Islamic extremism: The modern Frankenstein Monster

[Rouzbeh]

@Cyrene

Yes they do, but so do sidees of the religious opposition envolved and without the funding we’ve seen historically as much violence and nuttery. You don’t neeed a whole lot of funding to throw around roadside bombs.

You’re just being specifically ignorant and I can’t stand that when it comes to religion. Spokes-people of islam and of iran, publically ordered and offered to pay for the death of citizens in forign countries, many that have no tie to imperialism towards them. They sent death-squads to countries that hand no such hand in this, for critisizing their religion. Sorry, but when they’re historically violent their religion is crazy, they justify their acts by religion and not social policy.

Whether people were funding groups in iraq or not, the civil war would STILL be at large, they would STILL be killing each other over various sunni/shiite interpretations of a divine hiearchy.

The shiite vs sunni conflict is a relatively new idea but even so it’s always been done politically (ie safavids vs ottomans/saddam vs iran) and I don’t know of any incidents where shiites or sunnis literally went to the other’s neighborhood to kill each other. In fact, ‘shiisim’ was created for political reasons by the Safavids if I’m not mistaken to counter the Ottoman claim to be the center of the islamic world. This is still a politically motivated war. Individuals have no need for killing each other en masse. As it is with politics and warfare, money is the sinews of war. The more money you throw at it, the more it develops.
As far as religion being the reason these people are killing each other and Iran going into Iraq to blow sunnis up, I can only suggest that you read up a bit more on the region. There’s a number of sunnis in Iran and although they’re not given any particular advantages, they’re not being oppressed either. In the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis were hoping the sunnis of southern Iran would help them, they didn’t. The Iranians were hoping the shiites of Iraq would help them on a large scale, didn’t happen.
Religion is just another reason to perform a given act. Saying the reason people there are killing each other because of religion is like saying the US goes to war TO PROTECT FREEDOM! The little guys might believe it but ultimately that’s just ludicrous. Simply put: if it wasn’t religion, it’d be something else. Hating religion specifically because it incites war is foolish. Hating ideals as a whole is another matter. Every war is an economically motivated power struggle and this one is no different.

[Cyrene]

Whether or not its in the text is irrelevant (you can find numerous examples in the koran of violence or suggested violence) the main point is that people high up in islam and iran specifically ordered death-squads to kill other people, whether or not its justified by their religion (religions are so ambiguous so that a person can draw justification for anything) the fact is religions have a very nasty transformative power, and we’re seeing that with islam right now, as well as it being historically the case, though, many religions have this downfall.

We’re not going to leave them alone because 1. Their ideas are absurd and dangerous and we’re allowed in our countries the right of free-speech. 2. They take this very fucking poorly, criticism of Islam (verbal, or with pictures or whatever) and they use violence as a retort.

[Cyrene]

The shiite vs sunni conflict is a relatively new idea but even so it’s always been done politically (ie safavids vs ottomans/saddam vs iran) and I don’t know of any incidents where shiites or sunnis literally went to the other’s neighborhood to kill each other. In fact, ‘shiisim’ was created for political reasons by the Safavids if I’m not mistaken to counter the Ottoman claim to be the center of the islamic world.

most religious beliefs have political implications especially a divine hiearchy one;

Shi’ism was not brought into existence only by the question of the political succession to Muhammad as so many Western works claim (although this question was of course of great importance). The problem of political succession may be said to be the element that crystallized the Shi’ites into a distinct group, and political suppression in later periods, especially the martyrdom of Imam Husayn-upon whom be peace-only accentuated this tendency of the Shi’ites to see themselves as a separate community within the Islamic world. The principal cause of the coming into being of Shi’ism, however, lies in the fact that this possibility existed within the Islamic revelation itself and so had to be realized. Inasmuch as there were exoteric[Zaheri] and esoteric[Bateni] interpretations from the very beginning, from which developed the schools (madhhab) of the Sharia and Sufism in the Sunni world, there also had to be an interpretation of Islam which would combine these elements in a single whole. This possibility was realized in Shi’ism, for which the Imam is the person in whom these two aspects of traditional authority are united and in whom the religious life is marked by a sense of tragedy and martyrdom… Hence the question which arose was not so much who should be the successor of the Muhammad as what the function and qualifications of such a person would be

