freakbass
SENATOR BABYHEAD  Posts: 128 Registered: 2/12/2006 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 05:25 |
but that wouldn't leave a moderate middle because some of the moderates who witnessed the obliteration would then become more extreme.
Another difficult part of this issue is what BREEDS extremism. There does not seem to be a simple answer. It's not purely Extremist_Muslim rhetoric. It's also "I just saw my father and brothers get blown up"..
I just heard on the news that Lebanon may actually be getting some balls and taking hold of their own country. They may disarm Hezbollah themselves. That would be great.
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Stump
SENATOR BABYHEAD  Posts: 310 Registered: 6/18/2002 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 05:53 |
The United States as a whole has done a decent job with freedom of speech and religion in limiting the damage caused by extremist views. Sure there's the odd moment or two of niger hangings and damage to sin-a-gogs and churches, but overall we let people say and do what they feel like. We've got idiots like those Westboro Baptist fools with Fred Phelps but our laws and general derision take care of things like that mostly. People tend to follow a moderate line in the states.
The problem facing the Muslim community is that their most outspoken people are the extremists. It's high time for the moderates to come out of the closet and scream from the tops of their minarets that the extremists don't represent them and they wish to live in peace. The day that starts to happen will be the start of the decline of violence over religion.
And yes, truly it would be amazing to see Lebanon take control of their own country, I'd worry though that without support from somewhere else it may degrade into a civil war again, giving Syria perfect pretext to jump in as a 'peacekeeping force'. This will obviously worry the Isrealis, as they and most of the world already believes Syria and Iran are backing Hezbollah and Hamas, and may spell a greater regional conflict.
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DonQuixote
DARTH MENSES  Posts: 641 Registered: 4/22/2005 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 07:18 |
Stump:
The problem facing the Muslim community is that their most outspoken people are the extremists. It's high time for the moderates to come out of the closet and scream from the tops of their minarets that the extremists don't represent them and they wish to live in peace. The day that starts to happen will be the start of the decline of violence over religion.
The problem with moderates is they are usually the most soft spoken. I am speaking of moderate muslims, for lack of a better word. They do exist. Some even come from Saudi. I went to prep school with a member of the Al Rashid family. He said, "The fundamentalists are assholes, I never want to go back to that country again!" I won't post his true name because that could get him killed. A fatwa is a terrible thing to have to avoid for the rest of your life. So, being a vocal moderate can get you killed. Rather unpleasantly at that.
He was actually more of a liberal than a moderate, but you get the idea. I find that many muslims who receive a western education have a much more moderate view of Islam.
In Saudi they preach "Wahabism", which is an uber extremist/violent interpretation of the Koran. They are the one's you hear telling you to "cover up your woman", which is really odd when you're 16 and obviously a white American. Living there gave me a unique view of the muslim world. Some of it is much like ours, but most of it is like living on another planet.
Anyways, I don't think you could ever really kill all extremists. What are you going to do? Some sort of Neo-Mcarthy esque witch hunt? A door to door, or cave to cave, census? How do you plan on finding them?
What really needs to happen, is for the UN to finally do what they were meant to do, be the world's moderator. Someone needs to get them back up to snuff, if they ever even were. I vote Vas or Clavis. Vas seems to be wise and almost shepherd like. Clavis is more of an intellectual facist, but he'd definitaly get the job done.
That's right! You heard it here first. Linkswarm will solve all the worlds ills via this thread. Text your vote to 89898 for Vas and 98989 for clavis. You will receive complimentary jokes texted to you every day until the end of time.
Sorry, thought a little levity couldn't hurt. My ritalin must be wearing off.
Night Night Swarm
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Lefen
I think Clavis wins my heart <3   SSHOLEPosts: 897 Registered: 9/16/2003 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 10:41 |
Stump:
Kind of a biased source there in that op-ed. Israel was first instituted and formed by the UN, the very organization that is now condeming them. The occupation of land that Israel has consistently tried to return has always been as a result of winning in wars of aggression started by it's Arab neighbors. There has never been a self-goverened state of Palestine in historical terms so the claims of oppression of 'Palestinain' peoples are patently false to begin with.
The State of Palestine and the Palestinian people definitly exist as an entity officially recognised by Israel. They certainly recognise the Palesistians enough to leave the Gaza Strip in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (edit: although not under it's control).
