I agree with you that there are more Muslim extremists that would physically attack you for saying certain things about their book than Christian extremists likely to do the same.

Sometimes you just have to rub your eyes and read this stuff several times over…

Oooooo those nasty, violent, fanatical Muslims!

Who would know from these musings that Western Christian imperialists have spent the last few hundred years invading, occupying and looting Muslim countries and killing anyone who stood in their way (and many who didn’t!) rather than the opposite? Who would know that the most reactionary, backward and clerical forces in the Arab world are mainly the ones installed in power by Western imperialism?

This shows the success of the racist ‘War on Terror’ - at least when it comes to cultivating the bizarre mentality of Western ‘victimhood’!

Balak - 08 March 2008 05:05 PM

I agree with you that there are more Muslim extremists that would physically attack you for saying certain things about their book than Christian extremists likely to do the same.

Sometimes you just have to rub your eyes and read this stuff several times over…

Oooooo those nasty, violent, fanatical Muslims!

Who would know from these musings that Western Christian imperialists have spent the last few hundred years invading, occupying and looting Muslim countries and killing anyone who stood in their way (and many who didn’t!) rather than the opposite? Who would know that the most reactionary, backward and clerical forces in the Arab world are mainly the ones installed in power by Western imperialism?

This shows the success of the racist ‘War on Terror’ - at least when it comes to cultivating the bizarre mentality of Western ‘victimhood’!

Your joking arent you?

Balak I’m rubbing my eyes. Your not a fully paid up member of the “the west is totally malevolant and all those who oppose the West are worthy of support” crew are you?

Are you one of those who sees criticism of Muslim religion as racist?

Are you one of those who sees criticism of Muslim religion as racist?

What is racist is the refusal to to see the rise of political Islam in its historical context: as a modern bi-product of imperialist actions in the Muslim world. These include:

1. the systematic sabotage or liquidation by the West of would-be modernizing and secularist political movements in the Middle East and elsewhere over most of the last century;

2. Western (U.S.-led) encouragement, arming and funding, of the most backward elements in Islamic societies as a bulwark against ‘communist’ influence;

3. The broader failure, if it can be called that, of the anti-colonialist, secular bourgeois and stalinist-led nationalist movements in most of the ‘Third World’ to make headway against Western imperialist obduracy and obstructionism in the goal of creating democratic, secular, capitalist societies (in fact this project itself was somewhat utopian under the international division of labor created by imperialism).

All of the above interacted - in different ways in different countries - to produce a climate of overall social despair and political stagnation. The absence of any realistic perspective for the future create a mass base for the revival of religion and hence the ascendancy of backward-looking political Islam (which for most of the twentieth century had represented a relatively marginal movement).

Yes. Opposition to political Islam (and all its toxic attributes) that ignores and suppresses this vital context is simply racist Muslim-bashing.

Balak - 08 March 2008 07:20 PM

Are you one of those who sees criticism of Muslim religion as racist?

What is racist is the refusal to to see the rise of political Islam in its historical context: as a modern bi-product of imperialist actions in the Muslim world. These include:

1. the systematic sabotage or liquidation by the West of would-be modernizing and secularist political movements in the Middle East and elsewhere over most of the last century;

2. Western (U.S.-led) encouragement, arming and funding, of the most backward elements in Islamic societies as a bulwark against ‘communist’ influence;

3. The broader failure, if it can be called that, of the anti-colonialist, secular bourgeois and stalinist-led nationalist movements in most of the ‘Third World’ to make headway against Western imperialist obduracy and obstructionism in the goal of creating democratic, secular, capitalist societies (in fact this project itself was somewhat utopian under the international division of labor created by imperialism).

All of the above interacted - in different ways in different countries - to produce a climate of overall social despair and political stagnation. The absence of any realistic perspective for the future create a mass base for the revival of religion and hence the ascendancy of backward-looking political Islam (which for most of the twentieth century had represented a relatively marginal movement).

Yes. Opposition to political Islam (and all its toxic attributes) that ignores and suppresses this vital context is simply racist Muslim-bashing.

Nonsense that is outrageous. How can you accuse me of racism for criticising an ideology. Ideas are not people. I didn’t even critisise all Muslims. Just Islam as a set of beliefs.