• wiki

This is still a politically motivated war. Individuals have no need for killing each other en masse. As it is with politics and warfare, money is the sinews of war. The more money you throw at it, the more it develops.
As far as religion being the reason these people are killing each other and Iran going into Iraq to blow sunnis up, I can only suggest that you read up a bit more on the region. There’s a number of sunnis in Iran and although they’re not given any particular advantages, they’re not being oppressed either. In the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis were hoping the sunnis of southern Iran would help them, they didn’t. The Iranians were hoping the shiites of Iraq would help them on a large scale, didn’t happen.
Religion is just another reason to perform a given act. Saying the reason people there are killing each other because of religion is like saying the US goes to war TO PROTECT FREEDOM! The little guys might believe it but ultimately that’s just ludicrous. Simply put: if it wasn’t religion, it’d be something else. Hating religion specifically because it incites war is foolish. Hating ideals as a whole is another matter. Every war is an economically motivated power struggle and this one is no different.

(religions have been one of the main causes/justifications of war throughout history. Lets not pretend wars haven’t been fought over purely religious ideals, lets not pretend that religion is so entrenched in so many conflicts today that it makes them impossible to ever solve realistically.

He states plainly that:

“When the Coalition arrived in Baghdad on 9 April, 2003, it found a fractured and brutalized society, presided over by a fearful, heavily armed minority. The post-9/11 jihadi culture that was subsequently to plague Iraq was just beginning to take root. The institutions of the state were moribund; the state exhausted. The ideology that had held Ba’athist rule together had decayed beyond repair.”

I pause to make two points. First, it’s a pleasure to see someone use the word brutalized correctly, to mean not so much the experience of being maltreated as the familiarity with being brutal. Second, if what Allawi says is true, then Iraq was headed straight for implosion and failure, both as a state and a society, well before 2003. Not only this, but its Sunni ruling elite was flirting increasingly with a Salafist ideology. In such circumstances—as many Iraqi dissidents argued even at the time—the United States had to face the alarming fact that a ruined Iraq was in its future whether it intervened or not.

How had a country that was bursting with oil wealth and development in the 1970s become a sweltering, violent basket case? Because the historic compromise between Sunni and Shiite, uneasy as it was, had been ripped apart by dictatorship and overseas aggression. As Allawi phrases it:

The state removed the elements that kept a vigorous Shi'a identity alive in parallel to a Sunni-dominated state. Nationalizations, emigration and expulsions destroyed the Shi'a mercantilist class; the state monopoly on education, publishing and the media removed the cultural underpinnings of Shi'a life. … When the state embarked on the mass killings after the 1991 uprisings, Iraq became hopelessly compromised in the minds of most Shi'a.

And this is to say nothing of the Kurds: the one-fifth of Iraqi society who, as Allawi points out, had already left the Iraqi state by the time the coalition arrived. Without needing or wishing to soften any critique of post-invasion planning, I would propose that this analysis has a highly unsettling implication. Hell was coming to Iraq no matter what.

This point is undergirded by another one, which is that hell was already making considerable strides in Iraq in the decade before 2003. Again, Allawi’s cool analysis and careful evidence darkens this already black picture. All the crucial indices, from illiteracy to unemployment to the emigration of talent and skill, were rapidly heading south. Perhaps most ominously, the reaction of Saddam Hussein was to ratchet up religious and theocratic rhetoric and policy, broadcasting for jihad 'round the clock, engaging in a massive mosque-building program, and launching sporadic “morals” campaigns. Again, U.S. policy could hardly be indifferent to this distress and misery and demagogy, if only because the whole context was shaped by two largely American decisions. The first was to allow Saddam to remain in power after 1991 and to watch while he massacred the Shiites and Kurds, an action that Allawi rightly describes as “unforgivable.” The second was to impose sanctions, which, unduly prolonged, did far more damage to an already distraught society than they did to the ruthless and corrupt regime.

• Christopher Hitchens, - A Hell of a CountryAli Allawi’s new memoir shows Iraq’s collapse was inevitable.

