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2004-06-06 Home Front: Culture Wars

Ex Muslim salutes Reagan warns against another evil empire

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Posted by mhw 2004-06-06 12:23:23 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Okay, I'll bite. This guy isn't an islamic convert. It's Lucky!

Fatwa on you Lucky. Your dead meat!

Posted by Lucky 2004-06-06 1:05:14 AM|| 2004-06-06 1:05:14 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Lucky, he is a convert FROM islam, what is also called an apostate.

Thus spake Zarathushtra.

Posted by Zarathustra 2004-06-06 1:57:47 AM|| 2004-06-06 1:57:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Well okay El Zar. But what he says, the sanity, makes me think my mind was melded.

Calling a spade a spade and all.

Zarathustra; smooth, I like it bro. Kick ass and take names.

Posted by Lucky 2004-06-06 2:08:58 AM|| 2004-06-06 2:08:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 "Calling a spade a spade and all."

You mean, it is so unheard of, nowadays, that your head spins? :-)

Maybe because I am from a different place where spades were called officially rakes, yet people called them spades and the deconstructionsts were called 'posrani komousi' (f**king commies), I would expect that calling things their right name would not be a big deal in the land of free. Boy! Atta surprise! The commies I was running from were firmly planted and thriving in dark crevices of minds right smack here in NA.

As if that were not enough, now another surprise--jihadi mohammedans found their natural allies and tools on the far left. What is it with people that they flock to any totalitarian zapper? Are they so empty moraly and mentally that what is a piece of scat they blindly think it is light shining brightly towards which they hurdle themselves? ZZZZZZZZ..ZAP!

As if the ability to perceive reality and coherently and logically make sense of it is replaced by lazy talking points that reflect the hall of mirrors.

Perhaps if people had a direct experience, their sheltered view of world would shatter and they would be forced to stare in the face of naked truth.

Fatwa on Ali Sina has been pronounced a long time ago. Perhaps because of that, he can speak his mind ... What, would they issue another, super-uber-fatwa, that would make him more dead, if it comes to pass? He has nothing to lose.

Thus spake Zarathustra

Posted by Zarathustra 2004-06-06 5:40:15 AM|| 2004-06-06 5:40:15 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 give me a f-ing break. Islam is not an evil cult. It is a religion. It's not as positive of a force in the world as is Christianity, but Islam has given strength to billions of nice little old men and women for thousands of years.

Is it backwards? yes! But remember that it wasn't that long ago that Christians considered women property of their husbands, didn't allow them to vote and they had to cover their ankles as evil men killed in Christ's name.

Our president won't say it's an "evil cult" because he's not stupid. AQ is to Islam what the Christian Identity movement is to Christianity - a perversion of Islam. It is not Islam.

Posted by B 2004-06-06 7:42:33 AM|| 2004-06-06 7:42:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 oh...and don't bother to say that the Koran says to kill non-believers. I already know that. It changes nothing of what I said above.

Posted by B 2004-06-06 7:47:48 AM|| 2004-06-06 7:47:48 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 B, while people here often simplify, not least because in an RB comment there isn't the space or time to include all the qualifiers. None-the-less its useful to speak in generalities and to say Islam is a cult is generally true if you define a cult as being exclusionary and violently hostile to the excluded.

And by the way there is an implied premise in your statements that 'religions' are (largely) benign which I would vigorously dispute. It is a phenomena largely restricted to christianity in modern times, although I don't find budhism or hinduism threatening and would include them in the mostly benign category.

Posted by Phil B 2004-06-06 7:58:45 AM|| 2004-06-06 7:58:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 well...the next time someone really special to you crosses over that line into the nether world...let's talk and see how you feel.

Religion is how we explain what it is we don't understand about the spiritual world. It exists - we just don't understand it. All the religions do their best to give us a clue - none succeed. Islam may not be as good as Christianity in terms of faith, hope and charity, but they give it a shot.

I agree with your comment about the equalifiers. Let's just not throw the baby out with the bathwater by slandering billions of good people in the name of an evil few.

