I sure hope so, and judging by this article, it might well be the beginning of the end, and not a moment too soon, says I:
“This is one of the blessings of September 11. It put the brakes on the [Wahhabi] practice of takfir , excommunicating everyone who didn’t exactly follow their creed,” said Sayed Habib Adnan, a 33-year-old Sufi teacher. The government “realized that maybe enforcing one religious belief over all others was not such a good idea.”
Washington Post :: Faiza Saleh Ambah :: 2 May ’06
Ya think?
Well who said there isn’t a silver lining in every “bad” thing that happens? If we continue just to look at the glass always being half empty, we’ll just succumb to thirst and die.
I believe that Sufism has the answer to a lot of questions about religion. If your central being is focused on God in all of his manifestations and how He appears to you in your own heart, you will soon empty it of hatred and achieve the spiritual completeness that everyone is looking for.
I firmly believe that there are many roads leading to God, and maintaining an illusion – even by force – that one path in particular is the right path, disregards His greatness and just demonstrates your selfishness.
Comments
What a hopeful post Mahmood!
Can’t resist posting one of my favorite Ibn Arabi quotes:
I’m not so impressed by this puff piece, probably commissioned by the Saudis to soften their ugly image. How many times have the Saudis fed us anecdotes about how they are beginning to reform themselves, yet it never seems to play out.
The Wahhabi clergy must be extirpated if their reign of terror is to end. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia must also end. The best you can say for them is that Saudis have blown their petrodollars on hookers, gambling, liquor, and mansions. The worst you can say is that they have funded a Wahhabi war on the world that deserves retribution in kind. The Wahhabis must be crushed and sent back into the desert with the scorpions from whence they came.
Steve
Dear Mahmood,
Many Hijazi families are originally Sufis or open to Sufi practices. However, the wrath of the Wahabi mindset coming from Riyadh, or Najd in particular, has changed the way religion is practiced in the area. School text were unified, mosque preaching were dictated and Sufism was cast as an wicked and unislamic creed. I remember the religion teacher telling us that Sufis should not be trusted or mingled with, because they are inherently evil. However, many Sufi practitioners still followed their teachings through select, and mostly, secretive gatherings. I am not sure how much this is changing right now, but I am hoping that Sufis will have more say into their own way of religion and life in general. Hope is not enough though!
How very sad for you Steve, to see something worth considering as even a minute step forward, yet you are so stuck in your hate that you abjectly refuse to acknowledge good when you see it.
Does your poison taste sweet to you now that you have to continue with your useless vitriol?
Does it not occur to you that some praise goes a long way in establishing good working relationships?
Sally how wonderful, and thank you for posting the link. I shall spend some time investigating it.
Mahmood,
I think you are too trusting where the Wahhabis are concerned. I despise them like I despise rattlesnakes and sharks and rats. They are evil by nature and can not be reformed, only eliminated.
Mahmood, the Saudis have a long history of continuing their evil ways while trying to persuade America and the West that they are changing for the better by propagandizing us via public relations firms and advertising campaigns. It’s simply taqqiya using mass media. Since they maintain rigid control over the news coming out of their country, I am suspicious of any sugary news stories that require Saudi cooperation to be published.
And really, it’s pathetic that it is big news in Saudi Arabia that one flavor of Muslim cleric has condescended to sit with another flavor of Muslim cleric. Heck, I sit with people from different religions all day long and I never make the newspapers. The fact that this is news demonstrates what a contemptible intolerant rathole that Saudi Arabia is.
Sep 11 illuminated the murderous Saudi character clearly for me. It will take more than a confectionary article in a newspaper to wipe away that mass murder for their contemptible religion. They are a nation of murderous religious imbeciles who should reap the evil they have sown. I will not be satisfied until I see Saudi cities burning like the World Trade Center.
Steve
Steve, here’s a quote for you:
“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
– Hermann Hesse
I thought it expressed my sentiments in fewer and more precise ways. Before you dismiss my comment, look back to what you said and think a little.
Shroof
Steve, the concept of Taqiyya is only practiced by the Shi’a, who are 180-degrees away from Wahabis.
Number 2: to us LIVING here and knowing the Wahabis better than you – with all due respect – who have never set foot in this area, I can tell you categorically that this is a huge deal. You have to take my word for it. It is humungous, especially having their chief rabbi attending the Sufi celebration, I can tell you that it has most probably taken an immense effort with a huge amount of pressure for him to even to be there in secret, let alone having his picture taken and plastered all over the news. To his fellow wahabis he probably is labeled as “najis” (unclean) now and they have to scrub him with sea-sand seven times before being allowed into the hallowed wahabi community.
But then Steve, you get your information from books and internet sites. We just live here. So I won’t expect you to know all the nuances…
Oh, wait, isn’t the fact that you are on this blog to learn? Or is it to preach and “change” minds?
Stop and listen sometimes Steve my dear friend. Believe me there is some benefit to be gained.
Thanks for the information, Mahmood. You make some good points.
But come what may, the Saudis are enemies of America and must go down.
Steve
Steve, please think about what you are really saying here.
In speaking as though you and only you are right about everything and with your advocacy of massive violence to wipe out your percieved enemies, can you see how your rhetoric resembles that of Osama bin Laden?
Please seriously looking into getting some anger management help Steve. I mean that in all earnestness, though I suspect this is not the first time someone has said this to you. If I – a stranger am so horrified by it – I can’t imagine what it must be like for you. When was the last time you wrapped your arms around someone and told someone you loved them, just because?
And this from Rumi:
Caveat – I am not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim. However I do believe enuine wisdom is perrenial. And universal.
Steve, if you haven’t had one of those hugs in awhile, here is a virtual one. Try to enjoy the spring – it only comes once a year. 🙂
Sorry – massive typos.
and genuine wisdom is perrenial.
The source of human hate is always self-hate, as the above quote by Hesse suggests. An American blindly hating the Saudis is exactly equivalent to a Saudi (bin Laden) blindly hating the Americans.
That said, I agree with one point of Steve’s: Wahhabi ‘reform’ is simply a public relations game of publishing isolated single incidents; it definitely is not a significant continuous process. The Wahhabi Saudi government maintains a ‘Reform’ page on its official government website. Read their official website to get a clear picture of the true paucity of Wahhabi reform.
Sally: “Steve, please think about what you are really saying here. In speaking as though you and only you are right about everything and with your advocacy of massive violence to wipe out your percieved enemies, can you see how your rhetoric resembles that of Osama bin Laden?”
Sally, I have thought carefully about my positions and have come to the conclusion that the Saudis are the enemies of America. The attack on the WTC and Pentagon were not just my “perceptions” but reality. I don’t “perceive” that those 2986 people are dead, they’re really dead.
This attack was perpetrated by Bin Laden to propagate his particular brand of Wahhabi Islam, the state religion of Saudi Arabia. He is not a singleton in this regard but rather one of a cohort of Wahhabis indoctrinated in this extremist religion by institutions of the government of Saudi Arabia. The universities, media, and mosques of Saudi Arabia all indoctrinate their people to hate non-Muslims, to make war on them, especially America.
This insane hate is expressed in a multitude of ways. It is expressed through Wahhabi missionaries around the world. It is expressed through hate literature found in every mosque. Even the Saudi embassy here in DC hands out a brochure in Arabic that reminds Muslim tourists that it is their religious duty to hate America and Americans.
And they act on that hateful doctrine. And celebrate the murders of Americans. And they want to do more murder.
Here is a basic fact of life: Predators will continue to do evil if it succeeds. They will cease predating if it causes them harm. The engines of hate in Saudi Arabia continue untouched, still churning out more bigoted haters who want to kill more Americans drinking coffee in their offices or taking their kids to Disneyworld. They have to be stopped.
It’s pretty foolish to blame the victim for hating people who want to do violence to him. It’s ridiculous to compare my contempt for Saudis who want to kill me for their religion to Bin Laden’s crazed hate for non-Muslims. Sally, wake up and smell the burning jet fuel: It’s perfectly sane to hate people who want to kill you without provocation. It’s insane to not take action to stop them.
