Islam’ with ‘US foriegn policy
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
PM,
Believe it or not, I do wish you a happy holiday. But I also want you to consider the wrong direction in which your religion has turned. Virtually all the elaborate security on airlines, around DC, and around the country have been established to defend against the violence of one religion: Islam. That should be embarassing and cause for some hard reflection, not blithe dismissal.
Your Afghan and Iraqi examples are not very convincing, PM. Afghanistan became a hell for its own people and a threat to civilization because of Islam. Iraq became a mass grave due to the Arab acceptance of tyranny as a legitimate form of government. If I accepted your advice to ignore the threat of Muslim violence, that would accept a drift toward the kind of hell that Afghanistan and Iraq became.
PM, you do have me correctly when you say that I am disgusted with Islam. When I see the beheadings and backshootings and smashings and throat-cuttings and incinerations and mutilations done in the name of Islam, it does disgust me. But what strikes me more is the lack of condemnation from the Muslim world. That is a profound revelation for me, that silence.
I call things as they are, PM. I have no particular bias for or against Islam. I have a strong bias against promoting a religion through slaughter. If Muslims were to stop their violence this very minute and divert all that money from bombs and beheadings into building universities and hospitals, my opinion of Islam would change the minute after. It is the behavior of Muslims to which I object. As long as Muslims seek to kill Americans, or any innocent people, I will have a negative opinion of Islam.
You may consider that to be hate-monging but I consider it to be a fairly normal and predictable reaction to a violent creed. However hateful you may consider me to be, you can be sure that I will never behead a Muslim on video shouting “The Pope Rules!” If I knew of somebody who had done harm to anybody, including a Muslim, I would report it to the police. If some wacky Christian fundamentalists were planning to bomb a mosque, I would report it. That kind of violence is unacceptable to me. Can you honestly say that Muslims would reciprocate, would turn in a fellow Muslim who did harm to infidels?
An honest dialogue is honest, PM, for better or worse. It’s not all sunshine and roses. Perhaps you can find other politically correct posters who will blow smoke up your dress and condescend to you with a Pollyanna approach to Islam. I don’t think you will think much of them.
I am giving you the gift of telling you exactly what I think. It may be an unwelcome gift, but I give it without any phony posing or condescension. And I can assure you that my opinion is much milder than other American opinions I hear.
Steve
Re: Ramadhan Kareem!
I’m hardly a fundamentalist, PT. They probably annoy me as much as you, though I’m probably more practiced in handling Christian fundamentalists. And really, you lost my respect as a serious thinking person when you called me a fascist, the standard argument of the unwashed Left. I recommend you reconsider your ad hominem approach and come up with an intelligent rebuttal.
Steve
Re: Ramadhan Kareem!
I’m gonna have to side with Steve on this one. While I don’t agree with all of his characterizations and I think he needs to address his deep-seated fear of the Islamic Bogeyman, I do think he makes an important point for us Muslims. Five churches were bombed in Baghdad two days ago. I was absolutely sickened, but neither the Arab media nor the Arab street has lost much sleep over it. We Muslims over here have more to be concerned about Islamist violence than Steve and friends need be. And we need to be proactive in our stance against this violence.
Let’s take the opportunity this Ramadan to pray for change. Even if we are not willing to take action, or speak out publicly against Islamist violence, let us at least start by condemning it in our hearts. When we say our du’a prior to iftar, or during taraweeh, or anytime, let us include a prayer wishing to make the perpetrators of this violence realize that what they do is wrong. And let us pray for the safety of non-Muslims from Islamist violence anywhere in the world. And let us pray to God for him to give us the strength to speak out and take action against the crimes being perpetrated in our name.
We need to start by at least being firm in our hearts about what is wrong, and then hopefully we will be able to follow this with words and actions. This is the very least we should all be doing this Ramadan.
– Chan’ad
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
Praying by itself won’t do any good Chan’ad with all due respect. I have no qualms about shouting out loud that the terrorists are wrong and condemn them for their actions. I see and hear a lot of people around me doing the same on a daily basis. I hear them condemn the church bombings as I do.
My issue with Steve’s take on this is that he raises the exact same points every single opportunity he has. He would have been much more effective if he just shared our joy for Ramadhan (which is NOT a holiday) and just wished us well. But no, he has to once again get on his very much over-used soap-box.