Posted by B 2004-06-06 8:25:59 AM|| 2004-06-06 8:25:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 oops.."qualifers"

Posted by B 2004-06-06 8:26:53 AM|| 2004-06-06 8:26:53 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 B
One of the points that Ali Sina and other apostates from Islam make is that Islam has made millions of people victims and most of the victims are Moslems. The victims of honor killings, and people beaten for not attending prayers and the women mutilated, and

Posted by mhw 2004-06-06 8:59:08 AM|| 2004-06-06 8:59:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 Let's ... slandering billions of good people in the name of an evil few. So your argument is based on numbers. So what percentage of muslims holding sufficiently hostile views to those of us who let's say make the modern world work, is required to classify Islam as a cult to be eradicated?

And BTW I have considerable first hand experience of muslims. Individually they are mostly very nice people. Collectively they are a complete disaster.

Posted by Phil B 2004-06-06 9:32:32 AM|| 2004-06-06 9:32:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 mhw - ok.... no disagreement. I say in the competition of religions...Islam was given the short end of the stick. But let's face it, to a certain degree, we get what we are born with. I wouldn't want to be born an eskimo, dirt poor or in a cardboard hut in Mexico - but none of those things would have made me "evil", just less fortunate than having been born in the USA. A mud hut is better than no shelter at all and Islam provides some shelter from life's storms.

Islam, (not militant Islam as practiced by AQ)is not an "evil cult" in the same way that the soviet empire was an "evil empire". Nobody EVER gained strength over a dead loved one by consulting the words of Lenin and Marx. Yet billions..yes billions...find strength from the hardships of this world from the clerics in their mosques. Personally - I think they'd be better off to follow the teachings of Christ, but that doesn't mean that Islam "evil".

No, I'm not basing it on numbers, and don't make me defend Islam, I have no desire to do so. I agree that it fails its followers in many ways.

If you want to call the current strain of Saudi funded Wahhabi Islam an "evil cult" or a "death cult" be my guest. But it is perversion of Islam in the same way that Christian Identity is a perversion of Christianity.

Posted by B 2004-06-06 10:39:40 AM|| 2004-06-06 10:39:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 Phil - I misread your comment the first time you said that... 'religions' are (largely) benign which I would vigorously dispute. It is a phenomena largely restricted to christianity in modern times, although I don't find budhism or hinduism threatening and would include them in the mostly benign category.

I agree. But I still thinnk it goes too far to describe Islam as practiced by most Moslems, an "evil cult".

Posted by B 2004-06-06 11:16:41 AM|| 2004-06-06 11:16:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 How about:
Islam - The Collectively-Pretty-Near-Almost-Mebbe-Not-Quite-Evil Quasi-You-Can-Never-Leave-It-Cuz-We'll-Death-Fatwa-Yer-Ass-Semi-Cult which has had some really really bad days... repeatedly for 1400 years, give or take.

Posted by .com 2004-06-06 12:25:55 PM|| 2004-06-06 12:25:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 I say in the competition of religions...Islam was given the short end of the stick.

Islam started with the same stick that everyone else started with but it managed to whittle it down until there was nothing left. The abject failure of societies where Islam is practiced (said failure normally directly proportional to the fervor with which it is practiced) is because of the maze of rules within which Muslims must live to stay within the bounds of their religion not in spite of them.

Almost every major conflict in the world today involves Muslims killing their neighbors. To me that's a fairly clear indication of a problem. To dismiss it out of hand or to claim it is extremely limited in scope is naive in the extreme as is the idea that Islam itself isn't the problem because each and every Muslim (or many of them or even most of them) won't pick up a gun and actively participate in the ongoing slaughter carried out by their brethren in the name of their religion. Sympathizers and those who tacitly approve are also living in the enemy camp and if polls are correct they may comprise the majority of the populations of many Muslim nations.

Similarly it's unhelpful to claim that because Christianity in antiquity was saddled with SOME of the same beliefs of today's Islam that the two are somehow morally equivalent. Ther's the obvious difference in centuries of moderation of Christian thought versus Islam's being frozen in time since the 7th century. But there's also the fact that ancient Christians didn't fly airplanes into buildings and kill thousands of innocent persons in the span of a few minutes or seek to possess nuclear weapons to use in their religious conflicts. If we still lived in an era where war implied men on horses with swords, such moral equivalences might be relevant but in an age where tens or hundreds of thousands of people can be killed in seconds my modern weaponry, such excuses ring hollow.