Stop and think about what you are saying and trying to connect to the real world. Would you have castigated the passengers on United Flight 93 for hating their hijackers? Would you have advised them to get anger management therapy? Would you have recommended that they try to understand their hijackers and not overreact? Your pacifistic pose merely facilitates evil.
Sally: “Please seriously looking into getting some anger management help Steve. I mean that in all earnestness, though I suspect this is not the first time someone has said this to you. If I – a stranger am so horrified by it – I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.”
I am little impressed by your smarmy assertion that those who disagree with you are in need of psychological help. From my perspective, you are simply an ostrich who buries her head in the sand to avoid recognizing the threat that Saudi Arabia presents to the civilized world. You lack the will to win the war against Wahhabi terror.
From the perspective of the Wahhabis, Sep 11 has been a great success. They were able to kill thousands of Americans while remaining untouched in their sanctuary in Saudi Arabia. That sanctuary must end and the Wahhabi war taken back directly to the Wahhabis.
Steve
Steve,
I actually haven’t been around in a while, but I do remember back in the days when Mahmood first posted articles about democracy and reform in the ME, that you were much more open and willing to listen. You may have expressed the same views about the Saudis manipulation, but you didn’t advocate mass murder. Have you lost your mind completely? What in the world is going on with you that you have crossed the line to become the thing you find so horrid?
Steve, I have been to Saudi Arabia. Have you? I can tell you that everything you say is true – there are people there who behave and think as you describe. I will also say that what it is *really* like is beyond your capacity to imagine unless you have actually been there. I say this as a person who has been an awful lot of places including Bahrain (waving, “hi Mahmood!’).
There are also millions of people there who are not as you describe, including the millions of people from other places who work there. There are millions of Saudis who are more unhappy than you are (since they live there) with the Wahabbi – Al Saud pact. None of these people deserve to be punished for the crimes of some of their countrypeople. That would be like comparing all Americans to Timothy McVeigh, our own home grown neo-facist terrorist who dreamed of blowing up the WTC before he settled on Oklahoma City.
Finally. I live in NYC. I was here in downtown Manhatten and watched the towers burn and crash with my own eyes – and walked covered in dust and smoke over the Brooklyn Bridge along with millions of others. I knew people who worked there (all of whom mercifuly escaped). I also know people who have friends and family who died. Aside from the horror of the attacks, what stands out in my mind from that day and the weeks that followed was the countless acts of kindness and mercy which were shown to everyone everywhere here. While the rest of the country was braying USA and for revenge, here in NYC we were focused on figuring out how to live on in the midst of horror.
I know that the passengers who took down Flt #93 did not do so in hatred. They did it because they loved the lives of their fellows more than their own. Any more than the firemen and policemen who ran into the burning towers to save total strangers did so out of hatred of the pilots of the jets. The heroic acts which occurred that day – and there were thousands and thousands of them – were taken with courage and love (look up the word courage btw – it comes form the French couer, meaning heart).
I have no ill will toward the people of Saudi Arabia – they are as helpless to prevent the corruption and greed of their governement as I am to prevent mine.
I am sure you will be unable to resist the temptation to go through what I have written line by line to refute it. But that is ok, as you are possessed by the archetype of war and probably can’t help projecting it onto everyone and everything, you can have the last word as I won’t be argueing with you.
And Steve, one more thing. Here’s another virtual hug. I mean it, from my heart.
Yeah, it seems that Sufism is being more and more tolerated in Saudi, but according to what I’ve heard, the mawalid in the Hijaz were never as clandestine and secret as these articles say. And Sufism has also had quite a strong following in the eastern province also.
But I was really amazed to hear from someone recently was that very large public mawalid have been held in Riyadh recently also! I would never have imagined.
btw, the Bahraini Sufis (who hail from a Hijazi sufi tradition incidentally) will be holding a public mawlid at the museum in about two weeks time.
Actually, if I recall correctly, Steve advocated nuking Saudi Arabia back in the day also. I thought he had gone all soft on us recently, but it’s good to see that the old Steve is back:
Spoken like a true gentlemen.
M: “I actually haven’t been around in a while, but I do remember back in the days when Mahmood first posted articles about democracy and reform in the ME, that you were much more open and willing to listen. You may have expressed the same views about the Saudis manipulation, but you didn’t advocate mass murder. Have you lost your mind completely? What in the world is going on with you that you have crossed the line to become the thing you find so horrid?”
Leaving Saudi Arabia as a sanctuary and engine of Wahhabi terror is the equivalent of leaving Berlin in WWII as a sanctuary and engine of Nazi belligerence. Take nearly every act of Islamic terror perpetrated in the world and there is a connection back to Saudi Arabia through money or people or both. Saudi Arabia is the nexus of all this bombing, skyjacking, headcutting, shooting, etc.
The current global campaign of Wahhabi terror can not be stopped until the source of it is killed. That source is in Saudi Arabia, specifically the Najd, and more specifically the Wahhabi clergy. They are the equivalent of the SS. You either annihilate the Wahhabi clergy or they will continue to annihilate innocents in further acts of terror. We have to do this before they acquire weapons of mass destruction beyond airliners. One day these Wahhabi scum will get their hands on a nuke and our troubles will compound a hundred fold.
Steve
Sally: “Steve, I have been to Saudi Arabia. Have you?”
No. I have not been to Nazi Germany either, yet I feel safe in calling it evil via indirect knowledge.
Sally: “I can tell you that everything you say is true – there are people there who behave and think as you describe. I will also say that what it is *really* like is beyond your capacity to imagine unless you have actually been there.”
I don’t know. I have a pretty good imagination.
Sally: “There are also millions of people there who are not as you describe, including the millions of people from other places who work there. There are millions of Saudis who are more unhappy than you are (since they live there) with the Wahabbi – Al Saud pact. None of these people deserve to be punished for the crimes of some of their countrypeople.”
I’m aware that Saudi Arabia is an empire of disparate people, many of whom oppose Saudi rule and object to Wahhabism. My fury does not extend to the Hijazis of the west nor the Shiites of the east but mainly to the Najd.
It seems likely that the dismantling of Saudi Arabia would benefit those captive peoples. The Hijazis might well make a more tolerant country of their own. Likewise the Shiites in the east might enjoy a monopoly on the oil fields. And the Wahhabis can retreat to the desert where they came from and where they belong, far away from the humans.
Sally: “Finally. I live in NYC. I was here in downtown Manhatten and watched the towers burn and crash with my own eyes … While the rest of the country was braying USA and for revenge, here in NYC we were focused on figuring out how to live on in the midst of horror.”
Sally, I’m sorry to hear that you experienced all that. I disagree with you that the sense of patriotism and devotion to country in the wake of Sep 11 can be called “braying.” You might be surprised to hear that in Texas, where I lived at the time, there were collections in tiny Texas towns for the survivors and wounded of New York City. In gas stations, people would write their contributions on little paper American flags and stick them on the glass windows. I passed many stations where the big glass windows were plastered with hundreds of these flags. You might want to sit back and reconsider your condescension toward such “braying.”
Sally: “I know that the passengers who took down Flt #93 did not do so in hatred. They did it because they loved the lives of their fellows more than their own. Any more than the firemen and policemen who ran into the burning towers to save total strangers did so out of hatred of the pilots of the jets. The heroic acts which occurred that day – and there were thousands and thousands of them – were taken with courage and love (look up the word courage btw – it comes form the French couer, meaning heart).”
Sally, I think you are off base as to what motivated the passengers fighting the Saudis on UA 93. When you are in a fight for your life, love doesn’t enter in. It appears that the passengers killed at least one of the Saudi goons. It requires hate to do that. These passengers witnessed the Saudis kill the two pilots and cut up another one severely. Those actions inspire hate. The passengers knew the skyjackers were on a suicide mission. Such a life or death fight runs on the rawest and most primitive emotions.
