Freedom has limits. It definitely should not disrespect other cultures. Is it that hard to respect other people's culture? I guess not.
Well, I have been following the news of arresting western tourists in the United Arab Emirates for breaking the law by disrespecting the Muslim country's traditions. Earlier this month a British businesswoman was caught having sex in public on Jumeirah Beach in Dubai, hurting the feelings of the Arab and Muslim visitors. When I read the news I felt disgusted. In our culture and tradition, having sex in public is disrespecting privacy, religion, and Arab manners. It is not close-mindedness. It is culture.
When I read the story of the British businesswoman, I thought to myself, C'mon now, Are there no other private places in the entire city where you could have had sex without hurting other people's feelings? Although the city is liberal, which is a good thing, there are still things to consider: culture is one of them. It is still a Muslim country after all, and public sex is condemned because it comes against our traditions and religion. Was it that hard to perceive?
Respecting cultures comes from people's education. Before I came to the U.S. I learned as much information as I could about the American culture and how to respect people's traditions. If I hadn't done that, I could have easily disrespected people here and be condemned and spelled out of the society. It would be like me using the "N" word against the African Americans or extend my arm like Hitler did to salute the Jews. Instead, I learned how to respect other people's cultures, not only the American, but also the Indian, the Chinese, the Korean, and even fellow Muslims who sometimes differ in their traditions.
A few weeks ago I watched stand-up show on Bravo by the ill-reputed Kathy Griffin. I kind of laughed at the beginning until I noticed she was going far beyond humor. She talked about her visit to Kabul where she was embedded with the American military. I have been a huge fan of the American humor. I still am. I kind of understand how it works, especially if it goes beyond humor.
In the show, Kathy portrayed Muslims in Kabul as dirty, filthy, unworthy to speak to Muslims. She proudly described a young American soldier, describing an Afghani man's hand dirty with his crap. As if "he crapped in his own hands and did not clean it up afterwards." O.K. now, it is known in Islam that when people go to the restrooms, they MUST clean themselves up with water, something some other cultures do not preach. So describing that man with crap in his hand makes no sense, unless he was retarded, which was not the case because she described him as a sane man who wanted to shake her hands and take a picture with her.
That was not funny. It was disrespectful.
The second thing is that she forced a religious Muslim man to look into her eyes, yelling at him that she is a woman and he has to look into her eyes. I do not support those men who do not look women in the eyes, but it's not something I can control or make fun of. It's this man's culture and adherence to his religion that made him do this. It would be disrespectful to force him do what he does not believe in. It would be like forcing a Buddhist worship Jesus or Mohammed or even God. You cannot disrespect people who adhere to their religions. You can disagree, but not make fun of.
So, a little advice here: make sure you know the cultures of the countries you are visiting and try to respect them. When you respect others, you are respected.
85 Comments:
She could be arrested for having sex on the beach in Britain, too. Some people think that when they are away from home they can behave as badly as they like.
well, in my our culture and tradition, having sex in public is disrespecting privacy, religion, and manners. It is not close-mindedness. It is culture.
it is also illegal as far as i know. i have never heard of any place in the states where it is legal to have sex in public.
i am not a fan of ms griffins. what i wonder is what kind of people provide her w/a format? i have observed that since the advent of 'reality' tv, the quality of humor has been debased. it seems there is a tendency to degrade people. i first noticed this w/the survivor show sometimes showing the worst of people, then of course the fear factor where people eat horrible live insects and roll around in buckets of vomit for money. gross. i think we are being desensitized but why? not sure what it says about our culture but it is sad and disgusting.
the gross misrepresentation of muslims prevalent in the media drives me up the wall. more than anything this is what bothered me so much about the newyorker cover. i just finished an online argument that lasted too long about this very topic. who is promoting this debasement???? while everyone is defending obama what seemed to get completely lost in the shuffle was the insult to muslims. i was relieved when i read these words from him today. (this also happens to be on the top of the recommend list at kos, the most widely read political blog)
Obama speaks about the New Yorker Cover and Muslims
One last point I want to -- I do want to make about these e-mails, though. And I think this has an impact on this "New Yorker" cover.
You know, this is actually an insult against Muslim-Americans, something that we don't spend a lot of time talking about. And sometimes I've been derelict in pointing that out.
You know, there are wonderful Muslim-Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things. And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it's not what America's all about.
i won't burden you with the email i sent to the newyorker when i cancelled my subscription but if you want to read it i can send you a copy.
i can't tell you how much this growing nurtured racist trend is offensive to me. i am really sorry. i would like to personally apologize for any offense it has cause you or any people from your culture.
Annie,
Thanks a lot for the link to Obama's reaction to the New Yorker cartoon. You know, I am a huge fan of the New Yorker, but you had to see the look on my face when I saw the cover of their new edition. God, I was shocked.
Please do email me what you wrote for the magazine. I would love to read your thoughts and reaction.
b
Having sex in public is even illegal here in Las Vegas, the so called city of sin.
What I want to know is why only the woman was reprimanded, seems that there must have been someone else involved that should also have known better. And if it was a man she was involved with...is he just excused for his bad behavior because he is a man?
When it comes right down to it, if people, countries and politicians would learn to agree to disagree and respect each others beliefs and cultures, we could all now be living in peace.
I have always considered myself half Iraqi. My husband of 28 years is from Baghdad and we have 2 beautiful boys. How I cringe when people make rude comments directly to me like "just bomb them all", not even realizing that what they have said was so cold and so callus and so ignorant...
Respect ... A quality that was so important to our parents and past generations is now overlooked by today's generation. It's sad but this has little to do with what people do in different countries but how we, as in the human 'species', now interact with our families, with each other etc. Respecting other's cultures when in their world should be a 'given', just like it should be when you're in your country.
Hope all is well dude.
Indigo-Daisy,
The article mentions that both may be subject to time in jail.
Bassam,
Public sex would be considered a no no here as well. And unless you are on a nudist beach, public nudity is usually frowned on and you may be subject to arrest. Guys without shirts are fine, though. :) Unless you are in a place where they specifically say "No shirts, no shoes, no service."
I can't say that that couple were the brightest bulbs on the planet considering they had been warned once already. But I think a fine would be a reasonable punishment rather than jail time.
It sounds like Kathy Griffin makes a living (or not) irritating people. I'd just switch her off. I never thought much of Howard Stern either.
arabista this woman was just a stupid exhibitionist!
just? i could think of a few other terms considering she was married and the sex partner wasn't even her husband!
but, since we all know what a polite lady i am i won't say it! ;)
'You cannot disrespect people who adhere to their religions. You can disagree, but not make fun of.'
Really? there is a church in Kansas that protests at funerals of US soldier because the government protects the rights of homosexuals which violates their religious beliefs. Do I have to respect them? I bet the man who would not look into the eyes of a woman would also, using his religious beliefs as the reason, prevent the education of women, perhaps stone a woman to death for being alone with a man not related to her, beat her for allowing her ankles to show in public. Do I have to respect him? When those beliefs lead people to violate the rights of others, must we respect them? What about the religious beliefs that clearly command disrespect for others beliefs, but command murder for 'non-believers'? Can you disrespect them? Can you make fun of them? I don't think you gave this a whole lot of thought.
ANNIE--- some pharmacists have refused to dispense abortion drugs for religious reasons (Christian) and have been fired--- how outraged are you about that? And your response to the New Yorker---- do you not understand satire and how this cartoon, in fact, supported the very things you just claimed distressed you so much? That sound of rushing wind you may have heard was the point sailing over your head. Of course Obama was insulted--- he never misses the opportunity to be the victim. It's easier than having to actually say anything of substance or to expect his followers to actually think, but you know that.
ANNIE-arabista this woman was just a stupid exhibitionist!
just? i could think of a few other terms considering she was married and the sex partner wasn't even her husband!
but, since we all know what a polite lady i am i won't say it! ;)"
What if public sex is part of her religious belief? You mustn't disrespect or make fun!
That's a good post. I agree with most of the other commenters: public sex is illegal and frowned upon pretty much everywhere I can think of. These people must have been exceptionally stupid to do what they did especially in a conservative place like that. They were even more stupid to ignore the WARNING that the friendly cop that caught them the first time gave them, and kept on doing what they did. Too bad. Now they learn the hard way.
But, what and who do you think Dubai is being constructed for nowadays?
That's, among other reasons why I think perhaps other facts deserve some more attention, and for that luckily there's this beautiful article by Mike Davis:
http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2635
;)
derd, but you know that.
what is this, some new form of argument where you create agreement for your ptv? you sound like an ol' windbag.
speaking of never missing an opportunity to be the victim, how many more times are we going to be reminded McCain was a POW? (being a prisoner is his best campaign attribute, (but you know that) ;). or maybe it's his meds!
here's a comic tailor made for derd. are you the kinda guy who would be supportive of offensive cartoons depicting jews , huh?
get a grip derd. i'm not getting into more of your hypothetical strawmen that completely miss the point. you sound like you are arguing for arguments sake.
Sex on the beach,
I won't even comment about the Japanese opinion.
You know, when mankind turns the mirror of its soul towards the earth it, we, can become worse than animals.
The animal exists in all of us, but somehow most of us, control these instinctual desires, for various reasons. This is the first step towards orienting our mirror towards the Sun rather than towards the earth.
Please point out the 'hypothetical' in my questions? I can easily make the case that every religious belief I mentioned in those questions are widely held and not conjecture, with the exception of the 'sex on the beach' which is part of some Pagan beliefs, but not widely held. Why is it so hard to answer? Do you, or do you not, agree with the 'command' that one must respect ALL religious beliefs and the cultures in which they are found?
So far as the cartoons involving caricatures of Jews, if the caricature was intended to ridicule those who espouse ridiculous stereotypes of Jews as the New Yorker cartoon ridiculed ignorant beliefs about Obama and Muslims, why would it bother me? You do understand the clear intent of the cartoon, don't you? Or are you just afraid that the Great Unwashed can't 'get it', as is Obama's stated concern?
it is not hard to answer derd, i am simply bored engaging in responding to strawmen.
Please point out the 'hypothetical' in my questions?
ok, here's one
What if public sex is part of her religious belief?
nobody said anything about respecting ALL religious beliefs attributed to all interpretations. religions don't even do that, for example: tho shall not kill. if you cannot differentiate between your strawman and the concept of respecting other's cultures and traditions so be it.
when in rome and all that. perhaps you should focus on drumming up some agreement for your position here instead of simply playing devil's advocate for the sake of it. is there nothing in Bassam's post you can appreciate? if not, why are you here?
are you just afraid that the Great Unwashed can't 'get it', as is Obama's stated concern?
says you. ha! quit trafficing in negative stereotypes at the expense of others. it isn't a matter of being afraid, it is a matter of getting sick and tired of the onslaught of muslim bashing, and you know damn well who would be screaming 'ANTI SEMITE" if there were campaigns out there demonizing jews w/regularity. we , as a society are being trained to associate islam w/terror. if you don't believe me, do some homework
it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is in fact a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives
more hypothetical..
I bet the man who would not look into the eyes of a woman would also, using his religious beliefs as the reason, prevent the education of women, perhaps stone a woman to death for being alone with a man not related to her, beat her for allowing her ankles to show in public.
that is a lot of unsupported conjecture. to choose a cultural tradition of not looking directly into a womans eyes (especially a stranger), or not shaking the hand of a woman and assuming any or every muslim man who carries out that tradition would also engage in any and every negative consequences attributed to that action is engaging in fear mongering.
some christians believe homosexuals should be killed, by your standards one could say
I bet the man who would not condone same sex marriage would also, using his religious beliefs as the reason, prevent the career advancement of homosexuals, perhaps even murder homosexuals.
gross over reach.