Re(2): Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve, let me reitterate:
YES we have a problem. The problem is religious extremism, used by opportunists who fly the Muslim banner behind their actions, although 99% of the Mulsim world or more condemn their use of Islam and the 99%’s name in their heinous actions.
YES we continue to see in the Arabic and foreign language papers DAILY condemnations of these actions, written in the letters pages as well as journalistic articles for respected journalists. You’ve seen the one in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat which was from their editor in Arabic and then freely and widely translated into English. You probably haven’t seen the various other pieces which were printed in local Bahraini papers like Al-Wasat and Al-Ayam to name but two, and the probably countless others around the Middle East. So you’re off track there my friend. We have finally turned the corner and done away with the denials we have suffered from for centuries. We see various pieces in the news written by Arabs and Muslims acknowledging that we have various problems, terrorism is the leader of which and they are putting pressure on their respective governments to do something. Recently, Saudi Arabia closed down its largest Muslim Charity (Al-Haramain), whether that be because of American pressure or otherise, it has happened. They have issued circulars in ALL the papers in Saudi before Ramadhan to NOT donate to people going around with donation boxes, or tickets for Ramadhan, the reason being explained as the government cannot guarantee where this money is going. This is a HUGE step for Saudi. Believe me.
Thousands of clerics have been fired because they were preaching hate. Yes this is in Saudi again, yet another step to stem and erradicate terrorists from its midst.
You continue to say that the terrorists justify their actions in the name of Islam. Yes they do. WE don’t believe them and WE condemn them. They are terrorists in your book as well as mine, with or without the label of Islam. These amoeba are criminals and the dregs of society who have overused the Islamic mantra for their own selfish purposes, and I don’t think many believe that they want to “return Islam to its heyday”, all they (the terrorists) are are criminal mafia who are after money, influence or both and should be completely and unequivacly erradicated from the lengths and breadths of the world.
So chill out Steve. WE (here on this blog and the general Muslim population) are WITH you, not against you. WE want to get rid of this cancer much more than you do.
Just stop blaming our religion for the ills of the world. It’s not its fault. It’s the fault of the criminals who are misusing it.
Re: Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve you seriously need some professional help.
Reading your comment I can’t help but wonder how a terrorist would make of it other than “WE WON!” With your thoughts you have allowed them to take over your life, consciousness and sub-consciousness.
Get on with your life man and stop blaming a religion for all the ills of the world. By your own admission in previous comments you submitted that only a small minute minority of Muslims are terrorists, yet you go on once again blaming the whole of Islam and its followers.
If this is a troll post eliciting sympathy, then to me anyway, it’s wasted.
Re: Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve’s post is a advertisement for conversion to Islam. Never mind the usual nonsense Discovery Islam distributes about science in the Koran etc, they should give prominence to his post – if Islam means Steve has to sit in his seat uncomfortably when wanting to use the bathroom on a flight, gets eyed up suspiciously by some security guard on the metro or is given the rubber glove treatment the next time he accidently sets off a metal detector I’m all for it. Count me in – where do I sign up?
Re(2): Ramadhan Kareem!
Just can’t wait for EID can you Mahmood?????
Re(2): Ramadhan Kareem!
Well, Mahmood, if it’s any comfort to you there are a lot of people here in America who tell me I can be obnoxious and they’re not Muslim at all. But they’re wrong, too. All of them.
The problem continues, Mahmood, and festers and I don’t see real movement to lance it.
Steve
Re(3): Ramadhan Kareem!
I’ll make you a deal and lay off for Eid.
Steve
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
By contrast, if some Christian fundamentalist yahoos were to plan violence against you or any Muslim or any other religious group, you could expect me to turn them in, testify against them in court, and press for a harsh sentence. If an American Christian extremist group went to the Middle East to perpetrate terrorism, I would expect the FBI to hunt them down. If our military killed them in the act or even not so close to the act, I wouldn’t weep any tears for them.
Meanwhile, back here in the real world, I took the day off and went to the National Mall and visited museums. I had four different security inspections. There was a time when you could walk right in the door of any museum in DC, before the Wahhabi Terror. That’s got to change. I don’t want my life and the life in my city to be a series of dashes between security checkpoints.