Sally, you’re probably a very nice lady who has led a nice genteel life among reasonable people. I doubt any spat in your crowd would lead to violence. You’ve probably never been in a really dangerous situation or had a drop of blood spilled in a confrontation.
That nice, soft life you’ve enjoyed, while making you probably an admirable person in many ways, does not prepare you well for a war with religious maniacs. I think that you are taking the normal, civilized ways of resolving conflict that any sane person would use with reasonable people and applying them to terrorists who simply wish you dead.
If I thought reasonable means would work, I’d be for it, but this is not a reasonable enemy we face. They are barbarians who only understand brute force.
Sally: “I am sure you will be unable to resist the temptation to go through what I have written line by line to refute it. But that is ok, as you are possessed by the archetype of war and probably can’t help projecting it onto everyone and everything, you can have the last word as I won’t be argueing with you.”
OK, Sally, you nailed me on that. I have responded paragraph by paragraph. However, you are overstating the case that my answer for every problem is war. War is terribly expensive in lives and money. It’s unpredictable. Most often it ends in ways you don’t expect. It should never be a first resort.
Being a conservative, I prefer that change be implemented by degrees, rather than with a big bang, as in a war or revolution. I would much prefer to deal with countries peaceably through commerce, encountering each problem and resolving it a little bit at a time. You get better resolutions that way rather than changing everything all at once. But establishing a mutually beneficial relationship through trade hasn’t worked with Saudi Arabia. They’ve used the wealth we’ve helped them acquire to make war on us.
Sally: “And Steve, one more thing. Here’s another virtual hug. I mean it, from my heart.”
I will accept hugs from strange women. More than that, I’d like to hear your impressions of Saudi Arabia. Maybe the other folks on this thread might enjoy it too. It will give them a rest from me, which they are sure to enjoy.
Steve
…”It seems likely that the dismantling of Saudi Arabia would benefit those captive peoples. The Hijazis might well make a more tolerant country of their own. Likewise the Shiites in the east might enjoy a monopoly on the oil fields. ”
Steve, I am a Hijazi and have lots of criticism for my own government, but I do want my country intact, a whole. And if you think that Saudis (hijazis included) will condone or allow an attack on our country in the name of freedom or whatever other motive that you have, then you are truly mistaken and definitely living in an absurd reality of your own.
Aya,
Would you object if the university system, media, and churches in the US all preached that Saudi Arabia should be attacked and conquered for Christianity? What if our grade schools taught our kids that it was OK to hurt Saudis, steal their stuff, and lie to them? What if a bunch of Baptists skyjacked a Saudia jumbo jet into a mall in Riyadh and killed thousands of Muslims, yelling “Praise Jesus” all the way in? What if after that, the US government accused the Saudis of being racist in singling out those Baptists as the perpetrators, claiming that they were innocent tourists? And the US maintained that position for six months after the attack? What if members of our government financed the attack? What if we refused to cooperate with the Saudis in the investigation of the attack?
Would that be OK with you or would you consider it outrageous? Perhaps even reason enough to declare war.
Saudi Arabia is conducting a covert war of terror against America and the world as part of an insane campaign of religious imperialism. You can not expect to kill Americans in America without retribution in Saudi Arabia.
Steve
Sure looks like a good thing from the outside.
I find it impossible to have any respect for the wahabbist pit of fear.
There sure is something suspect about hte Saudi/US relationship. Why arent they completely ostrisized?
LOL Rattlesnakes, sharks and rats are not evil Steve. They are just rattlesnakes, sharks and rats.
Steve,
As your last post shows, your views are exaggerated and lack viability. You want to believe that Saudi Arabia is an evil entity that should be destroyed. My school didn’t teach me how to hurt Americans nor did my mosque tell me that the US should be attacked and conquered in the name Islam. This is complete nonsense. Saudi Arabia has lots of problems, but your description is unrealistic and completely out of touch. This only confirms that your knowledge of the country is certainly inadequate and only based on personal bias.
Now we just have to wait for the first cathedral in Ryadh to open, followed by the first Synagogue. Maybe if we’re lucky, the Mornoms will open a temple!
Oh wait.
Mohammed said to throw the infidels out of the peninsula. My bad.
On a completely separate note: What do Muslims think of Mormons? In my conversations with some Mormon friends of mine, Islam does not factor into their religious history at all. It’s a direct line from Jesus to the LDS church.
baby steps Ethan….
Steve, if what you say is true, how can it be that so many Saudis were so nice to me while I was in Riyadh – the heart of the najd? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to any of them – or their families or their friends.
Before I had been to KSA, I had “studied” it. I had already lived and traveled throughout the ME. I had a really good imagination. I thought I was prepared for any eventuality. So you will just have to trust me that there is no way you could possibly imagine what it is *really* like. It is too full of contradictions – now that there are tourist visas available (which was not the case when I was there), perhaps you should take a little trip. I particularly recomend Taif. Phenomenal place.
Ethan … I have a feeling that the disconnect goes 2 ways and that most Saudies, I doubt many Saudies have even heard of Mormons – hell, in some parts of the US people don’t know what a Mormon is! (that would be until that 3 wives reality show hit the airwaves, sorry, can’t think of what it is called).
Oh, one more thing Steve. In some ways you do have a good imagination. LOL. Nice, soft life I have lived? I wish. Not hardly, my friend, not hardly. I will tell you that I did not grow up in NYC – but way way out in the sticks on a working dairy farm. Ever milked a herd of cows twice a day, day in and day out? I have. I could go on and on, but since this is the internet, I won’t.
Anyway, its a nice day up here. The birdies and singing and mating here in Bklyn NY, the Chestnut tree across the street is blooming, my pansies are going wild and they say it might thunderstorm later on! Yay Spring!
Ethan said:
Here in Bahrain we have a number of churches, cathedrals, Hindu temples, and a Jewish cemetery. Riyadh is not that far away.
Ethan
Speaking of Mormons, have watched the new HBO series BIG LOVE yet?
Sally: “Steve, if what you say is true, how can it be that so many Saudis were so nice to me while I was in Riyadh – the heart of the najd? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to any of them – or their families or their friends.”
When I was in the Philippines, I met this old American expatriate, Jim, who had been a pilot back in the 1930s, a barnstormer. Jim told me he had gone to a big air show in France back then where he had met Goering, a high ranking Nazi and later head of the Luftwaffe. Jim said Goering bought them all whiskey, drank with them, told them jokes, and was a fine host. Jim came away with the impression that old Herman Goering was a pretty good guy. That agrees with all the accounts I’ve read that Goering was a pretty charming guy when he wasn’t committing crimes against humanity.
Sally, how about telling us some stories of your time in Saudi Arabia and what left an impression on you? What were the good things, bad things, surprising things, odd things, the cultural differences?
Steve
Chanad: “Riyadh is not that far away.”
In what sense?
Steve
Will: “LOL Rattlesnakes, sharks and rats are not evil Steve. They are just rattlesnakes, sharks and rats.”
You might have a different view if you were hiking on a Colorado hillside and heard a rattle next to your ankle. Or if you were scuba diving in the Keys and sharks showed up to look you over. Neither are known for making charitable contributions to the well-being of humanity.
Steve
Oh Steve. I can’t believe you are so dense, I just can’t! Are you really saying that all “nice” Saudis are the same as Goering, just because Goering was nice enough to buy a non-Jew a few drinks & told a few jokes?
The Saudis I am speaking of are just regular people. Normal, regular, everyday people with jobs, and wives and husbands and parents and grandparents and children. Sort of like pre-WWII Germans. While I don’t have the time or the inclination to go on and on on Mahmood’s blog about my personal experiences, I can tell you that many of the Saudis I met where NOT happy with their government or their system. That didn’t mean they hated themselves, their culture or their religion. They are just getting by with living their lives as best they can …. sorta like the people who lived in the old Soviet System did.
I also think that Chanad was pointing out that Riyadh is not far away from Bahrain, and that blowing the najd off the map would likely have a rather detrimental impact on her home, her family and her friends. Like real live breathing people. Just like you and me.
