London Bombing

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Indeed. But Cohen's entire argument is that rich idealistic Westerners are deluded by thinking that if only we could convince the terrorists that we're nice people, everything would be hunky dory.

You may indeed have a point about delusional Western thinking. One need only look to Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta Olympic bombing and numerous abortion clinic bombings to realize that Christian fundamentalists are as prone to acts of terrorism as their Muslim Mid Eastern counterparts.

Up until 9/11 Timothy Mc Veigh, who had ties to a Christian fundamentalist extremist group called Christian Identity, was responsible for the worst terrorist attack on US soil, the Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people, many of them children. The person responsible for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombing has yet to be captured and is known to be associated with domestic Christian fundamentalist groups. For quite sometime now, there have been countless bombings of abortion clinics, family planning centers and terrorist threats from domestic Christian extremists. In 1987, a number of white supremacists influenced by "Christian Idenity" teaching were indicted for plotting to poison the municipal water supplies of two major American cities.

(http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2002/07/1671.shtml)

We may really have a very hard time convincing Islamic fundamentalists, or anyone else for that matter, that we are "nice people" and we believe that God is love.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by marichiko

The person responsible for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombing has yet to be captured and is known to be associated with domestic Christian fundamentalist groups.

Actually, we caught him.

BTW, Undertoad, in your own way, you did pick an instructive example.

Wait wait wait, I found this post from BigV on August 3, 1952. It was on the backups:

Quote:
If only we study the Klan, and let them air their greivances, perhaps they will not be been so violent and outraged. We must understand that there are some valid reasons why they hate the negro. Perhaps if we are open to them we can help them understand the differences of the negro. Anyway, the most important answer to their lynchings is to completely understand their different culture. At least, if we do, we will stop shooting at them in return when they show up on our lawns.

In 1924 the Klan had an estimated membership of 4.5 million and was able to openly march in Washington. Today, the Klan has no real open political power. The difference is not the Klan, but that the rest of our society has grown up. No attempt to eradicate the Klan by force would have succeeded. What happened is that people eventually saw them for what they are. If the Federal goverment had tried to eradicate the Klan by invading Alabama, many people who would not have considered joining them would have supported them. Violence used against them was their recruiting tool.

Originally Posted by richlevy

Actually, we caught him.

My bad, Rich. I should have checked additional sources. When?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by marichiko

My bad, Rich. I should have checked additional sources. When?

Two years ago

His trial ended 3 months ago.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by richlevy

In 1924 the Klan had an estimated membership of 4.5 million and was able to openly march in Washington. Today, the Klan has no real open political power. The difference is not the Klan, but that the rest of our society has grown up. No attempt to eradicate the Klan by force would have succeeded. What happened is that people eventually saw them for what they are. If the Federal goverment had tried to eradicate the Klan by invading Alabama, many people who would not have considered joining them would have supported them. Violence used against them was their recruiting tool.

Right on the money.

[Troubleshooter]

A little something I picked up at the Reason website. It has several hotlinks, too many to add, and some interesting comments as well.

Londonistan

The Washington Post this morning offers a lengthy piece about the "sprawling shape and deep history of al Qaeda and related extremist groups in London." Writes the Post, the British capital long ago "became 'the Star Wars bar scene' for Islamic radicals, as former White House counterterrorism official Steven Simon called it, attracting a polyglot group of intellectuals, preachers, financiers, arms traders, technology specialists, forgers, travel organizers and foot soldiers."

"Today," according to the piece, "al Qaeda and its offshoots retain broader connections to London than to any other city in Europe . . ."

The NYT fronts its own version of the London story, writing that in recent years, "Britain had become a breeding ground for hate," and its capital "a crossroads for would-be terrorists who used it as a home base . . ."

The New Stateman's Jamie Campbell wrote last August about Why terrorists love Britain.
Posted by Charles Paul Freund at July 10, 2005 10:26 AM

[Undertoad]

So how do we get Islamists to reform their society?

Don't tell me what we don't do to achieve this, tell me what we DO.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

So how do we get Islamists to reform their society?

Don't tell me what we don't do to achieve this, tell me what we DO.

I have a couple of suggestions too.

1 -- Fight the hype. When you hear news event Islamofascist dah dee dah...just subtract the hype part. This has postitive effects. You still get to prosecute a crime as in the honor killings, as is just. You starve the recruiters of a little bit of oxygen each time you don't run around in circles flapping on about how the "the Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming!". You train yourself to respond to the facts, and not be distracted by the noise

2 -- Let them be. Let them fall of their own accord. If they believe they can make a functioning society and economy in the world of today, I say, let'em try. What happened to communism? We didn't bomb them into submission, we outplayed them. What makes you think we're unequal to this new foe?

This effort will require considerable restraint on our part in two major ways.

First--get out of their country. There are plenty of reasons to do so and plenty of places in the world where equally awful things happen that we are where we're NOT eyeball deep.

Second--major reduction in oil consumption. Since that's their major economic bulwark, we'd be hittin' 'em where they live: in the wallet. Beat them in the market. Fix their little red wagon, don't buy what their selling.

Look, if the can make go of it, fine. I, myself, don't believe in the righteousness of the coming American Hegemony. The world's big enough for other cultures. We already permit / tolerate / ignore / whitewash all sorts of societal differences in the name of national security / diversity / detente / benevolent disregard. There's room on the list for another.

