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| Arabia |
| Are you Muslim or Christian? |
| 2004-05-31 |
| KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia - "Are you Muslim or Christian? We don’t want to kill Muslims. Show us where the Americans and Westerners live," Islamic militants told an Arab after launching a shooting spree on Westerners in Saudi Arabia. The four gunmen, aged 18 to 25 and wearing military vests, grabbed Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a U.S. passport, in front of his home in the Oasis compound in Khobar but let him go when he told them he was a Muslim. "Don’t be afraid. We won’t kill Muslims even if you are an American," he quoted them as saying. This article illustrates the WOT problem very well. While the West is wringing its hands about whether or not it’s a violation of civil rights to force Muslim women to leave the veils at home when they get photographed for a driver’s license and Christian GI’s get a 6 week sensitivity training to Muslim customs before pushing off to Iraq’s hellhole to "liberate" peace loving Iraqi peoples [cough], terrorists are drawing the battle lines very clearly: the enemy is "infidels" and the good guys are Muslims. You’ll notice that Al Queda makes no distinctions between radical Muslims or moderate Muslims or Republican Christians or Democrat Christians or practising Christians or fallen Christians. Muslims get the thumbs up even if they are American Muslims and Christians get their throats slashed. very simple. Now if you are a Muslim and you know you are viewed as a good guy by OBL, what’s in it for you to help Christians whether you live in Baghdad or Detroit or Kabul? |
| Posted by:rex |
| #25 And how many times do we hear the lie that Muslims respect and honor Jesus? They respect him so much they slit his followers throats, or treat them as second class citizens if they are 'moderate' Muslims. How very merciful of them. I spit on Muhammed's grave! I hope that Muhammed is getting his wish, in hell, and dying over and over again for Allah-the Father of Lies! |
| Posted by: TS(vice girl) 2004-05-31 8:15:41 PM |
| #24 OldSpook a TJ Jackson fan sound like. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-05-31 7:11:04 PM |
| #23 Old Spook: Thank you for the reply. Perhaps I should clarify "beside the point". I was referring to the extent of the analogy -- not to a park full of children. Obviously, if one could move the children, that would be necessary and appropriate. However, in our world (not the analogy), we simply can't move the children. The terrorist are not geographically bound (as is the shooter in the analogy). By arguing about moving the children, one would be spending too much time on the analogy and not on the limited point of the illustration. If it were possible to avoid the terrorist, then that would be the best solution. However, that does not seem to be possible. Even Israel's wall is of ultimately of limited value (although it is probably the best under the circumstances). The moral point is that those who protect bad guys have as much moral culpability as those who commit the acts. I certainly would not advocate immediately nuking everyone in the Arab/Muslim world. However, the issue of "innocents" is certainly difficult to untangle in this instance. The underlying problem seems to be something inherent in Islam and its relationship to non-Muslims. Consider the world as whole: Muslims and Christians in Africa; Muslims and Hindus in India; Muslims and Budhists in Southeast Asia; Muslims and Secularists in Europe. There are some Muslim leaders who are acting in a useful fashion. Unfortunately, there are far too few. Finally, at law, there is no legal responsibility to prevent bad acts from taking place. I may legally (though perhaps not morally) watch a crime be committed or a person drown without liability or legal fault. However, if I act, I am held to a reasonable standard of care. |
| Posted by: Charles 2004-05-31 4:31:50 PM |
| #22 Charles, "Arguments such as you could move the kids from the park, or wait-out the shooter, et cetera are all beside the point in our real world." No they are NOT beside the point. They are valid points to be considred. Yours is a bad premise. As are your other setup conditions. Sorry, but you are settting up a false set of premises in order to force a conclusion. Its an argumentative fallcy which will not lead to a correct answer. Ability to stop a crime, seeing the crime occur, but failing to anything does in law put guilt on you. Go look it up. But what we are referring to here is not those who stand by and do nothing - its those who bring the sniper ammunition, open the doors for him, and provide him food shelter and comfort. And some people are trying to "remove the children from the park" (the wall in Israel for example). That is an entirely different circumstance from what you try to set forth. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-05-31 4:10:00 PM |
| #21 Would it be morally correct to kill "all"? Try an analogy: There is a building in which one man is shooting into a nearby park, killing children. The building is otherwise filled with 100 people, who do nothing to stop the killer. These other people have sufficient ability to stop the killer, and, yet, refuse to do so. Do these other people have sufficient complicity with the crime to be found guilty? Note: Arguments such as you could move the kids from the park, or wait-out the shooter, et cetera are all beside the point in our real world. The moral point is clear: Do those who have the power to stop a criminal and yet act to protect the criminal share in the crime? Yes. For example, there is something in the law known as the "felony murder rule". Under that rule, a person who facilities a murder is likewise guilty of the murder (such as the guy who drives the get-away car). Finally, is it properly moral to fail to act to save innocents -- the non-muslim innocents who will be slaughtered by these monsters. They want nothing less than a world war. They want the end to come so that they can force the return of their god. Spend some time with muslims end-of-the-world theology and then answer the question. |
