Slim

Islam's goal is to take over the West, and the World, to recapture the Byzantine Glory Days by stomping out Israel, America, and Regis Philbin.
P.R. battles WILL NOT WORK! Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, its how Arab nations (as well as nations all over the Rock) combat fear. The people I've talked to that have lived/visited in Kuwait and Israel say moslems Hate us as easily and thoughtlessly as they inhale breath.
Dubya didn't declare war on Islam, Islam has long since declared war on the West-- before a lot of us were even born!
i.o.w. I dunno. It won't be simple.
Hearts and minds my butt.
Religion to me is the harnessing of sexual energy, the battle against fear of death, and emulation of Father by the Child.
Maybe a 30-200 generation breeding-program/brainwashing-program? Or just killing everybody and starting over? It's tough.

SLk m

Mamabudz

In today's news of the wierd...

The UN has now placed to Fox to Guard the hen house...

(October 11) - The almost unopposed selection of Syria to hold a rotating seat on the UN Security Council is an embarrassment to the US, but first and foremost to the UN itself. That such a travesty could proceed so smoothly is a mark of the disdain with which free nations must hold the UN, and of how far that body has strayed from its founding ideals.

Electing Syria to the Security Council is the equivalent of electing a mobster to the police oversight board. According to the UN Charter, it is the Security Council that determines the existence of any "threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and decides how to "maintain or restore international peace and security." Two weeks ago, the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism is a threat to "international peace and security" and decided that all states must "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts." The ink is not yet dry on this resolution, but the election of Syria, of all nations, to the post of judge and jury renders its implementation suspect, to say the least. Syria is not just in wholesale violation of this Security Council resolution, but is at the forefront of attempting to legitimate terrorism in the international arena.

While condemning the September 11 attacks on the US, Syria opposes the American right to unilaterally respond and openly justifies any and all terrorism against Israel. On almost the same day that the Security Council was calling on states to root out terrorists, Syria openly held a terrorist convention, in honor of the anniversary of the Palestinian re-embrace of terrorism against Israel.

The Syrian government hosted in its capital the leaders of all the organizations it calls "national liberation movements": Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the PFLP. All four of these groups engage in terrorism, reject all efforts to negotiate peace with Israel, are virulently anti-American, and are listed by the US State Department as terrorist organizations.

A high-level Syrian government official attending the conference said that Syria "endorses this conference and with it all the men of the resistance. As in the past, Syria will in the future continue to be a haven for those struggling for liberation." President Bashar Assad himself explained, "We must not allow the charge of terrorism to be slapped on the resistance movements fighting the occupation, both in Lebanon and Palestine - the Europeans understand this matter."

Assad even found encouragement from the US for his views: "The US has not demanded anything [regarding Hizbullah]; on the contrary, the lists of organizations designating as 'terroristâ' was changed, and the names of organizations and forces resisting Israeli occupation were omitted. This proves," Assad crowed, "that the Americans desire to woo these parties, because they need them for the battle - and that the Syrian position does not contradict the truth - all we need is patience" (translations by www.memri.org).

Assad was referring to the list of organizations whose financial assets would be frozen. The State Department later explained that Hizbullah and other organizations were not listed because the prohibitions already apply to them, but as Assad shows, the omission was clearly understood as differentiating between different types of terrorism.

The US could have put this impression to rest by strongly opposing Syrian membership on the Security Council, even if this were a losing battle in the stacked General Assembly. Syria will oppose or undermine everything the US tries to do in the Security Council. Fighting its bid for membership would have highlighted America's determination to change the rules following September 11 and to utterly reject Syria's open support for terrorism.

In a halfhearted attempt to explain its acquiescence to choosing the fox to guard the henhouse, the State Department blathered, "The United States will continue to express our concerns regarding terrorism with the Syrian government" and expects Syria to "fulfill all Security Council resolutions and to contribute to international peace and security, responsibilities that are only increased by its membership on the Security Council." If this is a "war on terrorism," what does a slap on the wrist look like?

"Expressing concerns" is what the US and Europe were doing before September 11, and we now know the result of such prolonged unseriousness.

The lesson of September 11 is that there is no middle ground on terrorism.

"Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and most of America's other supposed Arab allies in this war are attempting to promote the opposite notion, which is that there is "good terrorism" against Israel and "bad terrorism" against the US. The longer the US turns a blind eye toward the Arab world's "yes, but" approach to this war, the more the sponsors of terror will, like Assad, mock America's will and wait patiently for the wounded giant's wrath to dissipate."

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/1...ial.35989.html

Note that one of the terrorists of the Sept 11th Bombing is still being harbored in Syria.

Just thought you'd want to know

Niteshift

Like I've said before............ the UN is a failed experiment and we should get out of it.

__________________
A burning desire for social justice is never a substitute for knowing what you're talking about. -Thomas Sowell

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is muzzle flash.

Mamabudz

I wish that were a practical option but I fear that would merely provide grist for the propaganda mill and be interpreted as the USA being unwilling to participate in global efforts for peace.

And what would we do with that lovely real estate in NYC?

Niteshift

I don't think it would indicate our unwillingness to support peace initiatives. Frankly, we already contribute the lions share anyway. We bear the brunt of the expenses on all these damn "peacekepping" missions, then the UN has the gall to ***** about us not paying our dues? Give me a f-ing break.

Militarily, the UN is an impotent joke. It's other programs range from dismal failure to marginally successful.

Personally, I know plenty of Americans that would be perfectly happy to see us out of the UN.

How about giving the office space to companies that lost their offices at the WTC?

Mamabudz

Office space for the WTC...

I love your style!