Steve
[Modified by: Steve The American (Steve) on October 18, 2004 04:37 PM]
Re: Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve,
I have to say that I usually have no problem tolerating your posts but this one is downright offensive. Why you feel the need to link your “best wishes” for us to enjoy a nice Ramadan, with your clear disgust for Islam and the inconveniences and fears you are experiencing is beyond me. Frankly, it ruined my afternoon on this 4th day of Ramadan.
Steve, I am an American also, and experience the same things you do when I travel around the world. I know there are many problems in the world and Muslims, as well as Americans, are involved in a number of them. But you will not see me belly-aching about how Americans have made my life so difficult as a Muslim or living here in the Middle East. And you will not see me whining about how Muslims have changed my lifestyle when I am back in the States. Are your biggest concerns in life the inconveniences caused by heightened security? Imagine if you were living someplace like Iraq or Afghanistan and you had real problems, Steve.
Life is what it is in the 21st century. You can either be a force for positive dialogue and change or you can be another hate monger. I wish you would choose the former, rather than the latter. But if you do want to be a hate monger — please spare us on this blog.
Salaam,
PM
Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve is the American fundamentalist.
The self justification for his wide eyed extremeist views, the inability to temper his passion, the refusal to consider anothers views, the insisitance that his way is the right way, the arrogance to preach morality, the childish attempts to goad us to action.
Steve is Fascist to Extreme Islams communist. The reason he reverts to his pulpit to preach to us is as the antithesis of fundalmentalist Islam. Steve in his attempts to “open our eyes” has become that which he claims to abhore.
What separates Steve’s ranting bullshit from that of and Islamic extremist is nothing but the language it’s written in.
Go away. Your strain of ‘humanity’ is an aboration. You detest peace. You spurn reconciliation and you squander opportunity. Go away. I reject you for the extremist you are.
Where’s that damn Hamster?!
Before my family moved to Adliya (so I could be closer to school), we used to live in Busaiteen, which is a hop skip and a jump from Bahrain International Airport. (I’ve recently seen plans to expand the airport, and I was wondering if Busaiteen would soon become baggage carousel 7)
My parents used to take me to play in the airport. Yes, jet fumes made me the way I am. And many a cockpit have I had the pleasure and privilege to be given a live demonstration of. All of that went away after moron upon moron would re-route airliners all over the desert skies.
Steve, you must have been the last person alive to mark down “Yes, I will consider losing certain freedoms (and privileges) in exchange for greater security”.
9/11 changed life for America in ways that brought you to the life the rest of the world lives. Deal with it!
And my friends at [url]http://www.parkpolice.net/[/url], may have athing or two to say about you calling them less than regular police officers!
Re(2): Ramadhan Kareem!
I think we should be applauding Steve for keeping things lively at Mtv. Whenever things are slow in the comments, Steve will come in and drop a huge essay about Muslim terrorism, and that will get things going again.
So here’s to you Steve! No matter how sick and tired we are of your overworn arguments, somehow we are all eager to reply to you!!
(But to keep things interesting, how about coming up with some new ideas rather than recycling the same old stuff?)
Re(2): Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve,
To reply point by point to your endlessly venting of selfish rage would be pointless. You don’t want any dialogue. You are hear to vent. That’s fine. At least, no one can say that we don’t know how you think and thus we can choose to ignore you, which I did for the past few days since reading the last crap you posted. But now I am ready to respond.
Islam has not gone wrong, Steve. Muslims have. I don’t expect you to know the difference since you clearly want a religion to blame and seem not to understand the nature of religion anyway. As for your examples of the worst among us — I agree completely. What I know, that you don’t seem to, is that they are a vast minority of Muslims. Just like war mongering, greedy Americans are in a vast minority. Al hamdulillah I am not included in either of those groups. Can you say the same, Steve?
You think you are so different from me Steve? You think we don’t desire the same justice, peace and freedom from terrorism? If you cannot see how MUCH you are like the majority of Muslims, then I don’t expect you will be able to curb your bigotry.
You sound like a reasonably educated man but perhaps you are lacking in human understanding. People are more alike than different, Steve. The human condition has existed for thousands of years with slight variations on the same themes. You think only “holy Americans” know justice? Your disease is one that is born of having lived in a bunker of fear too long. And THAT, Steve, is YOUR FAULT. None of my family or friends in the US live in your state of fear, anger, blame-laying and bigotry.