For Islam to remove itself from the list of "evil ideologies that must be destroyed" it's going to have to undergo serious reform. The highly destructive nature of the weapons Muslim terrorists will undoubtedly acquire in the next few years sets the time frame for that reformation. Muslims don't have centuries or even decades to debate and discuss change, they have, at best, a few years. The first time an Islamist terrorist attack is accompanied by a discussion of its effective yield in kilotons, their window for peaceful internal change will have closed. I keep hoping they'll realize this but it appears that most of the Muslim world is headed in a direction opposite reform.

Posted by AzCat 2004-06-06 12:38:00 PM|| 2004-06-06 12:38:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 The following comment by Sam today to the "Ronald Reagan: An Epitaph" post has it right:

"#8 Reagan believed the Soviet Union was an evil empire. He believed that the principles of democracy, individual liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free enterprise were better ideas and would prevail over the emptiness of communism. He set about to win the battle of ideas of the Cold War. While he was doing this, the (as Hank terms them) "so-called intellectuals" and the Democrats attacked him ferociously and unendingly. They may have grown to like him personally, but they hated what he stood for - they hated his ideas.

Today, Bush sees the al Qaeda type terrorists, totalitarian Islamist states and deranged dictators like Saddam, or Jung il to be evil itself. Bush believes that the principles of democracy, individual liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free enterprise were better ideas and would prevail over such evil. He has set about to defeat these evil forces by winning the battle of ideas, and taking the fight to them where appropriate. And history repeats itself. The same people attack. Bush is too stupid to understand the sophisticated issues. He is a cowboy. He is too simplistic. He is the greater danger. His policies are immoral. We heard all the same things twenty years ago.

Much to the frustration of 24 hour news coverage, history plays out at its own pace. If we could fast forward twenty years, we could participate in the argument over who you have to bump out of the top five to make room for Bush 43.

Jake, I too agree with your top five - at least for now.

Posted by: Sam 2004-06-06 11:46:35 AM"

Posted by Rock 2004-06-06 1:01:11 PM|| 2004-06-06 1:01:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Sam illustrates the distinction drawn by Bush. Islam itself isn't the "evil", it is the "al Qaeda type terrorists, totalitarian Islamist states and deranged dictators."

The distiction is appropriate, and so the comparison about how the "so-called intellectuals and Democrats" reacted to both reagan and Bush.

Posted by Jake 2004-06-06 1:07:20 PM|| 2004-06-06 1:07:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 B.

You haven't read the Koran. It is nothing more than ba gangster's code of honor: everything is allowed against non-muslims just like everything is allowed against people non-memebers of the gang: murder, rape, poisoning, stealing, cheating evrything is valid agaisnt non-muslims. And a sense of superiority and having all rights toward non-Muslims who is very akin to the sense of superiority and having all rights
that an SS officer felt toward untermenschen.

There are good men between Muslims, people who haven't read the Koran or who cling to the benevolent parts of it (but NEVER forget that Muslims believe those parts are superceeded by the bellicose and supremacist parts written nin Medina) just like they were good people between those who had voted for the Nazi party in 1932, people who hadn't read Mein Kampf and hadn't understood what poisonous seeds were planted in it. But Islam, the religion, like Nazism, the ideology, is thoroughly evil at heart.

Posted by JFM 2004-06-06 1:31:00 PM|| 2004-06-06 1:31:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Seems to me it's the mentality of those who strap bombs to their kids and blow up buildings and trains. Theys a relative few - and it ain't the billion and a half Muslics. If you want, compare the Nazis to the al Qaeda types - but not the German people to the al Qaedas.

Posted by Hank 2004-06-06 1:46:21 PM|| 2004-06-06 1:46:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 ok...ok....I acknowledge much of the above. But here is what I think...

Satanism is an evil cult
KKK is an evil cult
Al Q is an evil cult

Despite the texts, there are many good people practicing Islam (not militant Islam) in a good way. I don't know ...maybe it is fair.......but I think it is unhelpful to call Islam, as practiced by many good people, an "evil cult". JMHO.

