Balak - 12 March 2008 11:00 AM

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.

You are hysterical, you are not debating just screaming accusations and half truths. The more you contribute to this thread the more ignorant of the issues you prove to be. Sam Harris did not support the invasion of Iraq and even if he did what has that got to do with my views? Also I don’t care what Madelaine Albright said. I don’t support American foreign policy.

You have failed to address any of my counter points to your anti western diatribe and you keep slinging around the accusation of racism. How can one be racist against an ideology? You obviously have an ax to grind because you have lost your ability to debate with any coherency or thought. All you are doing now is spewing hate and demonising the West.

You have quite simply lost all credibility.

You are just cluttering up the thread with your anti western dogma. It’s getting boring now. I realise you are not here to debate but to rail against the west. Well as I said I don’t support much of western foreign policy so you are wasting your time.

Either debate like a rational human being or go to a Trotskyite/far left or Islamist forum to preach your loaded message, your dogma will be welcome there.

I get the feeling this might be Mano part 2 the revenge

Here are my thoughts on the situation at hand.

I see that there is (if not a clash of civilisations) there is definitely a conflict between Islamic taboos/Islamic teachings/Muslim culture with western liberal values.

The question is how we deal with this internal conflict. It need not be a violent confrontation. In my view it doesn’t involve legislating against Islam. In the west we are free to believe what we want whether you are a Muslim, Christian, Pagan or Buddhist.

You are free to build houses of worship and practice your belief system openly. These freedoms must remain. Geert Wilders is proposing that we revoke these fundamental rights for Muslims. This is discriminatory and goes against the universal declaration of human rights. In my view people like Geert Wilders must be opposed.

But that still leaves us with the internal conflict between a strong and increasingly assertive Islamic culture and a weak liberal culture with an increasing tendency to surrender it’s values in the name of multiculturalism.

I do not think we have to legislate against anything we just have to enforce the laws we already have and stand up for liberal culture by openly criticising the things in Islamic culture that offend our liberal culture.

If there are laws against forced marriage, polygamy or a seperation of religion and state then we should enforce those laws with equanimity without recourse to cultural sensitivity, multiculturalism or moral relativity. We should stand firm on the value that there is one law for all and not adapt our laws to fit a religious doctrine or culture.

It is not racist to criticise Mormons for polygamy, it is not racist to enforce the law when a Mormon becomes a polygamist so we need to stop accusing the authorities who enforce the law or those liberals who stand up for their liberal values of oppression and racism when they react to Islamic customs.

That would be the best way to deal with any conflict between religious ideology and western liberal culture, just enforce the law and openly challenge those things that offend liberal values.

I am in no doubt that Western liberal culture is preferable to Islamic, Christian or Jewish culture. If you think I am wrong and you would like to see liberalism adjusted to accomodate a religious doctrine I would be interested to hear your arguments for that. Tell me which customs which religions you think we should accomodate and why.

As for how we deal with the conflict in the wider world I will speak from where we are now. Let me just make myself clear I didn’t support the Iraq war but now our troops are there we have a difficult situation in how we extract ourselves from Iraq without abondoning our duty to protect civilians and without handing a victory to the genocidal maniacs who wish to supress those ordinary Iraqi civilians. At this moment in time I am not sure how we should fix the mess the Neocons have created but I am sure that an instant withdrawl is not the answer. It is a difficult situation. A sensible discussion on this subject is needed

Afganistan is a different ball game. I supported the war in Afganistan and I support Western efforts against the despicable Taliban. Unfortunately the misadventures in Iraq means they have taken their eyes off the ball in Afganistan and allowed the Taliban to regroup. There has to be a different approach taken in Afganistan and once again I freely admit I’m not sure what the answer is but it also doesn’t involve walking away and leaving Afganistan at the mercy of the Taliban. So I say it again! A sensible discussion on this subject is needed.

As for Iran my instinct is that as Westerners we should reach out to the multitude of disafected and disillusioned Iranian secularists. We should be helping in any way we can to empower Iranian opposition to Islamic theocracy. Many Iranians are our natural allies and we should capitalise on this.

