[pbleighton]

""Nonsense." The upsurge in violence was NOT due to the war in Iraq.

Battle of Tours(Oct. 10, 732 A.D.) "A Muslim Army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa..."
Attacked the Franks(modern day France) from Spain.

America and the British Empire were not around to take the blame for the Muslim conquest of numerous nations and the attack against what is now modern day France."

LOL.

Peter

[Walddk]

pbleighton, on May 19 2006, 03:36 AM, said:

"Totally unacceptable to write a thing like this in my opinion. You slander and insult them deliberately, and they have no chance to respond. I am offended on their behalf!"

Are you also offended on behalf of Muslims, based on the viciously bigoted and ignorant nonsense spewed in this and other threads by certain posters, or is your sense of propriety selective?

Peter

"However, there should be a limit as to how much you are allowed to humiliate people, also verbally.

You can agree or disagree, but if you disagree you must always aim at doing this in a civilised manner. When you stand up and say that you deliberately slander and insult groups or individuals, I think that you overstep that line".

---

That's what I wrote earlier and that applies to all groups and individuals whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists, etc. Tolerance is the way forward, intolerance is not!

Roland

[helene_t]

hrothgar, on May 18 2006, 09:31 PM, said:

I don't think that its unreasonable to condemn Islamic extremists who are physically threatening Ali for criticizing their religion.  At the same time, I also recognize that Ali's continued presence in an apartment building constitutes a physcial threat to her neighbors.

Suppose you have a black/Jewish/homosexual/whatever neighbour and the KKK threates to blow up the entire building block for that reason. Do you think a judge (whether US or Dutch) would force your neigbour to move to protect your security? If so, your neighbour might have to leave the country since there's no reason to assume that the conditions would be different anywhere else in the same country.

Maybe you think that ms. Ali spread nazi-style anti-moslem propaganda and it's therefore understandable that the judge did not sympatize with her. WRONG! Unlike many of her opponents, ms. Ali is not an extremist. She believes that fundamental human rights should apply to moslem women as well. In the current cultural-relativistic climate that is a taboo and some would say that it's an extremist point of view: of course, men who belong to a culture that has a long tradition of abusing women have the right to continue to do so, otherwise we would be discriminating against their ethnic/religious group!

FWIW, I think the opponents of ms. Ali are doing harm to moslems by effectively saying that Islam is a mental disease that gives you a valid reason not to fullfill your duties as a sane, healthy citizen in a civilized country.

But that's not the issue. Even if you think ms. Ali is an extremist, she should enjoy the right to free speak.

[luke warm]

mike777, on May 17 2006, 08:57 PM, said:

In any event are you saying the USA is mostly if not all to blame?

there are those who blame america, or are pleased on some level, for her own misfortune... and some of those are americans themselves... this has nothing to do with iraq or u.s. policy

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on May 18 2006, 03:18 PM, said:

mike777, on May 18 2006, 10:57 PM, said:

Let's put this into a USA perspective...

Lets move away from your silly little hypothetical. There is ample case law in the United States that assert's that local communities have the right to regulate private behaviour in light of a potential threat.

Sex offender "zoning" statutes are the most obvious examples. Any number of local communities claim the right to regulate where individuals may/may not live based on the possibility that said individual's presence in a community could potentially endanger local citizens...

what makes this a "silly little hypothetical?" the fact that his position on the matter differs from yours?

the example you point to (sex offenders, etc) is not remotely the same... in the one case we have people and neighborhoods protecting themselfes from convicted felons while in the other we do not

appeasement: The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace.

others have criticized mike's use of that word... does the definition fit what is happening?

[luke warm]

pbleighton, on May 18 2006, 09:05 PM, said:

"The upsurge in violence was NOT due to the war in Iraq."

Utter nonsense.

