The Ground Zero Mosque, a diversion

[IBCoupe]

Also, non-euphamistically speaking, they're not taking steps which would challenge their ideological and actual authority. And we fully back one of them. How's that for spreadin' freedom and democracy?

[szh]

Exactly.

They're not educating the women or giving them the keys to the car.

(Euphemisms for "doing the things to change the hearts and minds of their countrymen").

But please do keep in mind that Saudi Arabia is not representative of other Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia has tried to promulgate their beliefs in other countries and only succeeded in one or two - like Afghanistan and only by force of the Taliban ***holes. Who came in after the vacuum created by the Soviet departure and the American "let's leave now - the Russians are gone" attitude.

In the other countries of that area - including right next door to Saudi Arabia (UAE and Kuwait are examples), Muslim women have successfully rejected the notion that they are second-class citizens who should not be let out of the house. Sure, it may not be like the freedoms we have here, and sure, there are insanities and stupidities that still occur - shamefully so in some of them - but there is a world of a difference between Saudi Arabia and the others.

Z

[IBCoupe]

Good points, Z.

[szh]

A simple example: the still-ongoing US drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan have netted a few Al-Qaeda leaders (I remember hearing that one US estimate has it at less than 20) ... but do you know how many innocent men, women and children (who had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda or terrorism) have died as a result? The numbers are staggeringly high - now becoming comparable with the number of people who died in 9/11, by the way!

Does this consider the practice of using human shielding? Maybe this does or does not justify the death of the individuals, but it should be noted that barbaric tactics such as this are used to make our actions look more reprehensible. This folks maybe be radical but they are by no means stupid or disconnected from psychological warfare tactics.

You'd be surprised. First and foremost, the incidence of "human shielding" is way, way over-blown. Does not happen as much as one might think. Plus, there have been remote drone attacks and bombings on events and family gatherings and wedding parties, for example, that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Most importantly: so what? Does that incorrect "fact" of human shielding make it okay to overlook the knowledge and reality that innocent people die? I'd have to disagree that this makes it justifiable in some fashion!

Our US Domestic Policy speaks otherwise too! As a "for example", in hostage situations, the FBI and police always make it a point of avoiding situations where the hostages are likely to die - the attitude is more of a "let the perp go, if it frees the hostages - we will deal with the perp later". We need to be similarly "forward thinking" when it comes to our US Foreign Policy in regard random drone attacks and assassinations.

By the way, I absolutely and unequivocally do NOT condone or support the acts that occurred on 9/11 and am upset to the core of my being about what happened that day.

But I am also upset about our US drone attacks that kill innocent civilians - this is not justifiable or condonable either. While I do not call it "US Terrorism", it has been portrayed in that manner in other countries.

This is, ultimately, not a Good Thing™ for us.

Z

[stebo0728]

You'd be surprised. First and foremost, the incidence of "human shielding" is way, way over-blown. Does not happen as much as one might think. Plus, there have been remote drone attacks and bombings on events and family gatherings and wedding parties, for example, that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Most importantly: so what? Does that incorrect "fact" of human shielding make it okay to overlook the knowledge and reality that innocent people die? I'd have to disagree that this makes it justifiable in some fashion!

Our US Domestic Policy speaks otherwise too! As a "for example", in hostage situations, the FBI and police always make it a point of avoiding situations where the hostages are likely to die - the attitude is more of a "let the perp go, if it frees the hostages - we will deal with the perp later". We need to be similarly "forward thinking" when it comes to our US Foreign Policy in regard random drone attacks and assassinations.

Great point, question though, these hostage holders you speak of, are they possible planning action that may kill 10's of thousands of people at a later point, or just wanting to get away with some cool cash?

[szh]

No matter what, there will always be nutbags out there committing random acts of violence using whatever means necessary to achieve their "end".

Very true.

Plus, moderate folks (Muslims or otherwise) everywhere can talk till they are blue in the face, but the actions of the few nutbags (love that term!) will dominate the news.

Thus, the stereotype gets propagated.

What we can change is how everyone views everything. What are we exposed to. Why are we allowing ourselves to be manipulated? The "West" isn't the enemy and neither is Islam. But that doesn't mean we aren't at war with Muslims and Islam just the same. Perception is everything, and right now everything we read and watch says tan people from the desert are the enemy. Over there, same thing, flip the coin.

Hmmm ... I have to disagree. The problem is that we are changing the terms and definitions here. Fighting a "war against terrorism" is not, and should not be treated as, fighting a "war against Muslims and Islam" (my quotes for emphasis - not an extraction from your quote).

That is where the slippery slope lies - it "enables and empowers" extremists to go forth and fight the wrong battle, on the wrong front, for the wrong reasons.

Z

[szh]

Great point, question though, these hostage holders you speak of, are they possible planning action that may kill 10's of thousands of people at a later point, or just wanting to get away with some cool cash?

I have no idea! I suspect that we don't know.

There is a fine line between intent and action and we have to be careful about that - if we ever get to the place where "protest" is misconstrued as "evil intent", then we would be living in police state conditions which would be anathema.

But, I have to hope and pray that what happened on 9/11 is damn near close to impossible to ever let happen again. We have to do our best - short of becoming worse than the problem and within the rule of law (legal and human) - to prevent that.

Z

[IBCoupe]

I think that we've got to learn some lessons from 9/11. So long as we are active participants in the world (not just our government, but our populace, our economy, and our culture), there will be people who resent that. And there will be regions in the world where that resentment finds a place to breed into outright hatred, and that outright hatred will spawn violence. We can try to mitigate it all we like, but there will come a time again where we are attacked.

So the best we can do, I think, is to prepare for that attack, and not just to mitigate damage. The way we responded to the attack was, in some ways, inspiring. I never thought I could see a country come together that well. In other ways, however, it was depressing. I never thought we'd let our anger and desire for revenge get the better of us - from charging into a war on apparently false pretenses (I was not alone in cries of, "If the UN inspectors can't find it and you think it's somewhere else, POINT TO THE SUCKERS!") to abandoning certain rights in order to facilitate government prosecution of whom it deemed to be criminals.

There's a lot to learn; this country's still a work-in-progress, and it was meant to be that way from the start.

[srellim234]

I came across this 5 1/2 minute, expletive laced video today that is an interesting statement about the mosque. An atheist's take on it that makes some wonderful points.

After opening the link click on the "America: Mosque or Mausoleum" video in the middle of the page:

http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2010/0 ... que-n.html

[themadscientist]

This guys is pretty smart. He got this right too.
http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2010/0 ... h-way.html
I've been bullish on silver for a while.

[heliochrome85]

I'm just going to leave this here.
http://tv.gawker.com/5635210/fox-news-l ... 1-body-map

i hate foxnews. and the people who think its "news"

[IBCoupe]

Can't get to either link from work. It's going to be a long day.