Let's talk about Israel and Palestine...

[Big Sarge]

Originally Posted by BigV

Sarge-

Fuck you, you ignorant, hypocritical piece of shit.

Would you feel the same "it's nothing" if it were your daughters who were killed? If your answer is yes, then I will have nothing to do with you, ever again. If your answer is no, then explain to my how you think your love of your children is greater/better/more important than the love these bereft parents have for their children. If your answer is no, explain why your children matter more than those other children who have been killed.

Way to take it to a personal level with the name calling. Anyway, I'd be devastated if my children died. However, their will always be civilian casualties in asymmetric warfare. Seriously look at Israel's record as compared to the US, Great Britain, or NATO (specifically in Bosnia). Before you defame me again, talk to the other veterans in the Cellar about civilian casualties in combat. You have to learn to accept them to accomplish a mission. It is not the fault of the IDF, when Hamas uses human shields or even bombs their own citizens due to indiscriminate firing. None of you have even mentioned the Hamas strike on the synagogue before prayers on the Sabbath.

Dana - Hamas doesn't cut off your head, they shoot you. Remember we discussed the recent 18 executions. I cannot understand why you would support a country that practices female genital mutilation and other violence against women. The Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution report indicated that Palestinian women face many forms of violence, with 76.4% of Gazan women being subjected to emotional violence, 34.8% to physical violence, 14.9% to sexual violence, 78.9% to social violence and 88.3% to economic violence. I think we also need to review their LGBT record.

As far as converting them to Christian as was mentioned in a recent joke, the Islamization of Gaza has put increasing pressure on the tiny Christian minority. Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, a rival group to Hamas, announced the opening of a "military wing" to enforce Muslim law in Gaza. "I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza." Sheik Saqer has asserted that there is "no need" for Christians in Gaza to maintain Christian institutions and demanded that Hamas "must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people."

In October 2007, Rami Khader Ayyad, owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was abducted, beaten and murdered, after his bookstore was firebombed by an unidentified group attacking targets associated with Western influence. According to Ayyad's family and neighbors, he had regularly received anonymous death threats from people angered by his missionary work.

Now listen to me very closely. Some of you have all of these grand ideas, yet you never donned a uniform and stood up for anything. You sit in your ivory towers and condemn those who at least try to do something. Even with the recent child immigration issue, how many of you made donations to Catholic Charities to help. Oh everyone had an opinion, yet one again you sat on your hands. What a fine bunch of hypocrites.

I readily admit I don't seem to have the education that so many of you have. I admit I have brain trauma and suffer from PTSD. But you know something, I stood up for our country and my beliefs in combat and as a police officer. I may not be as smart as you, but at least I had the courage to try.

A couple of final thoughts, I never want to see another reference to napalming or deliberately firing on Vietnamese again. We have a Vietnamese refugee on here and you should at least think about how such phrases might hurt her. Now listen to me closely, “I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

... A couple of final thoughts, I never want to see another reference to napalming or deliberately firing on Vietnamese again. We have a Vietnamese refugee on here and you should at least think about how such phrases might hurt her. Now listen to me closely, “I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

Then don't look, boy. Apparently you pick and choose which parts of the Constitution you'll defend and you don't include the 1st Amendment. Considering you've been shot when you let your guard down during a routine traffic stop and your body armor saved you life, your bravado falls flat. If you don't want to be insulted, don't use insulting language with others here, not even generically. You're no longer psychologically stabile enough to determine when you; or, anyone else has been wronged. Don't wear out your welcome here by giving others ultimatums and making yourself intolerably irritating. Try to lay down requirements here again and I'll not only lock your heels, I'll shove them up your ass. The golden rule is now in effect for you, has-been.

[Big Sarge]

Originally Posted by sexobon

You're no longer psychologically stabile enough to determine when you; or, anyone else has been wronged. Don't wear out your welcome here by giving others ultimatums and making yourself intolerably irritating. Try to lay down requirements here again and I'll not only lock your heels, I'll shove them up your ass. The golden rule is now in effect for you, has-been.