Can you clarify what you mean when you say that Israel have constantly tried to return land? To whom? If you're talking about the Gaza Strip here then I'd very much disagree that Israel have given any of it "back". What they actually did when they withdrew from Gaza was to create a very large open-air prison by maintaining control of the borders (land and sea) and airspace. In addition, the Isreali govenment heavily censor news coverage from within Gaza by closely controlling international press access.
I'm not going to say that the Palestinians and Hezbollah haven't provoked Israel into the current conflict, b/c arguably, they have. The problem I have with all this is that Israels response has been grossly disproportionate. Israel have declared Hezbollah as terrorists and are using that definition as carte blanche to arbitrarily name various parts of Lebanon as "terrorist strongholds" as an excuse to bomb the shit out of them without fear of reprisal from the international community.
I heard on the radio this morning that an Isreali cabinet minster was quoted as saying that they were going to "take Beirut back 20 years". This is hardly the measured response that the UN are encouraging, neither is it the actions of a country that is simply defending itself as the US govt are saying.
Stump:
As for Israel labeling the PLO and Hamas as terrorist organizations look at the first charter for the PLO. One of their stated goals is the destruction of the state of Isreal.
Accepted. Although Hamas is the only other democratically-elected government in the region besides the one in Israel  And lets not forget that Hezbollah was created as a direct result of Israel's occupation of Lebanon.
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Stump
SENATOR BABYHEAD Posts: 310 Registered: 6/18/2002 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 15:00 |
Lefen:
The State of Palestine and the Palestinian people definitly exist as an entity officially recognised by Israel. They certainly recognise the Palesistians enough to leave the Gaza Strip in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (edit: although not under it's control).
Recognition of a state of Palestine and the Palestinian people by Israel has only come in recent times. I believe it was as a result of the Camp David Peace Accords, although it may have been even more recent. My point is that they were thrown a fairly large bone by the Israelis in the matter since they had never historically existed.
Imagine if you and your brothers were fighting over the TV your parents had given you and in the middle of it I showed up and said "WTF! This is my room, and my TV, get the hell out Lefen. The hot chicks can stay though." I have no actual claim to your TV or living room, but I get into the fight by constantly pinching you and your parents never say anything, even occasionally asking me if I want some refreshments. For some reason you hold off just bitch slapping me and eventually agree to let me sit in the chair in the corner. There it is, Palestine and Israel.
Lefen:
Can you clarify what you mean when you say that Israel have constantly tried to return land?
That more refers to the West Bank than Gaza. Following either the '67/'68 or '73 wars (don't recall which exactly) there were talks to return land seized by Israel to the respective countries they were seized from. Egypt accepted the return of the majority of the Sinai, minus Gaza. Syria and Lebanon refused to accept the return of the West Bank lands. They sought near impossible concessions from Israel as a condition of the return.They were actually somewhat happy to be rid of them as the people that lived there were dirt poor and minorities in their countries even then.
Lefen:
Accepted. (  ) Although Hamas is the only other democratically-elected government in the region besides the one in Israel And lets not forget that Hezbollah was created as a direct result of Israel's occupation of Lebanon.
What was Israels reason for occupying Lebenaon though, and what happened to the country when Israel withdrew? The thing to remember about Lebanon is that it is not strictly a 'Muslim' country. There are large minorities of Christians also living there. It would be interesting to see a truly representative form of government in Lebanon, maybe there would be a chance for peace in the region.
It'll be interesting after this is all over to see what both these governments do, I can see Israel offering aid to Lebanon to help rebuild the damage done so long as Hezbollah is contained with the help of the Lebanese govenment. What response Lebanon takes to such an offer could set a groundwork for the future.
On an interesting note is this http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060717/pl_nm/group_mideast_bush_dc from the G8.
You may hate Bush, but you've gotta love candor like this:
"See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."
89899898
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dinozoa
SENATOR BABYHEAD  Posts: 319 Registered: 7/18/2004 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 16:40 |
We have a new low here, Stump. Consider your nonsensical children and a TV set analogy. Consider your Bushism, which you consider candor. Consider how the large portion of your arguments in the recent post are dependent on non-existent, and unexpectable good will from Israel to the Arabs.
Israel's policy towards its neighbors has been nothing but antagonistic since its conception. While this antagony may be justified to some extent, it is often in direct contradiction to UN policy, and whenever Israel does cooperate with the UN or peacemakers, it is because the threat of aid being cut off hangs heavy over its head.