Maybe it's the definition of 'hypothetical' that has you confused. Who said we must respect all religions? Why, the author of this post to which I was responding. Did you read it?
In the case of a particular individual, yes, my statement was speculative. A gross over reach? Not hardly. Islam, as it is practiced commonly in the part of the world, is perpetrating gender based apartheid and abusing the human rights of individuals as a matter of course. Call it tradition or culture, but it is a fact. You do know that in the Islamic republic of Iran, homosexual activity is punishable by death, and the sentence has been carried out hundreds if not thousands of times in the last decade? You can try to deny that in an effort to be politically correct by defending all traditions, cultures and religions (except for those prevalent in the Western world), but facts are stubborn things, not 'strawmen'.
Who said we must respect all religions?
nice try. i didn't ask you Who said we must respect all religions? i ask you, and you have argued
nobody said anything about respecting ALL religious beliefs attributed to all interpretations. religions don't even do that, for example: tho shall not kill.
so your statement , to be accurate would have to ask and answer..
'Who said we must respect ALL religious beliefs attributed to all interpretations religions?' Why, the author of this post.
while in fact the author of this post never said that. furthermore to use a 'cultural tradition' that virtually is respected the world over (not having sex in public) and argue against radical interpretations of the koran, is disengenuos.
using this post as (another yet again) opportunity to continue an agenda of war on "the Muslims."
dragging this propaganda effort into the current presidential campaign, first by promoting the concept obama is a muslim, then by promoting the concept all muslims are out to get us, is fast becoming the swiftboaters 08 meme, at the expense of muslims. and it's disgusting. from my first link (sitting in 2nd place on the most recommend pile @ kos at this very moment, kos being the most trafficed dem blog on the internet w/over 100,000 members)
The McCain campaign declares war on "the Muslims."
No, really.
(UPDATE): Here's a link to the Miami Herald article.
On a just-ended campaign conference call, Bud Day made this outrageous statement:
One of John McCain's fellow POW's in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq, saying, "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us.''
In a phone call with reporters arranged by the McCain campaign, Colonel Bud Day added: "I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel.''
Note: this was a CAMPAIGN conference call.
Who is Bud Day?
Well, we know this about Bud Day:
Day, who lives in Pensacola, was part of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that smeared former Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record in 2004.
more at the link.
the muslims????? who are 'the muslims'
But, surely only McCain speaks for McCain, right?
Wrong.
1. This was a conference call organized by the McCain campaign.
2. Bud Day is mentioned 143 times on John McCain's website.
you're a tool derd.
OK Annie, here was the author's summation of the original post to which I replied: 'You cannot disrespect people who adhere to their religions.' Now how he took an act of public sex by a Western woman in an Islamic nation as being disrespectful to Islam instead of criminally rude to civilization in general, I don't know, but that is what he chose to write and to what I chose to respond. There was a story on Rueter's recently about the rampant acts of sexual harassment and assaults upon Western dressed women in Egypt that might have been a better starting point, but maybe he didn't see that story. Many of the men who committed the acts, that included exposing themselves to women not 'properly covered', took the position that Islam was being disrespected, so the women were asking for it.
I found his view interesting, though. I wonder if the extremist radical fundamentalist retrograde Muslims would enjoy as much power in the ME if the more modern, reformers were willing to ridicule, marginalize and 'disrespect' some of the idiotic traditions they try to force upon those in their midst. If a philosophical, spiritual or political view can't withstand a little ridicule from time to time, that may reflect it's lack of depth. But let's be honest--- radical Muslims will do violence, so taking the view that one can't make fun of a person's religious beliefs is the safe way to go, in the short term anyway.
As for the rest, it was a little nonsensical and I don't want to 'debate' Obama McCain Kerry here.
By the way, you asked 'what do we know about Bud Day".
I refreshed my memory and thought even you might find this interesting, ANNIE. Here is what I know about Bud Day: he is the most decorated living American veteran. He also amended the statement you referenced to by saying he was referring to the extremist Muslims who present a even more present danger to other Muslims.
I refreshed my memory and thought even you might find this interesting,
lol.
you don't say! refreshed your mempry?? hahahahaha i guess he got a little chewed out by the msm and decided to retract? how evolved of him.
if i were you i wouldn't advertise that little factoid, it smears veterans, the guy is a known scumbag.
as for the rightwing assertions, i will consider them assertions until i can find any evidence it is true.
wiki He is often cited as being the most decorated U.S. service member since General Douglas MacArthur, having received some seventy decorations
i find it strange that david hackworth got 90 medals and after he dies the bud, w/his 70 falls into place? hmm. i think this is just a way to expand the importance of mr swiftboat. everyone knows real patriotic veterans don't call other veterans benedict arnold. just because they are running for the other parties nomination. this dilutes the military which as everyone knows is not a partisan institution.
anyway, back on topic..
here was the author's summation of the original post to which I replied: 'You cannot disrespect people who adhere to their religions.'
welllll, only by cherrypicking this sentence and not reading in it's context will your argument hold up.
let's try this again.
I do not support those men who do not look women in the eyes, but it's not something I can control or make fun of. It's this man's culture and adherence to his religion that made him do this. It would be disrespectful to force him do what he does not believe in. It would be like forcing a Buddhist worship Jesus or Mohammed or even God. You cannot disrespect people who adhere to their religions. You can disagree, but not make fun of.
as i see it derd this is your position..
taking the view that one can't make fun of a person's religious beliefs is the safe way to go
IOW, being respectful (which is roundly regarded as a sign of good upbringing) is 'safe'. (reads like 'cowardly") aand your remedy is
if the more modern, reformers were willing to ridicule, marginalize and 'disrespect' some of the idiotic traditions they try to force upon those in their midst.
it is making your adulation of bud day, a man who's gained an abundance of noteriety for being a supreme partisan A**HOLE specializing in ridicule, marginalize and 'disrespect' of fellow veterans, and now the presumable 'enemies' of americans (the muslims).., it makes your adulation understandable.
for me, i find the kinds of degrading banter coming from your ilk disgusting. it has earned americans a very bad name.
you just don't get it.
If a philosophical, spiritual or political view can't withstand a little ridicule from time to time, that may reflect it's lack of depth.
the implication being that islam lacks depth? or muslims lack depth? of bassam lacks depth?
what kind of depth does it lack to not comprehend the true meaning of the post?
When you respect others, you are respected
If the religious beliefs lead you to infringe upon others rights, I have zero respect. That is true.
As for your description of our nations most decorated living veteran, that says as much about you as any other thing you've ever said. What is it that leads you to slander him that way? The fact that he felt Kerry committed perjury by testifying that his fellow soldiers were committing atrocities (statements he retracted later, by the way) and that Kerry did so while this man was being tortured in a N Vietnamese prison? Or is it that he signed on with the dozens of other highly decorated Swift Boat veterans who said Kerry was a phony and a liar when he used his 'heroic' service in Viet Nam as his prime credential for the the presidency? Do you know the facts of Kerry's service, or are you just drinking the Kool aid? How long was Kerry actually serving in country before he requested to be removed because he had three purple hearts? What were the nature of his injuries and who put him up for the medals? How many days did he spend under medical care? Who wrote the after action report that got him two of his Purple hearts? Who wrote the report that lead to his Silver Star? I don't know either, because all the officers who served with him and would have been the ones to write the reports say the didn't write them and Kerry, to this day, refuses to release all of his service records. Who is the scumbag? You get to choose and your choice says everything about you.
""""If a philosophical, spiritual or political view can't withstand a little ridicule from time to time, that may reflect it's lack of depth.
the implication being that islam lacks depth? or muslims lack depth? of bassam lacks depth?"""
Since I don't think that Islam, or Bassam, are incapable of withstanding a little ridicule, I guess the implication otherwise is yours, not mine. Apparently, there are practitioners of Islam who feel that way, though. I don't know what Bassam thinks on that topic, but I know he has expressed an appreciation for South Park, and they do a great job of ridiculing everyone and everything, though they step relatively lightly around Islam. That makes his position sort of contradictory, but nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned.
practiced commonly in the part of the world, is perpetrating gender based apartheid and abusing the human rights of individuals as a matter of course.
zionism practiced commonly in the part of the world, is perpetrating ethnically based apartheid and abusing the human rights of individuals as a matter of course.
let's talk about that. israel has killed far more palestinian children in the last decade than iran has hung homosexuals.
2 can play this game you know. what about the concept of respecting other cultures don't you get.
choosing to extrapolate worse case scenarios for the explicit purpose of arguing one of the most basic understandings of human developement that most parents teach their children at an early age, instead of finding something decent to say.. just to use this as another format to bash muslims.
you should be ashamed.
Hi Annie. I don't want to interrupt your argument with b will derd, but on this:
"let's talk about that. israel has killed far more palestinian children in the last decade than iran has hung homosexuals."
I have a question. Now, I do not imagine there is a scale that has Israel killing Palestinian children on the one side and Iran hanging homosexuals on the other in which you can measure the number of each and balance and tilt the scale to one side or the other. Both acts are wrong, in my opinion. But, I am just curious how you know how many Palestinian children Israel has killed, and how many homosexuals Iran has hung? I don't know so that's why I'm asking you.
I largely agree with what you wrote in your second comment, btw, Annie. Religion and culture should be respected inasmuch as they don't infringe on other people's rights. That's why (voluntary) conservative dress and behavior is A-OK on the one hand, but human sacrifice, for example, would not be OK on the other. And what one might consider a "right" or ritual of having sex in a public place impinges on the rights of others who don't want to have to see or hear such a thing.
I don't think I'd look Ms. Griffin in the eye either, but it has nothing to do with my religion ;).
Have Palestinian children been murdered by Jews in keeping with their religious beliefs? Is their some commandment that instructs those of the faith in the acceptable sentence and methods of punishment for the 'crime' of being a Palestinian child?
If not, then what is your point, Annie? What does one have to do to the other? If I ignore the total lack of logic, how does any of this argue against anything I said? If a group of Jews uses their religious beliefs as justification for infringing upon or denying rights to anyone, I would place them in the same category as any other guilty party that does the same. You are arguing, even though you know you agree. 'yeah, well YOUR guys do it too', is really a poor argument, especially since you seem to have no idea who MY guys are.
I completely agree with you Bassam. I think that any visitor to another country has a responsibility to respect the local people and their culture.
I have learned some things about Dubai from two friends who have lived there. It is a very interesting place and quite liberal compared to most other Muslim countries. However, I think it was completely appropriate for the British woman to be arrested for having sex in public. If she came to America and did the same thing, she would be arrested in most places here too. Now, I'm not particularly prudish about human sexuality, but people should have respect for each other. Most people do not want to watch others having sex in public and they certainly don't want their children to see that sort of thing.
I'm not a big fan of Kathy Griffin. Sometimes she is funny, but often, I think she goes too far and really insults other people. There are lots of things to make jokes about that don't involve hurting the feelings of other people.
derd, not interested in disgusing the fabricated allegations of the political operative swiftboaters. been there , done that.
If a philosophical, spiritual or political view can't withstand a little ridicule from time to time, that may reflect it's lack of depth.
the implication being that islam lacks depth? or muslims lack depth? of bassam lacks depth?"""