If you are man enough, then do it. I don't ask for special treatment. I have no qualms with meeting you any day. If you wish to question my mental stability, then you are welcome to diagnose it in person.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by BigV

Sarge-

Fuck you, you ignorant, hypocritical piece of shit.

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Way to take it to a personal level with the name calling.

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Grow a set of stones and quit whining about the little stuff.

Saying I'm a whiny eunch is personal level of name calling. If you dish it out, you're gonna get it right back at you.
Now that we got that out of the way--

I asked you this:

Originally Posted by BigV

Would you feel the same "it's nothing" if it were your daughters who were killed? If your answer is yes, then I will have nothing to do with you, ever again.

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Anyway, I'd be devastated if my children died.

I am unsurprised and relived by your answer. OF COURSE you'd be devastated. OF COURSE.

So please, please tell me how things are different for the children in Gaza, for the parents in Gaza. How can you say "it's nothing"??? Show me, use small words if you think that's all I will understand, explain to me why they hypothetical loss of your children would be devastating but the real loss of innocent fucking children, but in Gaza, "is nothing".

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

As far as converting them to Christian as was mentioned in a recent joke, the Islamization of Gaza has put increasing pressure on the tiny Christian minority. Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, a rival group to Hamas, announced the opening of a "military wing" to enforce Muslim law in Gaza. "I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza." Sheik Saqer has asserted that there is "no need" for Christians in Gaza to maintain Christian institutions and demanded that Hamas "must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people."

In October 2007, Rami Khader Ayyad, owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was abducted, beaten and murdered, after his bookstore was firebombed by an unidentified group attacking targets associated with Western influence. According to Ayyad's family and neighbors, he had regularly received anonymous death threats from people angered by his missionary work.

No one on this board ever comments on the suffering of Christians in the Middle East. It's the dirty little secret that no one acknowledges, because it's fashionable to ascribe the sins of European Roman Catholics who lived centuries ago to people today who have never been Catholic, but who have continued in a faith handed down to them for two millennia.

Christian populations predate Muslims in all of the Middle East and North Africa. Of course they do. And, while Christianity spread peacefully in the first few centuries CE, Islam, as it came into being in the 6th century, spread in the way it does today - through violence, enslavement, and genocide. The Christians of the Middle East are the forgotten minority; they are all Orthodox (or a variant); and they deserve more notice, and concern, from the West.

Big Sarge is the first person who has mentioned anything about Arab Christians. If anyone is interested, investigate what has become of the former Christian populations in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.
They have been decimated, driven out, and exterminated.

I spent a great deal of time with Muslim residents in WV during the past two years. They were diverse in opinion and level of devotion, as any group would be who held a common religion but had come from different backgrounds. It was a learning opportunity that I appreciated.

Dana, I've not encountered nor read about any Christian group that practiced/practices FGM. Can you provide a reference? If such a thing has ever been documented, it would be such an anomaly, such an outlier, that it should be noted as such. That is not the case in the many Muslim populations that practice FGM. Even if it predated the adoption of Islam by those populations, even if that could actually be confirmed, it was retained as compatible with Islamic mores and practice. That can't be said for Christian communities in general, in the Middle East and Asia.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

snip--

I spent a great deal of time with Muslim residents in WV during the past two years. They were diverse in opinion and level of devotion, as any group would be who held a common religion but had come from different backgrounds. It was a learning opportunity that I appreciated.

--snip

ortho, did any of the Muslim residents you got a chance to learn about first hand display or betray anything like the "love of death" described above?

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by BigV

ortho, did any of the Muslim residents you got a chance to learn about first hand display or betray anything like the "love of death" described above?

Yes, one of the two who were originally from Saudi did. He also argued for beheadings and the cutting off of hands as appropriate punishments. The other resident from Saudi blamed 'the culture' for things like child marriage/rape and women having no recourse against domestic violence, but never spoke against the regime or Sharia law, which he supported.