One thing I really don't get is how Jews in the US can empathize with Israelis. The Israeli state is a puppet operation of US imperialists, and Israelis, instead of resisting, walk hand and hand with their masters. If you look at all the wars and conflicts in the middle east since the end of WWII, how many of them can you say were good for Israel, and how many were good for the US at Israel's expense?
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Lefen
I think Clavis wins my heart <3 SSHOLEPosts: 897 Registered: 9/16/2003 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 16:41 |
Stump:
The thing to remember about Lebanon is that it is not strictly a 'Muslim' country. There are large minorities of Christians also living there. It would be interesting to see a truly representative form of government in Lebanon, maybe there would be a chance for peace in the region.
Why is the deomcratically elected Lebanese government not representitive? It's true that the Hezbollah militia acts independantly from the Lebonese army, but "the people" saw fit to elect Hezbollah MP's in 2005 knowing what they stood for.
Stump:
Imagine if you and your brothers were fighting over the TV your parents had given you and in the middle of it I showed up..
In this situation your argument would be that it wasn't their TV to give
If Israel were really after a peace, then they'd be negotiating a two-state solution with The State of Palestine but they won't. Instead, they are content to annex and brutally repress the Palestinain people.
Stump:
I can see Israel offering aid to Lebanon to help rebuild the damage done so long as Hezbollah is contained with the help of the Lebanese govenment.
Possibly, but I think that the Lebanese government is unwilling/unable to control the Hezbollah militia (we can discuss the ratio of these two options ).
The thought also occurs that Israel is actually weakening the Lebanese government through its current actions.
On 2006-07-17 at 11:43:37, Lefen praised Jejus
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vladtweano
DARTH MENSES  Posts: 517 Registered: 3/11/2002 Offline
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7/17/2006 at 16:53 |
Video of our statesman-in-chief talking shit with his mouth full. He's Mouthy McBoor, he doesn't really know what "ironic" means, and he doesn't care to find out.
And nobody likes him.
"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same," Bush said.
To that, Putin replied, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly."
And then they all laughed.
On 2006-07-17 at 14:01:21, vladtweano praised Jejus
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Stump
SENATOR BABYHEAD Posts: 310 Registered: 6/18/2002 Offline
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7/18/2006 at 02:53 |
Dinozoa, please explain to me how my analogy, while simplified is nonsensical? Parents (UN) gives Lefen (Jews) a TV (Israel). Lefen fights with his brothers (neighboring Arab countries) over control of said TV for months. I (Palestinians) walk in the room from nowhere and start to demand the TV from Lefen and occasionally I pinch or kick him (suicide bombs and rockets)- no lasting damage, just annoying as fuck. Lefen asks his parents to do something and they just offer me tea and cookies (concessions) and he eventually says fine sit in the corner and watch what I'm watching, but I still pinch and kick him occasionally. Through it all he never just kicks the shit out of me like he could or should.
dinozoa:
Consider how the large portion of your arguments in the recent post are dependent on non-existent, and unexpectable good will from Israel to the Arabs.
If you're reffering to the end of my post it's called conjecture, ususally identifiable by a phrase such as this:It'll be interesting after this is all over to see what both these governments do, I can see , the bold part would make this a personal opinion also. Why would it be so 'unexpectable' to see good will from Israel to Arabs? How would you explain the thousands of Arabs that live freely in Israel? Just there as breeders so the Jews have babies other than their own to eat I'm sure.
Reason #1 why I like that Bush quote? It's not full of bullshit and honey - find the source of the problem and go straight to it.
Dinozoa:
Israel's policy towards its neighbors has been nothing but antagonistic since its conception. While this antagony may be justified to some extent, it is often in direct contradiction to UN policy, .... If you look at all the wars and conflicts in the middle east since the end of WWII, how many of them can you say were good for Israel, and how many were good for the US at Israel's expense?
Wow, either we're talking about two completely different realities or you're not quite as open-minded as others here (I'll hold off on outright calling you an anti-semite). Name me one conflict Israel has been involved in that was flat out started by them, pre-emptive strikes don't count when it was clear they were about to be attacked (again) and the raid on the Iraqi nuke reactor doesn't count either as that was backdoor supported by most of the UN.