Saudi Arabia should be serverely criticised for their institutionalised racism, misogyny, oppresion, barbary and their exportation of Saudi Wahabism. We should not be welcoming Saudi Royals and allowing them to fund mosques and supply Korans to our prison system. This must be stopped. I know this opens up a whole can of worms reguarding oil but we will run out sooner or later, better we start searching for an alternative NOW and start stemming the flow of Wahabi teachings now.

Israel/Palestine, in my veiw we must demand that Israel pull back to the agreed borders, stop buliding settlements and using military strikes. This is quite easily done all we need is the political will and that is where the difficulty arises. It gets even more difficult because even if Israel pulls back to the agreed borders there are many Islamic fundamentalists who will see this as a green light to step up attacks. How we deal with this without using military force or sanctions is difficult. I propose that both Isael and Palestine be under the authority of a UN peace keeping force until the Palestinians have established a peaceful democracy and stable economy. My hope is that once this is achieved the support for Hamas, Hezbollah and other religious extremists will dry up.

I am not saying that I know it all or that I have all the answers but these are my thoughts on the situation that we find ourselves in the Middle East and domestically.

I know people will want to attack my thoughts and search for weaknesses in my views but I know that there are weaknesses in my views. I do not claim infallibility. Rather than try to shoot me down lets discuss the points made. I’m open to new ideas. This is an attempt to start a constructive debate not an invitation to Trotskyites and Islamists to demonise the West and call me racist.

This is Weird. Kind of like overhearing some drunken ass-hat spewing Islamophobic bigotry in a bar one night, then seeing the very same guy the next day - only this time he’s sober, in a suit and tie, standing on a platform giving the ‘respectable’ (and spell-checked) version as a policy statement for Hillary or Obama.

That just goes to show how clouded your mind is by the dogma of the far left. You hear criticism of Islam and you jump to the conclusion of racism. You hear someone defend Israel or America and you scream the accusations of Zionism and imperialism.

You just didn’t think and you came to a conclusion because in your world someone must be racist if they criticise non whites. Someone must be a Neocon if they don’t condemn America.

It must be weird for you when you view the world in a simplistic one sided way and it turns out to be more complex and nuanced. No wonder you are confused. Reality bites.

PS: What exactly is wrong with having a phobia about a set of ideas? I don’t deny that I am Islamopobic. You bandy the word around as if it had the same conotations as nazi.

It is quite possible to be an islamophobe and a liberal, anti racist, anti nazi, reasonable peace loving human being.

To criticise a set of ideas is not bigotry and your description of me as coming across as a drunken bigot only goes to show how prejudiced you are.

I did not say anything which would have lead you to believe I was anything other than someone who was criticisin a set of beliefs. I did not once demonise a race or call for a groups persecution. So why did you think you where debating a racist neocon?

“Well I was once young an impulsive,
Wore every conceivable pin,
Even went to some socialist meetings,
learned all the old Union hymns…

“But now I am older and wiser,
and that’s why I’m turning you in!

So love me, love me, love me…
I’m a liberal.”

-- Phil Ochs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STdmiiYTl9I

Bravo.

Do you have anything constructive to add to this thread or just unfounded accusations, anti Western diatribe, snide comments, ridicule and disdain?

If you look down on liberalism so much pray tell what are your politics? I have spelled out where I stand on things. Seeing as you are the one who employs ad hominem attacks perhaps you might share with us your personal vision of a better world.

Also if I’m a soppy liberal who just wants to be loved I sure seem to be going the wrong way about it because criticisng Islam not only earns me the anger of Muslims but the spiteful rage and condemnation of people like you on the left.

(He forgot to add that ‘some of his best friends are Muslims!’)

Once again an ad hominem attack. You are implying I’m racist again. What cheap tactics.

Also I notice how you have run away from any serious debate with me and have just resorted to snide comments. you are not doing yourself any favours. You are behaving like a child.