Peter

let me practice the fine art of mere assertion as demonstrated so often by peter

ridiculously inept

[helene_t]

pbleighton, on May 19 2006, 04:36 AM, said:

Are you also offended on behalf of Muslims, based on the viciously bigoted and ignorant nonsense spewed in this and other threads by certain posters, or is your sense of propriety selective?

I may have overlooked something but I haven't noticed any anti-moslem statements in this thread.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on May 19 2006, 01:16 PM, said:

> what makes this a "silly little hypothetical?" the fact that his position on
> the matter differs from yours?

It is a silly little hypothetical because it does not advance the conversation. The simple act of positing this case shows real ignorance regarding many of the fundament issues involved.

It is critical to differentiate between two different aspects of this case.

The first issue is whether or not a local community has the right to restrict the rights of its citizens to achieve some desired end. This is clearly permissable. There are any number of examples where communities in the US act in this manner.

>The example you point to (sex offenders, etc) is not remotely the same... in the
>one case we have people and neighborhoods protecting themselfes from convicted >felons while in the other we do not

The individual's status as a convincted sex offender is a red herring. I chose the example specifically because I expected it to create an emotional response. If the law is to be administered properly, it needs to put emotion and subjectivity aside.

In this case, the rights of the individual are not being restricted because he is a felon; but rather because he poses a potential threat to the community. In this manner, he is no different from a Congressman who draws down a blomb threat or a Liquid Natural Gas terminal which could explode.

Which brings us to issue 2

>Appeasement: The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to
>maintain peace.

In the case in the Netherlands, Ali was removed from her home because she posed a threat to her neighbors. This should be treated as separate and distinct from the notion of "Appeasement". For example, its certainly possible to remove Ms. Ali from her current home while still permitting her to live and work in the Netherlands.

I stated that local communities have the right to act in order to protect themselves. The individuals issuing the death threats represent every bit as great a threat to the community as Ms. Ali. Accordingly, the community has the right (potentially the obligation) to protect itself. One can argue about the best way to achieve these ends. (Isolationism and integration would seem to be the natural polar extremes).

I certainly recognize that this is an important issues. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the best way to proceed is.

[hrothgar]

helene_t, on May 19 2006, 12:47 PM, said:

Maybe you think that ms. Ali spread nazi-style anti-moslem propaganda and it's therefore understandable that the judge did not sympatize with her. WRONG! Unlike many of her opponents, ms. Ali is not an extremist. She believes that fundamental human rights should apply to moslem women as well. In the current cultural-relativistic climate that is a taboo and some would say that it's an extremist point of view: of course, men who belong to a culture that has a long tradition of abusing women have the right to continue to do so, otherwise we would be discriminating against their ethnic/religious group!

I am well aware of the political / cultural views that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is promoting.
I happen to agree with them.

However, as I attempted to explain in an earlier posting, I can't impose my own subjective views about whether I support her cause on a third party.

Ultimately, Ms Ali's neighbors are the ones who need to decide whether they are willing to bear the risk of her continued presence.

Equally significant, the legal system needs to make an objective decision about whether Ms Ali's presence consititues an unacceptable risk to her local community.

I'm not prepared to condemn either decision. In the first case, it seems unreasonable to criticize some else for being unwilling to bear a given risk unless there is some way to share it. In the second, I don't have nearly enough factual information to make a judgement about the merits of the arguments.

[Elianna]

The difference between Ms. Ali's case and the cases of neighborhoods forbidding sex offenders that hrothgar was using as an argument is that of "who's doing the harming". What I mean is: in the Dutch case, Ms. Ali is not going around threatening her neighbors, but since she is threatened, they feel in danger, too. In hrothgar's example, the undesirable person him/herself is doing the threatening. I think that makes a big difference in my level of sympathy for the neighborhood.

I know that you were trying to use a case that people might have an emotional agreement that they did not want certain people in their neighborhood, but I believe that this is not an apt analogy.

hrothgar said:

However, as I attempted to explain in an earlier posting, I can't impose my own subjective views about whether I support her cause on a third party.