As for your comment “Perhaps you can find other politically correct posters who will blow smoke up your dress and condescend to you with a Pollyanna approach to Islam” — do I detect just a slight chauvinistic tendency here, Steve? Would you refer to blowing smoke up Mahmood’s thobe? Or refer to Chan’ad’s “Pollyana” approach to Islam? I think not.
Please don’t make me add sexist to the string of adjectives I use to describe you.
Salaam,
PM
Re: Where’s that damn Hamster?!
You’re missing the point, BT. You are saying that the specific inconveniences of security measures are not that great to bear, which is true enough, but what they represent is intolerable. Why should we have to erect all this security to manage Islamic violence? What is wrong with Islam that we need to defend against its hate at every airport in the world?
I am not aggrieved by the specific security measures so much as their vector. In the 1970s, they installed metal detectors in the major airports. Then all the airports. Then they began searching bags. Then your shoes.
You used to be able to walk freely into any museum in the National Mall just like any shop. Then they had to put airport-type security on the Holocaust Museum to stop the Muslim crazies from doing violence there. Now all the museums have 1970s-style airport security. I can see a day when they will want to inspect your shoes if you want to see the dinosaur bones at the Museum of Natural Science.
I despise the vector on which this mindless Muslim violence has sent my world. As Muslims seek out softer targets in America, I can see a day when you’ll have to go through a metal detector to shop at a mall or buy groceries.
Evil does not appear all at once but creeps in bit by bit. I don’t want the civilized world to fortify itself against Muslim violence. I want the Muslim world to work and play well with others instead. I don’t want my town to castellate itself to manage Muslim barbarians looking for infidels to slaughter. I want a free and open city where I don’t have to wonder if the Arab guy with a backpack on the train is a suicide bomber.
You are simply wrong to say Sep 11 happenned and I should just “deal with it.” The negative changes the Muslim world is making on my world are unacceptable. The Muslim world needs to abandon violence to promote their religion rather than the rest of us erect defenses to blunt that violence.
Steve
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve, I have a lot of respect for you and your views. I consider you a friend. So from a friend, allow me to explain that your post most definitely shows you as a fundamentalist. You might not consider yourself as one, which I understand, it is difficult to accept that description when thinking about one’s self, but you do project that image. Try reading your original post objectively and you will probably come to realise what I am implying.
Here to throw my $2 a gallon worth of gasoline on the fire!
Yo Stev-O
You don’t seem to get it that Fundamentalist terror comes from people who hijack religious principles so that they can achieve personal or political ambitions. Some religions give more channels to that kind of violence, at at different times I might add, than others.
Religous fervor leading to violence washes better with the ignorant ditto monkeys than pure bloodlust.
For more on Ditto Monkeys, read the following
[url]http://desertislandboy.blogs.com/home/2004/10/ditto_monkeys.html[/url]
Just about everyone who reads this blog understands that way too many Quran-waving turbaned beards have wandered far from the reservation. You’re wagging your Bush Doctrine at the wrong end of the garden.
Oh, and if I remember correctly, the only person to successfully breach Tom Ridge’s pet project were Forrest Gump and Lieutenant Dan here.
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/18/tractor.ap/[/url]
[url]http://www3.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/20/airline.scare/[/url]
[Modified by: Bahraini Terp (johnc) on October 18, 2004 09:21 PM]
Re(3): Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve ..
I think you owe PM an apology …
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
[quote]PM: Steve, I am an American also, and experience the same things you do when I travel around the world. I know there are many problems in the world and Muslims, as well as Americans, are involved in a number of them. But you will not see me belly-aching about how Americans have made my life so difficult as a Muslim or living here in the Middle East. And you will not see me whining about how Muslims have changed my lifestyle when I am back in the States. Are your biggest concerns in life the inconveniences caused by heightened security?[/quote]
PM,
I work near the Pentagon. This week we got a briefing on what to do in the event of attacks by chemical, biological, radiation, or nuclear weapons. Who do you think might do such a thing? Eskimoes, perhaps? Mongols? Could it be the Congolese? Maybe Aztecs from the Andes? Or Muslims? All but one of these answers is ridiculous. Why isn’t that answer ridiculous, too?