Posted by B 2004-06-06 2:14:28 PM|| 2004-06-06 2:14:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 You're right as far as you go Hank: al Qaeda is to Muslims as Nazis were to Germans circa WW II. But to defeat the Nazis, we had to fight Germans until both the Nazis and German people capitulated. Wars aren't won by targeting only the overt organized resistance.

Don't forget that many many Germans, while not members of the National Socialist Party, were sympathetic to Hitler because (at least before and during the early stages of the war) he was viewed as having lifted Germany out of the post-WW I economic and political funk. Had we merely taken out Hitler and his top brass along with what uniformed and organized resistance we could find then quickly (or even slowly) withdrawn and left the remainder of the German people to their own devices, the Nazi movement would have quickly reconstituted itself because it was widely viewed as a success that had gone somewhat wrong. Similarly, if we target al Qaeda's top leaders and leave Islam to fester, we'll be dealing with Islamist terrorists forever because new networks will spring up as fast as we can root them out. It's the ideology that must be uprooted, thoroughly discredited and left on the scrap heap of history if we truly want peace.

Posted by AzCat 2004-06-06 2:18:40 PM|| 2004-06-06 2:18:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Evil smeezeal, Whatever! I still think it's a geo-political ideal that is hostile to western culture. To what degree one stands with that hostile ideal be it AQ, wahabbi, suffi whatever doesn't sheild you from the consequences caused by that.

If your rooting for your team, even if you don't like the coach, your a potential target of the other team. Muslims are having their eyes opened right now in Iraq (the rape of Falluja)about some aspects of Islam. And may this be humbly considered as a 38th reason on DaveDs' list. That being the "up close and personal" of militant islamazoids as it interacts with those they supervise.

A little chunky Mr D. Maybe you could consider it and clean it up a little.

Posted by Lucky 2004-06-06 2:47:21 PM|| 2004-06-06 2:47:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 AzCat, you would be right except you are looking past one very important element. The West did not confront the Nazis until the Nazis were the state. They controled Germany, became entrenched, and through western appeasement they became powerful. Then we had to make war on all of Germany, even though one cannot say that all Germans were guilty of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in their name.

The al Qaedaists are not there yet. They want to get there, and they like to characterize the struggle as the infidels vs Islam. We are foolish to let them characterize the conflict. They exaggerate their power, and if we buy into it, they are stregthened in the process. What Old Europe and the Dems do not understand is that failure to confront the ideas now while they are still a relative few, will only mean a struggle later on that is more akin to the war against Nazi Germany.

Hank, as usual, you have it right.

Posted by Jake 2004-06-06 2:52:29 PM|| 2004-06-06 2:52:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 .com I'ma working on a roll off the tongue for this one.
CPNAMNQEQTCNLICWDFYASC

I have several languishing 286 16 I'll put on the task.

Posted by Shipman 2004-06-06 6:33:21 PM|| 2004-06-06 6:33:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 B and others

Well there certainly are many decent Moslems. I'm not sure if Islam made them decent or if they are decent despite Islam. If I was doing a thesis, I would probably do a typology of Islam where, say,

Type 1 Moslems - non violent Sufis, Ahmayadiis,

Type 2 Moslems - non violent secular Moslems who just want to be left alone

Type 3 Moslems - non violent Moslems who think Moslems who are secular, mystical, Ahmadyadii, etc. should be 'made' to see the light but claim that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Type 5&6 Moslems are wrong but are afraid to do anything or say anything that would combat the Type 5&6 Moslems

Type 4 Moslems - violence sympathizing Moslems who don't do violence themselves but find reasons to justify it in others

Type 5 Moslems who don't do violence themselves but finance it or assist in the logistics

Type 6 Moslems - fly planes into buildings or willing to do so but waiting an opportunity etc.

My estimates:

Type 1 5-25%
Type 2 20=30%
Type 3 30-40%
Type 4 5-15%
Type 5 5-10%
Type 6 0.1 to 3%

The problem is that the type 6 Moslems, aided by the Type 5 Moslems and justified by the type 4 moslems could end civilization. Furthermore, because the type 4 moslems are numerous, the type 6 moslems can hide amongst them.