Ultimately, Ms Ali's neighbors are the ones who need to decide whether they are willing to bear the risk of her continued presence.

And I feel that the only way that they get to make that decision is by their being the ones to move, not by trying to force her to move.

[luke warm]

Elianna, on May 19 2006, 09:17 AM, said:

The difference between Ms. Ali's case and the cases of neighborhoods forbidding sex offenders that hrothgar was using as an argument is that of "who's doing the harming".  What I mean is: in the Dutch case, Ms. Ali is not going around threatening her neighbors, but since she is threatened, they feel in danger, too.  In hrothgar's example, the undesirable person him/herself is doing the threatening.  I think that makes a big difference in my level of sympathy for the neighborhood.

yes, and also when richard said

Quote

In this case, the rights of the individual are not being restricted because he is a felon; but rather because he poses a potential threat to the community.

i don't think this is completely accurate... the restrictions are in place precisely because he is a felon... the threat he poses to the community is only known to be a threat because he was tried and convicted of that crime... there is no other reason for the restrictions

Elianna said:

And I feel that the only way that they get to make that decision is by their being the ones to move, not by trying to force her to move.

yes, the neighbors do have choices and wouldn't seem to have a legal right to insist that ms. ali leave... evidently the dutch courts disagree

[the saint]

hrothgar, on May 19 2006, 03:06 AM, said:

We're talking about the 21st century, not who killed who 14 centuries ago...

Thats funny, Osama quoted this stuff as reason to bomb the Spanish.

[hrothgar]

the saint, on May 19 2006, 10:05 PM, said:

hrothgar, on May 19 2006, 03:06 AM, said:

We're talking about the 21st century, not who killed who 14 centuries ago...

Thats funny, Osama quoted this stuff as reason to bomb the Spanish.

Its useful to recall the context in which these comments were made:

Peter Bleighton stated "No, but the huge upsurge in radical Islamic violence over the last few years was directly caused by the Iraq war."

Keylime responded "The upsurge in violence was NOT due to the war in Iraq. It's been ongoing for decades and just not publicized to the incessant degree as the mainstream crap media has done now."

Peter stated that this was nonsense

Robert than made a post about the Muslim invasion of Spain during the 8th century.

Personally, I find Robert's point completely irrelevant. I defy you to find a single extant society that doesn't include a period of militaristic expansion in their past. They don't exist. Any such group would be quickly wiped out by more aggressive neighbors. Yes, the Muslim's attacked Spain, just as the Spanish attacked Morocco. ***** happens.

You are, of course, quite right that Bin Laden has some stupid pipe dream about reconquering all the lands once held by Islam. Not too many people believe that he's going to succeed.

We have the US crusade to spread liberal democracy/Christianity across the world, the inevitable triump of socialism, and the Moonies attempts to convince people the the Reverand Sun Yun moon is the Second Comming of Jesus. There are lots of grandious messianic ideologies out there.

[pbleighton]

"Robert than made a post about the Muslim invasion of Spain during the 8th century.

Personally, I find Robert's point completely irrelevant."

As do I. There is a tendency among some in the West (particularly the U.S.) to see Islamic societies as historically more violent and aggressive than non-Islamic societies, and to think of the violent Islamic fundamentalism of the last 30 years (not to mention the fundamentally secular Arab-Israeli conflict) as a natural, inevitable outgrowth of this supposedly violence-prone religion.

This ignores a truly staggering amount of history.

As to the upsurge in Islamic violence (particularly anti-Western violence) since the Iraq war:

The fact of the upsurge is obvious to anyone reading the papers: London, Spain, etc. Not to mention that in Iraq polls show over half the country believes that it is OK to kill the American occupying forces, and many of them act on this belief (yes, Iraq counts).

The cause of the upsurge: make people very angry (or even angrier than before) and some of them are violent.

One plus one does equal two, even when you would like it to equal three.