I understand a lot of the political issues envolved in the middle-east, more importantly I understand where religion comes from and why, and how the religion and politics are so in termixed to even try to de-tangle them is meaningless, and its a great leap of logic to say anything other then religion is one of the primary drives of these types of societal breakdowns.

[YodaJosh]

@Cyrene

I understand a lot of the political issues envolved in the middle-east, more importantly I understand where religion comes from and why, and how the religion and politics are so in termixed to even try to de-tangle them is meaningless, and its a great leap of logic to say anything other then religion is one of the primary drives of these types of societal breakdowns.

I disagree slightly. There are different components to religion. One can be “religious” in that they believe in a deity and/or a belief/value set, yet not have any problem with others not feeling the same way. An excellent example would be Jews throughout history, who have (for the most part) managed to keep their religious beliefs and to keep their values while living peacefully among different peoples who did not necessarily share those beliefs or values

The real issue here is Nationalism. The idea that one’s idea is not only the one correct idea for them, but for everyone - That in order to achieve the best society, everyone must follow their idea. This is the dangerous thought, and the cause behind the violence in the middle east, both between factions of Islam, and Islam and other groups. It’s not so much that their beliefs are different, as that they are overzealous about their kin, their tribe, or their “nation”. It’s no different than any other nationalist fascism, be it Nazism, or Putin’s new movement in Russia today, or the push of Evangelical Christians here to make America a Christian nation

The key here is that religion can exist without leading to societal breakdown, and societal breakdown can occur without religion (see the South Park Atheism episode ). Nationalism and overzealous patriotism are the real dangers

[stoned_kazak]

thank you for your very relevant views

my bad was that i wrote the title too vague

i wanted to point out specifically at Al Qaeda, the Saudi Arabian regime and the Taliban( i’m biased i know )

Al Qaeda is the monster, USA is frankenstein. there is no way to disprove this statement( unless someone would actually try to do it instead of rambling on about how muslims fight each other). the fact is that the USA trained this organization and its protege turned on its previous master

[Rouzbeh]

@Cyrene

Cyrene wrote:Yes they do, but so do sidees of the religious opposition envolved and without the funding we’ve seen historically as much violence and nuttery. You don’t neeed a whole lot of funding to throw around roadside bombs.

You’re just being specifically ignorant and I can’t stand that when it comes to religion. Spokes-people of islam and of iran, publically ordered and offered to pay for the death of citizens in forign countries, many that have no tie to imperialism towards them. They sent death-squads to countries that hand no such hand in this, for critisizing their religion. Sorry, but when they’re historically violent their religion is crazy, they justify their acts by religion and not social policy.

Whether people were funding groups in iraq or not, the civil war would STILL be at large, they would STILL be killing each other over various sunni/shiite interpretations of a divine hiearchy.

The shiite vs sunni conflict is a relatively new idea but even so it’s always been done politically (ie safavids vs ottomans/saddam vs iran) and I don’t know of any incidents where shiites or sunnis literally went to the other’s neighborhood to kill each other. In fact, ‘shiisim’ was created for political reasons by the Safavids if I’m not mistaken to counter the Ottoman claim to be the center of the islamic world.

@Cyrene

most religious beliefs have political implications especially a divine hiearchy one;

Political implications of course they do but few are actually created for political reasons. Politics en masse. Shiism was created for political purposes and those alone. The point of the statement was that a sunni or a shia will not attack the other group like a group of whites might have attacked a black man up till a short time ago (think beyond visuals) and there’s less hatred there than people assume. Once you throw in some money, somebody manages to take control, and you have a ‘conflict’.

Shi’ism was not brought into existence only by the question of the political succession to Muhammad as so many Western works claim (although this question was of course of great importance). The problem of political succession may be said to be the element that crystallized the Shi’ites into a distinct group, and political suppression in later periods, especially the martyrdom of Imam Husayn-upon whom be peace-only accentuated this tendency of the Shi’ites to see themselves as a separate community within the Islamic world. The principal cause of the coming into being of Shi’ism, however, lies in the fact that this possibility existed within the Islamic revelation itself and so had to be realized. Inasmuch as there were exoteric[Zaheri] and esoteric[Bateni] interpretations from the very beginning, from which developed the schools (madhhab) of the Sharia and Sufism in the Sunni world, there also had to be an interpretation of Islam which would combine these elements in a single whole. This possibility was realized in Shi’ism, for which the Imam is the person in whom these two aspects of traditional authority are united and in whom the religious life is marked by a sense of tragedy and martyrdom… Hence the question which arose was not so much who should be the successor of the Muhammad as what the function and qualifications of such a person would be