Posted by mhw 2004-06-06 6:47:36 PM|| 2004-06-06 6:47:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 Furthermore, because the type 4 moslems are numerous, the type 6 moslems can hide amongst them.

Not if the type 4's actively ferret them out to save their own asses

Posted by Frank G 2004-06-06 6:55:17 PM|| 2004-06-06 6:55:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Well Frank G, I think in the Magic Kingdom today we see a situation where the type 6s, even though very small in number (actually even amongst Soddies there are a substantial number of apostates who would love to declare themselves so but for the fact they would be killed), have hid quite well. This even though the govt is trying everything it can think of to put pressure on the type 4s and 5s.

Posted by mhw 2004-06-06 7:06:42 PM|| 2004-06-06 7:06:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Ship - Lol! Is that the acronym? Methinks a bank o' Crays won't be enough to make that puppy sing!

mhw - A small post-list note to add to your list, if I may be so bold: When faced by a #6 with demands, all of the others will cave in and do WTF they're told.

Posted by .com 2004-06-06 7:12:52 PM|| 2004-06-06 7:12:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 MHW and other, you are coming at this from a Western Individualist view point. And think you can solve it by dealing with the 'problem' individuals. It is the wrong way to look at it. The problem is systemic in Islam, which has taken the concept of tribal allegiance and incorporated it into a prosletyzing religion.

Killing the violent ones doesn't solve the problem, it merely disrupts the process for a while. In order to solve the problem you have to do one of the following.

1. Reform Islam - don't know if this possible or how long it would take

2. Kill all the muslims or at least enough to convince the rest that being a muslim is maybe not such a good idea

3. Convert all the muslims

4. Geographically isolate them and allow them to live however they like. Requires that borders are stringently policed and no one is allowed to leave unless they renounce Islam. Also requires clearing muslims out the rest of the world.

Posted by Phil B 2004-06-06 8:23:38 PM|| 2004-06-06 8:23:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 I'm thinking a clerical clearance sale!

Posted by Frank G 2004-06-06 8:29:11 PM|| 2004-06-06 8:29:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 LOL Jake - I guess I have it right then. What would you call Afghanistan before the US-led invasion if not a state sponsor of Islamist terrorism? Ditto to greater or lesser degrees Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, .... To a greater or lesser degree the Islamists or those who support and condone their actions contol (or controlled) these nations or large portions thereof. They're entrenched, they're spreading their hatred of everything they view as un-Islamic, they're seeking weapons of ever-greater power to use against the Infidels. If not now when the threat has already been laid bare, when would you have us confront them?

You say the Islamists exaggerate their power but if you'd told me on 9/10/01 that the next morning we'd be attacked in New York City by Islamists who'd kill thousands of Americans and bring down the World Trade Center while losing less than two dozen of their own, I'd have made a run at having you committed. Yet they did it and in doing so they demonstrated a greater ability to apply force within the continental United States than did Nazi Germany or the Empire of Japan during WW II, or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. You can believe they got lucky if you wish, I believe we'll soon be forced to believe otherwise.

This enemy is fundamentally different than any that's come before because it is rooted in a religion that believes that its god has assured victory. Thus there is little requirement for strategy, tactics or the normal trappings of warfare and conquest. There is merely a need to apply whatever force is available to cause the most casualties in the lands of the infidels until Allah provides the victory. In a very real sense that makes this enemy dramatically more dangerous than any we've faced before, at least for average Americans going about their daily lives.

Foolish or not, the struggle is Islam vs. the Infidels. Radical Islam is nothing more than a reaction to the failings of modern Islamic society by those who believe they can bring about the restoration of the perceived golden age of Islam through a return to its fundamentals. The thinking goes, "Once we were powerful, now we are not. If we return our way of life to what it once was Allah will favor us and we will be powerful again." Crass to the point of ridiculousness, but a fairly accurate summation of the situation. Thus, it's safe to say that the war will be fought until Islam collectively is disabused of this notion.

Posted by AzCat 2004-06-06 10:59:08 PM|| 2004-06-06 10:59:08 PM|| Front Page Top

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