Peter

[mike777]

As the topic has shifted I hope to move it along then.

I assume the stated hypothesis is that there has been an upsurge in worldwide Islamic violence since the invasion of Iraq.

1) An upsurge implies measurement in some fashion. I google or ask search and find the word often but I find no data showing an upsurge and if so over what time frame, can anyone provide some decent data proving a measured upsurge and over what mearured period of time for starters. I note some numbers showing an upsurge in Iraq alone does not prove the hypothesis.
2) Lets at least get some good data agreed too before we move on to the causes of the movement in the numbers ok?

[hrothgar]

mike777, on May 20 2006, 12:29 AM, said:

As the topic has shifted I hope to move it along then.

I assume the stated hypothesis is that there has been an upsurge in worldwide Islamic violence since the invasion of Iraq.

1) An upsurge implies measurement in some fashion. I google or ask search and find the word often but I find no data showing an upsurge and if so over what time frame, can anyone provide some decent data proving a measured upsurge and over what mearured period of time for starters. I note some numbers showing an upsurge in Iraq alone does not prove the hypothesis.
2) Lets at least get some good data agreed too before we move on to the causes of the movement in the numbers ok?

I certainly agree that having access to good statistics is useful.

Historically, the definitive source for this type of data was the US State Department annual report on world terrorism. Unfortunately, the US government decided decided to change the methodology used to compiled the report two years ago. Equally significant, the government does provide any data using the old estimates. It also hasn't applied the new methodology to the old numbers. This has destroyed any ability to create a definitive baseline.

With this said and done, the consensus is that that the US attack on Iraq has significantly increased the totla number of "terrorist" attacks. You might find the following article useful

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...=la-home-nation

[pbleighton]

"...can anyone provide some decent data proving a measured upsurge and over what mearured period of time for starters..."

OK...

"The new data from 2005 shows that the number of reported terrorism incidents has increased exponentially in the three years since the United States invaded Iraq. There were 11,111 terrorist attacks that caused 14,602 deaths in 2005, compared to 208 terrorist attacks that caused 625 deaths in 2003. This is an increase of over 5,000% in the number of terrorist attacks and over 2,000% in the number of deaths in three years."

http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Docu...12209-29811.pdf

This is based on data compiled by the Bush Administration, though of course they frantically try to spin the numbers.

Peter

[the saint]

Simple fact is this. Lots of people all around the world are still caught up holding historical grudges which in the lightest sense end up as trans-national mockery, in the worst sense as terrorism and genocide.

Nothing will be solved until everyone stops thinking with their knobs and ends all this macho b***ocks. Stick the women in charge. We need to lower the worldwide testosterone levels.

[mike777]

Ya the article does say because of methodology we cannot conclude if there was an upsurge in violence. It is tough to move on to the causes when you got lousy data. At least the researchers grant there was alot of violence in Iraq before we invaded and in the world just not how much.

In any event we can agree there was an upsurge in attacks in 1944 in France when we invaded and an upsurge in violence in 1942 when we also went to war. I guess going to war may cause an upsurge in violence, I am sure not sure who went to war first here but more war does seem to result in more upsurge. I just wonder if we had not gone to war if there would be more violence or less? Funny how no war can cause deaths too.

Of course none of this means going to war in Iraq was the correct decision.
But what now? Pull out this weekend?

[mike777]

the saint, on May 19 2006, 05:02 PM, said:

Simple fact is this. Lots of people all around the world are still caught up holding historical grudges which in the lightest sense end up as trans-national mockery, in the worst sense as terrorism and genocide.

Nothing will be solved until everyone stops thinking with their knobs and ends all this macho b***ocks. Stick the women in charge. We need to lower the worldwide testosterone levels.

Funny how in the Usa anyway many more Women graduate from College than Men and many more Women vote in elections than men. Are you suggesting since they vote more than men this is all their fault? The Men can claim to be innocent since they Did Nothing!