Shias idolize the imam. Yes they do but the conflict that we witness now is a result of a political separation of the Saffavids with the Ottomans and the rest is really trivial. Every separatist group’s existence is preceded by “the inevitable” which of course becomes inevitable because the group exists. It’s bad practice to look up wikipedia everytime one gets into a discussion just for the sake of argument.

This is still a politically motivated war. Individuals have no need for killing each other en masse. As it is with politics and warfare, money is the sinews of war. The more money you throw at it, the more it develops.
As far as religion being the reason these people are killing each other and Iran going into Iraq to blow sunnis up, I can only suggest that you read up a bit more on the region. There’s a number of sunnis in Iran and although they’re not given any particular advantages, they’re not being oppressed either. In the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis were hoping the sunnis of southern Iran would help them, they didn’t. The Iranians were hoping the shiites of Iraq would help them on a large scale, didn’t happen.
Religion is just another reason to perform a given act. Saying the reason people there are killing each other because of religion is like saying the US goes to war TO PROTECT FREEDOM! The little guys might believe it but ultimately that’s just ludicrous. Simply put: if it wasn’t religion, it’d be something else. Hating religion specifically because it incites war is foolish. Hating ideals as a whole is another matter. Every war is an economically motivated power struggle and this one is no different.

@Cyrene

(religions have been one of the main causes/justifications of war throughout history. Lets not pretend wars haven’t been fought over purely religious ideals, lets not pretend that religion is so entrenched in so many conflicts today that it makes them impossible to ever solve realistically.

YodaJosh mentioned the southpark episode where everybody’s an atheist in the future. It’s silly but it makes a point very clear in an amusing way. Religion is not the cause of war. Religion is not the main cause of war. Justifications mean nothing, all wars are declared justified by something and those 'something’s are often the most trivial things. People who are knowledgable in a given conflict will usually agree that the premise for that conflict had nothing to do with the way it was justified. Wars aren’t fought over religious ideals, wars are fought for economic/political reasons independent of religion.

iraq was bound to collapse either way

I think it’s fairly difficult to prove an article that’s been written on the inevitability of what’s occured wrong. Going by the reasoning here, I can conclude that everything that ever happened was inevitable. Regardless, I would like to see some examples of the faltering ideology of the baath party. A dictatorship works through suppression. I haven’t read anything about their faltering ability to suppress. Either way, baath party sounds pretty slippery to me…

@Cyrene

I understand a lot of the political issues envolved in the middle-east, more importantly I understand where religion comes from and why, and how the religion and politics are so in termixed to even try to de-tangle them is meaningless, and its a great leap of logic to say anything other then religion is one of the primary drives of these types of societal breakdowns.

To say “I understand/know alot”, which I have read you say on more than one occasion, is a strange way to reinforce a point but anyways. Religion is a philosophy like many others and it is by nature an ideal. Ideals are fought over by human nature. Religion is not the cause of abuse, human nature is. Removing one ideal doesn’t mean its effects are gone, it would simply be relabelling the cause. Point is you can eliminate religion, we can start using nationalism/racism/sexism/intelligence/physical ability/beauty etc.

[Chato]

@YodaJosh

@stoned_kazak

@Cyrene

Seriously look into that, we didn’t create islam like frankenstein, they created themselves, the

no the quran states respect for muslims to jews and christians because they are “booked” people

For the most part, yes, but there are still these gems:

[5.33] The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,

[5.51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

[5.64] And the Jews say: The hand of Allah is tied up! Their hands shall be shackled and they shall be cursed for what they say. Nay, both His hands are spread out, He expends as He pleases; and what has been revealed to you from your Lord will certainly make many of them increase in inordinacy and unbelief; and We have put enmity and hatred among them till the day of resurrection; whenever they kindle a fire for war Allah puts it out, and they strive to make mischief in the land; and Allah does not love the mischief-makers.

