by metatron 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Also fact Israel know before hand of 911 that is why the Israeli citizens where across the river sitting in lawn chairs waiting for the planes to hit and then stood up and cheered when it happened.
I get mad when I hear stupidity on this levelThen why post it ?
Aniron You must be a class act if you did not know what I meant. Funny however I must admidt.
What I am saying Isreal knew before 911 and the U.S. has done nothing to Isreal. Plus Bush invaded a counrty that had nothing to do with 911. Now the world will not work with the U.S. The U.S. has made the Terrorist gain in number and they have become more powerful. The World was ready to hand over the Terrorist to the U.S. right after 911 but now the U.S. is looked at as a counrty trying to take over the world and if we can make something up about a counrty then we could invade that country so the World is afraid of us and hate us. Bush may have started World War 3 not a War against nations but a War against the Worlds people and how they wish to live.
metatron,
You are connecting two totally unrelated ideas: the concept that Islamic fundamentalism is dangerous (which nearly everyone would agree with), and the idea that fighting in Iraq can somehow eradicate that. In reality, I think American forces in Iraq only serves to strengthen the resolve of the fundamentalists.
Your comparison of Iraq to Japan is not a good one. America went to war with Japan, not over ideological issues, but because it was directly attacked by a directly identifiable culprit. The fact that this ultimately ended the cult of emperor worship was a side benefit of ending the war.
With regard the the ideology issue, there is another key difference between Japan and Iraq. In Japan, the emperor renounced his godhood. In spite of this, many older ones continued to believe he was a god, but it effectively ended the cult. However, there is no one person in the Islamic world who could make some similar statement that would result in the instantaneous disavowel of fundamentalism. So, I think you could more realistically look at what happened in Japan as a one-off that was made possible by a special situation there.
Ideologies cannot be overcome via military might. The issue is education. Educated people are not fanatical.
Of course, Iraq is a mess right now. It's hard to know what would happen if US forces just pulled out tomorrow. We're in a sort of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, and I'm not sure what the right path is. But I think it is clear that our presence will not overcome fundamentalism there.
Just my two cents.
Met-
I saw your point and applaud it. I agree. I don't like to say that you have hit a fundamental issue here, because of the religious crap that fundie-ism involves; so, let's call it a basic premise.
If any think oil is the reason, well, that's smoke; or even it if it was part of the reason, so what, that pales in comparison to what you discuss. Even if oil was part of the reason, it is still a "so what".
Singapore has faced this issue years ago: you would have to, too, if you had broken away from a Muslim country dozens of times your size and population. They have some significant fraction of Muslim population (I don't have the demographics handy, but ~25-30% sounds about right) but the majority are Chinese and are Buddhists or Taoists. A great number of Indians are present; and there is a small percentage of British, also. The Catholic Church has a significant presence there.
So, they have the MRHA: Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. You can't do door-door or public evangelism, as a Christian or JW might; but neither can the Muslims. Frankly, the Christian missionaries of previous centuries made a real nuisance of themselves in Asia. They won't get to pull those stunts again.
The Muslims have their Sharia available as part of the "law of the land": it is basically family law for those who practice it; it provides for divorces, marriages and the like. If you are not Muslim, it is not a factor to you. You can also have a payroll deduction contribute to the Mosque Building Fund.
Singapore has high-tech and a strong economy; Muslims are integrated into society and taken into consideration, but they do not run the country. The country is maintained as SECULAR. All who would disagree with that are readily found outside the law and are not tolerated.
It is interesting to note that the last Malaysian election saw the religious candidates lose to secular Malaysians or Chinese, too.
They have enforced a truce and neutral ground. They don't have quite the same religious and other freedoms that we do in the USA. But they came from a different background and had vastly different problems. Their model works for them and addresses this problem much more directly.
I think their model may get more general circulation when it gets noted. They use a hard-nosed, no-nonsense approach: if you want to cause religious strife, from any direction, you will be deported or jailed. The terrorism issue we now face is likely to force this to become a more widely used method.
BTW, their income tax forms are modeled after the US 1040's. :)
Because of the MRHA, I have been working over an essay that I call "Death of Evangelism". I have been asking the local fundies that bother me what that would mean to them.
Mustang
metatron, you make some mistakes and view this in too 'flat' a manner chronologically speaking.
Can you imagine a religious leader
in Europe openly advising adherents on the need to beat wives?!! ( It happened in Britain)
Oh, Christian religious leaders in Europe used to give advise like that and good Christian men used to sit in governmental buildings and pass laws on how thick a stick to beat a woman could be before it was illegal. If you haven't figured our the barbaric nature of some portions of Islam is due to the simple fact some parts of Islam are over two centries behind the West as regards their secularisation, I suggest you srat soon.
The main error I see is you compare WWII Japan to Jihadism. An industrialised country with a dense population all united in one aim is being compared to diffuse groups on the run from the authorities in dozens of countries who lack unity to such an extent they attack their own co-religionists, and who have no industrial base whatesoever.