The briefing was full of very useful tips. If you see a funny smelling mist coming toward you and there are a lot of dead birds and people laying around, run away. I woulda never thought of that.
So tell me, PM, have they briefed you at your place of employment to beware of chemical and biological attacks from other religions? Do you know of any other religion that has been caught cooking up poison to plant on people of rival religions? Do you doubt that Muslims are planning, hopefully ineptly, to perpetrate such attacks in America?
I’ll make you a deal, PM. I’ll stop complaining about Muslim violence when you start complaining about it. In the meantime, every time I look out the office window and see where the suicide jet hit the Pentagon, I’ll probably think about Islamic terrorism.
Steve
Re(3): Ramadhan Kareem!
[quote]Islam has not gone wrong, Steve. Muslims have.[/quote]
This would be more persuasive if I saw Muslims en masse condemning this worldwide jihad, but I don’t. From here, it still looks like the majority of Muslims support the Wahhabi Terror in varying degrees.
[quote]As for your examples of the worst among us — I agree completely. What I know, that you don’t seem to, is that they are a vast minority of Muslims. Just like war mongering, greedy Americans are in a vast minority. Al hamdulillah I am not included in either of those groups. Can you say the same, Steve? [/quote]
Well, I can be kind of greedy about some things, so you may have me there. As for war, it is better to read and write about it than actually be in one. My reading of military history leads me to believe that war screws up your weekends. So I’d rather not have a war if I could avoid it, especially since it is killing and crippling our best men.
However, history also teaches me that some wars can not be avoided, that appeasement of barbarian aggressors encourages them, that the best defense against threats is offense.
And may I point out that the most violent warmongering occurring today is done in mosques. In my dream world, all that would stop so that one day I could have a fabulous trip to Egypt to see the pyramids and the museums full of King Tut’s artifacts and stare into the face of Ramses without worrying that I might star in a Muslim snuff video.
[quote]You think you are so different from me Steve? You think we don’t desire the same justice, peace and freedom from terrorism? If you cannot see how MUCH you are like the majority of Muslims, then I don’t expect you will be able to curb your bigotry.[/quote]
You’re chewing me out just like any American woman, so that seems normal to me.
As for the rest, no, I’m not convinced that Arab Muslims want the same justice, peace, and freedom from terrorism that I prefer. I don’t see much impulse toward justice in the Middle East and those places under Muslim control seem particularly unjust. I can’t help but notice that where ever Muslims go, they make war on their neighbors. They don’t seem to value peace, unless as victors on their terms. I don’t hear a swell of Muslim complaints about Islamic terror, either. There’s a fair amount of cheerleading for it. The best I can say about it is that there seems to be a minority of decent Muslims embarassed about it, but not so embarassed that they would publicly condemn it. Maybe they are tut-tutting about it over dinner but I don’t hear it.
It looks to me that Muslims prefer authoritarian regimes that reject invidual rights that would guarantee justice, peace, and freedom from violence. When they are free to set up their own governments, that’s what they choose. The only Muslim democracy I know is Turkey. Attaturk imposed it in the face of stiff resistance. It seemed unnatural and sacrilegious to the Turkish Muslims.
As for being a bigot, that’s your interpretation of my argument. It’s wrong. I don’t care what you worship or what you look like. There’s plenty of people around me in DC who think differently than me, worship differently than me, and look differently than me. I live in town full of ardent Democrats, which is the equivalent of devil worshippers to me. I’m used to being around people who are wrong. However, when your problems crash into my America and kill Americans, then I take a dim view of the beliefs that crewed those jets.
[quote]Your disease is one that is born of having lived in a bunker of fear too long. And THAT, Steve, is YOUR FAULT. None of my family or friends in the US live in your state of fear, anger, blame-laying and bigotry. [/quote]
PM, may I opine that the difference between most Americans and me is that I live on the Islamists bulls-eye and they do not? There is a vast difference in the awareness of the terrorist threat in America depending on where you live and work. I can see it as I travel around America.
For example, Dallas in 2004 is pretty much the same as Dallas in 2000. A terror threat in Dallas is still pretty much of a joke. There is no security anywhere, other than the usual, which is fairly weak. Nobody is worried about Muslim maniacs crashing a jet into the Reunion Tower. It is a real threat in DC and taken seriously.