[5.73] Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah is the third (person) of the three; and there is no god but the one God, and if they desist not from what they say, a painful chastisement shall befall those among them who disbelieve.

Islam of the the three western religions is the ONLY one that states that virtious infidels can still get their ass into heaven.

Sura 3: 109-111
Yet all are not alike: Among the people of the Book is an upright folk, who recite the signs of God in the night-season, and adore:

They believe in God and in the latter day, and enjoin justice, and forbid evil, and speed on in good works. These are of the righteous.

Sura 3: 198-199
Among the people of the Book are those who believe in God, and in what He hath sent down to you, and in what He hath sent down to them, humbling themselves before God. They barter not the signs of God for a mean price.

These! their recompense awaiteth them with their Lord: aye! God is swift to take account.
sacred-texts.com/isl/qr/003.htm

@Koran

Sura 2:187-189

And fight for the cause of God against those who fight against you: but commit not the injustice of attacking them first: God loveth not such injustice:

And kill them wherever ye shall find them, and eject them from whatever place they have ejected you; for civil discord 76 is worse than carnage: yet attack them not at the sacred Mosque, unless they attack you therein; but if they attack you, slay them. Such the reward of the infidels.

But if they desist, then verily God is Gracious, Merciful.

Sura 2:257-259

Let there be no compulsion in Religion. 102 Now is the right way made distinct from error. Whoever therefore shall deny Thagout 103 and believe in God–he will have taken hold on a strong handle that shall not be broken: and God is He who Heareth, Knoweth.

God is the patron of believers: He shall bring them out of darkness into light:

As to those who believe not, their patrons are Thagout: they shall bring them out of light into darkness: they shall be given over to the fire: they shall abide therein for ever.

sacred-texts.com/isl/qr/002.htm

But Stoned Kazak is correct, fundamentalist Islam is a product of fifty years of US policy of combating communism. It was a calculated policy that assumes that since Islam hates communism, then the most extemee fundamentalists are on our side.

A clear case of demented thinking, for which we are now paying the price.

Dave

[Chato]

@Rouzbeh

@Cyrene

Yes they do, but so do sidees of the religious opposition envolved and without the funding we’ve seen historically as much violence and nuttery. You don’t neeed a whole lot of funding to throw around roadside bombs.

You’re just being specifically ignorant and I can’t stand that when it comes to religion. Spokes-people of islam and of iran, publically ordered and offered to pay for the death of citizens in forign countries, many that have no tie to imperialism towards them. They sent death-squads to countries that hand no such hand in this, for critisizing their religion. Sorry, but when they’re historically violent their religion is crazy, they justify their acts by religion and not social policy.

Whether people were funding groups in iraq or not, the civil war would STILL be at large, they would STILL be killing each other over various sunni/shiite interpretations of a divine hiearchy.

The shiite vs sunni conflict is a relatively new idea but even so it’s always been done politically (ie safavids vs ottomans/saddam vs iran) and I don’t know of any incidents where shiites or sunnis literally went to the other’s neighborhood to kill each other. In fact, ‘shiisim’ was created for political reasons by the Safavids if I’m not mistaken to counter the Ottoman claim to be the center of the islamic world. This is still a politically motivated war. Individuals have no need for killing each other en masse. As it is with politics and warfare, money is the sinews of war. The more money you throw at it, the more it develops.
As far as religion being the reason these people are killing each other and Iran going into Iraq to blow sunnis up, I can only suggest that you read up a bit more on the region. There’s a number of sunnis in Iran and although they’re not given any particular advantages, they’re not being oppressed either. In the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis were hoping the sunnis of southern Iran would help them, they didn’t. The Iranians were hoping the shiites of Iraq would help them on a large scale, didn’t happen.
Religion is just another reason to perform a given act. Saying the reason people there are killing each other because of religion is like saying the US goes to war TO PROTECT FREEDOM! The little guys might believe it but ultimately that’s just ludicrous. Simply put: if it wasn’t religion, it’d be something else. Hating religion specifically because it incites war is foolish. Hating ideals as a whole is another matter. Every war is an economically motivated power struggle and this one is no different.

You are mistaken. Shiism is almost as old as Islam itself. It was created by a succesion dispute as to who was the true succesor to Mohammad.

