Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Good.

I hope they also point out the absurdity of the claim that suicide bombers go to heaven. I like this from “The Onion” that came out right after 9/11.

“JAHANNEM, OUTER DARKNESS. The hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon expressed confusion and surprise Monday to find themselves in the lowest plane of Na’ar, Islam’s Hell.

“I was promised I would spend eternity in Paradise, being fed honeyed cakes by 67 virgins in a tree-lined garden, if only I would fly the airplane into one of the Twin Towers,” said Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11, between attempts to vomit up the wasps, hornets, and live coals infesting his stomach. “But instead, I am fed the boiling feces of traitors by malicious, laughing Ifrit. Is this to be my reward for destroying the enemies of my faith?”

According to Hell sources, the 19 eternally damned terrorists have struggled to understand why they have been subjected to soul-withering, infernal torture ever since their Sept. 11 arrival…”

Another Dominoe!

If you read the Fatwa carefully, it does not order Muslims to fight or arrest Bin Ladin or his Followers. It will be a rare day for one Iman to do this due to the History of such things.

How is Iraq, btw?

Thanks, Jack. You made my afternoon with that.

Dawn,

That Telegraph article contains a major falsehood:

“The fatwa is believed to represent the first major condemnation of bin Laden by a mainstream Muslim organisation.”

I don’t know who the journalist thinks all these people and organisations are…

Aldous,
I did say it seems to be politically motivated.
Were they supposed to order Muslims to murder in order for it to be a ‘true Fatwa’?

Iraq? Was it mentioned in the ‘Fatwa’?

I could be talking about the man on the moon and you would change the conversation to Iraq.

If Muslims are assimilated enough into their cultures, and share the attitudes of their fellow citizens, they may no more feel the need to make an explicit denouncement of People like Osama Bin Laden than your average Joe would. It is only our uninformed reading of Islam that necessitates that the average Muslim pass a test of open rejection of Osama Bin Laden that puts pressure on these people to make their disapproval explicit. I mean, would one say this was necessary of an Irish Catholic in regards to the IRA, or of the Average fundamentalist concerning the Branch Davidians? It is comforting to hear them denounce Osama Bin Laden, but I won’t lose any sleep over them just thinking badly of him, and otherwise just preaching the peace and love of God.

Stephen

I do think we often hold Muslims to a lower standard because we are too afraid to offend.

Look at the other side of this blog re “addicted to hate”

It is about one stupid Christian and his followers. As far as I know, they haven’t killed anyone, just said outrageous things. Nobody has supported him in this blog.

Most people on the blue side feel that other Christians should actively denounce this guy. Most Christians do (and are in the blog). However, the blue men are questioning their denunciations as less than sincere and arguing with them on points of faith. Some of them oppose gay marriage, and they are being chastised for it. Osama and his fundamentalists oppose gay survival.

If we asked the same of the world’s Muslim population, we would expect every mainstream congregation not only to denounce Osama, but also to do it very loudly, explicitly and repeatedly.

When we read that some Muslim populations like Osama better than George Bush, we jump on the bandwagon to criticize Bush. We should first put that aside and know that support for Osama bin Laden is completely retrograde and we need to question the morality of anyone who supports him.

I would say that about a Christian who supports those who bomb abortion clinics and I would say that about a Muslim who supports those who bomb buildings and markets. There is no excuse for and no moral person should tolerate either.

Jack-
Thing is, though, with Muslims, there’s been this kind of “prove you’re not an enemy” sentiment put out. I hate that. Many of these people probably feel ashamed and mortified enough about the behavior of their Muslim brother. They shouldn’t be made to repeat their denouncements of such violence like trained seals to please our paranoia about them. That just assumes the worst of them from the start. al-Qaeda sympathizer until proved otherwise.

I say, assume the best of the individual until they damn themself. Requiring Muslims to denounce OBL on cue to prove themselves just strikes me as an undignified way to treat these people. We can be more civil and more forgiving than that, and we should be.

Stephen

I don’t disagree with you about civility and generosity, but I think the “prove you are not the enemy” thing is overdrawn.

Our leaders have been hypersensitive to this and so has Hollywood. (Even though 100% of the 9/11 hijackers were Arab Muslim)

There are plenty of nasty people in any society, but there have not been widespread attacks against Muslims in the U.S. since 9/11. I look up reports on the Internet. There are some real hate crimes. Some are probably just crimes motivated by the usual criminal behavior. Some are hoaxes or misunderstanding. There is an interesting story at http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030528.shtml

I ride my bike to work in the summer. At least once a week someone shares his opinion with me that bikes don’t belong on the road or they lay on their horns as they pass me. Teenagers call me a “gutterbunny”. If I were Muslim, I suppose I would call it a hate crime. There are plenty of jerks in the world.

I checked out the Muslim Civil Right Center hate crimes webpage. There are some legitimate complaints, but most are subject to interpretations as my example above. Sometime people are arrested for legitimate reasons but it is still listed on the site. Every argument between motorists seems to carry this connotation. You can find it if you look for it. How about this horrible incident:

Christie Sanford: Agents investigate about Mideastern men
03/31/04, Ref. 1718

IL - Christie Sanford was visited by the law enforcement agents and questioned about someone named Ali and if other Mideastern men lived in the area.

What is the problem with that? If we applied these kinds of standards to ourselves, most of the things written about Christians, Republicans and Democrats would be classified as hate crimes.

It is not too much to ask everyone to denounce terrorist bombing. You can’t make the excuse that someone called you a name.

Stephen,
“They shouldn’t be made to repeat their denouncements of such violence like trained seals to please our paranoia about them.”

The denouncements are more for the benefit of the Muslims, not to please me and soothe my paranoia.
It seems leaders of countries are expected to do this denouncing - why not religious leaders?
I imagine I would want my leaders to denounce any bad behavior or the people involved to make me feel better about the group I belong to.
It may also help those who are leaning towards the terrorists’ idea of islam to not make that leap.
It may even help give some people the strength to turn in UBL and his followers.

I don’t know, I just see this “denounce the bad guys and prove you’re one of us” things all the time on certain site. Nobody expected Catholics around the world to come around and denounce the IRA everytime they bombed something in England, or shot up a protestant British soldier.

Why should Muslims have to prove their humanity on these counts every time? Don’t we trust them? Out of the billion or so Muslims on this planet, how many are really giving us any crap to deserve to be challenged like this? This is a matter of personal responsibility. Let those who have actually committed a crime be tarred with that brush.