Do you support Isreal? I thought not.

Well lets turn your logic on to you. If you criticise Isreal without taking into account the oppresion Jews suffered under the Nazis then you are racist. If that logic stands up any criticism of American Christianity that doesn’t take into account the oppression the Puritans suffered under the English monarchy is racist. I openly criticise American Christianity, does that make me twice as racist?

Do you object to people ridiculing American religiosity? Do you object to a criticism of the religious ideology behind the mesianic settlers of Isreal? Or is it only Muslims and Islam you protect from criticism, why is this? Maybe you are the racist?

My criticism is without prejudice, when they become assertive all monotheism should be openly criticised. It just happens to be Islam which is the most assertive at this moment in history. That does not give you the right to accuse me of racism.

People like you have double standards you hold westerners to a higher standard than you do others then excuse the murderous excesses of ethnic groups as an understandable reaction to the actions of western governments.

You blame the rise of genocidal Islamic groups on the actions of liberal democracies, you absolve these totalitarian groups of all responsibility.

“We made them and we legitimise them with our military adventures”

We are the problem, We deserve everything we get. America, Western Europe, the UK and Russia are bad bad bad and Iran, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Al Qiueda, The Muslim Brotherhood are not to be criticised because we are soooo baaaaad.

People like you pick over western foreign policy with a fine tooth comb finding the oil companies, evil corporations, imperialsm or conspiracy behind every move. Whereas you ignore what the jihadis say about killing infidels, hating liberal values and their beleif that killing people on tubes will get them to paradise.

The scrutiny you use on western foreign policy is not to be used on the jihadis because the jihadis are fighting the worst criminals on the face of the earth, the Americans.

It doesn’t matter what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says about Isreal being wiped off the map or his messaianic beliefs or what Osama Bin Laden says about paradise and murder because they are not the criminals the liberal western democracies are.

I do not support American foreign policy but unlike you I realise that America is not totally malevolant and the genocidal theocrats who kill Afgani teachers for teaching girls or hang young Iranian girls for crimes against chastity deserve at best harsh criticism, at worst military opposition.

I’m not arguing in favour of George Bush’s policies, I am arguing in favour of open criticism of bad ideas and for those bad ideas to be vetoed by the universal declaration of human rights wherever possible. If you think that is racist then you don’t know the meaning of the word.

“We made them and we legitimise them with our military adventures”

This is not a quotation from anything I have posted. I am not a representative of U.S./Western imperialism and have no responsibility for its crimes.

As to support for ‘Israel’ (beyond my willingness to spell the name correctly):

I defend the right of Jews to live in unmolested alongside the Palestinian people (as they did for centuries prior to the imposition of the zionist state), and fail to see why the Palestinian people are obliged to pay with their lands for Nazi crimes against the Jews of Europe. Advocates of ‘collective guilt’ might have a better argument for cutting out a piece of Germany as compensation to the victims of the nazi holocaust. What did the Palestinians have to do with it?

I oppose the zionists’ theft of lands and brutal repression against the Palestinian people, but am for the right of return, guaranteed by international law (for what that’s worth) of all those illegally expelled.

Balak - 11 March 2008 09:23 AM

“We made them and we legitimise them with our military adventures”

This is not a quotation from anything I have posted. I am not a representative of U.S./Western imperialism and have no responsibility for its crimes.

As to support for ‘Israel’ (beyond my willingness to spell the name correctly):

I defend the right of Jews to live in unmolested alongside the Palestinian people (as they did for centuries prior to the imposition of the zionist state), and fail to see why the Palestinian people are obliged to pay with their lands for Nazi crimes against the Jews of Europe. Advocates of ‘collective guilt’ might have a better argument for cutting out a piece of Germany as compensation to the victims of the nazi holocaust. What did the Palestinians have to do with it?

I oppose the zionists’ theft of lands and brutal repression against the Palestinian people, but am for the right of return, guaranteed by international law (for what that’s worth) of all those illegally expelled.

You miss my point completely. I’m not arguing for collective guilt and for a homeland for the Jews I am pointing to your absurd claim that criticising Islam without blaming Islamic fantacism on western imperialism is racist Muslim bashing. Considering Islam is an ideology not a race and that Muslims come from many different races I can only assume you are an ignoramous on this subject.