| Posted by: Charles 2004-05-31 3:55:40 PM |
| #20 The memorial service held 9/14/2001 at the National Cathedral set the tone for this struggle. Those in attendance sang all five verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, something that had not been done since the Civil War centennial celebrations of the 60's. The lyrics should have given the jihadi's pause: He is trampling out the vintage where the Grapes of Wrath are stored, He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword...I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel. Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel....He hath sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before his Judgement Seat....In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea...As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free. If that didn't make clear enough what was going to happen next, President Bush clarified it as follows: "War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing. With a man like George Bush leading us, the end will be when we have exterminated these vermin and the world is free of their poison. |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-05-31 3:53:36 PM |
| #19 The thing is. Those who died because they answered 'Christian', knowing full well that it was a death sentence, are the true martyrs willing to give up their lives for their faith. And if the situation was reversed those who answered 'Muslim' knowing full well that they would have been killed would also have been martyrs. Those who blow themselves up are not martyrs, only murders.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-05-31 1:46:56 PM |
| #18 The funky problem. LH has good points and I agree with them. You all have good points and I agree with all of them. Thats a funky problem. Oldspook said kill islamist with a certain world view. Yes indeed and thats whats going on. But those who don't have that world view, some percent of them have various degress of support for that world view. Thats their team, whether they like the coach or not. Heard today about the bombing of a green moskq in pakiland in revenge for the killing of a red cleric the day before. Different teams, same conference. The funky problem, the blood libel, is to change the mindset of those on the other team. And that will IMHO require the targeting of certain leaders of that team and the places they do business (moskq). And thats a bunch. It must be a unhealthy thing to be part of that team. It's a dirty thing. But I don't want to screw around forever like Israel. If Isreal blew up the golden dome would anything change? Hell yes, the Islamist of the world will seeth, cut their forheads. If we take out mecca would things change, Hell yes Islamist will seeth and cut the forheads of their children. Seems like same ol, don't it? It isn't Iraqi, Iranians, Saudi and all that we are at war with. It is a geopolitical mindset wrapped up in a religion that uses fear and intimidation to keep those in line. It is that thing, islam, that must be attacked... And defeated with a rightous "praise the lord and pass the amunition". I guess what I'm trying to say is if your a cleric your dead meat. Then my lil buddy Abu wont have to clean toilets anymore. He'll say to his cleric "Oh, Hamzi, your dead meat, I don't know you." |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-05-31 1:13:03 PM |
| #17 I reiterate: Kill the Islamists who view the world in this manner. Not kill all of them. ONLY those who view the non-belivers as non-human and executable. Quickly. Mercilessly. In large numbers. Without anger. And without remorse. This is the only way to go about it. Quickly - because this is an ugly thing to do, but a neccesary one. And if left to fester, it will become much worse, for us and for the people nearby the targets. Its like a philosophical cancer. This is not to say it must be done now - but it should be done as quickly as our abilities allow. Even if it means raising a couple of divisions more so we have adequate troops to do the job, even if it means rolling back social spending so the troops have adequate tools to get the job done, even if it means training and changing the way the most of the ground forces work. It most be done quickly. Mercilessly - because they view mercy not as mercy, but as weakness to be exploited. Give them all the mercy they show us. Which is to say, none. They will learn the value of mercy once they have been denied it. This is nto to allow another Abu Ghriab, but it refers to the type and tempo of operations - no cease fires, and once they fire from a Mosque, it loses its protection and can be obliterated. We will rebuild it later. In large numbers - like a cancerous tumor, you cannot just take parts, you must excise the whole of it. Otherwise it will continue to spread and poison healthy areas. The moderated parts of Islam, those who have matured past the hate and literalism, they will fill the gaps we leave quickly - as long as we remove the whole of the radicals who would otherwise crowd them out. Without Anger - if we do this in the heat of anger, we will make errors, and be unable to clearly maintain our moral focus. And anger, in the west, never burns long enough in the general populace because of our good hearts and short memories. This is a fight of good versus evil, freedom versus slavery, liberty versus tyranny. To fight it only out of anger is to lose our soul in the process. Without remorse... We believe we are doing what we must, what they have forced us into doing, and what is right. Remorse for the innocent who will suffer? Yes - but only in the degree that we did not act earlier or more forcefully which would have prevented their suffering to begin with. In the end there is no need to be remorseful about the obliteration of this evil culture of Islamism. Remember that Islamism would gladly and joyously erase our civilization from the planet - and our religions and peoples with it. No remorse for destroying people and ideologies like Wahabbi Islamism - certainly not any more than we were remorseful over the destruction of the Nazis in Germany; which is to say, none at all. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-05-31 12:42:28 PM |