I guess the implication otherwise is yours, not mine.
derd, check out that question marks. it is an inquiry. i am not trying to imply anything, just trying to figure out what you mean
Apparently, there are practitioners of Islam who feel that way, though.
you mean there are practitioners of islam (muslims) who may lack depth? of course just as there are practitioners of any faith who lack depth. your point? is it related to one religion having more practitioners who lack depth than another.. or something? really i am lost here as to your point.
rhus, no. i will not engage in the debate you may choose to make over statistics any logical person could find out w/a little digging. that is not the purpose of the conversation. my point however was very clear wrt derds allegations.
choosing to extrapolate worse case scenarios for the explicit purpose of arguing one of the most basic understandings of human developement that most parents teach their children at an early age, instead of finding something decent to say.. just to use this as another format to bash muslims.
do you comprehend? to insinuate 'muslims' are carrying out 'aparthied' against their women is a gross misrepresentation of the meaning of aparthied. furthermore israel is arguably carrying out state sanctioned aparthied is it rather disengenous to try to use that term against muslims, who are not participating in apartheid defined as International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."
get it? it is not inclusive of crimes against your own people. why am i not surprised the meme on this thread continued by those w/a rightwing aganda is to turn this thread into a discussion of radical islam, which is the dominant theme of the swiftboaters this year.
anyone notice this.
have you no shame?
If not, then what is your point, Annie? What does one have to do to the other?
to be clear.
choosing to extrapolate worse case scenarios for the explicit purpose of arguing one of the most basic understandings of human developement that most parents teach their children at an early age, instead of finding something decent to say.. just to use this as another format to bash muslims.
that is the point.
Have Palestinian children been murdered by Jews in keeping with their religious beliefs?
not exclusively, but as a matter of policy , yes most definitely.
wiki Religious Zionists are a faction within the Zionist movement who justify Zionist efforts to build a Jewish state in the land of Israel on the basis of Judaism.
The main ideologue of modern religious Zionism was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, although Haredi and not Dati Leumi, nevertheless justified Zionism according Jewish law and urged young religious Jews to support efforts to settle the land
as we are know part of that settlement meant clearing palestinians from that land. there are most definitely extremist zionist who have justified, and continue to justify the killing of palestinians to carry out that dictate.
Many settlers in Judea and Samaria are religious Zionists, along with most of the settlers forcibly expelled from the Gaza Strip in August and September 2005. Many other religious Zionists are supporters of the pro-settlement movement Gush Emunim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Emunim
That west Jerusalem school is the ideological cradle of the most militant of all the Jewish settler movements–Gush Emunim–and “unlike other sects in Israel which sought exemption of their students from military service, Gush Emunim encouraged its followers to join the army and become the armed wing of religious nationalist Zionism. Gush Emunim settlers… founded the most extreme and racist settlements in the Occupied West Bank, including the notorious colonies in and near Hebron whose inhabitants have made life miserable for Palestinians in the city and forced many of them out of their homes. It is the militant settlers of Gush Emunim who still honor Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians in Hebron in February 1994. It is in Hebron that the Gush Emunim settlers spray ‘Arabs to the gas chambers‘ on Palestinian houses.”
source
photo
more photos.
my point? there is little fundemental ideological difference between extremists in one religion, and another. however the current political climate has justified, incorporated, funded, excused one atrocity over another.
when jews kill it is (state sanctioned)defense. when muslims kill it is terror.
meanwhile the vast majority of members of both religions, and the majority interpretations of both religions is peace. that is what one has to do w/the other.
so the next time you try to use the word aparthied and attribute it to islam or muslims, don't expect silence from me, or the world community. right now israel has the largest open air prison known to man, for 60 years now. you want to talk about fanatics, i'm ready.
Again, you seem to be under the impression that I single out Muslims as being singularly guilty of using religious belief and tradition to infringe upon the rights of other human beings. Didn't happen. I think it occurs in far greater numbers and is more common in Islam today than in any other modern religion and is the cause of much of the world's current conflict, but that doesn't mean I include all Muslims as guilty to such acts. In fact, Muslim's are the most negatively effected by the radicals among them.
OK, I will amend the statement by adding GENDER-BASED apartheid. To say that there are many Muslms who use the common beliefs found in the Islamic texts and traditions in a 'systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups (females in this case) and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime (radical Islamic society)" is a perfectly reasonable and proper use of the term 'apartheid'. By the way, if you want to use the technical definition, Israeli's are not a 'Race', so you are at least as incorrect in the use of term as was I.
Of course you don't want to debate the Swiftboat facts since the facts are what made that issue so effective, but you will use the term as twisted by the Leftists who ignored the facts and declared an injustice. You somehow brought up the Bud Day issue, didn't you? I think it had something to do with how he is a scumbag who 'trashed' a fellow vet, though for some reason you missed the fact that the 'vet' he 'trashed' with the truth was guilty of telling outrageous lies about his fellow soldiers in a self serving political agenda even while some of them were in the torture chambers of the enemy. That takes an ability to ignore reality which I don't posses. Whatever works for you, imagined conspiracies leave no room for facts so there's little to be gained by laying them out for someone who demonstrates the lack of capacity to consider them.
btw, those photos are from the 'breaking the silence' tour.
Breaking the Silence, the Israeli anti-Occupation group composed of IDF veterans, is sponsoring a photo exhibition in Philadelphia and Boston. It consists of photographs shot by active duty IDF troops during their service in Hebron. They all document what it is like to defend a tiny Jewish settler minority from the massively larger native Palestinian population.
i urge you to check out the link.
is a perfectly reasonable and proper use of the term 'apartheid'.
in your mind perhaps
you seem to be under the impression that I single out Muslims as being singularly guilty of using religious belief
really? i am under the impression you have thus far in this thread not demonstrated your assertions on other religions. probably a coincidence.
I think it occurs in far greater numbers and is more common in Islam today than in any other modern religion and is the cause of much of the world's current conflict,
you don't say. how illuminating. do you think you may be a product of the onslaught of propaganda coming out of freedom watch and camera and aipac and all the other pro israel lobbiest, or perhaps you just came about this concept independently because you are such an astute fellow?
if you want to use the technical definition, Israeli's are not a 'Race', so you are at least as incorrect in the use of term as was I.
no i'm not. i haven't alleged jews were ever a victim of apartheid. that is why the holocaust is not defined as apartheid. palestinians however are arabs. it isn't a religious designation.
thought you may be interested.. Jewish guerrillas told British: quit Palestine or die. Fighters were led by future Israeli premier
A pamphlet warning Britons to leave the Middle East or face death has come to light in a stash of illicit propaganda.
The document does not hail from Basra or Baghdad, nor was it penned by the Islamists of al-Qaeda or the al-Mahdi Army. It was found in Haifa, about 60 years ago, and it was issued by the underground group led by Menachem Begin – the future Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The document, which surfaced at an auction house this week, is addressed to “the soldiers of the occupation army” and aimed at British soldiers serving in Palestine, then under the British Mandate, preceding the establishment of Israel in 1948. The print has faded and the paper has discoloured since it was unearthed from a grove of trees in Haifa in the summer of 1947. Yet the language and the concerns remain current.
Bombings and murders by underground groups, such as Begin’s Irgun, hastened the British withdrawal and the United Nations declaration that led to the founding of modern Israel.
Irgun propaganda targeted the British Army’s wavering morale, already dented by the bomb attack on the Mandate’s headquarters – the King David Hotel in Jerusalem – which killed 91 people.
times online
were they terrorists?
In the document, Irgun tells British troops: “It is unavoidable that many Jewish soldiers and many British soldiers should fall. And it is only fair that these people know at least why they may be killed.”
It adds: “Most of you have been in this country for quite a long time. You have learned what the word ‘terrorist’ means, some of you may even have come into direct contact with them (and heartily desire not to repeat the experience). But what do you know about them? Why does a young man go underground?”
It then draws a parallel with what would have happened if, seven years earlier, Britain had been overrun by Nazi Germany. “Remember 1940. Then it seemed quite possible that your island country would be conquered and subjugated by Hitler hordes . . . what would you have done? Would you have gone underground?” The pamphlet says that the occupation is “illegal and immoral” and “parallel to the mass assassination of a whole people”, in language that echoes that used on a note pinned to the booby-trapped bodies of two British intelligence officers executed by Irgun that same summer.
The pamphlet came from a stash confiscated and burnt by cyptographers from the Royal Signals regiment. Corporal Raymond Smith found them buried in a secluded grove marked by a white Star of David and was ordered to destroy them, but took one as a memento. A collector acquired the document from Corporal Smith, and brought it to Mullock’s auctioneers in Shropshire.
Richard Westwood-Brookes, Mullock’s historical documents specialist, said the pamphlet was a remarkable find, which “ amounted to a manifesto for terrorist action”. He added: “It also raises the question as to who are ‘terrorists’ and who are ‘freedom fighters’. It’s a debate which raged through the troubles of Northern Ireland and continues in the Middle East.”
Begin’s Irgun set aside its differences with Haganah, a rival underground Jewish group led by David Ben Gurion – the first Prime Minister of Israel, who once likened Begin to Adolf Hitler.
Begin forged a political career as a hardliner, but, after becoming Prime Minister, signed the Camp David agreement with Egypt in 1979.
The pamphlet, which is expected to fetch about £500, goes on sale at Mullock’s, in Shropshire, on August 6.
£500? gee, i'd pay more than that for it.
annie: "rhus, no. i will not engage in the debate you may choose to make over statistics any logical person could find out w/a little digging."
OK, annie. No debate here. I thought those were difficult numbers to reliably know, and since you were confident in them enough to compare them I wanted to know your source for both. No need to evade on this one, you can keep your info close to your chest, m'kay?
i'm not evading you rhus. i just don't feel like adding up all the documented cases of the deaths of children. in one of those posts alone during a period in march .. really, it is too gruesome. i have not heard about 1000's of people being killed in iran for homosexuality. i'm sure you would be supplying that info if it was correct. obviously the ptb don't make it easy to keep track of palstinian deaths, but it is the range of the thousands in the last decade. it isn't an evasion, i just get to chose what i want to research. and researching dead children is not on my plate today.
and yes, those figures are difficult to reliably know, for a reason. just like iraqi deaths are difficult to reliably know for a reason. doesn't mean they aren't dead. so take your 'evasive, reliably', bogus crap and shove it where the sun don't shine cuz if you piss me off i may decide to delve into it tomorrow and it aint pretty.
and while i'm at it i may just be tempted out of curiosity to figure out the ratio of how many muslims there are in the world (billions) compared to how many of them are radical VS how many jews are in the world (not billions that's for sure) VS how many of them are extremists or support extremeist radical aparthied policy.
it just may be that there are way more extremist jews proportionatly than muslims. CONSIDERING THE COUNTRY of israel IS SUPPORTING AND PERPETUATING STATE SANCTIONED TERROR, and the radical jews in this country are friggin driving the policies of our illegal criminal constition bashing executive privileged administration.
although i firmly believe most jews in america are more aligned w/moderate groups like jstreet unfortunately who dominates the image and ideology of the extreme is what people tend to see because it is so abhorent. in this regard i think i can safetly say the likelihood of extremist jews being more predominant in our culture than radical muslims would make for a very interesting study/comparison.
evasive i'm not, lazy i am. so maybe tomorrow or sometime when i'm in the mood i will explore how many children israelis have killed, but i'd rather not. if anyone thinks more homosexuals have been executed in iran than palestinian children killed by israelis over the last ten years speak up, because last i heard iran had the highest rate of sex change operations in the world and as the prez informed us.. they don't have homosexuals in iran! and that would be hard to allege if he were killing them at the rate israelis kill palestinian children.