On 2006-07-17 at 22:35:46, Stump praised Jejus
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Stump
SENATOR BABYHEAD Posts: 310 Registered: 6/18/2002 Offline
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7/18/2006 at 03:27 |
Lefen:
Why is the deomcratically elected Lebanese government not representitive? It's true that the Hezbollah militia acts independantly from the Lebonese army, but "the people" saw fit to elect Hezbollah MP's in 2005 knowing what they stood for.
True, they elected the political arm of Hezbollah - run on a different platform than one of militancy if I remember correctly. They may have known what they were truely getting, but who really knows which Hezbollah they voted for ? There's a way I could have phrased my response better, I just can't get it to come together.
Lefen:
In this situation your argument would be that it wasn't their TV to give
See my response above to Dinozoa, it was the UNs to give at the time as much as it would have been in their right to give part of Germany. Only slightly better decision in giving what they did.
Lefen:
If Israel were really after a peace, then they'd be negotiating a two-state solution with The State of Palestine but they won't. Instead, they are content to annex and brutally repress the Palestinain people.
I don't see this solution coming into play any time soon, the hardliners in the PLO will never allow it to happen until Israel is destroyed and they won't settle for the land they already occupy. Israel will not offer them concessions so long as the hardliners in the PLO are in power and actively promoting terror as a valid means of resistance.
Lefen: (re Israeli aid to Lebanon)
Possibly, but I think that the Lebanese government is unwilling/unable to control the Hezbollah militia (we can discuss the ratio of these two options ).
The thought also occurs that Israel is actually weakening the Lebanese government through its current actions.
I'm not sure what the ratio is, I'd say they were afraid to attempt it, theres no telling how many current regular army soldiers would resist a call like that. It brings in the potential for another civil war when they were just recovering from the last one. There also comes the question of who's training and supplying Hezbollah - it's obviously either or both Syria and Iran. Which ever it is, if the Lebanese government were to attempt it would either of them seek to take an active role on Hezbollah's side?
In the short term they may be weakening the government by putting them in the position that it will eventually have to either join in the fight on one side or the other.
If they do the stand up thing and go in against Hezbollah I think it may strengthen them a little on the world stage ("Look, we stood up and took responsibility.") I don't know about internally but I do know from someone on another board that has the misfortune of being in Lebanon on her summer vacation the Christian Lebanese are blaming Hezbollah for this, not the general government.
The choice in this is really up to the Lebanese government on how they come out of this - denounce Hezbollah and/or assist Israel in some way- draw the ire of Arab neighbors and grace from most western nations or sit and do nothing until Israel moves fully into the West Bank ? What are the downsides here? Draw other nations into the conflict? I'm lost right now as to the scale of consequences that can have. Where is our resident Jew to weigh in on all of this?
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acheron
Cynical_Malcontent  SSHOLEPosts: 559 Registered: 4/29/2004 Offline
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7/18/2006 at 05:25 |
Clavis, in reference to your post, I suppose what I would say is that I don't believe that religion truly causes war and conflict. While it is certainly an aggravating factor I think the most potent reasons for conflict are pure strategic and economic. This goes for all wars, Iraq back to Vietnam to WWII to the Roman Empire's imperialism. Africa, the Middle East, Gaza- their political problems are all colonial in flavor. The problems in any of the nations you mentioned can't be whittled down to the clash of religions-there's a lot more going on than that, there always is.
Their history of savage violence predates our fuking around where we don't belong.
Well we've only been fucking around in shit for a couple hundred years. So any kind of savage violence outdates our particular brand of international fuckery. But the US is, obviously, of European origin and Islam-related violence certainly doesn't predate European violence, by a long, long shot. But whether or not their savagery predates our own is besides the point. American foreign policy and its architects are guilty, as Israel is, of the spilling of innocent blood. So too, of course, are many of those firing rockets. But nobody is walking into this with clean hands and if we can't admit that we shouldn't be talking about it. We have a moral responsibility to see to it that the violence ends. And a good first step is to stop attacking people or allowing our allies to attack others.
I'd say a case could be made that they tend to GRAVITATE to many of them.