| #16 War is brutal and the whole point of getting into a war is to win. Having compassion is good if you want to wear blue helmets, not if you wear camfouflage fatigues. You mischaracterized what I said. Blue helmets even in the face of obvious brutality will do nothing. I speak of target discrimination. You can mow down hundreds of suspected guerillas who may all be civilians or you can discriminate and just cut down the bad guys leaving the rest of the population thinking that maybe its not such a good idea to support the bad guys. After all, this is about making democracy viable. Will not people get the wrong idea that democracy is no different than Baathist socialism if we fail to distinguish between friend and foe? Doesn't large numbers of people killed indiscriminately make what we want to do a sham? And far more importantly, do you really think professional commanders in the field will subscribe to the notion that indiscriminate killing will gain us victory in this war of ideas as well as combat? |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-05-31 12:39:10 PM |
| #15 The sooner we prevail with total victory the fewer innocents who will be injured/killed. I am just tired of not having the debate we need regarding this war. I guess I am mostly referring to the MSM. The action in Iraq is not the Iraq War. It is just the Iraqi Front in the War on Terror. As much as I dislike the WOT title (instead of WWIII or War on Islamofascists or, better yet, the War on Islam) it, however, does describe the global war of the civilized world against this death cult, better known as the religion of peace. During WWII, we did not call the Italian Front the War in Italy. We must, as a country, begin using the rheteric which will keep the reality of this war on everyone's minds. The leftist commies in our own country use their rheteric in an attempt to keep the war's reality out of public debate. Therefore, we debate WMDs or treatment of prisoners rather than the fact our enemy tells us daily that he will kill us all for no other reason than we do not worship his god (Allah). Bottom line, you do not compromise with an enemy who absolutely believes he is pleasing his god, and will be eternally rewarded, by killing you and yours. Instead, you kill em first, you kill em all as quickly and as efficiently as possible. That will end this war quicker than any other way. And in the end, it will be the most humane way to end this war also. |
| Posted by: Constitutional Individualist 2004-05-31 11:15:41 AM |
| #14 I agree with #13. War is brutal and the whole point of getting into a war is to win. Having compassion is good if you want to wear blue helmets, not if you wear camfouflage fatigues. The people of Iraq DO want peaces, and want to defeat the jihadis. Some of them appreciate our help - others resent that we havent been more successful. Kurds want peace. I see no evidence of any consistent efforts coming from Shiites and Sunnis demonstrating they want peace. They want $ from America. If they want peace, we could have wrapped up our campaign a couple of months after Saddam was removed and in fact that was what President Bush was counting on. He was wrong. Some Iraqi police got shot. But a lot of police ran or joined the insurgents. From Morocco, to Algeria, to Jordan, to Turkey, to Afghanistan, muslims are victims of the jihadis, and are fighting them. Muslims are causing 15 conflicts across the world this year. Most Muslims do nothing. That does not mean they are peace loving or they would be willing to fight jihadists and help win this WOT. In Pakistan they give ultimatums to the jihadists. In Saudi Arabia, they occasionally shoot jihadists but also let them run away. Algerians do better at breeding jihadists than killing them. Morocco does a good job blaming the EU that they would do better if only they were allowed to share more intelligence or if only... The only good thing I see about this Gulf War is that maybe, if Bremer does not screw up with his one Iraq schtick, just maybe, we can build a strategic military base in Kurdistan and also we can also access Kudistan's oil, which would be especially helpful due to Saudi Arabia falling in the near future. Let's be honest. If Saddam had not gone off the reservation and if he had kept himself as a nice pro-West dictator, would any of you want to send in troops to "liberate" Iraqi peoples? Not me. |
| Posted by: rex 2004-05-31 10:29:38 AM |
| #13 well, if innocent civilians made the poor choice to live withing the blast radius of the Bushehr reactor, I call it Darwin's law |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-31 9:40:38 AM |