Don't be so disingenuous, ANNIE. If you can name a non-Islamic religion that dominates entire nations and whose beliefs are used to command stoning to death for adultery, as an example, and generally treating women as chattel in many cases, then please point them out. I know there are isolated cases even in the US, but where is it dominant? I know other religions, including Christianity have been used to abuse the rights of others in history, but today? If I'm the victim of a vast misinformation conspiracy then I would appreciate being rescued from my ignorance by someone as enlightened as yourself.
'''no i'm not. i haven't alleged jews were ever a victim of apartheid. that is why the holocaust is not defined as apartheid. palestinians however are arabs. it isn't a religious designation.'''
I am no doubt wasting my time here, but the definition of 'apartheid' which you insisted I adhere to says 'systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and'---- so, since you have appointed yourself as the arbiter of correct usage I appeal to you, if 'Jews' are not a racial group, then how can you contend that they are guilty of apartheid? And as long as you want to demand strict adherence to 'fact', then I should point out that 'Arab' is not a race except as applied to a relatively small number of persons descended from the inhabitants of the Arab peninsula. Arab today refers to people who are in the lands conquered by Arabs in the 7th and 8th centuries and in which Arabic is now the predominant language, isn't it? That's what experts in the field contend, so take it up with them. I'm just playing with you here because I have enough experience with you to know that facts and definitions only apply to others, not to you, and when even you can't deny the facts, you change the subject.
fun facts?
annie: "i'm not evading you rhus. i just don't feel like adding up all the documented cases of the deaths of children."
So we have to debate how we don't want to debate this?? Crikey! Your statement above implied you had the facts before you already. You don't? No big deal. Chill.
I have enough experience with you to know that facts and definitions only apply to others, not to you, and when even you can't deny the facts, you change the subject.
if this isn't the cat calling the kettle black i don't know what is! so jews aren't a race therefore they can't participate in apartheid yet we can call sharia laws practiced by arabs that discriminate against women aparthied.
and you accuse me of defining for my own purpose. this from a defender of a religious group that makes its own name/designation for those who discriminate against it (anti semitism) while at the same time continually malign the religion of their enemies and that is not called racism because it isn't the race they are condemning.
is muslim bashing justified derd?
Your statement above implied you had the facts before you already.
no rhus, it did not. neither did i 'imply' anything. besides you don't mean facts, you mean numbers/statistics? one hardly needs numbers to assert as fact more palestinian children have been killed by israelis than homosexuals executed in iran over the last decade!
they would have to be executing them at an enormous rate. i am not discounting the hideousness of these executions but there aren't dozens and dozens every year. nor do i have to have these numbers to claim FACT, just like i don't have to have the numbers to claim as FACT more people died in hiroshima than the amount of people killed in state sanctioned execution in this country since its inception. it pales in comparison.
you don't fool me, you are both harping about silly definitions instead of arguing the issue. from the beginning derd you have justified why you don't have to respect different cultures.
If you can name a non-Islamic religion that dominates entire nations and whose beliefs are used to command stoning to death for adultery, as an example, and generally treating women as chattel in many cases, then please point them out.
i think you mean believers. islam is not any crueler to women than christianity. as for believers in religion you seem to have no problem condemning the horridness of one form of death (and its victims) while completely skimming over/justifying the thousands apon thousands more deaths caused by your own people who have gone to great lengths and expenses to travel to another part of the world to control its geopolitical ends.
look at this! this is what our moral civilization justifies. you have one sole mission to polarize this abhorence of islam that infects your every post. billions of peaceful loving people thru out the world and you would all have us believe stoning women is the norm in their lives.
you need to accept islam is not going away, nor is it inherently evil, no more than christianity is inherently evil even tho many many people who do evil things do them in the name of christ or the torah or whatever.
i am not a religious person but i am smart enough to recognize evil people using religion as a means to justify the ends. the empowerment of the most radical men and ideas for the advancement of achieving ones goals is a tactic, a very ugly one.
people such as yourself will scream high and low about the treatment of women to make inroads into cultures, then completely abandon them when they reach their destination. just like in iraq. you ask those widows from the lands we have invaded if the life they have now better than before.
crushing islam, one step at a time
U.S. troops kill son of Iraqi governor
You are entertaining, in spurts, ANNIE. I didn't say you couldn't use the term apartheid--- YOU DID by insisting that only the legal definition is justified! That was your little game from the start and now that you are shown to have been obviously as guilty of the same 'crime', (if not more so), you decide it an unfair tactic to point it out? HA! Do you really have no clue or are you just having fun?
I won't waste the time, but to say that the literal teachings of Christianity are as cruel to women as the literal teachings of Islam is pretty easy to disprove using the texts, without pointing out the obvious disparity in the societies in which they two dominate. If you don't know that, you may not want to comment so freely on the subject.
''''you don't fool me, you are both harping about silly definitions instead of arguing the issue. from the beginning derd you have justified why you don't have to respect different cultures.''''
I have justified why I don't have to respect different cultures, and SO HAVE YOU! I just admit it and don't hide behind hypocritical PC BS to pretend otherwise. It is a vacuous philosophy to think one shouldn't make value judgments on the overall benefits and harm deriving from differing cultures.
So far as the 'muslim bashing' crack, that comes from your lazy intellect that depends on your delusional imposition of conspiratorial intent on your debate opponent. I could take what you have written and declare you an Christian bashing, anti-Semitic raving Nazi, but that would be too easy and intellectually dishonest. But you get to have fun your way, I, mine.
"no rhus, it did not. neither did i 'imply' anything. besides you don't mean facts, you mean numbers/statistics? one hardly needs numbers to assert as fact more palestinian children have been killed by israelis than homosexuals executed in iran over the last decade!"
Jeebus, Annie. I meant "facts" as in "something that is true". Are you telling me you were confused by my choice of that word? And what do I have to do to let you off the hook here? Send you a notarized letter? Anyway, you said:
"israel has killed far more palestinian children in the last decade than iran has hung homosexuals."
Yes, to say what you did it would be required to know the numbers. Maybe not exactly, but given the secretive nature of the Iranian regime it would be foolish to think you know based on the few cases that have leaked to the west. Considering Ahmadinejad's statement of there being "no homosexuals in Iran" (because they've all been executed, or what??), I just wanted to know your source for a reliable figure. That's all. I wasn't even challenging you, nor was I then or am I now interested in debating it with you.
I didn't say you couldn't use the term apartheid
good, then we agree on something. so take the term you inserted into this thread and shove it. your team is probably in a tizzy after carters book and now its your job to dilute the term apartheid to make it inclusive of your enemies to water the meaning making your teams atrocities seem like luke warm water.
won't fly.
"israel has killed far more palestinian children in the last decade than iran has hung homosexuals."
to say what you did it would be required to know the numbers...
really? i don't think sooo! here, i'll do it again just to prove you are wrong.
"israel has killed far more palestinian children in the last decade than iran has hung homosexuals."
now rhus, to refute that you would have to know the numbers. lol
or perhaps we should apply the same liberal attitude towards counting palestinian deaths as you like to allow the iranian regime?
I wasn't even challenging you
no worries rhus, you don't have to prove your point, it's ok. I wasn't really challenging you. i'm glad you don't want to debate this because i think at this point, the words out on all the deaths of kids in palestine.
here, as a sign of peace listen to this beautiful recital of the Violin Concerto, Op.64, by the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn performed In May of 1993,by Minister Louis Farrakhan.
in what was one of the most politically-resonant artistic displays in classical music history. In a performance manifesting the most dramatic confluence of art and politics since Richard Wagner penned his notorious tract, 'Das Judenthum in der Music' ('Judaism in Music') ~ and at once refuting that screed's main premise and theme ~ Farrakhan instantly established himself as the single most transformative classical musician in American artistic history.
Squarely placing himself at the epicentre of the most controversial event in the classical music world since the tumult sparked by the 'Tristan und Isolde' overture at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, Farrakhan's rendition of the Mendelssohn violin concerto left the audience aghast. For the eighteen months leading up to his performance, Farrakhan was coached by Elaine Skorodin Fohrman, a Jewish violin virtuoso and member of Chicago's Roosevelt University where she taught classical violin. Farrakhan's choice of the Mendelssohn piece was attributed by some observers to the composer's identity as a Jew ~ a gesture widely viewed as an "olive branch" to the Nation of Islam leader's Jewish detractors.
Annie: "israel has killed far more palestinian children in the last decade than iran has hung homosexuals."
and then
"now rhus, to refute that you would have to know the numbers. lol"
What? No, I wasn't refuting you, I was just asking you what the numbers were.
To make that statement in the first place, wouldn't you have to know what the numbers were?
Like I said, I just wanted to know what the numbers approximately were. You linked to the number of Palestinian children; well done. But what about Iranian homosexuals? I'd just like to know, not to "refute" you but since it's possible Ahmadinejad might answer the same question- how many homosexuals has Iran executed- by saying "all of them".
Annie: "or perhaps we should apply the same liberal attitude towards counting palestinian deaths as you like to allow the iranian regime?"
What liberal attitude? Do you mean the attitude that would compare two numbers without any real idea what they were? Who would do that? I just want to know how you know what you said.
a gesture widely viewed as an "olive branch"
It reminds me of the stories of the SS having Jewish composed concertos played over the loudspeakers as they marched victims into the ovens.
beauty is in the eye of the beholder derd , so is hate
nyt sending a message
Mr. Farrakhan... talked of reconciliation with America's Jews and in terms that seemed, if not desperate, at least terribly urgent..
Mr. Farrakhan acknowledged the symbolism in his playing of music by a European Jew, although he also said he had not known Mendelssohn was Jewish until two years ago. .... Speaking in a quiet but insistent voice, he said he would "try to do with music what cannot be done with words and try to undo with music what words have done."
rhus What liberal attitude?
this one, very liberal drawing conclusions using false assertion. it would be foolish to think you know based on the few cases that have leaked to the west. Considering Ahmadinejad's statement of there being "no homosexuals in Iran" (because they've all been executed
the other executions were not all 'leaked' to the press. it was not a secret. it was as a result of a conviction and reported in the iranian press.wiki
later reports released by the Iranian government after international furor claimed the conviction was for the rape of a 13-year-old boy. The two were hanged July 19.
Only the age of one of the two executed teens was officially released to the public. He was 18 year old Ayaz Marhoni. The other, Mahmoud Asgari, according to the Iranian Student's News Agency (ISNA) was aged 17, but other news agencies have reported the teenager's age as 16. In the original report by the ISNA it was said that the two were found having sex together when they were both 16. It also reported that they were held and beaten for fourteen months before the execution.....According to Iranian newspapers, the two boys were given 228 lashes for their other convictions of theft, disrupting public order and public drinking before they were hanged
also, i was being flippant when i said iran did not have homosexuals. Ahmadinejad didn't say iran didn't have homosexuals, he said they didn't have them 'like you do in your country'.youtube. i interpreted this to mean they don't have them living openly and accepted and allowed as 2 men loving eachother (y'know like the bible belt). i think it means they regard them all as transexuals instead of homosexuals, apparently this is acceptable and obviously not illegal.
bbc
When Mahyar wants to feel normal she goes to the clinic of Dr Mirjalali - Iran's leading sex-change surgeon. There are women who were men, men who were women and those like Mahyar waiting for the operation they believe will be a sort of rebirth.