Sally
Steve has a military mind set that is accustomed to seeing things in black and white. It is required to reconcile dropping bombs on cities from a great distance.
Steve
I dont understand why the US hasnt brought the hammer down on the KSA. There must be something the boys down in sub basement g know that they are not sharing.
Still smiling. Evil requires intent. When a creature protects its young or kills for food this is not evil.
Will … Do the words Carlyle Group ring a bell? Oldest story in the whole wide world.
Meanwhile, back in the good old US of A, Zacarious Moussoui, a French citizen and the only person “tried” for the crimes of 9-11 was deprived of
matrydomthe death penalty. I feel so much safer knowing that this evil genius has been brught to justice. But I am so dissapointed that the Deomcrats have seen to it that I won’t be getting a $100. gas rebate check this summer (snark intended).And Will has the stereotypical liberal view of military people uninformed by experience nor study. Like all prejudices, it’s based on ignorance.
When you drop bombs from a fighter, it’s not done at a distance. You can see your wingtip vortices stir up the smoke plume. It’s close and scary even if nobody is shooting at you.
Will, if a mother bear maims your mother while she’s out hiking because she passed near her cubs, would you call that a benevolent event? Or evil? If a shark bites your daughter because it thinks she’s a seal and she bleeds to death, was that just one of those things, neither bad nor good?
A giraffe doesn’t kill you if you pass by her brood. A panda doesn’t tear a chunk out of you to see if you’re something good to eat. I think you’ve gone so greeny granola that you can’t accept that things that hurt people are bad. You probably wouldn’t have any trouble saying cigarettes are evil but a lion who bites your liver out is just doing his groovy natural thing, huh?
Steve
Sally: “Oh Steve. I can’t believe you are so dense, I just can’t! Are you really saying that all “nice†Saudis are the same as Goering, just because Goering was nice enough to buy a non-Jew a few drinks & told a few jokes?”
My point was that people can be evil and charming simultaneously. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it is actively indoctrinating cohorts of its young in an extremist religion, urging them to make war on non-Muslims, financing that effort, and supporting it logistically. While it is interesting that you were welcomed in KSA, your welcome does not negate the terror propagated by the KSA.
Sally: “The Saudis I am speaking of are just regular people. Normal, regular, everyday people with jobs, and wives and husbands and parents and grandparents and children. Sort of like pre-WWII Germans.”
This is not a particularly good argument for your case, though I agree with it. I imagine there are many Good Saudis, just like there were Good Germans, who claim They Had No Idea What Was Going On.
Sally: “I also think that Chanad was pointing out that Riyadh is not far away from Bahrain, and that blowing the najd off the map would likely have a rather detrimental impact on her home, her family and her friends. Like real live breathing people. Just like you and me.”
People like you and me don’t mass murder people to spread our religion. Saudis do. They show no inclination to stop voluntarily nor have they renounced the doctrine that justifies their jihad. They have to be stopped.
My concern for real, live, breathing people in America whom Wahhabis seek to kill trumps any concern for Saudis. Nor do I think the extirpation of the Wahhabi clerics would have anything but a beneficial effect on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the Middle East. I likewise believe that everyone but a few effete princes and evil imams will benefit by separating “Saudi” from “Arabia.”
Steve
Actually, Steve, you are advocating mass murder to spread a particular point of view. Religion, politics, economic supremacy … doesn’t matter. The end result is the death of your and my fellow human beings.
But I really don’t think you are a mass murderer. I just think you have become trapped in your own circular logic, along with the need to be ALWAYS right.
In other words, a Saudi person is just as human as I am. And you for that matter.
And here’s another hug. A BIG one. I meant what I said about it being a beautiful day. I hope you give it an opportunity to make you smile.
🙂
Sally,
My grievance ends with the Saudis when they give up murdering for their religion. It’s rather foolish to label as violent the target of violence who fights back, who wants to end the threat against his country. It’s like calling Charles Manson’s victims violent for fighting back.
You are in error to say that I advocate attacking Saudi Arabia to spread a particular point of view or democracy or the American way or whatever. I advocate such an attack to stop future attacks on America by Saudi Arabia, to force them to abandon their war on the world. If the Saudis just pumped their oil, enjoyed their money, and let everyone else live in peace, I would have no grievance with them.
Steve
Sally
I dont put much stock in conspiracy theories. Mostly we cant do things right out in the open. Beyond that I cant believe there are that many dispicable people in positions of power in the US govt.
Steve my comment was referencing your remark about burning Saudi cities.
I dont care how close you are in a fighter when you drop the bombs, its still pretty difficult to make sure you dont kill any children. Granted, the US military is getting better at it. You cant have pilots or ships captains wondering to much about collateral damage. War requires hatred. This is not a point about the bravery or integrity of the pilot. Its about not looking to closely at the details. Similar to not showing dead Americans returning home. Black and white. You are either with us or against us.
I am smoker and if I die of lung cancer it will be my fault. I love a good bbq’d steak and only occasionally eat granola. (usually when I need a good purging). Giraffes and pandas are herbavores Steve, is that important? Things that hurt people may be bad. When you smash your finger with a hammer is the hammer evil? Some people need to be hurt. Dont you have to be aware of good and evil and have a choice in order to be one or the other.
I am an American, a social conservative and a patriot. Having traveled in the Middle
East, I learned that the everyday person just wanted to have a meaningful job, would work hard to provide a better life for their family, and took enjoyment in family interactions and events. The citizens of the countries I visited were just like the families that I associate with here at home. (I was embarrassed that some thought all Americans were like the people they watch on MTV. I don’t even let that program play in my own house!)
Customs and experiences were different, but I found consideration and courtesy the overwhelming response of even strangers. So I believe in the goodness of man. On the other hand, my own experience has taught that there are people who live to elevate themselves above others, to control others, and work to consolidate their “power†and influence through intimidation and terror. The reality is that these kind of people live in all societies…even my own, and are usually political or governmental leaders!
Sadly, in S. Arabia there seems to be a mix of a self-serving monarchy PLUS a distorted theocracy, and no individual freedom. People are being indoctrinated in a unique kind of cultural hate mixed with religious zeal. I hear Steve saying the government is talking out of both sides of their mouth? But how does the government benefit by allowing the Wahabis to continue preaching poison? I need more information.
So Steve, I understand your deep feelings, recognizing something evil, but I hope you can separate the interests of regular citizens from the goals of government leaders and the religious mob that is trying to influence and dictate to the masses.
(I am also wondering if Steve might be an engineer….I think he tends to think more abstractly.)
Will,
Is cancer aware of good or evil? Does it make a choice to be good or evil? From what I see, cancer kills people because that’s what cancer does. So should we reserve judgement on the tumor, refrain from calling it an evil thing because it never consciously made a choice to be evil? To me, that seems like frivolous test of evil.
As for the rest, it seems you slapped a bunch of lefty slogans into an incoherent paragraph.
I can assure you that a great deal of attention is paid to possible civilian casualties by Air Force planners and aircrew. Great care is taken to avoid them. You can see the end result in the limited damage to civilians in the 2003 air campaign in Iraq. Iraqis walked out into the streets of Baghdad to watch the bombing of Saddam’s installations, secure in the knowledge that we would not target them. By contrast, Kuwaitis did not walk out into the streets when the Iraqis invaded them, sure in the knowledge that the Iraqis were likely to shoot anyone. The Iraqis made the Kuwaiti civilians their targets.
Likewise my friends who flew missions in Kosovo weren’t haters. Such sorties are intense technical experiences with the usual emotions being subdued anxiety. You can not fly a fighter jet well if you let your emotions command you. It’s too easy to make a fatal mistake.
As for not showing the coffins of our returning dead, it never occurs to liberals who do not serve in the military and don’t know anyone who does that the families of dead soldiers don’t want a bunch of photographers feasting their cameras on their dead sons. Perhaps you may have noticed at funerals how rare cameras are. Families are offended by such photography. Most reasonable people don’t want their loved ones remains to be used as a prop in somebody’s political horror show. Lefty demands to intrude on other people’s grief to further their political agenda is a measure of their indecency as human beings, who see dead soldiers as nothing more than things they can exploit for their cause.