Nobody in Des Moines is worried about a terror attack on them on their drive to work. It is a real threat on the Metro in DC. Nobody is worried about terrorists driving a truck bomb to the Capitol in Des Moines. There are plenty of people worried about a truck bomb reaching the Capitol in DC and plenty of police in the street to stop it.
Stating the facts of the Islamic terrorist threat is not giving in to fear but acknowledging reality. There are a lot of minor annoyances in life you can safely ignore but death threats from terrorists are not one of them, especially when they have made good on their threats a few hundred yards from your office.
Tell me, PM, would you take it lightly if some crazy ass Christian fundamentalist preacher like Pat Robertson declared war on everyone in your country, dynamited the mosque next to yours, and then vowed to do more devastating violence in the future? Would you call it bellyaching if somebody complained about that? Would you think it best to just ignore him?
Steve
Terror’s financiers
When I lived in London I remember that we were given tips how to recognise an IRA bomb in an underground carriage or shopping mall – one which had been financed through NORAID’s legal fundraising across America for IRA killers.
Democrat or Republican – your government never gave a damn whether the casualties were civilian or military. And now you act like no where else understands terrorism. Yeah, the rest of us do – and we also understand who financed it, whether Saudis or Americans.
Re(3): Ramadhan Kareem!
[quote]PM: As for your comment “Perhaps you can find other politically correct posters who will blow smoke up your dress and condescend to you with a Pollyanna approach to Islam” — do I detect just a slight chauvinistic tendency here, Steve? Would you refer to blowing smoke up Mahmood’s thobe? Or refer to Chan’ad’s “Pollyana” approach to Islam? I think not.
Please don’t make me add sexist to the string of adjectives I use to describe you. [/quote]
PM, PM, PM,
You are reminding me of the PC Nazis in the corporate world who make a sport of being insulted so as to intimidate their coworkers with complaints to the boss.
“Blowing smoke up your dress” is a variation on filling you full of hot air, which is to say, lying to sell you something or ingratiate myself with you. It is something we commonly said to each other in the Air Force.
I think the saying evolved from “filling you full of hot air” to “pumping hot air up your ***” to “blowing smoke up your ***” to the more refined “blowing smoke up your dress.”
Why “dress”? It just sounds funnier. It’s as funny as saying “pumping smoke up your g-suit hose”. And yes, it would sound pretty funny to say “pumping smoke up Mahmood’s thobe” if thobe was a word that came to my mind very often. I’m not really sure if there’s a difference between thobe and dishdasha. I will make it a point to say I’m not pumping smoke up Mahmood’s thobe from now on.
PM, there is only one Pollyanna. There is no other term that can substitute precisely for this concept of Pollyanna’s “Glad Game.”
PM, you are playing the feminist’s game of intellectual harassment here by taking the feminine characteristic of a term, generalizing it to the whole when it is only incident to its meaning, and then grafting a misogynist meaning to it. There is no sexual content to this figure of speech.
I hope you are not teaching this American game to your female students there to make their men miserable too. There is no sense exporting the worst American ideas to the Gulf to pile on the other bad ideas already there.
PM, I will not be donning the ideological straitjacket of political correctness anytime soon. I hope I will never be so narrow-minded that I do not roam far afield the fences of PC speech. If I were you, I’d make a macro that would automatically spell out “sexist” in your future responses to me. You may need them.
Steve
Re: Terror’s financiers
You are stretching the evidence pretty thin. If IRA terrorists raised money for their activities illicitly in America, that does not infer America supports IRA terrorism. I might remind you that Al Qaeda supporters raised money for their activities in America. That does not mean that America supports terrorist activities against America.
And you might consider that the IRA’s base of support is in Ireland, not America, where they collect their money.
Your assertion that America does not discriminate between civilian and military casualties flies in the face of reality. Plenty of Iraqis came out of their homes to watch us bomb Saddam’s palace complex across the river in Baghdad, confident that we would not bomb them. Were we not so discriminating, Falluja and Sadr City and Samarra would be parking lots now.
Steve
Re(1): Ramadhan Kareem!