Dr Mirjalali says in Europe a surgeon would do about 40 sex change operations in a decade. He's done 320 in the last 12 years in Iran.
"If you saw them out in the street you wouldn't realise that one day they were the opposite sex," he boasts.
as you know, i am against the dhttp://www.muzzlewatch.com/eath penalty altogether. some people seem to make a distinction between doing it in texas or some muslim country.
this topic is exhausted for me here. see ya
'some people seem to make a distinction between doing it in texas or some muslim country.'
Truly bizarre. Let me try to help you here with the 'distinction'. State execution for capital murder is not equivalent to state execution for 'Fasaad fi al-ardh'-- spreading mischief in the land--- which, according to the texts, traditions and culture within Islam for which you demand we must respect, includes homosexuality, adultery, conversion to a faith other than Islam, rape, prostitution, etc.
But speaking of Texas, a Muslim man in Dallas recently murdered his two teenage daughters for the immoral act of dating boys, which is in keeping with the traditions and culture in which he was raised. Will we be disrespecting him if we try, convict and execute him, (assuming we can extradite him from his home nation to which it is assumed he has fled)?
Now, I know that he did not act strictly according to Islamic law, but killing women for doing what his daughters were doing is absolutely part of Islamic Law and isn't that uncommon in areas where Islam dominates, which increasingly includes some of our own (see Dearborne, MI). Even in the more moderate Jordan, laws increasing the punishments for Honor Killings were struck down in its Parliament for 'Islamic reasons'. Your sister runnning around, you can kill her to protect the family honor and only do a few months, if that, in a lot of Muslim dominated states. See the difference? Just how politically correct can you be?
According to Amnesty International, the good people in the Iranian justice system are about to add another outrage from their prehistoric legal system. The group says that two gay men, Tayyeb Karimi and Yazdan, will soon be killed by throwing them off a cliff. The group estimates that 4000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Iranian revolution.
In May 2007, six men were sentenced for allegedly stealing the property and abducting two young men, who were later raped.
Tayyeb Karimi and Yazdan will be thrown from the great height while the other received 100 lashes each.
Iran has of course been a world leader in such abuses of gays and lesbians, click here. Indeed, as noted here, it has taken the same harsh hand to women accused of adultery.
Having sex on the beach is illegal everywhere. What was closed-minded was the severity of the threataned sentence - I believe they were threatening her with six years?
muhannad. this allegation from your link doesn't match the supporting documents.
According to Amnesty International, .... The group estimates that 4000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Iranian revolution.
here's the supporting quote from the link provided (under For the full story, click here. wgere is sources 'pink news'
According to Iranian human rights campaigners, more than 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979.
i was wondering if you knew who those 'iranian campaigners' were? i wonder if they might be affiliated w/cheney's daughter?
That is the younger Cheney’s job. In the State Department she is referred to as the “freedom agenda co-ordinator” .....Her official title is deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs ......Much of it will be spent on broadcasting the views of exiles, dissidents and reformers inside Iran.
'Iranian human rights campaigners' could be anyone whereas Amnesty International is a reputable organization.
HA HA HA---- you are THE Amazing Annie. Defender of anyone and anything as long as they are anti-conservative America, even if they happen to be fundamentalist Islamic regimes murdering gays.
Cheney's gay daughter might be involved in exposing the truth about the horrible treatment of gays in Iran, but the 4,000 figure comes from the gay rights group Homan - they estimated the figure in the mid 1990s:
"Fact: Iran executes lesbians and gays. The Iranian government has executed 4,000 homosexuals since 1979, according to estimates in the mid-1990s by the exiled Iranian gay rights group, Homan. Fact: The Iranian government often pins false charges on the victims of its murderous policies in order to discredit them and discourage public protests."
jeez derd, i oppose the death penalty so how you could construe i am defending the execution of anyone is absurd. our own supreme court just debated the issue of execution of child molesters. if i oppose that am i defending molesting children?
in this climate of islam bashing by extreme right wing ideologues like yourself w/nary a word for the killing of innocent children carried out by team israel week in and week out i find it a touch peculiar we have a country (iran) that doesn't appear to be hiding either their executions, the methods of execution, the press of executions coupled w/the constant barrage of negative iran bashing as a matter of policy blathering everything under the sun and then some.. why aren't we hearing of more of them? if these allegations are true (thousands apon thousands) it wouldn't be a matter of 2 or 4 or 10 or 20 a year, it would be in the hundreds. wouldn't it? and who do we have saying this??? not amnesty international but an exile group hardly anyone has ever heard of! please. meanwhile, just because our msm wouldn't dare blast news of idf killing innocent children the numbers keep piling up. yes, in the thousands. just like in iraq. so if you want to sling around big figures you're going to have to provide more than an obscure gay activists group no one has ever heard of that doesn't provide any access on its site to back up these allegations (in the thousands)that others don't seem to be reporting.
the clean collateral damage by US/IS you're no doubt defenders of the worlds biggest prison. we don't call it murder cuz we pay for it and the jews are our friends so they/we can do know harm. is that it?
HA HA HA---- you are THE Amazing Annie.
don't flatter yourself. it hardly takes brilliance to refute your flawed logic. easier than swatting flies actually.
But speaking of Texas, a Muslim man was found bound w/duct tape dead in a lake. the authorities called it 'suicide'.
“On the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 27, award-winning schoolteacher Riad Hamad, founder of the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund (PCWF) was getting ready to leave for work when the doorbell rang in his modest apartment in Austin, Texas. It was a dozen FBI and IRS agents bearing a search warrant from Judge Robert Pittman, known for his hostility to Palestinians and Arabs, with whom Riad had had previous experience,”
he was found innocent of all charges, and within a matter of weeks he commits suicide by throwing himself into a lake bound and gagged w/duct tape! please.
Raid Hamad (video interview)
oops, sorry. it was not a matter of weeks, i spoke too soon.
here is part 2 Riad Hamad. what a beautiful man.
There ya go again, ANNIE. Believe the conspiracy theories in the Far Leftist rags and ignore the facts. This guy's own family said he was suicidal. Days before the FBI raided his house and removed forty boxes of material proving a case of wire fraud, etc. in the course of his charitable fund raising wherein he could not account for more than 500,000 dollars of the 643,000 dollars he was know to have raised. He had not filed an income tax report in five years and was clearly living above his means. In other words, this fine man was stealing the money! The police report, provided by the Austin Police Dept, said he had duct tape over his eyes and was loosely bound by the hands and feet in a manner consistent with his having done it himself. They had proof that he had gone to the lake alone and was observed walking towards the lake alone. So naturally, the JOOS or their agents in the FBI, murdered him! Perfect example of your BS.
When I say 'proving' I should have been more clear. The facts suggested that this guy was a fraud, sufficient to provide for a court ordered search and seizure of documents from his residence. The documents taken reportedly support the case against him, but he killed himself before formal charges were proffered, so technically, he is 'innocent'. You can form your own conclusions on the facts available, though. Unless you are a conspiratorial Lefty nut case, it isn't that complicated.
proving a case of wire fraud, etc. in the course of his charitable fund raising wherein he could not account for more than 500,000 dollars of the 643,000 dollars he was know to have raised.
excuse me? i do believe he was found gagged and bound w/duct tape AFTER a failure (after YEARS of trying) to ever even bring charges!
the austin chronicle
the FBI and Internal Revenue Service raided his South Austin home and seized 40 boxes of materials related to his charity work, reportedly pursuant to an investigation of alleged "wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering." Although no charges had been brought, the raid greatly disrupted Hamad's charity work.
you are such a liar.
This all started with my arguing that the statement made in the original post was ridiculous, ''You cannot disrespect people who adhere to their religions. You can disagree, but not make fun of.'''....
You immediately denied that the words were ever written and went off on the 'Islam Bashing' rant.
you are such a liar. i never denied those words were written, here is what i said.
nobody said anything about respecting ALL religious beliefs attributed to all interpretations. religions don't even do that, for example: tho shall not kill.
and please spare us the crapola about a stated policy of the Israeli government to murder Palestinian children
i already debunked you quite sufficiently in my 7/20/2008 3:42 PM post. there are no clean hands because there isn't a law in the books that says 'kill palestinian children' just like there was no law in the books that stated 'lets have sanctions to wipe out iraqi children' but any idiot can figure that one out. here's juan cole, middle east expert circa 2 years ago
Israel's grossly disproportionate response to a tit-for-tat Palestinian guerrilla raid during which two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third abducted has pushed the impoverished Gaza Strip to the edge of a humanitarian crisis, smashed the barely functioning Palestinian Authority, and threatened the Middle East's fragile peace. The actions of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seem intended to create a failed state in Gaza and the West Bank, thus rendering the Israeli claim that "we have no one to talk to" a self-fulfilling prophecy and allowing Israel to continue with its unilateral, annexationist policies, free of the need to even pretend to negotiate.
This shortsighted "strategy," which both the United States and, to a slightly lesser degree, the strangely docile Europeans have signed off on, is a recipe for continued hatred, extremism, bloodshed, injustice and festering grievances. Unless Israel and its patron summon the wisdom to take the long view and hammer out an agreement that will give the Palestinians a viable state, rather than simply trying to smash them into submission, the world's most dangerous conflict will continue to rage, with dangerous consequences for all.
now go back to all your hypothetical worst case scenarios to continue your muslim bashing, i am sure any fool can find many more of your lies w/a little looking. for a little spice why not add more allegations of 'FACT', and 'HATRED' and 'JOOS' and whatever else extremist ideologues such as yourself like to use.
i guess you will go back to supporting our loverly fbi fighting terror by harrassing people sending schoolbooks and medicine to palestine. just like you no doubt support israel's recent raids on little children's schoolrooms and health facilities. need links?
ps, last i heard you don't pay taxes on humanitarian donations, in fact, they are a write off. but i am sure you know that. the movie (which i found quite easily yesterday and is still available at the link now oddly is unavailable thru a simple search of youtube. in fact it says “Raid Hamad” video results 0 - 0 of about 0 ha! but yesterday there were at least 10)was from 03, the raid? last feb, so please spare us your brilliant 'analysis' but he killed himself before formal charges were proffered, so technically, he is 'innocent'. as you can see from the video they had been harrassing him for years and years, during which time they were never able to bring charges, because he didn't break any laws other than the unspoken law not to help palestinians no matter what.
suicide is quite popular form of ending investigations here in the US.
We have anthrax.
You die now.
Are you afraid?
Death to America.
Death to Israel.
Allah is great.
don't forget the updates, this just gets more fascinating all the time. ABC is getting pressured to reveal who in the government 'leaked' about the bentonite in the anthrax, a lie designed to tie saddam to the crime, to support an invasion of iraq a month after 9/11.
it seems arab bashing is becoming an american institution, by design.
thank you for providing us all w/a first hand look at how its done.
oh, btw rhus. as you may or may not know your toxic 'iraqi blogger' site erased my chastizement of mr ghost for asking the absurd question of a young fiance from what I've read.. Iraqi men are some of the worst lovers on the planet, with little to no knowledge of how to please a woman in bed. In your opinion, what do Iraqi men have to do to become better lovers?
seriously, is there no end to the debasement? can you stop at nothing? aren't you ashamed in the least to be a part of this toxic crap?????? who prey tell is supposed to be the judge, by multiple comparrison (including multiple nationalities) i presume, of what constitutes a great lover.
really, it is endless.
touche!