| #12 I think that target discrimination is a great concept and one our forces use with great judiciousness. While it may be fun to kill all Moose Limbs indiscriminately, it is with far more effectiveness to chose targets carefully. For example: A bus is traveling from Baghdad to Fallujah. We know it is full of folks who just bought tickets to see relatives or do business. There may be some terrorists (unlikely) aboard who couldn't catch the 1739 Camry, but for the most part a basic transaction between the bus company and the passengers. Do we launch a helo/Hellfire strike against these folks to get the terrorist? The answer is we could legally, since the bus is a legitimate target, but we don't. We know the murdering fella will wind up on someone's sniper scope at some point, and his troubles will soon be over. The second example. A bus leaves Teheran. We know when it is leaving, our spooks have a passenger manifest and we know it is full of Islamic targets, wannabes who want to die for Allan. The only question to me is: Which side of the border do we bury the survivors? This is how we will defeat Islamic terrorism and rein in this 30 plus years of terrorism we have been suffering. I agree with rkb. We must not lose sight of who we are: kind and compassionate people with a really bad temper, and sufficient amounts of ordnance to turn one third of the world into a parking lot. We don't do that because of our ideals and of who we are. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-05-31 9:31:10 AM |
| #11 CI, let's be careful not to lose our souls in the process. It's a fine line and a difficult balancing act. We must do what we must do - but we should never do those things easily or avoid the fact that they are wrong, even if they are necessary. The firebombing campaign is studied at West Point in the required sophomore philosophy / ethics class, BTW, precisely to discuss that issue. |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-05-31 7:38:46 AM |
| #10 Liberalhawk - It no more makes sense to blame all muslims for the sickness of AQ, than to blame all people of Northern European racial origin for Nazism. Your right LH, but we fire bombed many a city in Germany in attempt to defeat (not exterminate) Nazis. No difference today. In order to defeat the Islamofascists we must have the "kill em, kill em all" mindset. It will mean that innocents (if there are such an animal in the world of Islam) will be injured/killed. But that is war (we are still at war aren't we?) and it is either total victory or we will all be headed for a beheading. |
| Posted by: Constitutional Individualist 2004-05-31 7:31:32 AM |
| #9 You’ll notice that Al Queda makes no distinctions between radical Muslims or moderate Muslims or Republican Christians or Democrat Christians or practising Christians or fallen Christians. Muslims get the thumbs up even if they are American Muslims and Christians get their throats slashed. very simple. Similarly the Nazis seperated out Jews,Gypsies and Slavs for destruction. If you were an "aryan" you were exempt, even if you were Dutch, or British, or American, and even if you were a German who had never supported the Nazi party. Thats why the Nazis were sick. And AQ is sick. It no more makes sense to blame all muslims for the sickness of AQ, than to blame all people of Northern European racial origin for Nazism. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-05-31 4:43:18 AM |
| #8 pushing off to Iraq’s hellhole to "liberate" peace loving Iraqi peoples [cough], err, i thought i was reading rantburg, not DU, moveon, or other bastions of lunacy. The people of Iraq DO want peaces, and want to defeat the jihadis. Some of them appreciate our help - others resent that we havent been more successful. But IRAQIS, in the police, officials, and just ordinary citizens who are murdered by the jihadis all the time. They have picked a tough man, Iyad Allawi, as their new PM in an attempt to beat the jihadis. From Morocco, to Algeria, to Jordan, to Turkey, to Afghanistan, muslims are victims of the jihadis, and are fighting them. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-05-31 4:38:33 AM |
| #7 I am somewhat amazed by how my own thoughts have changed over the past five years or so. I would never have thought that I would reach the point that I have reached, where - personally - I now support genocide - of the entire muslim culture and population of the world. I know its unfair to many "innocent" muslims, but it is clearly either "us" or "them" - and I prefer seeing the planet maintain the diversity of its cultures - instead of seeing one belief system imposed on all. So - I am now an advocate of outright genocide of the entire muslim population of the globe. Heavy stuff. Let the cleansing begin immediately - one jihadi - or a nation of them - at a time. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2004-05-31 3:30:49 AM |
| #6 agree with OldSpook. There can be no reform of this type of ideology. The biggest problem I think is the whiteanting in our own societies by the cultural colonies that have been set up here. |
| Posted by: Anon1 2004-05-31 3:15:14 AM |
| #5 Rafael: you would be beheaded like Nick Berg or Daniel Pearl |
| Posted by: Anon1 2004-05-31 3:13:51 AM |
| #4 Are you Muslim or Christian? I suppose if I responded "Jewish", I would by default be excluded, right?? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-05-31 2:29:29 AM |
| #3 "Without anger ya say?" Might be tough but I get the point. A cool response, without remorse, without a song, without a dance. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-05-31 1:37:05 AM |
| #2 No surprise here. I take them at their word. Thats why I say kill the Islamists who view the world in this manner. Quickly. Mercilessly. In large numbers. Without anger. And without remorse. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-05-31 1:27:19 AM |
| #1 "Abu?" "Yes Lucky, most precious infidel." "Are muslims exempt?" "Oh yes Lucky, so as to not turn the ummah against our movement. Soon we'll be in a political strong position. You'll have buckle then Lucky." "When I buckle Abu should I have a plan." "Oh yes, my precious, play along, say the right things and be polite to your masters, works for me and I have a job cleaning toilets. May you one day have a place such as mine." "Clean toilets ya say Abu? With my bare hands?" |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-05-31 1:11:41 AM |