There are many things in life that are shades of gray. We can disagree about what flavor ice cream is the best, what is the greatest movie, what politics we prefer, what makes a good person. However, there are a few things that are black and white, Boolean by nature. Mass murdering 2986 Americans is one of them. There is no halfway position on that. You really are with us or against us when it comes to murdering Americans in big bleeding heeps. For moral people, it’s an easy decision.
Steve
Melody: “But how does the government benefit by allowing the Wahabis to continue preaching poison? I need more information.”
The original deal made back in the 1600s was that the Saudis would have a monopoly on government while the Wahhabis would have a monopoly on religion. One supported the other. When the Wahhabis wax full, such as their violent takeover of the Great Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the Saudis retrench to endorse Wahhabi standards of dress and conduct. When the Wahhabis wane, the Saudis introduce modern practices such as TV and radio.
The Wahhabis control major portions of the government, such as the universities and other domestic organizations. They provide the moral authority for the Saudis to rule. Generally, the Saudis don’t care if the Wahhabis take their jihad overseas and kill infidels. However, when the Wahhabis kill Saudis in Saudi Arabia, they crack down.
Steve
Steve
I am not sure what happened there with the good/evil thing. I was talking about rats and rattlesnakes. They just follow their nature and try to survive. If a rat is in my house I will kill it. If I get to close to a rattlesnake in the wild I will attempt to avoid it. The Wahhabis, on the other hand strike me as an evil bunch.
As for the rest, it seems you slapped a bunch of lefty slogans into an incoherent paragraph.
Much easier to attack a label than a position.
Yes Steve the US military is far and away more respectable than the Iraqi army under Saddam.
Wasnt Kosovo more of a interdiction than a war? My statement about war requiring hatred is wrong. As a pilot who has dropped bombs on people, did you ever worry much about if they were the right people?
Mass murdering 2986 Americans is one of them. There is no halfway position on that. You really are with us or against us when it comes to murdering Americans in big bleeding heeps. For moral people, it’s an easy decision.
Wow, this is getting to be pretty tedious. Terrorists are bad. Kill them all. Each and every last one of them. Murder is wrong. If you kill an innocent while killing a criminal you have become a murderer.
Will: “Wasnt Kosovo more of a interdiction than a war? My statement about war requiring hatred is wrong. As a pilot who has dropped bombs on people, did you ever worry much about if they were the right people?”
I’ve never been in combat. I was a navigator/weapon system officer, not a pilot.
I can tell you based on my experience in the Air Force, my conversations with older officers and peers who have been in combat, and my reading that the Air Force studies targets intensely and goes to great lengths to avoid harming civilians. Nobody in the US Air Force wants to drop bombs on civilians. The fact that you even ask this question shows that you have inhaled propaganda to the contrary.
Will: “Wow, this is getting to be pretty tedious. Terrorists are bad. Kill them all. Each and every last one of them. Murder is wrong. If you kill an innocent while killing a criminal you have become a murderer.”
Your lefty sloganeering is pretty simple-minded. I don’t think you’ve given much thought to the moral aspect of war and the difficult choices involved. Most of those choices are not simple good or bad choices but more often a choice between bad, worse, or worst options. You are very careless with your use of “murder.”
If we bombed Auschwitz, disabling the death factory but killing all the innocent prisoners being processed, would we be murderers? Or would we morally correct for saving the lives of those future victims of Auschwitz? If we didn’t bomb Auschwitz, would we be murderers for allowing those victims to be killed? Or would we be more moral to bomb the centers of gravity in the Nazi regime to stop the entire war and all the death camps?
It’s not as simple as a slogan on a protest sign.
Steve
Will,
If you kill an innocent while killing a criminal you have become a murderer.
I would have to disagree with you on this particular part. The only caveat I will introduce to that statement is: … unless no other reasonable options were available.
Thus, you are a murderer in that situation, “unless no other reasonable options are available”.
-Ibn
How about bombing all the train tracks and bridges leading to Auschwitz?
By which I mean, there is always more than one or two ways to skin a cat.
And how can you tell Will is a lefty? I am a lefty and I didn’t have a clue.
Sally, Steve is phychic. One of his finer qualities is being able to tell apart which Muslims are responsible for Sep11th, just by knowing if they publically condemned it or not.
Its the wave of the future!
-Ibn
Aya: “As your last post shows, your views are exaggerated and lack viability. You want to believe that Saudi Arabia is an evil entity that should be destroyed. My school didn’t teach me how to hurt Americans nor did my mosque tell me that the US should be attacked and conquered in the name Islam. This is complete nonsense. Saudi Arabia has lots of problems, but your description is unrealistic and completely out of touch. This only confirms that your knowledge of the country is certainly inadequate and only based on personal bias.”
60 Minutes, Sep 6, 2002, “Saudi Schools Teaching Hate?”: “The Saudi government has allowed Muslim clerics to control education for many years and [Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud] al-Faisal admitted he feared that the clerics may have been poisoning students with anti-American ideas.”
“In an interview broadcast Sunday on 60 Minutes, Al-Faisal said that, after learning that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis, he ordered a survey of textbooks to determine whether the hijackers’ hatred for America was based in schooling. Eighty-five percent of what was being taught was not hateful, he said, but he was disturbed by the other 15 percent.”
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/06/60minutes/main521056.shtml)
Translations of Saudi textbooks:
“In a textbook titled “Pictures from the Lives of the Companions,” the students are told that following the battle of Badr (the first victory of Muslims over the disbelievers) a new chapter in the Koran had descended on the Prophet which raised, in the eyes of Allah, the status of the mujahideen (Jihad warrior) and their preference over those who sit still. The chapter challenges the mujahid to Jihad, and discourages those who sit still.”
“A textbook for 8th grade students explains why Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah and turned into apes and pigs.Quoting Surat Al-Maida, Verse 60, the lesson explains that Jews and Christians have sinned by accepting polytheism and therefore incurred Allah’s wrath.To punish them, Allah has turned them into apes and pigs.”
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR01202
Sheikh Majed ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Firian in the SuleimanBin Muqiran mosque, Riyadh: “Muslims must… educate their children to Jihad. This is the greatest benefit of the situation: educating the children to Jihad and to hatred of the Jews, the Christians, and the infidels; educating the children to Jihad and to revival of the embers of Jihad in their souls. This is what is needed now…”
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR01202
“To fight terror, fix Saudi schools”, Christian Science Monitor, October 15, 2002 : “Over the past two decades, the government of Saudi Arabia has tolerated elements within its education system that promote and encourage extremism. The religious curriculum is written, monitored, and taught by followers of the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, a particularly rigid reading of this peaceful religion. Some instructors are using texts and lesson plans that encourage intolerance and anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western views, making some Saudi students prime recruiting targets for militant extremist groups.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1015/p10s02-coop.html
Saudi Islamist cleric Sheikh Dr. Nasser Al-‘Omar on Al-Jazeera, April 19, 2006: “The Islamic nation now faces a great phase of jihad, unlike anything we knew 50 years ago…Whoever is familiar with the Sunna and the Hadith knows that a battle against the enemies of Allah awaits on the horizon, in which the Muslims will be victorious. This is confirmed by the reliable hadiths, as well as by reality. … America is collapsing from within…America will be destroyed. But we must be patient.”
(http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD115406)
Yassin Al-Khatib, professor of Islamic law at Saudi Arabia’s Um Al-Qura University, on Saudi/UAE Al-Majd TV on May 10, 2004: “the fact that [America] entered [Iraq] … makes it every Muslim’s duty to go out against them, not only the Iraqis … jihad today has become an individual duty that applies to each and every Muslim … When the Muslims fought in Afghanistan they destroyed the Soviet Union … It collapsed, and Allah willing so will [America] collapse.”