Looks like some Muslims in Europe are struggling with the issue. I know it's just me, but I find it amazing that they even have to debate the issue-- but wait! They don't have the courage to even debate the issue, they will wait for the great minds to deliver a fatwa! Sorry, I have no respect for such ridiculously backward thinking whether it's a looney fringe Christian church in Kansas, or the majority of Muslims in Europe who seem to be willing to entertain the death penalty for the 'crime' of being homosexual. But then again, one third of British Muslims in universities support killing in the name of Islam, so I'm not surprised. More fact some can label as Muslim bashing:
Last November the Norwegian Islamic Council asked the European fatwa council what attitude it should have towards homosexuals.
The fatwa council, which debates questions of Muslim faith and doctrine, had its annual meeting in Paris three weeks ago, but did not discuss the subject, according to daily newspaper Dagsavisen.
"It's wrong of the Islamic Council to wait for the "verdict" from the fatwa council in such an important case. By not saying 'no' to death penalties for gays, it shows attitudes that conflict with both democratic and humanitarian values," says Sara Azmeh Rasmussen. She is the only openly lesbian Muslim in Norway.
The head of the Norwegian Islamic Council, Senaid Kobilica, is not worried that the fatwa council will decide in favour of the death penalty. "I'm 100 percent certain that the fatwa council will not come out in favour something which conflicts with European law. The council wasn't able to deal with the question of homosexuality this time, but it thinks that subject is quite relevant and wants to look at the matter more," says Kobilica.
The Islamic Council, which represents 60,000 Muslims in Norway, is still not willing to say whether it is for or against the death penalty for homosexuals, until the fatwa council has spoken.
"It's very important to have the European fatwa council with us in difficult matters like this. I am not in favour of the death penalty, but there are Islamic texts that various people understand differently. This is why we need to know the attitude of the authority before we make a decision," says Kobilica.
Did you read your referenced article? EVERYTHING I wrote is supported by the article. Including: ""Because of this background and the circumstances of his death, there was immediate but unsubstantiated Internet speculation that Hamad had been assassinated, perhaps by U.S. or Israeli authorities."" I would have substituted 'unsubstantiated' with 'looney', but you get the gist.
I never said he was CHARGED, but sufficient evidence had been presented to persuade a court to issue a search warrant wherein 40 boxes of documents had been seized. The DA says that an indictment was in the works. The guys family said he was suicidal. Days later he is seen at the lake alone. His body is found tied in a manner consistent with his having done it himself and no trauma beyond those consistent with drowning. He had not filed taxes in years, could not account for income, could not document where a half million dollars he raised had gone. And, by the way, if you don't think that those who raise money for tax exempt charities have to file income tax returns and pay taxes on personal income they derive from those efforts, you are frighteningly ignorant of tax law. You also have to carefully account for every dollar raised that must be dispersed in a manner that is in keeping with tax law---VERY careful account.
So what else have you got? You rephrase a statement that I called ridiculous and give it a limited meaning that it never had in context or out, and you call me the liar? Waste of time.
So far as the other stuff, you have me confused with someone else. The quotes you assign to me were not mine (getting to be a habit of yours) and I have no idea what ' your toxic Iraqi blogger site' is. It isn't mine and I'm not familiar with it and never been there as far as I can remember, but if they find you half as entertainingly nutty as I do, then perhaps I should check it out. Stay off your meds.
one third of British Muslims in universities support killing in the name of Islam
oh really? according to
The Centre for Social Cohesion, founded last year to study religion and tolerance??
well that is very interesting because i went to their website and their is nothing there about christians! it also seems like a very odd way to promote social cohesion. the entire site is dedicated to bashing islam.
funny, the 'about us' link offers no names. who exactly are these people? it was founded in 2007 by Civitas
this civitas?
Civitas Group llc is a strategic advisory and investment firm serving the homeland and national security markets. out of DC?
Prior to joining Civitas, David Howe served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the Homeland Security Council at the White House. While there, he coordinated policy on issues ranging from WMD defense and counterterrorism to disaster response and preparedness. He also served as the Chief of Staff to the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board where he helped draft the National Strategy for Cyber Security.
hmm
well, maybe not. i wonder if they are affiliated tho?
civitas (Social cohesion and terrorism)
check out what they term as 'rival explanations" !! (so impartial!)
sourcewatch
Civitas (the Institute for the Study of Civil Society) is a British think tank. Founded in 2000, it was formerly the Health and Welfare Unit of the Institute for Economic Affairs... (IEA) is a London-based, influential, right-wing think tank.
how unsurprising..its an uber freemarket site. Milton Friedman believes the IEA's intellectual influence was so strong that "the U-turn in British policy executed by Margaret Thatcher owes more to him (i.e., Fisher) than any other individual."
there's so much more at the link. it is so fascinating how the same people who travel in bringing 'democracy' (free trade) by way of invasion also travel in the promotion of ideas like islamic fascism. it provides an excellent cover for implementing an agenda designed to rip off societies of their resources.
bogus rightwing surveys. you guys are pervasive. you never stop.
''are you going to assert their are more islamic extremists than christian ones, and they are more radical?''
Yes, I am. And one would have to be a raving idiot to try to make the case otherwise. Are the Christians in China threatening to blow up more buses, etc. just as the Muslims did? Are the Chriistians making threats and committing acts of violence to prevent the publication of books and cartoons, etc.? I could go on and on....... and on, but it is clearly pointless. There are so many instances of archaic and barbaric acts condoned in Islam and continue everyday in many regions where Islam dominates, it boggles the mind. You could come up with some isolated cult activity which are in opposition to the teachings of Christianity, but you can't even approach the common archaic practices of many Muslims that continue today, and are not only condoned by the teachings of Islam, they were practiced by the founder himself! Example, multiple wives and the taking of child brides. Slavery. Sex with slaves. Sex with newly pubescent wives.....
Not only that, you would have to have a shocking ignorance of the teachings of the two faiths, as you just demonstrated by quoting verses from Leviticus. Do you really not understand the difference between the OLD Testament and the NEW Testament and how they relate to the Christian faith? Do you not even get the basic point? Have Christians EVER stoned adulterers? hint: read John 8:7. Learn how Christ said he came to bring a NEW covenant to replace the OLD covenant given through Moses, also known as the Laws of Moses and the Torah. Do you know that the Laws in Leviticus are among four books in the Old Testament that formed the beginnings of Sharia Law and that Muhammad INSISTED they be followed?
I don't think you have an inkling of the history or current state of either faith. Regardless of the history or interpretation, can you not look at the relative success of the societies where the two faiths dominate? Do you see a lot of Christians moving to Islamic countries or are Muslims flooding into societies built under a foundation of Christianity? Does that tell you NOTHING?
Many, maybe most, Muslims practice an unacknowledged reformed version of Islam, and it probably serves them well. But you can't seriously contend that for far too many, Islam is an overall destructive force for the modern world and is not compatible with life today, any more than life under strict observance of the Laws of Moses would be.
Since you have demonstrated yourself to be just the sort of person I described, I can no longer take amusement from your arguments. I feel too much like I'm throwing stuff at a monkey in its cage and seems cruel to continue.
cruel? i'll tell you what's cruel. invading a secular country, empowering religious fanatics, and then blaming them for the ensuing violence.
if we were incaded by china, russia, iran.. or anyone, americans would go apeshit. hell, look at all the atrocities in our civil war. would you blame the christians for that?
your argument is based on falacy. the reason this is happening in iraq is a direct result of our invasion. not islamofascism.
first we invaded for wmd's, sadam, then democracy, now you blame 'muslims'.
you are a joke.
I can no longer take amusement from your arguments.
sobering up? the vast majority of muslims are peace loving people the world over. normal people fight back when oppressed. you just don't see western aggression as oppression.
Can you compose more than one sentence without misstating fact and revealing ignorance? Are you just prodding me so I will educate you some more? After thinking about your post on Mosaic Law and Christianity without your even realizing that is what is the basis of Sharia Law and it's reformation is a fundamental tenet of Christianity, I have to admit you still make me laugh.
Who is in charge of Iraq today? Are they religious extremists? Where is Al Quida in Iraq? Where is Sadr? They are defeated, the extremists are increasingly marginalized and Iraq is on the mend. The economy is far ahead of the Saddam era and growing rapidly to the point it seems almost miraculous. The best way to judge the level of victory in Iraq is the relative silence of all the doom and gloomers on the subject. In a decade, they will go the way of all the idiots who foamed at the mouth and railed against the Reagan Admin and the policy that freed Eastern Europe from tyranny. They are hard to find today, but they were in the majority in a lot of circles at the time.
Amazingly, right now there is a strengthening, functioning democracy in the middle of the ME, and that really irritates you, doesn't it? You aren't alone. Have you noticed how silent most of the Iraqi bloggers have become? It's a shame that so many of them invested so much in American/Iraqi failure. Now they want to change the subject and in a decade or two? I'm sure they will refuse to participate in the prosperity and liberty in Iraq just on principle, won't they? Or, will they shamelessly claim all of those things for which so many of those they libel today sacrificed, just as many Americans do today? Don't you?
lol, take off your rose colored glasses. the day the refugees come flodding across the borders to a 'free' iraq, is the day your allegations will be more than just that. the only reason things have calmed down is we have an election coming up and the ptb want quiet.
Do you see a lot of Christians moving to Islamic countries or are Muslims flooding into societies built under a foundation of Christianity?
wake up, our country was not build on a 'foundation of christianity' it was founded on a basis of separation of church and state. freedom of religion. the phrase 'in god we trust' wasn't even in our national anthem until...wiki
In God We Trust did not become the official U.S. national motto until after the passage of an Act of Congress in 1956.[1]
you are nothing more than a historical revisionist. you think your high falluten attitude makes you right, it doesn't. you're a blowhard.
hey , did you notice time magazine's scathing review of mcCains obama antichrist ad? if you think the gop doesn't pander to christian fanatics you're nuts. if you don't think they take Leviticus seriously you should check out the comment section. especially the comments unde the post "Mccain calls Obama "The One" in new ad" at that site.
the neo/zio/gop/'free trade'extremists have been courting these fanatics as tools to implement their imperial conquests for decades. why? because they simply don't have enough support w/out their alligences. as i mentioned earlier you should get that mote out of your eye.
Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist, said during a sermon "I'm trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died."
the only reason these kkker's don't have more power are our laws, the one's in our constitution written by our forefathers who came to this country to escape religious presecution, which for the most part permeated from a foundation of extremist christianity. and yes, they burned witches.
now take your cowardly little holier than tho attitude and shove it where the sun don't shine. you don't intimidate me in the least.
btw, the way oppressive conquering armies thruout the ages dominate societies is byeliminating (killing) the intellectuals. be they doctors, educators artists or whatever. who's left over?
this ain't over til the fat lady sings, so don't go telling me everything is comin' up roses in iraq. just because your team owns the media.
Swaggert hasn't executed anyone, has he ANNIE? He is a fringe figure, he isn't running a country or a justice system, is he? He's not even a good comediene.