The scrutiny you use on western foreign policy is not to be used on the jihadis because the jihadis are fighting the worst criminals on the face of the earth, the Americans.

Islam (like all other religions) is a product of history. Centuries of subjugation of Muslim societies to Western imperialism have meant, in essence, that the kind of historical, economic and political pathways that resulted in the protestant reformation, and later the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in Europe, were choked off. It could be rightly argued that this factor alone does not make the rise of Islamic fanaticism inevitable. But the political Islam of today was not merely an unconscious by-product of imperialism; Al Qaida is only one example of a movement that was actually called to life, armed, funded by imperialism against ‘godless communism’ in the recent past.

The fact that innocent civilians in imperialist countries have actually suffered ‘blowback’ from centuries of the rulers’ interference in other parts of the world is evidently outrageous to the likes of BPig. The terrorist attacks on civilians in New York, London, Madrid etc. by Islamic reactionaries are criminal, but probably on something like a scale of 1-1000 in terms of the death and destruction inflicted on Muslim societies by Western military interventions.

It doesn’t matter what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says about Isreal being wiped off the map or his messaianic beliefs…

For all my contempt for the Iranian theocracy, I must point out that this favorite neocon talking point is a hoax - based on a deliberate mistranslation of what was actually said by Ahmedinejad (not that it will keep them from repeating it ad nauseam).

Balak - 11 March 2008 12:48 PM

The scrutiny you use on western foreign policy is not to be used on the jihadis because the jihadis are fighting the worst criminals on the face of the earth, the Americans.

Islam (like all other religions) is a product of history. Centuries of subjugation of Muslim societies to Western imperialism have meant, in essence, that the kind of historical, economic and political pathways that resulted in the protestant reformation, and later the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in Europe, were choked off. It could be rightly argued that this factor alone does not make the rise of Islamic fanaticism inevitable. But the political Islam of today was not merely an unconscious by-product of imperialism; Al Qaida is only one example of a movement that was actually called to life, armed, funded by imperialism against ‘godless communism’ in the recent past.

The fact that innocent civilians in imperialist countries have actually suffered ‘blowback’ from centuries of the rulers’ interference in other parts of the world is evidently outrageous to the likes of BPig. The terrorist attacks on civilians in New York, London, Madrid etc. by Islamic reactionaries are criminal, but probably on something like a scale of 1-1000 in terms of the death and destruction inflicted on Muslim societies by Western military interventions.

It doesn’t matter what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says about Isreal being wiped off the map or his messaianic beliefs…

For all my contempt for the Iranian theocracy, I must point out that this favorite neocon talking point is a hoax - based on a deliberate mistranslation of what was actually said by Ahmedinejad (not that it will keep them from repeating it ad nauseam).

You still haven’t apologised for implying I was racist for criticising an ideology. Shame on you.

So all the blame is on the west? Muslim culture is completly beyond criticism because the west created all of the problems in the world today. Is that your view on the current state of affairs?

You are just maintaining the illusion that the totalitarian movements of ethnic origin would stop threatening our lives if only the ‘root cause’ of western provocation was removed. This is nonsense and the way you place all of the blame on the West and absolve all others shows the onesided paucity of your argument. You are blinkered by your opposition to American capitalists/imperialists or whatever you want to call them.

I agree with you much of what the west does is terrible and incompetant but that does not absolve the Islamists of blame. Also I take into account the ideas that go behind these opposing views. Modern Western society is for the most part based on freedom, equality and human rights. They are predominantly liberal democracies but those that oppose them are genocidal, totalitarian theocrats. As a liberal I cannot make common cause with such people. You obviously don’t care too much about this difference.

The history of Islamic extremism goes way back to a suped up ultra-right reaction to the 18th century Enlightenment and beyond. The killing of those who criticise Islam can be dated right back to the time of Mohammad. Infact you will find the Ottomans took Americans as slaves and justified their crimes with recourse to the Koran.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, then the ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. The ambassador’s response was reported to the Continental Congress:

“That it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Qur’an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.

If you know your history as well as you seem to you should know that imperialism, slavery and agression is not the sole domain of western armies and governments.