Chan’ad,
Siding with me makes you some kind of dangerous extremist. Quite frankly, that make me nervous. I won’t blow smoke up your thobe, Chan’ad. Anyone who agrees with me is nobody I want to associate with.
Sorry,
Steve
Re(1): Terror’s financiers
The difference between Al Qaeda’s terror financing in the States and the IRA’s precisely illustrates Washington’s double standards when it comes to international terror. The IRA could (and still can) legally fundraise in America – making a mockery of your president’s declared “War on Terror”.
America might discriminate when it comes to Iraqi civilians, but judging by the freedom given to NORAID’s fundraising it doesn’t care whether the British, Irish and other victims of IRA terror are civilian or military.
Re: Steve .. what have you done?!
[quote]The reasons why your ability to travel and move around safely in the US has been hampered so significantly has NOT been because of the Moslems. It is directly a result of how the US administration has chosen to respond to 9-11 by the lock down. Madrid did not change as drastically after the bombings as the US did. Madrid, on the other hand, has also had to deal with ETA and other terrorist acts. Ditto, my friend, for the UK and the IRA. [/quote]
Jasra, my precious desert rose, I can still travel anywhere in the US that I did before. I just have to have to go through a series of metal detectors to get there. The only places off limits to the public now are the White House and FBI headquarters tours.
The difference is that I work in Washington, DC where there is beaucoup security. Even when I visit New York City, there is really no change in security. But DC is different. The Wahhabis really want to hit DC. Out in the rest of the country, it is the same as before with perhaps a few more big concrete planters in front of federal buildings.
[quote]America went overboard. And that is the result of your government and how it choice to respond. And this ridicolous terror alert of code yellow, orange, and red. It is becoming a culture of fear. And obviosuly, it aint doing anything for either the average American or anyone else.[/quote]
I disagree. If Muslim crazies are casing my building and the US government finds out, I want to know about it. There needs to be some way of communicating the gist of the current threat intelligence to the populace in the target areas. If they know suicide bombers are on the way, I want to know. The Israeli experience demonstrates that ordinary citizens can defeat or blunt terrorist attacks if well informed.
The terror alerts help me stay alert to my surroundings. Outside a few places in a few big cities, the alerts mean nothing. People in Colorado Springs aren’t losing any sleep over an orange alert. The great mass of America beyond New England is hardly aware of terrorism in their daily lives.
[quote]But, where the US government failed to lead and failed to lead in a spectacular way, is in how it chose to respond to the attack domestically. The Bush administration has cultivated a culture of fear, my friend. And, in doing that, you are giving those frigging terrorists victory on a silver plate. [/quote]
I disagree that the Bush administration has cultivated fear or that the terrorists have won in any way. If anything, we have not tightened our security enough. Apparent scouting missions for weaknesses in our airline security like this and
this don’t seem to get much official attention nor public notice.
We went back to business as usual after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, not sweating the problem, and where did that lead us? Rather than shrugging off these attacks, we need to focus on them and defeat them. Instead of swatting at the terrorist bees when they get in our house, we need to destroy their hive.
The terrorists don’t look very victorious to me. Nobody knows for sure if Bin Laden is dead or alive. That’s a poor metric of effectiveness if nobody can tell if the leader is alive. Most of the Al Qaeda leadership is dead or in jail. Lots of Al Qaeda members are at room temperature. Al Qaeda is pretty much dead as an organization.
Now all we need worry about is free-floating cells of terrorists coming after us and the possibility that some hostile state will use them as mules for their WMDs.
Steve
Re(2): Ramadhan Kareem!
Actually Steve,
We do get briefings about security, emergency plans and evacuation methods on a regular basis. You know why? It is not only because some wacko terrorist might decide to bomb the uni or pull a Beslan. It is largely because if the US — MY beloved country — keeps starting wars in my neighborhood (i.e., Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran), all of us in the region will have a lot to fear. And that would probably necessitate the evacuation of Americans that might feel safer out of the region.
So yes, I am constantly reminded of threats to my safety from several sources; and no, I do not let it affect me the way you do.
Salaam,
PM
Re(5): Ramadhan Kareem!