(http://www.memri.org/bin/media.cgi?ID=117905)
Sheikh Al-‘Awaji, former imam of the Great Mosque at King Saud University in Al-Riyadh: “The Saudis believe that the glory of the [Islamic] nation appeared when our Prophet taught us the industry of death – when he taught us how to create death. Then life became cheap in our eyes… When one of the sons of our nation is killed, he says: ‘I won,’ and the master of the Ka’aba swears that he had won. This we see as the industry of death. We in Saudi society and in other Islamic societies have finally realized that this is the right path to tread in order to deal with today’s deadly strategic weapons. If America has intercontinental missiles and bombs, then our bombs are the Jihad fighters, whom America has called ‘suicide attackers’ and we call ‘martyrs.’ We will develop them because we see them as a strategic weapon…”
(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/718663/posts)
Sheik Dr. Ahmad Abd Al-Latif, Muslim professor on Saudi State TV: “Cursing the oppressing Jews and the oppressing and plundering Christians, and the prayer that Allah will annihilate them, is permitted.”
Aya, are all these examples exaggerated and lack viability? Are the Saudis preaching doom for America in these documented examples lacking adequate knowledge of Saudi Arabia? Or are these Saudis simply biased against Saudi Arabia when they spout this hate?
Curious,
Steve
Sally: “How about bombing all the train tracks and bridges leading to Auschwitz?”
Ineffectual because they are too easy to fix. You’d have to service that target every few days to keep the tracks cut. Structures like train tracks and bridges are difficult to take down too because they are built so strongly. If you miss them by a few feet, they are still functional.
Sally: “And how can you tell Will is a lefty? I am a lefty and I didn’t have a clue.”
Only lefties have a contemptuous tone when they speak of the military. The demand to show caskets coming back from Iraq is a lefty signature. A conservative would never make such a demand.
After the first hundred lefties sneer at you, you can smell ’em from a distance.
Steve
Nobody in the US Air Force wants to drop bombs on civilians. The fact that you even ask this question shows that you have inhaled propaganda to the contrary.
Thats exactly right Steve. Nobody wants to drop bombs on civilians unless your a terrorist. Thats why you have to convince them to ignore the reality of dropping bombs. Dont mistake my comments as a criticism of the US military. I think they are the most compassionate, best directed, straightest shooting army on the planet. I think the action in Afghanastan is more right than wrong. I think the war in Iraq is more right than wrong. I think the world should be more involved in kicking the asses of tyrants and despots. Is there still room for me under that leftist umbrella? I just dont like the idea of burning cities. Whats that story about the last bit of goodness embodied in a dying sparrow. Be careful when demanding your pound of flesh.
Murderer is possibly to strong as it requires intent. Saying that you didnt mean to kill the 9 yr old child doesnt seem to be enough. I understand more than I wish to the difference between bad and worse choices. It can be a mean old universe and change takes time but dont hold up the evolutionary train.
I meant to say earlier that this Wahabi thing seems to me like a wife beater proclaiming ‘hey look I only beat my wife 5 days a week.’ I hear you Mahmood saying at least thats something but how long can the civilized world tolerate this crap?
Steve you once told me in a discussion here that basically we had to ignore the poppy growing in Afghanistan because we couldn’t fight a war there and in Iraq and control the growth of poppy’s at the same time. I would have to say that following your own reasoning in reguards to Muslims that you are a terrorist since you knowingly turned a blind eye to the growth of a WMD that kills thousands each year and that some of the money goes to fund terrorist organizations.
Steve: After the first hundred lefties sneer at you, you can smell ‘em from a distance.
My wife and I are both from military familys. The men on both sides have served in the military since the 1800’s. We are all lefties by your views so what exactly do we smell like Steve.
My wife and I are both from military familys. The men on both sides have served in the military since the 1800’s. We are all lefties by your views so what exactly do we smell like Steve.
Hats off to you BillT, and your wife.
It is quite ironic, that there are voices in Iraq today who look down on members of this and that sect from serving in the national Iraqi Army, and view them with resentment, merely for their political opinions, even though they have their own representatives in the parliament.
The US is trying to remove such feelings and undercurrents of sectarianism, and calling for a more unified attitude from all Iraqi soldiers, asking them to serve the State, and not quibble about what political persuasion this and that soldier has. And I support the US’s efforts in doing so.
Meanwhile, on this side of the planet, Washington DC, capital of the free-world, we have our star Steve-The-Confederate, who has pissed off many in the Armed forces, by virture of them being “lefties”.
The irony is that if it was Steve-The-Iraqi and not Steve-The-Confederate, his stances would be exactly what the US would be fighting against.
Who needs shakespeare?
-Ibn
I have ancestors that have fought in every war in the US gong back to the french and Indian war, including Daniel Morgan (grandfather’s mother’s side). I would say that I come from an old American family.
My brother is a Marine. He decided to vote for Kerry after he got swiftboated. By Steve’s standards, he would also be a lefty.
My grandfather on my mother’s side retired as a major general. The army was the only job he ever had – college through retirement. He was an army intelligence in WWI in Italy and No Africa and when he retired he had served in the Army Corp of Engineers his entire life. A life long republican, but by Steve’s standards, he would be a lefty. It was he that suggested to me when I was a teenager that we should’ve taken out the bridges and tracks. Could’ve bombed trains leaving the camps. Yes, one would have to go back and do it over and over again, but better than killing poor civilians trapped in the death camps. He was also very ashamed of Dresden. He was conflicted about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though he tended to figure that the “benefits” outweighed the damage. He voted for Nixon twice.
On my father’s side. My father enrolled in the army as soon as he graduated from high school in 1944 and served in the occupation in Germany and then the 17th mountain division. His father was an officer in the army as well, retired as a Col after having served in WWI, and re-enlisted (when he had two children and a wife at home and was old enough to be exempt from the draft) to serve in WWII. All this was back in the days when the word officer was synonymous with gentlemen. Since this side of the family was from the south, they were all “southern” democrats, but by Steve’s standards they would all be lefties.
My mother’s father was fond of saying, “things are not always so black and white.” As an intelligence officer, he had to learn to understand nuance.
Oh, and did I mention that both these grandfathers attended their Baptist churches every single Sunday, withought fail (unless on the battlefield I suppose), served as deacons and tithed faithfully?
Both grandfathers would be rolling in their graves if they knew what this military was being used for these days. They would be quietly applauding the generals who are speaking out. (They would also not be happy to hear their granddaughter talking about politics in a public forum, but that is a seperate issue!).
billT: “Steve you once told me in a discussion here that basically we had to ignore the poppy growing in Afghanistan because we couldn’t fight a war there and in Iraq and control the growth of poppy’s at the same time. I would have to say that following your own reasoning in reguards to Muslims that you are a terrorist since you knowingly turned a blind eye to the growth of a WMD that kills thousands each year and that some of the money goes to fund terrorist organizations.”
Nice try, billT. What I said was that we should keep our focus on our main mission rather than allow mission scope creep to diffuse our efforts so much that nothing gets accomplished. Our main mission in Afghanistan is to secure a friendly government there to forestall the reemergence of the Taliban and to help it become a democracy as much as circumstances permit.
We have about a division and a half over there to do that. Now we could abandon the main mission and send those guys all over Afghanistan pulling up poppy fields but new fields would sprout up faster than we could destroy the old fields. The result would be no friendly government and plenty of poppy fields.
The military is lousy at enforcing the law, except in the most coarse and clumsy way. Drug production is a police matter. To eradicate drugs, you need a local police presence who is familiar with the locals and the area. You will need many times more police than soldiers. Those police will need to be part of a local government which in turn reports to a state and national government. All of these levels of government have to by synchronized so that they have a common policy against poppy production.
Your argument to divert the military to poppy eradication is something like saying the best way to fight fires is to send firetrucks to every fire. I’m saying the best way to fight fires is to build up an infrastructure that doesn’t allow fires to happen with building codes, fireproof materials, and sprinklers everywhere.