Can you make that case? Please do so. I certainly don't think I could refute you without some reading and reflection, but I certainly gravitate towards other reasons for the conflicts we're discussing. Islam certainly did spread rapidly across the world, perhaps in a way that was unprecedented. But, just demographically, the middle-eastern/north-african/etc. these parts of the world are historically arab. Among arabs, Islam is the dominant religion. So these people live in a troubled part of the world and have certain pallor that makes us assume their muslim, but not all of them are. So, to me, your assumptions are racist. And despite the theocracies and militant religious groups I think colonial patterns are pretty evident throughout the third world. In fact, Iraq is looking pretty damn Latin American right now, in its death squads and feuding warlords. But I guess a lot of the "developing world" is like that. Anyway, I disagree with any notion that Islam is the real reason for whats going on. These are clashes over resources and strategic positioning, justified by religion and ideology. The similarity in propaganda to the cold war is kind of shocking. Its all old, dirty wine.
Once you read up on the current one, go back to about 600AD until present day. It's a fascinating tale.
Just imagine my snide response because I can't think of one.
Which is exactly the same situation the Jews/Hebrews/Cana'anites were in before England, France, and eventually the U.S. started mucking around in their affairs. I'd have the same laissez faire attitude if our Native Americans started bucking to get back what was once theirs.
About Palestine, I think its a weird kind of conversation to get into about who gets to create a "state". Whoever has the power has the legitimacy to form a "state". The reason I support a Palestinian state is I believe that any group of people have a right to self-determination. They want a state. Many Israelis want a Palestinian state as well (though you won't read about it). And most of the world, in UN resolutions passed in near unanimity (guess who vetoes those kinds of resolutions) have demanded that Israel recognize a Palestinian state for the overall reason that it seems to be the best hope for peace in the region. For most it remains so. And forget the worn-out "the UN is bullshit" *argument*. world opinion is in favor of a two-state solution. Do we believe in democracy?
But I'm starting to believe that a Palestinian state will never happen. The other solution, one that is nearly as far away is the integration of Palestine into Israel. That means: no more fences, no more mechanized destruction of what would become public property, no more torture and abduction of Palestinian civilians, no more imprisonment without charges, and the creation of a Palestinian party in Israelis legislative politics. And it of course also means no more suicide bombings and killings of innocents by militants. Now how likely does any of that sound? A ceasefire, at least, can happen if Israel just reigns in its military. The perception of Israel backing down and giving the Palestinians a little room to breath would go along way towards easing the tension.
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vladtweano
DARTH MENSES Posts: 517 Registered: 3/11/2002 Offline
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7/18/2006 at 17:39 |
Yo relax, little sausage! Dontchoo worry none bout the pokalips. Heheh.
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jwalker
Token Discordian  SSHOLEPosts: 949 Registered: 8/6/2005 Offline
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7/19/2006 at 08:04 |
Merkel: Keep on walkin, dickface.
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freakbass
SENATOR BABYHEAD Posts: 128 Registered: 2/12/2006 Offline
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7/19/2006 at 19:38 |
they need to adjust GW's medication or something..
He's gotta be on more than just Halcion.
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vladtweano
DARTH MENSES Posts: 517 Registered: 3/11/2002 Offline
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7/21/2006 at 13:12 |
"Just a few miles from the Rest House hotel, where the United Nations was evacuating civilians on Thursday, wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village of Hosh"
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acheron
Cynical_Malcontent SSHOLEPosts: 559 Registered: 4/29/2004 Offline
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7/23/2006 at 20:44 |
Edward Said, linking the political positions of mainstream western society to those of prominent American literary critic Edmund Wilson and Zionist thought, reflects:
"Everything explicit in Wilson's writing is the implicit verity (so it seems) that anyone, especially an enlightened humanistic liberal, can write, have an expert opinion on, discourse about the situation in the Middle East.
What Wilson sees- and for that matter what the Westerner generally sees-is the Middle East is seen from the Zionist perspective. Israel is the norm, Israelis are the presence, their ideas and institutions are authentically native ones; Arabs are a nuisance, Palestinians a quasi-mythical reality (mainly, the argument goes, a propaganda reality) and so on.
Israeli origins are forgotten: Israel is a Western democracy now quite gratuitously set upon by anti-Semitic Arabs. The reversal in actuality is complete...one forgets [from this perspective] the relationship between Israelis and Arabs is not a fact of nature but the result of a specific, continuing process of dispossession, displacement and colonial de facto apartheid. Moreover one tends to forge that Zionists were arrivals in Palestine from Europe.”
from the Question of Palestine
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