PM,
Do you recall anything about that Saddam guy in Iraq? Do you recall him invading Kuwait? Do you recall the US riding to the rescue of Kuwait, or doesn’t that count? Do you recall the terms by which the UN imposed peace on Saddam and how he refused to comply with them, some 18 resolutions in all? Do you recall some 600+ attacks by Iraq on our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones?
Let’s get the aggressors straight here, PM. Were it not for Saddam and his evil regime, America would not be in Iraq.
As for “living in a state of anger and fear,” you’re exaggerating. The reality is that there are Muslims who wish to do us harm to the limit of their ability. We need to defeat them before they can act out their hatred for America. We need to focus our attention and energy on them until they are no more.
Steve
Re(4): Ramadhan Kareem!
Yes, Steve, I do teach my students the fundamentals of feminism in hopes that they may be empowered to seek a life that allows their potential to blossom unrestricted. If that is a problem for you as a man, then I suggest you go back to the 1950s because we women are not going to.
Salaam,
PM
Re(3): Terror’s financiers
Steve,
NORAID exsists, small in stature but its impact has been sizable. (over 30 years) Somehow it has managed to fly under the radar press wise, (don’t ask me why) and SeinFein has used it to raise LOADS of cash around the US for themselves and the IRA.
Google NORAID and you will find their site and some sites againsts them.
Now this doesn’t mean AMERICA as a country supports the IRA but there are without a doubt many Americans who do.
Re(5): Ramadhan Kareem!
Good grief, PM, it’s worse than I thought. Once we get this Wahhabi Terror thing resolved, I can see the next wave of suicide bombers coming: Feminists detonating themselves amongst the men because they left the toilet seat up.
Mahmood, take my advice: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
Steve
Re(3): Ramadhan Kareem!
Whoah, PM. Are you saying America started a war in Afghanistan? Are you honestly saying America just woke up one day, pulled Afghanistan’s name out of the hat, and said, “Hey, let’s invade there!”
Are you seriously saying that we had no cause to invade Afghanistan? Explain yourself.
Steve
Re: Ramadhan Kareem!
[quote]Replace the word ‘Islam’ with ‘US foriegn policy
Re(4): Ramadhan Kareem!
Steve,
I know perfectly well that we started a war in Afghanistan and why. It was justified in my opinion. But Iraq is a different matter and going on to think that the US can traipse across Iran and Syria and not have BIGGER problems with the Arab/Asian world is a fool’s dream.
My point was that American IS at war in Iraq and Afghanistan — neither of which have been managed well — and thus, Americans face many threats from folks that are none to happy with what they fear is an impreialist agenda. Although I don’t think it is, that makes no difference to the people getting bombed and shot at.
Salaam,
PM
Re(5): Ramadhan Kareem!
I think you are agreeing with me that Afghanistan launched an attack on the US to which the US responded.
I don’t see us going into Syria nor Iran. We’re close enough to Syria to scare it to death and Iran is very likely to reform itself with time. The hard facts are that we don’t have enough army to do more effective invading. We need to keep some troops in reserve for North Korea.
It’s really the insurgents who have the imperialist agenda, don’t you think. The Ba’athists want to reestablish a Sunni empire over the Kurds and Shiites. The jihadis are fighting for an Islamic empire. The United States has a record of setting up democracies and then leaving them alone. The Ba’athists and jihadis do not.
Steve
Re(4): Ramadhan Kareem!
No Steve,
I would not take it lightly is Pat Robertson or anyone else declared war on Qatar. And I do not take it lightly when George Bush comes into my neighborhood and declares war, like he has in Iraq. ANYTHING which upsets the peace is on my sh*t list.
BUT, I would also not let it keep me in the state of anger and fear you live in. And as for your location so close to one of the sites of the 9/11 attacks — well I have family in BOTH NYC and DC and they do not live and think like you. You can’t simply dismiss them as being too far away from the trouble to really understand and care. They simply do not choose to subscribe to Bush’s fear tactics — and some of them ecen voted for him!
It’s all about choice, Steve.
Salaam,
PM
Re(2): Terror’s financiers
That’s quite a bit of rhetoric.
I’m having trouble even finding an article about NORAID on Yahoo. I haven’t heard the name until you brought it up here and I read a lot.
It sounds like this NORAID presence here is so small it’s barely noticed and its activities so murky that the destination of its funds are not clear.
The idea that America supports terror against England is just flatly false.
Steve