Google it.

Does it make “sense?” Might as well ask about all the sects of Chrisitanity.

Dave

[Cyrene]

Thank you for re-highlighting the religious nature of that disagreement Chato, I did earlier but it was ignored. I agree that such a religious belief needs to be political in nature a lot of the time though.

[Cyrene]

But Stoned Kazak is correct, fundamentalist Islam is a product of fifty years of US policy of combating communism. It was a calculated policy that assumes that since Islam hates communism, then the most extemee fundamentalists are on our side.

Fundamentalism islam is a result of a nasty side of a religion surfacing, fundamentalism Islam has existed before, and it was hardly created by US imperialism. US imperialism has nothing to do with how they responded to the comics of muhammad, it has nothing to do with them sending death-sqauds to other countries, many of the tenents of islam are incompatible with a liberal democracy.

Our “US imperialism” doesn’t force them to act in routinely crazy ways, as they act in routinely, voilent, crazy ways, before, and after and in association with things that have nothing to do with us imperialism. (subjecting women to brutal beating for arbitrary reasons, calling for the death of people who name a teddy bear the n ame a teddy-bear muhammad.

No, don’t tell me its a response of US imperialism when islamics that have never had a taste of US imperialism are calling for the same type of violence in first world countries. When 50% of people in britain, holland, US and etc support islamic violence againsts its dissidents, ITS ABSURD TO SAY IT WAS US IMPERIALISM. (i mean 50% of islamics askedd)

And again theres a lot of factors envolveed in the violencec rates like overabudance of males and polygyny that can’t be ignored.

[Cyrene]

Why Ask Why?
Terrorist attacks aren’t caused by any policy except that of the bombers themselves.
By Christopher Hitchens

The return of murderous nihilism to Bali is highly instructive. It shows, first, that the fanatics of Islamism don’t know how to stop. And it also shows that they never learn. How can Jemaah Islamiyah, which almost ruined Indonesia’s economy by its filthy attack three years ago, possibly have tried to repeat the same crime in the same place? If we look for answers to this question, we shall find answers that completely discredit the current half-baked apologies for terrorism.

I remember going to Bali from Jakarta in the summer of 2003. I had already toured the wreckage of the Marriott Hotel in the capital city, which was blown up by a suicide team just as I arrived, slaying several Muslim cab drivers who were waiting in line outside. The rage of the local population was something to be seen: The widows of the dead men were calling for the perpetrators to be tortured before they were executed. In Bali, which is a more mild and temperate place, a huge candlelit march had followed the bombings that had devastated the tourist hangouts in Kuta. I made a point of going to Legian Street, which had been the “ground zero” of this fiery atrocity, and of attending the opening of Paddy’s Bar Reloaded, where so many genial Australians had been foully incinerated. The prevailing view was that JI had isolated itself and that the trial of the perpetrators would expose them to popular contempt—which indeed it did.

But if JI were rational, it wouldn’t have attacked the bars and clubs and beaches of Kuta and Jimbaran in the first place. Indonesia is a mainly Muslim society, whose government takes a stern line against the war in Iraq and even Afghanistan. Its people, who are astonishingly hospitable to all foreigners, depend in millions of cases on tourism to make the difference between indigence and the minimum wage. Its elections feature Muslim political parties, many of them quite austere in their propaganda. Why on earth, then, would a fundamentalist group wish to bring discredit upon itself and ruin upon its neighbors by resorting to random slaughter?

Never make the mistake of asking for rationality here. And never underestimate the power of theocratic propaganda. The fanatics look at the population of Bali and its foreign visitors and they see a load of Hindus selling drinks—often involving the presence of unchaperoned girls—to a load of Christians. That in itself is excuse enough for mayhem. They also see local Muslims following syncretic and tolerant forms of Islam, and they yearn to redeem them from this heresy and persuade them of the pure, desert-based truths of Salafism and Wahhabism. (One of the men on trial in Bali had been in trouble before, in his home village, for desecrating local Muslim shrines that he regarded as idolatrous.) And then, of course, Australians must die. Why would that be? Well, is it not the case that Australia sent troops to help safeguard the independence of East Timor and the elections that followed it? A neighboring country that assists the self-determination of an Indonesian Christian minority must expect to have the lives of its holidaymakers taken.