Steve
Steve. You still ducked the “by your reasoning you would be a supporter of terrorism” or are you admitting there are shades of grey when it comes to terrorism..
billT
I don’t agree with your argument. The US is not planting poppies in Afghanistan. We are not supporting poppy production. We just have bigger fish to fry in Afghanistan at the moment. When we get the government stabilized and extended, they will be in a position to take on poppy growing.
When we were fighting WWII and decided to take Germany out first and save Japan for later, does that mean America was supporting Japanese militarism?
You know, Bill, what I’m saying is a pretty simple and obvious proposition. You’ve got to pull the tree stumps out of the field before you can plow it. First things first, second things second.
Steve
Steve said,
Only lefties have a contemptuous tone when they speak of the military. The demand to show caskets coming back from Iraq is a lefty signature. A conservative would never make such a demand.
I have no contempt for the military. I made no such demand. There is abig difference between a picture of anonymous caskets and intruding on a funeral. There is a big difference between your president prohibiting all pictures of the fallen and a bereaved father punching a journalist in the nose. I cherish my freedom and I wish it for all people. I am aware of the price of freedom. I do not value my freedom above the lives of others unless they are trying to take it from me.
Do you check your copy of ‘How to be a good conservative’ before responding? I suppose you have it memorized.
billT: “I would have to say that following your own reasoning in regards to Muslims that you are a terrorist since you knowingly turned a blind eye to the growth of a WMD that kills thousands each year and that some of the money goes to fund terrorist organizations.”
Yes, we’re giving money to terrorists to use to bomb us just so we can get bombed. To have any chance of wining the war on terror, we may have to give up the war on (some) drugs.
Besides, cigarettes kill more people than all the illegal drugs combined. Most of the harm from illegal drugs comes from being illegal, not the drugs themselves. Aside from the addiction and constipation, medical grade heroin is a pretty benign drug. Some people have lived long and successful lives as heroin addicts.
Will: “I have no contempt for the military. I made no such demand. There is abig difference between a picture of anonymous caskets and intruding on a funeral.
No, there isn’t. If anything, it compounds the intrusion. Those caskets are not anonymous interchangeable widgets to the families of the dead. When they see photos of caskets on a cargo plane, they don’t think it’s somebody else. They think, “That could be my boy.”
Your demand that caskets of soldiers killed in battle be made available to support your political agenda is crass insensitivity to the feelings of their families and a form of contempt for the military.
Will: “There is a big difference between your president prohibiting all pictures of the fallen and a bereaved father punching a journalist in the nose. I cherish my freedom and I wish it for all people. I am aware of the price of freedom. I do not value my freedom above the lives of others unless they are trying to take it from me.”
Don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to a father punching a journalist, but it sounds deserved.
You don’t really appreciate the price of freedom unless you have sacrificed something to maintain it. Absent that, your sentiment is cheap and about an inch deep.
Will: “Do you check your copy of ‘How to be a good conservative’ before responding? I suppose you have it memorized.”
Yes, there’s the sneering I recognize as the signature of the lefty ideologue.
Unlike the Left, there is no party line conservatives must toe. Political correctness is an invention of the Left. We think for ourselves, which is what is so outrageous to the lefty herd, who insist everyone moo the same.
Steve
Will said
Do you check your copy of ‘How to be a good conservative’ before responding? I suppose you have it memorized.
Steve said
Yes, there’s the sneering I recognize as the signature of the lefty ideologue.
Steve also said, on this page alone, directed at me and others,
It’s not as simple as a slogan on a protest sign
Your lefty sloganeering is pretty simple-minded.
The fact that you even ask this question shows that you have inhaled propaganda to the contrary.
You really are with us or against us when it comes to murdering Americans in big bleeding heeps. For moral people, it’s an easy decision.
As for the rest, it seems you slapped a bunch of lefty slogans into an incoherent paragraph.
I think you’ve gone so greeny granola that you can’t accept that things that hurt people are bad.
And Will has the stereotypical liberal view of military people uninformed by experience nor study.
Stop and think about what you are saying and trying to connect to the real world.
and my personal favorite in the same post that he labelled me a sneering lefty,
We think for ourselves, which is what is so outrageous to the lefty herd, who insist everyone moo the same.
So your right Steve that was a bit of a sneer and I admit that it was awfully small of me. Therefore I offer you my most humble and sincere apologies even though they may be considered shallow and cheap. I have tried to keep my comments positive and this was an obvious lapse.
Steve
You don’t really appreciate the price of freedom unless you have sacrificed something to maintain it
I am not sure if this is what you really mean or if you are making an extreme argument in search of the outer parameters of the topic but I disagree. Do I have to be dead or crippled? Come and interfere with my freedom and I will show you how deeply I appreciate it.
Steve
Your demand that caskets of soldiers killed in battle be made available to support your political agenda is crass insensitivity to the feelings of their families and a form of contempt for the military.
I would much rather have my sensitivities offended than my sensiblilities. The point I am trying to make is that the suppression of information at all but a personal level is suspect. I have nothing but respect for the decent people of any military. You know, as long as they dont belong on the group W bench.
I wonder why it is so important for you to paste me with a label and how it furthers anyones understanding of the topic. It seems to me that most labels are simply an aid to prejudice.
CharlesWT
Most of the harm from illegal drugs comes from being illegal,
Without a doubt.
Steve: “You don’t really appreciate the price of freedom unless you have sacrificed something to maintain it.”
Will: I am not sure if this is what you really mean or if you are making an extreme argument in search of the outer parameters of the topic but I disagree. Do I have to be dead or crippled? Come and interfere with my freedom and I will show you how deeply I appreciate it.
Come freeze your ass off with me on a chilly hilltop in Korea during a war game and go hungry a couple days when the weather stops the chopper from picking you up and your MREs run out while you are play Downed Airman to exercise the Search & Rescue guys. Dive down in the clouds at night to drop practice bombs on a range surrounded by mountains and feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you hope you are reading your instruments right and are not heading for the turf. Or just rough it in a Third World country without all the conveniences and luxuries of sweet America. Do a little bit of that and I guarantee that your appreciation of the hard work it takes to maintain a free world will improve more than if you spent the equivalent time parked on the couch with your channel changer and a bag of Doritos.
Steve: “Your demand that caskets of soldiers killed in battle be made available to support your political agenda is crass insensitivity to the feelings of their families and a form of contempt for the military.”
Will: “I would much rather have my sensitivities offended than my sensiblilities. The point I am trying to make is that the suppression of information at all but a personal level is suspect. I have nothing but respect for the decent people of any military. You know, as long as they dont belong on the group W bench.”
It’s not about you, Will. It’s about the families and their grief.
Your idea that there are a bunch of military guys who are overt promoters of Bush demonstrates how little you know or understand about the US military. The US military is not politicized. I never had a political conversation in the military. We never discused the elections. Flying and girls were the only topics of conversation.
Will:I wonder why it is so important for you to paste me with a label and how it furthers anyones understanding of the topic. It seems to me that most labels are simply an aid to prejudice.
A fair question, Will. Back when I was first in uniform during the last days of the Vietnam war, it was pretty common to be insulted by lefties on the street and in public places. After a while, I developed a real visceral contempt for them. As my education progressed, I discovered ample reason to hold them intellectually in contempt. As I gained work and life experience, it became obvious that most of what lefties propose simply doesn’t work, often inflames the very problem it was meant to solve, and wastes labor and money if not lives.
So I am happy to repay my lefty tormentors of old by slapping the “Lefty” label on their replacements. I can understand your discomfort with being so labelled, when “Lefty” stands for so much that is wrongheaded, impractical, even hateful. You see, Will, well informed people should be prejudiced against arguments with the “Lefty” label on it, just like they should be prejudiced against cars with the “Yugo” brand on them or fertilizer companies selling chocolate bars.