Scripturally the Islamic extremists are on solid ground. Much of the violence we see comes straight from the books and the belief that the Muslim holy book is the perfect, unaltered, unalterable words of the creator of the universe.

Much of the solidarity of many Muslims with the plight of the Palestinians does not stem from a genuine care for those poor Palestinian souls but from the Islamic idea that infidels (especially Jews) must not occupy Muslim lands. It stems from an idea about Muslim honour and a sense of humiliation. Why would Allah allow his people to be dominated by Jews and infidels.

To see the truth of this you just have to look at the kind of support that Muslim countries and movements give to the Palestinians. They are not granting asylum and citizenship to Palestinians they are keeping them in refugee camps as second class citizens and arming them to perpetuate a war against the hated Jews. Just look at the amount of Palestinians that are killed by Arabs but there is no outcry from western liberals about the oppresion inflicted on Palestinians by other Arabs it’s only Zionists and Americans who we condemn. Why the double standards?

I criticise Israel and America for many of their policies but I realise that the picture is more complicated and genocidal Islamic hatred of Jews and infidels plays a big part in this mess. You just deny the existance of this hatred or absolve the purveyors of this hatred and latent Arab imperialism by blaming their hate on western actions.

For your information the British empire is no more and America doesn’t have an empire. Also historically Muslims had empires of their own they just lost because of the technological advances of the western culture. Imperialism is not a western invention.

By the way I am not a neocon and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not been misquoted.

Your line of thinking is a typical Chomskyesque demonisation of the west and apologetic of those who are not of a western background.

It is possible for Arabs, Africans, Asians and Iranians to have a totalitarian movement of their own.

To think that they are always the good guys reacting to our oppression is potentially more racist than anything I have said.

The answer to this situation is to empower the secularists and democrats in Muslim countries not invade their countries like George Bush or apologise for and verbally support the Islamic totalitarian movements as you do.

The type of wretched slop above is exactly what comes out the back end of the ‘liberal’ Atheist roadshow fronted by the Harris/Hitches crowd. Although I have often enjoyed their acerbic points against religion, these low-life Islamophobic rantings better illuminate where the ‘liberal’ Clash-of-Civilizations types are headed.

I guess it’s really hidden in plain sight, though I only recently discovered that Harris has called for attacking Muslim countries with nuclear weapons...(!)

Balak - 11 March 2008 04:10 PM

The type of wretched slop above is exactly what comes out the back end of the ‘liberal’ Atheist roadshow fronted by the Harris/Hitches crowd. Although I have often enjoyed their acerbic points against religion, these low-life Islamophobic rantings better illuminate where the ‘liberal’ Clash-of-Civilizations types are headed.

I guess it’s really hidden in plain sight, though I only recently discovered that Harris has called for attacking Muslim countries with nuclear weapons...(!)

Why have you not addressed my relevant points, instead you have resorted to ad hominem attack and the old tactic of dismissing an argument as sloppy or racist without actually adressing any of the points raised. You do not deny the history of Islamic imperialism, you do not seriously tackle my point about the nature of Muslim support of Palestinians. You just try to bellitle my points by labelling them as part of the “Liberal atheist roadshow”. Your behaviour is rather disingenuous and your tactics are cheap.

I’m not Sam Harris, I have not called for a nuclear strike or any other kind of bombing, you are obviously incapable of having a debate once your simplistic anti western world view has been challenged. Oh well I can only assume you can’t back up your onesided politics.

Your obsession with a percieved American imperialism is so entrenched in your consciousness that you cannot see the other side of the argument. Wheras I can see both sides, you see so called American imperialism as the fount of all evil in the world, and have lost your capacity to imagine any other dangers. You have lost the ability to challenge totalitarian ideologies and stand up for liberal values. You are lost in a Chomskyesque mirage.

Plus you lose all credibility in my eyes because you have not apologised for implying that I was racist for criticising Islam. Shame on you for your blinkered world view, shame on you for making excuses for ultra conservative ideologies and shame on you for not apologising.

PS: Sam Harris has not called for attacking Muslim countries with nuclear weapons. He makes a hypothetical point about what a western democracy might have to do in the event of a regime headed by inspiring martyrs and jihadis if they were in possesion of thermo nuclear weaponry. He makes the point that in this nightmare “hypothetical” situation the only option might be to strike first. Whether you agree with him or not it’s a serious point but he was in no way calling for nuclear attacks to be carried out on Muslim countries.