Do not forget that on Aug. 19, 2003, a gigantic explosion leveled the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, which then served as the Iraq headquarters of the United Nations. The materials used to do this were of a high military grade not available to any random “insurgent” and certainly came from the arsenals of the fallen regime. The main target—and principal victim—was Sergio Vieira de Mello, the dashing Brazilian who had been sent by Kofi Annan to reanimate the U.N. presence in Iraq. De Mello had been the most devoted and humane of the world body’s civil servants and had won himself golden opinions in Cambodia, Lebanon, Sudan, and the Balkans. But it was his role as U.N. supervisor of the transition in East Timor that marked him for death. A communiqué from al-Qaida gloated over the end of “the personal representative of America’s criminal slave, Kofi Annan, the diseased Sergio de Mello, criminal Bush’s friend.” It went on to ask, “Why cry over a heretic? Sergio Vieira de Mello is the one who tried to embellish the image of America, the crusaders and the Jews in Lebanon and Kosovo, and now in Iraq. He is America’s first man where he was nominated by Bush to be in charge of the UN after Kofi Annan, the criminal and slave of America, and he is the crusader that extracted a part of the Islamic land [East Timor].”

[b]Consider this, look again at the awful carnage in Bali, and shudder if you ever said, or thought, that the bombs in London in July, or the bombs in Baghdad every day, or the bombs in Bali last Friday, are caused by any “policy” but that of the bombers themselves. Note the following:

1. East Timor was for many years, and quite rightly, a signature cause of the Noam Chomsky “left.” The near-genocide of its people is an eternal stain on Indonesia and on the Western states that were complicit or silent. Yet Bin Ladenism wants not less of this killing and repression but more. Its demand to re-establish the caliphate is a pro-imperialist demand, not an anti-imperialist one.

2. Random bombings are not a protest against poverty and unemployment. They are a cause of poverty and unemployment and of wider economic dislocation.

3. Hinduism is considered by Bin Ladenists to be a worse heresy even than Christianity or Judaism or Shiism, and its adherents, whether in Bali or Kashmir, are fit only for the edge of the sword. So, it is absurd to think of jihadism—which murders the poor and the brown without compunction—as a movement against the rich and the “white.”

So, what did Indonesia do to deserve this, or bring it on itself? How will the slaughter in Bali improve the lot of the Palestinians? Those who look for the connection will be doomed to ask increasingly stupid questions and to be content with increasingly wicked answers.[/b]

[Cyrene]

Its an ignorant belief thats exposedd for its clear fallacy the second someone learns somthing outside of Chomsky’s nonsense.

[Kriswest]

I may regret this but, what the heck has their polygamy got to do with idiotic suicidal warring behavior.

[Rouzbeh]

@Chato

You are mistaken. Shiism is almost as old as Islam itself. It was created by a succesion dispute as to who was the true succesor to Mohammad.

Google it.

Does it make “sense?” Might as well ask about all the sects of Chrisitanity.

Dave

I didn’t dispute the philosophy of shiism. As to the point of, the real rift between Sunnis and Shias was created as a result of the conflict between the Iranians and Ottomans. Without politics, the number of imams wouldn’t matter. The Ottomans claimed to be the center of the Islamic world and so the Saffavids blew the idea of shia/sunni out of proportion to counter that claim. There’s plenty of historical/religious events people can and do dispute. Somebody goes out and gathers a group of people who agree with him. Doesn’t really mean anything. When that group becomes political, things change. That’s what shiism has become. A disagreement from the 7th century and shias are still pounding their chests.

[Cyrene]

@Kriswest

I may regret this but, what the heck has their polygamy got to do with idiotic suicidal warring behavior.

Statistically speaking young males without mates or access to mates are very very violent. This violence curbs as they get older, or find a mate, or whatever, but the fact of the matter is they tend to be a very violent group statistically. Polygyny, generally leaves a lot of males without females.

Most suicide bombers are Muslim
According to the Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, a comprehensive history of this troubling yet topical phenomenon, while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?

The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines in it). It may have nothing to do with the religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don’t get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

• some internet thing.

But theres a lot of evidednce for the young male, ,no mate, statistically violent grouping.