Understanding the political orientation of the source of an argument goes far in understanding his assumptions underlying that argument and his credibility. For example, a few days ago a guy heckled Rumsfeld at a press conference claiming that all his friends in the CIA knew he was lying about the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Well, if a CIA analyst claims the reasons for going to war were widely known in the CIA to be false, that carries some credibility. However, this particular guy turned out to be a conspiracy nut who hangs out with Cindy Sheehan, declares Zionists started the Iraq war, and declares the US was complicit in the Sep 11 attacks against itself. Knowing his political orientation undermines his argument.
CharlesWT: “Most of the harm from illegal drugs comes from being illegal, ….”
A world where drivers are firing up a bong as they careen down the freeway, where your coworkers are in the bathroom stalls shooting up legal heroin they bought across the street at the drugstore, where catered lunches include cocaine as dessert, where kids can buy fifty cent hits of meth and crack at the corner convenience store would be a very harmful world indeed.
Steve
Steve,: A world where drivers are firing up a bong as they careen down the freeway, where your coworkers are in the bathroom stalls shooting up legal heroin they bought across the street at the drugstore, where catered lunches include cocaine as dessert, where kids can buy fifty cent hits of meth and crack at the corner convenience store would be a very harmful world indeed.
First of all, I disapprove of recreational drug use. But, like a number of things I disapprove of, I don’t think prohibition is justified. Also, even with tobacco and alcohol being legal, a great many people choose not to use them, use them in moderation, or even stop using them after being users for long periods of time. There’s little reason to believe that there would be a huge increase in drug use just because some additional drugs are decriminalized.
As to your points, driving under the influence of drugs is already illegal. After alcohol prohibition was lifted, the consumption trend has been away from hard liquor to beers, wines and wine coolers. It’s already illegal to sell tobacco and alcohol to minors. That shouldn’t change for any drugs being decriminalized. Besides, many kids claim that it is just as easy or easier to get illegal drugs as legal ones. At lease, they would be getting clean drugs with known dosages.
Decriminalizing illegal drugs would change a lot of things. But it’s hard to see how things would be any worse, over all, than they are now.
• Hundreds of thousands of what might otherwise be productive, tax paying citizens in prisons at taxpayers expense.
• Violent gangs in control of inter cities and the prisons themselves.
• Corruption of police and government officials.
• Terrorists using the illegal drug trade for cover and income.
• An overloaded justice system.
Steve
Come freeze your ass off with me on a chilly hilltop in Korea during a war game and go hungry a couple days when the weather …Do a little bit of that and I guarantee that your appreciation of the hard work it takes to maintain a free world will improve…
So by this measure I wonder how well your president understands the price of freedom.
I have spent a few cold,wet and hungry nights on the side of a mountain with my life in peril. There was no military connection and I wasnt sitting in a tree surrounded by angry loggers. My point is that I can appreciate the nature, if not the scope, of your contribution. I have a close friend who was a soldier in Vietnam. I know well the sacrifices he made on behalf of his country. I know even better what it is still costing him today. I would have to say that my finest appreciation comes when I feel the heartswell of pride and sorrow on my occasional visits to the cemetary. Please consider that while you may always be right you may occassionally be incorrect.
Steve
more than if you spent the equivalent time parked on the couch with your channel changer and a bag of Doritos.
I thought we were past the sneering.
Steve
It’s not about you, Will. It’s about the families and their grief.
Your idea that there are a bunch of military guys who are overt promoters of Bush demonstrates how little you know or understand about the US military.
It is not about me or my supposed political agenda. It is about the freedom that these very people have died for. I have no desire to see the caskets of the slain. It is depressing and repulsive. I would much rather see the news paper that publishes pictures in a crass or disrespectful manner go bankrupt for lack of circulation. It is not my idea that the US military is politicized but their masters sure are and the 3.4% (?) of US GNP sure carries alot of influence.
Steve
Understanding the political orientation of the source of an argument goes far in understanding his assumptions underlying that argument and his credibility.
Basing your understanding of an arguement on the proponants political orientation is not understanding the arguement. It is prejudice. Credibility is another issue.
Steve
Knowing his political orientation undermines his argument.
Your CIA example is weak. The fact that the guy was a liar undermines his arguement.
This is the problem with labels. It makes it more difficult to hear what a person is saying instead of what it sounds like they are saying. You are taking a Yugo label and trying to make it stick on a Porsche. Talking about the CIA, I actually thought of you when I heard retiring director Porter Goss say “Deny everything, admit nothing and make counter accusations.”
I would say that your statement about drugs is essentially fear mongering and I completely agree with CharlesWT.
Im with CharlesWT on the drug issue. 100% right. Ban something, and almost right away a black market arises. Holding individuals responsible for their actions now becomes even harder, by definition of it being black.
Will:
Basing your understanding of an arguement on the proponants political orientation is not understanding the arguement. It is prejudice. Credibility is another issue.
Excellent point Will.
-Ibn
Will: “So by this measure I wonder how well your president understands the price of freedom.”
Will, Bush flew F-102 fighter interceptors. You don’t jump in one of those like a tricycle and take off. It takes a certain amount of dedication and some sacrifice to pass the training and fly one as a line pilot. Also, flying all tactical aircraft is dangerous, especially fighters. Half a dozen of my friends died in tactical aircraft, mostly in training accidents. At least one of the guys in Bush’s squadron died in a flying accident. In a fighter, you carry explosives, launch things from your aircraft, fly in formation with other aircraft, all things that can go horribly wrong. And you are doing it in an airframe that is designed to be unstable.
So, again, I think this kind of cheap criticism is particularly uninformed.
Steve
Yes Steve you are right on that point. It is a bit of a cheap shot based on limited information. Again based on limited information I would bet that your contribution carried the greater possibility of being alot higher than his.
CharlesWT: “There’s little reason to believe that there would be a huge increase in drug use just because some additional drugs are decriminalized.”
You really think that removing the legal barriers to getting stoned will not result in a large increase in use? I think there would be a stampede of young, dumb people swamping the newly legalized drug dealers, demanding their products, now made much cheaper with the risk premium removed.
CharlesWT: “As to your points, driving under the influence of drugs is already illegal.”
And being able to buy drugs legally everywhere would make it more prevalent.
CharlesWT: “After alcohol prohibition was lifted, the consumption trend has been away from hard liquor to beers, wines and wine coolers.”
Which is to say, consumption increased in quantity and variety. Increasing consumption of narcotics by legalizing them would narcotize a much larger proportion of the public. Bad idea.
CharlesWT: “It’s already illegal to sell tobacco and alcohol to minors. That shouldn’t change for any drugs being decriminalized.”
That didn’t stop my friends from buying booze and cigarettes in high school. They knew where the friendly clerks worked or had friends of legal age who would buy their stuff for them. Some shoplifted it. It’s easy to circumvent the legal age limit. Putting crack and meth for sale alongside them would make them just as available to kids.
CharlesWT: “Besides, many kids claim that it is just as easy or easier to get illegal drugs as legal ones. At lease, they would be getting clean drugs with known dosages.”
Oddly enough, I don’t want kids to get clean drugs with known dosages. I would prefer they get a big boot applied to their backsides for using drugs that will ruin their lives.
CharlesWT: “Decriminalizing illegal drugs would change a lot of things. But it’s hard to see how things would be any worse, over all, than they are now.
• Hundreds of thousands of what might otherwise be productive, tax paying citizens in prisons at taxpayers expense.”
You don’t go to prison for being a casual drug user but for being a drug dealer. For the kind of people who become drug dealers, breathing air should be illegal.
CharlesWT: “• Violent gangs in control of inter cities and the prisons themselves.”
Drugs don’t make gangs but rather the absence of families. Gangs are the families for gangbangers that their parents neglected to form.
CharlesWT: “• Corruption of police and government officials.”
Hmmm. This might be a legitimate point. The drug dealers are paying for cooperation from a lot of authorities.
CharlesWT: “• Terrorists using the illegal drug trade for cover and income.”
And if drugs were legal, terrorists would have a legal drug trade for cover and income.
CharlesWT: “• An overloaded justice system.”
I’m not persuaded that legalizing crime is the answer for lightening the load on the justice system.
Steve