Once again your credibility takes another nose dive. I’m glad I’m not you.

Hey, guys.  I’m sure you’re both having fun engaging in your furious debate, but for the benefit of the more sensitive of our members, could you tone down the personal attacks a bit, even if you feel they’re justified or if you are only responding to a prior pecadillo?  Thanks.

Occam

Some well known racists.

Maryam Namazie

Maryam Namazie is a Iranian feminist and apostate of Islam. She grew up under the Iranian theocracy and worked for the UN in Sudan when the Islamic theocracy took hold there. As you can see her racist imperialist credentials are strong.

I’m paraphrasing here but basically what she says about the anti imperialist left is that.

“Where womens rights under Islamic laws are concerned the left have an affinity with Islam, which the left views as an oppresed religion bullied by the US. This group of leftists are an anti colonial movement whos aims coincide with the ruling classes in the so called third world.”

Eg: Oppose America.

“These leftists are on the side of those in the third world no matter what goes on there as long as they both have the common goal of opposing America.” She says that “these leftists understanding of the third world is Eurocentric, patronising and racist. In the third world arcording to them, the people in those countries are one and the same with the theocracies and repressive ideologies which they struggle against.”

“So we see at Stop the War Coalition demonstrations they carry banners saying “We are all Hezbollah now” we see segregation of men and women and they urge unveiled women to wear the veil out of solidarity and respect.
Even their anti-imperialism is pathetically half baked, it does not take into account how in Iran for example the Islamic revolution which was supported by these leftsits sought to crush the left and working class revolutionary movements. This type of politics denies universal rights, it sees rights as Western.”

“It justifies the supression of womens rights freedom and equality under the guise of respect for other cultures implying that people choose to live the way that they are forced to and imputing on inumerable numbers of people the most reactionary elements of culture and religion which is that of the ruling Islamic class.”

“In this type of leftist politics the oppresor is a victim and any criticism of the oppresor racist.” (she is talking about the move you keep using on me Balak, please apologise as I am not a racist)

“Whilst the anti imperialist left defends political Islam on the one hand the virulently racist and right wing movements of the west defend US militarism and the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine on the other.”

Basically Balak she is saying people with political views such as yourself are as much to blame for the plight of people in Muslim nations as the supporters of the neocons are. The anti imperialist far left and the neocons are two sides of the same coin. Think about it before you respond with accusations of racism.

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie as we all know is an Indian apostate of Islam.

I’m quoting an American journalist who writes about Salman Rushidie and he quotes some of Rushdies speaches which refer to your type of politics Balak. Have a read and once again think about it before you respond.

“A staunch opponent of the Iraq War, Rushdie has nonetheless been attacked as a neoconservative for saying what the far left regards as heresy: that the problem is not only with America, and that Islamic culture must be held accountable for its faults. Rushdie drove home the point during his talk, warning against “surrender from within” in the U.S. and Europe. Surrender from the left he described as appeasement, the wish to “understand” what should be firmly deplored. Surrender from the right he characterized as bigotry, warmongering, torture—behaviors and policies that simply mirror the Islamist hardliners.”

“There are still those in the West who, probably not having read The Satanic Verses, choose to discuss the book on Khomeini’s terms, holding Rushdie guilty of “going too far.” Some argue that the knighthood bestowed on Rushdie in June 2007 was itself “insensitive” to Muslims. But as Rushdie pointed out during his Q&A;, hundreds of Muslim writers leapt to his defense when it counted. Muslims regularly attend his readings and ask him to sign their books. “Why is their opinion less important?””

Ibn Warraq (Ibn Warraq is a psuedonym used because of the obvious dangers of criticising Islam)

Ibn Warraq is a Pakistani apostate of Islam and the author of a book called Why I’m Not A Muslim

“Mine is a voice that has not yet found expression in newspaper columns. It is the voice of those who are born Muslims but wish to recant in adulthood, yet are not permitted to on pain of death. Someone who does not live in an Islamic society cannot imagine the sanctions, both self-imposed and external, that militate against expressing religious disbelief. ‘I don’t believe in God’ is an impossible public utterance even among family and friends...So we hold our tongues, those of us who doubt.”