[Cyrene]

That underplays the religious and other factors obviously, it has a lot more to do with just sex and two lines in the koran, but its part of the intricate explanation.

[someoneisatthedoor]

@LexDemian

Sept/11 was not premised on retaliation for past imperialist domination. American instrusion in the Arab world pales in conparison to that in other parts of the globe.

Such as? And just because the US may have not ‘intruded’ into the Arab world as much as they have other places doesn’t mean that that Arab retaliation (assuming for a moment that 9/11 was carried out by Arabs) wouldn’t happen as a result.

Osama bin Laden is not concerned with a fairer distribution of the world’s wealth. He’s fabulously wealthy and has no involvement in charitable pursuits.

Strange, he talks about a fairer distribution of wealth in his ‘letter to the American people’ of 2002:
observer.guardian.co.uk/worldvie … 25,00.html

[someoneisatthedoor]

@Cyrene

If you want to explain islamic nuttery as imperialism responses, you have to explain why most of the violence is directed against each other for religious reasons, with religious justification.

It isn’t. In Afghanistan, in the Balkans, in Algeria, in Libya, in Chechnya too the operations of Al Qaeda have been politically motivated. Politically motivated by various Western intelligence services seeking to gain or protect interests in those regions, I might add.

[someoneisatthedoor]

@stoned_kazak

I’d like to see U.S.A’in views on this. The United States did train this folk( just watch Rambo III to view the mass media portrayal of these folk back then) to fight the evil communists in Afgahnistan.

This is true.

Then shit happened and it turned on them.

‘It’ did not. The relationship between the CIA and Al Qaeda, MI5/6 and Al Qaeda, the FSB and Al Qaeda remains. It isn’t just Afghanistan. It’s Algeria, Kosovo, Chechnya and other countries. I repeat: the relationship between Western Intelligence Services and Al Qaeda remain to this day.

Are neutral people supposed to just sit back and laugh?

I don’t understand the question. Partly because I don’t know what you mean by ‘neutral people’…

[Chato]

@Cyrene

But Stoned Kazak is correct, fundamentalist Islam is a product of fifty years of US policy of combating communism. It was a calculated policy that assumes that since Islam hates communism, then the most extemee fundamentalists are on our side.

Fundamentalism islam is a result of a nasty side of a religion surfacing, fundamentalism Islam has existed before, and it was hardly created by US imperialism. US imperialism has nothing to do with how they responded to the comics of muhammad, it has nothing to do with them sending death-sqauds to other countries, many of the tenents of islam are incompatible with a liberal democracy.

Our “US imperialism” doesn’t force them to act in routinely crazy ways, as they act in routinely, voilent, crazy ways, before, and after and in association with things that have nothing to do with us imperialism. (subjecting women to brutal beating for arbitrary reasons, calling for the death of people who name a teddy bear the n ame a teddy-bear muhammad.

No, don’t tell me its a response of US imperialism when islamics that have never had a taste of US imperialism are calling for the same type of violence in first world countries. When 50% of people in britain, holland, US and etc support islamic violence againsts its dissidents, ITS ABSURD TO SAY IT WAS US IMPERIALISM. (i mean 50% of islamics askedd)

And again theres a lot of factors envolveed in the violencec rates like overabudance of males and polygyny that can’t be ignored.

At the beginning of the Cold War it was decided that in order to fight Comminism, the best ally in the Middle East was Fundamentalist Islam. This was the time of the “Arab Awakening” to quote the title of a contemporary book, and the Mid East was full of secular movements demanding that Mid east countries take back their resources. Nassar, etc, seemed to be incipient communist movements to the anti-communist fanatics.

Backing the most extreme elements of Islam, in order to attack these secularists seemed to “make sense.” So we bolstered the the Wahhabi Sect and the Monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and every place else where “secularism” seemed to be a threat. This policy reached it’s apogee (or nader, depending on your point of view) when we aided Al Qaeda against the Russians in Afghanistan.

That Fundamentalist Islam exists independent of us, isn’t saying anything. We poured BILLIONS of dollars into aiding these movements, naivly believeing they would be beholden to us - Well, surprise, surprise, they regard us as just as evil as the Communists.

Dave