Lets think about that hypothetical for one minute. What if a country with nuclear capacity does ever find itself ruled by the aspiring martyrs?

Surely in this hypothetical situation your obesession with a percieved American/Western imperialism would finally be redundant.

He makes the point that in this nightmare “hypothetical” situation the only option might be to strike first. Whether you agree with him or not it’s a serious point but he was in no way calling for nuclear attacks to be carried out on Muslim countries.

Lets think about that hypothetical for one minute. What if a country with nuclear capacity does ever find itself ruled by the aspiring martyrs?

YEAH, now that I’m THINKING about it, and putting aside my anti-Western Chomskyesque blinders (and becoming a racist, pro-imperialist mouthpiece “for a minute")…

WHAT if WE knew for a FACT that one of them CRAZY Muslims had gotta hold of a bunch of WMDs, and was CONSPIRING with AL QAEDA to use them against THE CIVILIZED WORLD… I don’t think it would be safe to wait for a smoking gun that might be in the form of a MUSHROOM CLOUD!

Like Sam says, what would 10 million or so innocent civilian MUSLIM casualties matter if it would PRE-EMPT A THREAT like THAT!

Balak - 12 March 2008 09:34 AM

He makes the point that in this nightmare “hypothetical” situation the only option might be to strike first. Whether you agree with him or not it’s a serious point but he was in no way calling for nuclear attacks to be carried out on Muslim countries.

Lets think about that hypothetical for one minute. What if a country with nuclear capacity does ever find itself ruled by the aspiring martyrs?

YEAH, now that I’m THINKING about it, and putting aside my anti-Western Chomskyesque blinders (and becoming a racist, pro-imperialist mouthpiece “for a minute")…

WHAT if WE knew for a FACT that one of them CRAZY Muslims had gotta hold of a bunch of WMDs, and was CONSPIRING with AL QAEDA to use them against THE CIVILIZED WORLD… I don’t think it would be safe to wait for a smoking gun that might be in the form of a MUSHROOM CLOUD!

Like Sam says, what would 10 million or so innocent civilian MUSLIM casualties matter if it would PRE-EMPT A THREAT like THAT!

Your a joke and your level of debate is juvenile and hysterical. The way you are quoting Neocons at me as if I am a Neocon and support their tactics just goes to show how prejudiced you are to anyone who challenges your political dogmas. You are obviously in a severe state of confusion and it’s all due to your lopsided anti western view of the world.

If you can’t debate in an adult manner and have to resort to childish sarcasm, avoidance, ad hominem attack, acusations and the immature tactic of ridiculing a view without addressing the points made I can only assume you know in your heart just how wrong you are.

You have completely ignored the fact that I have not said that bombs nuclear or otherwise should be used and you have ignored the fact that Sam Harris was making a hypothetical point. You still have not appologised for implying that I am racist and you have ignored most of my posts or casually dismissed them as “wretched slop” without actually challenging me. This I will accept as an act of desperation.

You are making yourself look foolish.

There is nothing hypothetical about Harris’ advocacy of nuking innocent Muslim civilians.

Racist U.S. imperialism, uniquely, has USED nuclear weapons to exterminate human populations en masse, attacked and occupied a non-beligerent country - Iraq - without provocation (Harris supported this), and claims the right to “pre-emptively” take any military action it wishes against others. (Likewise Clinton’s former secretary of state Madeleine Albright commented, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi chlidren under U.S. sanctions against the importation of water-purification and medical supplies during the 1990s were ‘worth it.’)

Nor is there anything hypothetical about the current and bi-partisan plans to employ nuclear weapons ‘pre-emptively’ against Iran.

None of the hysterical, henny-penny, Western-victimhood, demonization and racist, islamophobic fear-mongering promoted by Harris and Hitchens (under the fig-leaf of Enlightenment Rationalism no less!) justify the crimes already committed or being contemplated by US/British imperialism against the populations of Muslim countries. It is clear to me at least who has the most dangerous and aggressive disregard for the lives of innocents and the principles of basic human decency.