I've had problems with the UN ever since I saw the Palestinian schoolbooks:

If there are 5 Isreali soldiers and you killed 2 with your gun, how many would you have left to kill?
And the "explaination" was that they had to keep the children interested in the schoolwork and the tribal/community leaders agreeable to allowing the children to come to the UN schools!

That was when I stopped "trick or treating" for UNICEF

When the NESTLES fiasco -- NESTLE providing baby formula to 3rd world countries inlieu of mothers breast feeding, casuing thousands of babies to die of malnutrition; and the Spoiled Food fiasco (we'll send it Bhiafra, it'll kill em with the salmonella but they were going to die anyway and we'll appear to be humanitarian) became public I just threw up.

The United Nations Aren't....

But try explaining that to the man on the street...you know the common clay of the new west...the ones who think marijuana smoking leads to ReEfEr MaDnEsS

Excellent point about our "dues"...perhaps we should send them a Bill For Services Rendered and let them just deduct the dues from their payment? Naw, how unhumanitarian of us.

suede

We are all on the same planet.
We have the technology to destroy it in a matter of days.
Do we have the intellegence to keep this from happening?
I think the soultion is in the wording.
A peace keeping nation,we are not.
A peace seeking nation,we should become.b.suede......

__________________
End World Hunger

Slim

Islam centuries ago was the most popular and widespread religion on earth. It was characterized in those times as being a tolerant, peaceful, and open religion, encompassing and mingling with many cultures, including Wester Europe...

America nuked Japan 2 times, banned their military, and subsequently humiliated their people and their leaders. Asian nations to this day harbor distrust of Western culture and its dilution of Eastern beliefs, both religiously and traditionally... yet they don't bomb us or terrorize our civilians. Why? They live in a HEALTHY society. The reconstruction of the Japanese government addressed poverty and politics, it brought Japan to the world scene in industry and therefore in economic competitiveness. Their people aren't HUNGRY. They aren't OPPRESSED.

The situation in the Arab nations can be called a secular phenomenon that draws battle-lines in religious circles. Arabs that have the toughest times feeding their children either go to countries with better opportunites (if they have passports and if they are willing to leave their homeland), or they turn to the mosques. They are disgruntled with their governments and their total failure to meet the needs of its peoples. They go to mosques because it is separate from their secular leaders, because they find common cause there, and because islam is the language of protest for them.

The leaders of these countries know this phenomenon. They encourage it, as it is the "release-valve" of the peoples' tensions. They encourage the media to portray the West as the cause of their woes, to redirect the anger at their own pitiful governments to America and England.

George Bush and Tony Blair repeatedly and emphatically say, "This is NOT a war on Islam!" And this leaves an impression on Americans and Britons that to the Middle-East, that is exactly what it is.

And the Middle-Eastern media, in its anti-West, anti-Semetic, and (sometimes) anti-Christian persuasions, feeds this same message to the people. The secular leaders of these countries feel that their hands are tied to interfere with the people's religious fundamentalism. They FEAR bin Laden and his fanatical effect on their populations, so they let them hate America while telling America the hatred is wrong.

But by riding the fence they encourage people to hate them, and still allow terrorists to be funded and safe. Terrorists turn their eyes toward Arab leaders...It is a lose-lose situation for Arab leaders, a Lose-Lose for their people and Islam, and a Lose-Lose for America.

The leaders will not proclaim their own incompetency, so nothing will be done to fix the economic distaster in the Mid-East. The West will fear instability that is intrinsic to change that could possibly lead to better circumstances for the populations, so they will allow the current leaders to stay in place (all this is excepting Afghanistan obviously). The people do NOT want America to meddle in their 'government-building', they resent such actions.

The media over there needs to at least give a little space for Western viewpoints, at least a glimspe of the way out of this mess. The people of these nations are going to have to want it for themselves and to feel that it is their idea and done by their methods.

Slim

Niteshift

"America nuked Japan 2 times, banned their military, and subsequently humiliated their people and their leaders."

I have to clarify that. The US did not ban the Japanese military. The Japanes Prime Minister, along with several other members of their government asked that their new Constitution prohibit a military because they believed that the only way to change their government, which had been dominated for centuries by the military, was to exercise it from the system. They feared that the continued existence of a powerful military would undermine their attempts to form a democracy.

If we had wanted to ban it, we would have done the same in Germany (which had 2 world wars under their belt) and Italy.

Also, we didn't humiliate their leaders. In fact, we went to great pains to NOT humliate the Emperor. We allowed him to use a representative to sign the surrender, he was left in power and MacArthur, who had a decent appreciation of the Japanese culture, made every effort possible to be as accomodating to their govt. as possible and treated the Emporer as royalty.

Mamabudz

As for media in the middle east, essentially, there is no media in the middle east, not as you describe it.

There is no free press per se, there is government press and Islamic press. There is no mass media outlest such as we have with 24/7 news television. And there is limited radio. Therefore any "news" is quickly spread but its veracity cannot be confirmed. This is an excellent method to control large groups of people and direct their minds and actions towards a the goals of either the government or the in the case of this region the religious leadership.

As for Islam being widespread, yes it is. And most Muslims are peaceful, intelligent and wonderful people who have over the past 1500 provided greatly to the richness of this woprld through science art literature and the beauty of the Qu'uaran. And the Arab world has provided even more over the centuries, the European Dark Ages were ages of Science and Enlightenment in the land of the Ancient Fertile Crescent of Mankind. But as for Islam's spread being peaceful I must disagree. Like Christianity during the Inquisition, Islam was often spread by zealots, on pain of death.

The demanded "accept Islam or die by the sword" was the offer made, and the desire to survive was the impetus to conversion. So while Islam (s'lam) means peace, it has not always been a religion representative of peace.