The measures adopted by the Iraqi government for resettlement and return of property to their rightful owner took effect Aug 1. They have already removed thousands of squatters and offer cash and free plane tickets home to all refugees. The flood is building. I doubt you would admit it, even if it somehow drowned you.
OK, I have rose colored glasses and you have opaque glasses. You just admitted that victory in Iraq is the last thing you want to see. Keep hoping for the return of more death and destruction so you can be 'right'. Bizarre stuff, ANNIE.
the phrase 'in god we trust' wasn't even in our national anthem until
i meant pledge of allegiance.
lol, jeez i meant 'under god' in the pledge.
In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge...Bellamy's granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.
sound familiar?
He is a fringe figure, he isn't running a country or a justice system
he might be if china invaded and killed off everyone running the country. or people like him, if people from the justice department were fired and replaced w/4th tere religious fanatics from pat robertson's law school. or people like james dobsen had the ear of the president when choosing members for the supreme court.
I'm not sure which country you are pledging allegiance to.
i wasn't talking about my alligiences. i was talking about your bogus claim our nation was founded on a foundation of christianity
The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion
Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence.
Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets rather than to Christianity.
The United States Constitution serves as the law of the land for America and indicates the intent of our Founding Fathers. The Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. (For those who think the date of the Constitution contradicts the last sentence, see note 1 at the end.) The U.S. government derives from people (not God), as it clearly states in the preamble: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union...." The omission of God in the Constitution did not come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion
from the freemason link
In the 18th century, Freemasonry acted as a powerful force for religious freedom and practiced the concept of separation of religion and organization (perhaps the first organization to do so), and the precursor to separation of church and state. Although as one of the requirements for the membership of Freemasonry, one had to have a belief in a Supreme Being, it didn't matter to the organization what deity you believed in. A Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or a Deist could join Freemasonry.
The early Masons took seriously the idea that how a man chose to worship should remain only as his own personal business. George Washington served as a master Mason and remained a Mason until he died. Benjamin Franklin served as the head of the fraternity in Pennsylvania, as did Paul Revere and Joseph Warren in Massachusetts. Other famous Masons include John Hancock, John Sullivan, Lafayette, Baron Fredrick von Stuben, Nathanael Greene, and John Paul Jones. Mason Chief Justice John Marshall, shaped the Supreme Court into its present form.
"You just admitted that victory in Iraq is the last thing you want to see."
and you just admitted to beating your wife.
The flood is building.
huh? sooooo, what's holding it back? why would it be building if, as you say, everything is going so swimmingly? that is a bit of a contradiction don't you think. the concept of a flood building implies there is a mass movement (or damn) holding it back. does it not?
what exactly might that be? denial is not a river in egypt.
'societies built under a foundation of Christianity'
That was the quote. You just spent a lot of time refuting something I never thought or said, again. For the most part, I wasn't even speaking of the US.
I should have said built UPON, of course, but it is true, regardless. Western culture and society is without question have derived from Christian values and beliefs, even if many of those who have lived within have had no particular religious beliefs. Read some history if you doubt that.
Western Europe is being deluged with immigrants from countries dominated by Islam. Islamic countries are not experiencing a lot of immigration from anywhere. The direction is away from, not to. That was my point, and it's undeniable by any sane analysis.
Islamic countries are not experiencing a lot of immigration from anywhere.
really? try telling that to syria, jordan, dubai, and lebanon.
ask them if they have any immigrants.
you are a sad being.
ANNIE, do you know the difference between a refugee and an immigrant? a person who resides in another country for the purposes of employment with no intention of making that country their permanent residence is not an immigrant, either. So again, your rebuttal is based upon pseudo 'facts'.
Mahmoud Darwish
Identity Card
Record !
I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the nineth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?
Record !
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks...
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself
at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?
Record !
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew.
My father..
descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house
is like a watchman's hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title !
Record !
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards
of my ancestors
And the land
which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!
Therefore !
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger !
im·mi·grate (ĭm'ĭ-grāt')
To enter and settle in a country or region to which one is not native.
immigration
Departure from one's native land to settle in another
wiki immigration refers to the movement of people between countries. While the movement of people has existed throughout human history at various levels, modern immigration implies long-term permanent residence.
derd, in your lala land where everything is coming up roses and everybody is going to go back very very soon refugees are not immigrants.
wake up.
ps, obviously the state department agree w/me. otherwise we would be accepting iraqi refugees. (and no, i do not believe the majority of them would be preferring to move to the US). i know it may be very hard for you to imagine but the majority of people who reside in the middle east would prefer to remain there. just like the majority of muslims choose to remain muslim.
The measures adopted by the Iraqi government for resettlement and return of property to their rightful owner took effect Aug 1. They have already removed thousands of squatters and offer cash and free plane tickets home to all refugees. The flood is building. I doubt you would admit it, even if it somehow drowned you.
HA HA HA HA HA
august 1st has come and gone. apparently the flood has yet to take place. gee, maybe they aren't reading the pentagon press briefings. so, i noticed you avoided answering my questions at the 8/10 7:19 post. wassamatta..cat got your tongue?
the concept of a flood building implies there is a mass movement (or damn) holding it back. does it not?
what exactly might that be?
Amazing how you tend to argue with points I never made, and often agree with me when arguing points I HAVE made. I NEVER said most Muslims don't wish to be Muslim, I NEVER said most ME residents would move to the US if given the choice. What I did say was that the ratio of immigrants from Islamic nations to Western nations is FAR greater than the obverse. And I offered that the reason for that lies in part due to the relative dysfunction of governments and society based upon Islamic law. I know that is really hard to argue against, so you argue something else imagined, but must you be so self righteous in the process? And while you are at it, could you actually do some of your own fact checking?
I guess you think by 'flood' I mean that every refugee over the last four years will be returning next Friday, noon at the latest? There is a backlog of grant requests, eviction cases, etc. Reports say that the planes TO Iraq are full, unlike a year ago, and the number of flights are way up. It may take a year or two, and some, especially the Baathists in Syria, may NEVER return. The same is true for the Iraqi Christian community that is all but non-existent in Iraq today, but I hope not. See, I HOPE for something BEYOND normalization for Iraq, which has a history of continual tyranny and terror. You will no doubt hope for the same, IF and only IF Obama can give the Leftists credit for success. I get the distinct impression that as long as Bush is President, and for a potential McCain administration, you yearn for more chaos in the form of death and destruction. Me, if success means that the Left can pretend to be due credit, I'll take it.
What I did say was that the ratio of immigrants from Islamic nations to Western nations is FAR greater than the obverse.
maybe that has something to do w/the fact the trillions in 'defense' spending is landing in the middle east. contrary to your absurd assertions most people fleeing the ME are not doing it to 'find work'. ie a person who resides in another country for the purposes of employment
yeah right. and before you challenge me on that trillion figure, don't forget the billions we've poured into israel over the last few decades. one mans 'humanitarian aid (or USAID)' is another's death warrant.
Reports say that the planes TO Iraq are full,
got links?
I guess you think by 'flood' I mean that every refugee over the last four years will be returning next Friday
strawman. don't think you can slide out of this by arguing the absurd. there are MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of refugees. their return would be a flood. you claim this flood is 'building' so i am asking you, what is holding it back? even a few loaded planes would only constitute a trickle. the roads into iraq are not blocked are they? why aren't these people flooding home?
There is a backlog of grant requests, eviction cases
oh please. are you suggesting these MILLIONS of refugees are all waiting on some court proceeding?? lol
the Baathists in Syria, may NEVER return.
huh? you mean sunnis? you mean some 'refugees' may in fact be permanently IMMIGRATING'????
The same is true for the Iraqi Christian community that is all but non-existent in Iraq today
YOU MEAN THE SAME CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY THAT lived in relative safety UNDER THE OLD REGIME?
the neocons (fanatics of the first order!) used the fanatics of islam to carry out their genocide. as dust settles they sharpen their rhetorical tools to carve up the region using the same religion against the people.
if you think you are so powerful you have the ability to demonize an entire religion thru fanatics you have empowered you have another thing coming. the hatred and tactics of the neocons are a temporary phenomena thrust on mankind, generally hated by the global majority for the pain it has inflicted on behalf of extremist zionists. last i heard islam was one of, if not the, fastest growing religion w/billions of followers.
you are sorely outnumbered. i don't care if you own all the media on the globe. you don't have the power to conquer or destroy islam. your hatred will destroy you. if you want to influence people do it by example. be a good person, it brings out the best in others.
i am a secular person, i do not understand why people have so much faith in god. but belief in god is not a phenomena that infects certain religions one way, and others another. most god loving people are good, no matter what religion they are. muslims are no different. they will raise their children to observe as their parents have raised them. you cannot stop this. the only way to eliminate islam is massive genocide.
do you really want to be a part of that?
this in no way means that i support honor killings and other abhorent actions. societies change over time and become modern. certainly iraq was much more modern then SA for example. but look at what we did. we chose a nation that was not fueled by islamic fanatics and turned it backward, in the guise of 'liberation'. instead of empowering secular people (the majorty of whom would still call themselves muslim, just as many politically moderate americans support secular government consider themselves christian) we expunged them and their entire system of government. we could have removed saddam had that been the mission, it wasn't.
meanwhile, speaking of murdering women, did you know (ABC)
A study published in the March 2005 edition of the American Journal of Public Health found that homicide was a leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States between 1991 and 1999. Data taken from the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the pregnancy-associated homicide ratio was 1.7 per 100,000 live births.
A 2001 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association said 20 percent of Maryland women who died during pregnancy were murdered. Researchers found the same trend in New York from 1987-1991 and in the Chicago area from 1986-1989. According to the CDC, approximately 324,000 pregnant women are hurt by an intimate partner or former partner each year.
what's with those american abusing pregnant women???
here's WAPO
But pregnant women like them have been slain in Maryland and Mississippi, in California and Kansas, in Ohio and Illinois. Jenny McMechen, 24, was shot in a friend's home in Plainfield, Conn., and Kerry Repp, 29, was shot in her Oregon bedroom, and Tasha Winters, 16, was shot in Indiana the day she told her boyfriend about the baby. Ardena Carter, 24, was found dead in the Georgia woods, and Kathleen Terry, 22, was run over in Idaho, and Melesha Francis, 26, was strangled in New York, and Thelma Jones, 21, was shot sitting on her back steps in Louisiana -- the day her mother ordered a cake for her baby shower. (these are not muslim names btw)
A year-long examination by The Washington Post of death-record data in states across the country documents the killings of 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers since 1990. This is only part of the national toll, because no reliable system is in place to track such cases.
meanwhile, did you know..
Why Soldiers Rape??
in the US ..One in six women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should be considered an epidemic.
In the military, however, the situation is even worse. Rape is almost twice as frequent as it is among civilians, especially in wartime. Soldiers are taught to regard one another as family, so military rape resembles incest. And most of the soldiers who rape are older and of higher rank than their victims, so are taking advantage of their authority to attack the very people they are supposed to protect.
Department of Defense reports show that nearly 90 percent of rape victims in the Army are junior-ranking women, whose average age is 21, while most of the assailants are non-commissioned officers or junior men, whose average age is 28. ....