3 -- Get to know them. Yeah, Kumbayah and all that sh*t. Seriously. Find a person, and get to know them. For this part to work, the person in question has to be a Muslim. But notice, they're a person first. Get to know another and then five or ten more. I'm leaving completely open what kind of Muslim-icity the person believes in. If they're moderate, surprise! You get to see moderate Islam in the flesh. If they're radical, bonus! Now's your chance to see how the other side thinks. And I get a golden opportunity to represent how my side thinks. I f*cking A believe that my way is better and I relish the chance to debate the issue on the merits. Notice this is possible in this scenario where you and another person have gotten to know each other as individuals. Presumably in a way that permits conversations, and the exchange of ideas.

This one is the compliment to suggestion number one. This is anti-hype, and much more representative of the way the world is. I'll give you an example. Bush gets a lot of press. We all talk about him, every day (maybe TMI, I'm a freakin news junkie). But consider how many people vs. presidents you know? Really, my life is influenced much much more by people who aren't the president. Like my boss, my family, the people I interact with every day, the people in my local community, the people in my cyber community, etc. The ones that affect me the most aren't the ones making the most news or even getting the most attention.

By getting past the loudness of what we hear and read in the media, we're able to make more informed judgements of how things really are. The map is not the terrain, but the terrain is what we must cover, regardless of what it says on the map. The hype is not the people, but it is the people with whom we must interact, and relying on a faulty map will lead to faulty decisions. Get to the truth. Get to know each other.

[Happy Monkey]

If I knew that, I'd be telling them, not arguing on a message board. But I don't have to be a doctor to tell someone to stop shooting themselves in the foot.

[Undertoad]

If you shot yourself in the foot, you would not be as lame as that reply.

Mark Steyn agrees that reformation via the moderate side of Islam is the right answer, but contrary to some people on this thread, he says to do that one must be politically incorrect, and link Islam to terrorism:

Why are we surprised that "Muslim moderates" rarely speak out against the evil committed by their co-religionists when the likes of Mr Paddick keep assuring us there's no problem? It requires great courage to be a dissenting Muslim in communities dominated by heavy-handed imams and lobby groups that function effectively as thought-police.

Yet all you hear from Mr Paddick is: "Move along, folks, there's nothing to see here." This is the same approach, incidentally, that the authorities took in their long refusal to investigate seriously the 120 or so "honour killings" among British Muslims.

Just as the police did poor Muslim girls no favours by their excessive cultural sensitivity, so they're now doing the broader Muslim community no favours. The Blair-Paddick strategy only provides a slathering of mindless multiculti fudge topping over the many layers of constraint that prevent Islam beginning an honest conversation with itself.
...
But the coaxing is what counts - wooing moderate Muslims into reclaiming their religion. We can take steps to prevent Islamic terrorists killing us, most of the time. But Islamic terrorists will only stop trying to kill us when their culture reviles them rather than celebrates them.

There are signs in the last week's Muslim newspapers, in London and abroad, that some eminent voices are beginning to speak out. At such a moment, Britain should be on the side of free speech and open debate. Instead, the state is attempting to steamroller through a grotesque law at the behest of already unduly influential Islamic lobby groups. One of its principal effects will be to inhibit Muslim reformers. Shame on us for championing Islamic thought-police over Western liberty.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If you shot yourself in the foot, you would not be as lame as that reply.

What the hell am I going to say? There is no magic bullet that can fix everything, but the first step is to stop doing things that make it worse. If I don't have an alternative, that doesn't mean that the current course is correct; to say that is to say "We must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this." The first step in getting out of a hole is to stop digging. If digging is all you know how to do, that's not a reason to keep digging; you still need to stop.

And of course religions should not be exempt from laws, whether it's Muslim honor killings or faith-healing child abuse. The honor killings should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but military occupation of Muslim neighborhoods in London, or random arrests of Muslims, would not be the way to go.

[Undertoad]

OK, what are we doing that appears to you to be making things worse?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

OK, what are we doing that appears to you to be making things worse?

1) Invading Iraq, thus retroactively proving in many Middle Eastern eyes everything the terrorists have been claiming about us.

2) Our eternal dance of supporting corrupt governments if they will provide short term political advantage. This is not, of course, specific to the Middle East. It is just as harmful in Central and South America.

3) Until very recently, we supported Israel's position no matter what it was (I think we should always support Israel, but sometimes we would be supporting them better by not supporting some of their individual policies). This is something I think Bush has actually improved our position on. If US diplomacy had anything to do with settlement withdrawal, then good on him.

[Trilby]

Ok--(I don't belong here, I'm not anywhere near as well-versed on this as all of you, but I am middle America and I'm not as stupid as you think, so--ok....)

You want politically incorrect? How's this---the Muslim world is 1,000 years behind the rest of the civilized world. At least. And they don't produce anything. To me, those are major, MAJOR flaws that won't be corrected until enough time has passed as such to render the culture/religion "aware"--my niece married a fresh-off-the-jihad Pakistani man. You all should get a load of HIM! How many of YOU have it in the family??? Anyone??

Yes, he's one man. No, he's not inclusive of the entire region/religion. Don't insult me. But he IS completely unwilling to "adopt" this country as his own------so, why the fuck is he HERE?????*

*I've the answer, but it's waaaay off the thread.

Now back to your arguement....

[dar512]

Originally Posted by Brianna

And they don't produce anything.

They don't have to. They've got oil.

The real solution is long term, but I think it's what happened in Russia:

Give them all cable tv and internet access and eventually their kids will demand western culture.