Warraq writes

“The very notion of apostasy has vanished from the West, where one talks of being a ‘lapsed Catholic’ or ‘nonpracticing Christian’ rather than an ‘apostate.’ There are certainly no penal sanctions for converting from Christianity to any…superstitious flavor of the month, from New Ageism to Islam.”

In stark contrast Ibn Warraq goes on to say about the testimonies of other apostates of Islam “All the testimonies here are witnesses to the authors’ courage, for a free discussion of Islam remains rare and dangerous, certainly in the Islamic world and even in our politically correct times in the West. A surprising number of the apostates decided to write under their real names, a triumphant gesture of defiance and freedom. Many, on the other hand have chosen to write pseudonymously, and since this is a fact that seems to irritate many in the secular West, I shall briefly indicate the reasons why. Apostasy is still punishable by long prison sentences and even death in many Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Iran, and as many of our authors have relatives in those countries, whom they regularly visit, it is common sense and simple prudence not to use their real names”

So this is yet another testimony of a non Western ex Muslim.

Is it still racist to have a phobia about Islam? We all know about Ayan Hirsi Ali is she racist? If I am racist why not these people. Is it ok for someone of African, Asian or Persian origin to criticise the ideas and practices of Islam but racist for Westerners. And what makes you so sure I am white?

Think think think before you throw your accusations of racism about, doggedly demonise the West and condescendingly treat all Muslims as victims of Western oppression. Think.

PS: Hello Occam, I hope this doesn’t seem to confrontational but he keeps implying I am racist and I must defend myself against such an unfounded accusation. I hope you understand.

I don’t question the motives of former Muslims who are opponents of political Islam; I seek to expose the pro-imperialist ideology that hides its economic and geo-political interests behind repugnant self-serving and racist lies about how the ‘West’ can ‘help’ Muslim women.

This is nothing but facelift on the ‘white-man’s burden’ crap that rationalized centuries of crimes against Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Indian sub-continent.

Back in the 1930s, even a pro-imperialist politician like M.K. Ghandi, when asked by a reporter ‘what he thought of Western Civilization,’ could come back with: “I think it would be a good idea”.

I suppose that’s one measure of how far consciousness has regressed in recent years.

So your well thought out reply is just to demonise the west yet again. With all due respect, change the record.

So you don’t question the motives of ex Muslims you just ignore their valid criticism of your politics.  If your only beef is with racists and imperialists why are you being so accusatory towards me and so protective of Islam?

“The West” is a constantly shifting ideological myth for school children and other gullible people.

Western imperialism is a fact with a long, bloody, dirty history.

This is pointless, you are just lost in your animosity to the West. You have ignored pretty much all of my posts. You have ignored my challenge to your accusations of racism and you simply keep repeating the mantra of the west is evil, the west is evil.

If you do not wish to debate and only wish to rail against the West why are you contributing to this thread?

You haven’t addressed any of the criticisms of your world view all you do is throw yet more mud at the West without actually debating the points raised. You now know I am not a neocon or a racist but you continue with your anti Western diatribe as if I was calling for a new crusade and a genocide of all brown people.

Will you start engaging me sensibly or will you carry on in this accusatory, obscurantist fashion?

If you carry on like this I will just ignore you because it is plain for all to see you don’t have anything constructive or pertinent to bring to this thread other than a onesided far left Trotskyite denounciation of all that is Western.

You might think that your behaviour is in some way driving an important point home but anyone who reads this thread with any impartiality will see how you have dodged my contributions and proceeded to blindly and doggedly promote your dogmas about the Wests inherent malevolance.

If the West is so evil and the rest of humanity are blameless victims then I appeal to your more reasonable side and ask you two questions. What do you think humanity should do about the menace of the Evil West? and what kind of civilisation do you see replacing the nasty capitalism, flawed democracy and shallow freedoms of the evil West?