Army Spc. Mickiela Montoya, who was in Iraq for 11 months from 2005-2006, put it another way: “There are only three things the guys let you be if you’re a girl in the military: a bitch, a ho or a dyke. One guy told me he thinks the military sends women over to give the guys eye candy to keep them sane. He told me in Vietnam they had prostitutes, but they don’t have those in Iraq, so they have women soldiers instead.”
i urge you to read the whole thing. what is it w/the culture of the US military that breeds misogyny? do you know that women in the military who have claimmed to have been raped end up suiciding in alarming numbers?? what's w/that?
my point?? my point is if we invested the billions in propaganda and info warfare that's been invested in demonizing islam, and focus on some other alarming statistics, we might view ourselves a little less glamorously.
Honestly, ANNIE. You continue to argue points not made and seem devoid of any logic or comprehension.
i.e.: When speaking of immigration, I was not limiting the immigration to the West by Iraqis. In fact, the vast majority of Iraqi refugees are not in Western countries. Look into the immigration data in France, Italy and Great Britain. When I said 'Baathists in Syria', I meant Baathists in Syria, not 'Sunni'. Weren't you paying attention when all the Sunni Saddam apologists were teaching us all that the Baathists were from all sects and tribes in Iraq and had nothing to do with sect? Shame on you for such backward, bigoted thinking. The Baathists may indeed stay in Syria where there brand of tyranny is still in control, and they may not be welcomed back in Iraq by their former slaves in Iraq. So, yes, they would meet the definition of immigrants, but they aren't moving to the West are they? So again, you seem unable to follow along. The rest of your BS is just childish America bashing and not worth the effort. If you want to equate the status of women in America with the status of women in Islamic countries in order to rationalize their subjugation, you have lost me, finally. I feel brain cells dying just from reading your thoughts. You could prove me wrong by moving to Pakistan or Egypt or Sudan or Iran........ the ruling classes would love you, as long as you limited your expressions of 'thought' to your usual America bashing.
my point?? my point is if we invested the billions in propaganda and info warfare that's been invested in demonizing islam, and focus on some other alarming statistics, we might view ourselves a little less glamorously.
to complicated? devoid of any logic or comprehension.?
I will decline to accept your PC version fo our history.
actually that wasn't my version. it's a government site. from the California Native American Heritage Commission.
http://www.nahc.ca.gov/
915 Capitol Mall, Room 364
Sacramento, CA 95814
right in our capitol building. history is tough derd. but i would rather go thru life w/my eyes open, sans rose colored glasses.
It may come as a shock to you and some others, but White people are no more, no less human that the rest of the species and are just as subject to doing good and evil and have been guilty of both.
spare me your blathering hypocritical condescending strawman arguments.
you claim this flood is 'building' so i am asking you, what is holding it back?
do you think you can hide behind an avalanche of ad hominem attacks and readers will not recognize you are avoiding answering questions regarding your bogus assertions?
Oh, because something can be found in some California government office, it isn't PC BS? HAH! That's the ultimate suppository for PC group think! (yeah, I know the difference between suppository and depository)
I have answered every inane question you've asked and issue you've raised, ANNIE. If I have had a little fun at your expense, maybe you deserve it for all your people have done to mine, don't ya think?
By the way, I discussed the issue of rape in the military in wartime with my daughter who served two tours in Iraq as a combat medic on convoy protection as well as clinic duty on some of the biggest bases in Iraq. She knows a little about the subject of being a woman in wartime, and as a medic, she also was involved in some initial exams of females claiming rape. Her opinion that was shared by the vast majority of the women she spoke with on the subject at the time? Very few of the reported rapes are credible.
Why are the numbers greater in a warzone? If a female wants out, she claims rape. If she gets pregnant, she claims rape. She saw a half dozen cases and thought that all of them were bogus and never heard of a single case of violent clearcut rape. She had no doubt that rapes happen in those circumstances, but probably no more often that they happen in college dorms---probably even much less often. There isn't a lot of alcohol or drugs on bases in Iraq. But in the military in a warzone, you can't sneak off to get an abortion, you likely have a boyfriend at home, and you are subject to disciplinary action for having relations on duty. That, along with the tendency of some small number to find themselves unwilling to fulfill their duty and take the opportunity to go home, makes for higher numbers of claimed attacks.
Or, you can take the view that US military males are wanton rapists if that doesn't make sense to you. I wonder which you will choose to be the most logical?
i never said it wasn't politically correct. sometimes things are politically correct because they represent the truth. in fact there were laws supporting them happening. would you like me to find the names of those laws and site the funds paid to mercenaries. really, we don't really have to prove the native population was wiped out do we? or are you going to claim they all died of disease.
I will decline to accept your PC version fo our history.... I have answered every inane question you've asked and issue you've raised
hahah. except what you decline to accept? lol actually it wasn't me who raised the issue of the big flood, i simply ask you to inform us what was holding it back. lol, i think you have wrapped yourself in another little tight knitted pretzel of derd-non-logic.
females claiming rape..Very few of the reported rapes are credible.
why am i not surprised you said that. what is it w/these military broads claiming rape all the time. sheesh.
If a female wants out, she claims rape.
well, that wouldn't account for the ones who suicided afterward now would it.
If she gets pregnant, she claims rape.
well, that wouldn't account for the ones who suicided afterward now would it.
She saw a half dozen cases and thought that all of them were bogus and never heard of a single case of violent clearcut rape.
i always know yer running scarred when you conjure up the alleged daughter to back you up. boring.
you can take the view that US military males are wanton rapists if that doesn't make sense to you. I wonder which you will choose to be the most logical?
let's see, if i had a choice between sceaming lying suicidal female officers or horney guys, many from gangs, many w/crimianl records, out in the field seeing death day in and day out, some w/sadistic tendancies ..eeny meanie minie mo..i'll stick w/the experts.
my experience is that most woman who say they are raped, are. statistics back me up.
If I have had a little fun at your expense, maybe you deserve it for all your people have done to mine, don't ya think?
ps, i don't believe for one minute think you are native american just like i don't think you have a daughter in the military. you like to haul out for back up. i'll tell you why i think your claims are bogus regarding your alleged heritage. (i actually wrote about this the other day but decided not to pos it, but as usual you are milking your lies for all they are worth)
do you see any Native Americans using their constitutionally protected rights to go back to the tribal, cultural, religious ways that were all but destroyed in the past? I know some who play along, but just enough to get another casino on the interstate.
one would have to be completely disengaged from the native american community to ever say anything like this. no, i take that back. even native americans who are disengaged know perfectly well tribal, cultural, and religious ways have always been kept alive, continue to be kept alive in reservations all across the country and in outlying areas. they would also not make the insulting disparaging comments about their own people as you have so rudely made. i didn't just go to a pow-wow once. i find it beneath me to even discuss the issue further w/someone so insulting.
fraud.
I would be shocked if you didn't find me a fraud since you are wrong about practically everything else, too. Why are you so quick to libel me and call me a liar? Do you have ANY reason to do that? Of course you don't, yet you resort to that because the truth makes you very uncomfortable. That I am of Native American ancestry and have a daughter who served two tours as a combat medic troubles you deeply. I find that very entertaining.
Let's just stick to the verifiable facts, then. Do you have any?
Do you dispute my assertion that Native Americans serve in our nations military at proportionate levels higher than any other ethnic group?
How many male US soldiers have criminal records, and how many of them have been convicted of violent crime?
How many are gang members? Are you saying minorities are the ones responsible for many of the claimed crimes, since gang members are all but exclusively Black or Hispanic?
If you would make such a claim, you must have statistics to back you up, DO YOU? (I know you don't, because that is just more of the Leftest BS thrown around to libel good people). I'll give you the facts: last year 12.5% of recruits need moral waivers for MINOR offenses such as unpaid traffic tickets, vandalism, no more than one non violent felony. NONE were given waivers for violent crimes. The numbers of needed waivers has gone down over the last recruiting year, by the way because ALL services are well ahead of recruiting goals.
The number of female US military personnel who have died from ALL reasons in Iraq? Total 109. About 20 per year.
Suicide as listed cause? 3. That's also over the entire duration of the operation, by the way. That's in theater, so I'll address the numbers for those returning.
''Traditionally, the suicide rate among military members has been lower than age- and gender-matched civilians. But in recent years the rate has crept up from 12 per 100,000 among the military to 17.5 per 100,000 in 2006, she said, 'which is still lower than the population at large, but it is a troubling trend. '' From Feb 2008 CNN story in response to the latest full study on the issue.
Having done a search on the subject (US military deaths Iraq suicide study Pentagon), once I refined the search and got past the hundreds of stories of female suicide bombers killing US troops, I found a few Kos and Huffington Post articles, you know, your kind of source, that contained outrageous claims of sexual abuse and suicide among US military in Iraq. I mean, really STUPIDLY outrageous claims that anyone with half a brain and the ability to do basic math knows are blatant lies. For instance, one HP blog contributer said the the Pentagon report referenced by the CNN article said the 17.5 vets committed suicide EVERY DAY! That's over 6000 per year, in case you need some help. OF COURSE you would believe them, and OF COURSE you prefer to believe that the US military male is likely to be a wanton baby killer and rapist and the military females as their helpless victims. You just don't have any genuine facts to support your view, as usual.
Political Correctness is unconcerned with truth or fact. It's the twisting of fact and denial of others to adhere to the view that dead and living White European males are responsible for all wrongs found in the world, for the most part.
No, the indigenous populations of the Americas weren't 'wiped out', ANNIE. Some tribes no longer exist, especially in the Northeast. They weren't all killed, some where absorbed by the encroaching European settlement. Some were wiped out by rival tribes. Most DID die of diseases brought over from Europe and for which the indigenous population had no resistance. But, did Whites kill, maim, rape, steal? You bet.
Annie, did Indians rape whites? Murder, kidnap, cannibalize, etc. etc. Well, yes, they did because that was a part of some or all of their their cultures and because they were at war to keep their lands. They also did the same to their fellow tribes, LONG before and after the Whites came along. They also took slaves. Even after the Indian wars were over, wars in which Indian tribes often fought alongside Whites against other Indians, some of the relocated tribes had many black slaves and fought on the side of the Confederacy. All of those things are fact, but politically INCORRECT.
Were you aware of all those things? Why would Native Americans do such things? Because they, too, are HUMAN! Because they are no better, and no worse, that their White brothers although their cultures for the most part were not as advanced. Indians were constantly at war with one another, too concerned with survival, a written language, even a common language. Compared to the European culture of the 1500's, they were backward. The Indians of Central America obviously managed a few long lasting empires, but they eventually failed, too.
I would appreciate your pointing me to the tribes that have gone back to their traditions and way of life pre-European. Some tribes, and I happen to be VERY familiar with one of the most successful in the US, are using the rights given to them in the Constitution which EXCEED the rights of ANY other group in the US, to set up their own democratic governments and are providing services to their members with federal funds and gambling proceeds. Ours currently have net assets of almost a billion dollars despite spending it as fast as we can. We also are spending 10's of millions to preserve some of the traditions and history---- But NONE of us are moving into the replica villages that I expect are a lot nicer than the ones they are meant to represent. Especially the restroom and concession facilities. We prefer our, for the less affluent, tribe subsidized brick homes, beautiful new FREE hospital (sorry, you can't come and you can't work there if a Indian wants your job because unlike the rest of Americans, we DO get to discriminate on basis of race). That's just another one of those facts that don't fit the story line.
Correction: it is legal to discriminate according to race, as long as it isn't benefiting a White male.
I sometimes forget about Affirmatives Action, even though I always make it a point to check the box for certified minority contractor when bidding jobs. I can be 10% higher than any competing white owned contractor of Fed jobs. Isn't that cool!?
nice.
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