The comparison doesn't fly. It doesn't even flutter in the breeze.
A closer comparison is to Fundamentalists who cheerfully ignore their literalistic interpretations of the Bible have been known to be false for two hundred years, yet constantly fight against the changes in society they are terrifed of that the last two hundred years of increasing Western secularism have bought about, using their ancient and disreputable ideas. These are the true bed-fellows of the Jihadist, even if they are non-violent. And just as Fundamental Christians fight against change out of fear, so to the Jihadist movement is a desperate attempt to defend Islam against the secularisation that has changed Christianity from the brutal affair it was a few hundred years ago.
I can still see that most of you still don't grasp the whole picture ... but I'll try again.
You don't seem to be absorbing the full import of the incidents I'm citing. For example:
Yes, Christendom used to teach nasty things just like Islam. As centuries passed, enlightenment took hold. This process
needs to be accelerated in Islamic countries,even if by force because history ( and technology) won't wait!
Already, many Muslims in Western nations are demanding a dual legal system , in which the western nations accept "Sharia"
- and not the country's law as applied to them! Such demands have already emerged in Australia, Canada and Europe.
Now, add to the above, a spirit of appeasement in Europe - where cars burn -and 100 - 150 "no-go' zones exist in France,
in which authorities cower, seeing police presence as a "provocation". What's next??? Do you see what could happen?
A state within a state?
Terrorism and Iraq ARE connected! What is needed most on the world scene is one, just one Arab country with prosperity
and a working democracy! They need one decent example of progress to pull them towards 'good old' consumerism
and away from religious violence. Obviously, this hope ( in Iraq) hasn't worked out as intended - and that's not good.
Education will prevent terrorism? Have various terrorists in western lands had college education? Have some Palestinian
terrorists had college education? How about technical schools in Iran? Building nukes?
Mass education of women forced on Islamic lands might help change things................
Terrorists don't have industrialization? Does Iran? Have they openly threatened Israel with being wiped off the map?
If the Pakistan government fell apart, would nukes fall into the hands of terrorists?
As it is, all you need is a new, easy way to separate molecules that are slightly heavier than other molecules,
on a mass scale - and you can create fissionable material. That was the essense of the Manhattan project.
And what about anthrax or other agents? Nerve gas? Need I go on?
The critical point I keep repeating is: Technology is going to make this nasty stuff easier , in the future!
That's why the terror issue needs to be solved now.
There are some positive signs: I think Palestine may quiet down - because they can't build their society and war with Israel
at the same time. Giving them Gaza is good because now they have 'something to lose' - a principle appreciated by prison
officials who have to deal with hardened criminals in 'for life'
metatron
Met, can you provide me anything having to do with democracy in the US Constitution?
Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't the IMF controlling Afgan? Who do you think will be controlling Irag if and when the troops leave? How about the IMF?
This is a side thought. Since Iraq is the cradle of civilization does this have any connection with the end of the world? Its' like, I started the fight and I'm going to finish it. Don't get hairy on me for asking.
Golf
If you are dealing with only Islamic fundamentalism then the U.S. pick on the wrong counrty, because most of the Islamic fundamentalist are coming over the boarder of Iran into Iraq from other counrty's. The only good thing I see happening in Iraq is, you now have a War that is happening in a place of our choosing, far away from our soil. This war was going to happen no matter what anyway because of the U.S.'s had blind eye not seeing Isreal for what it is, and not dealing with Isreal. Isreal is very happy about 911 because we are now fighting their war for them.
I am an optimist even though I can not stand Bush and his lying, which started the War. I think after it is all said and done. He will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents of all time. Why, because the radical Islamic's element is been seen as crazy, blood thirsty people, and the good Islamic people are getting sick at seeing their religion looking bad to the world. Which is giving all of Islam a black eye. In time with more suicide bomers killing the innocent showing good Islamic people how full of hate the radical are, the good will turn on the radical elements and will root them out of their counrty's giving them no place hide. It is all ready happening and because more and more Islamic people are saying we are not like this and niether is the religion of Isalm.
The problem with the invasion of Irq is that the importance of Iraq has mutated; George Bush's adventure has turned into something bigger, a reality many in the anti-war movement ignore. If the US is disgraced out of Iraq, then the Islamofascists would have won; this should have horrid consequences for most everyone, including the weasels in Europe who can't tell the forest from the trees. There's no doubt that the US has been fighting an incompetent war, but between that incompetence and the blindness of the anti-war movement as to the significance of Iraq as a (now mutated) front in the war against Islamofascism, it's a tad difficult to figure which is more distressing.
Those who keep reverting to the case against the use and interpretation of prewar intelligence, or lack of it, are right: the Bush administration need to account for the exaggerations made in the build-up to Iraq's invasion, but alas, they're - to coin a phrase - 'stuck on stupid'. Sensible Democrats who criticise Bush also realise that Iraq has now assumed an importance it did not originally have. To lose in Iraq is to surrender the rest of Western civilisation to the horro and terror of fundamentalist and militant Islam.
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Very well said Gozz
