Will we ever understand?

Originally posted by grover
I have read the Quran twice now and there are the people of the book aka Christian and Jews and then there are the pagans whom are referred to as infidels. Later in the Quran after Muhammad had been slighted by the Jews of Medina, he railed against them, but for the most part, they were, until recent times a protected minority and paid the tax that was laid upon non-believers. As I said the only ones who were offered to convert or die were the pagans. In fact there had to be laws passed in some areas prohibiting Jews and Christians from converting to Islam because the revenue from those taxes were being jepordized by conversions.

Well there we have it. A million + people in the world that pray to a meteorite and try to destroy every religion that isn't theirs. Do you really want this religion to take over the world? I sure would like to see them deal with some ET infidels.

I am sorry tech, I miss your reference. Please elaborate? Didn't Pat Robertson do something like that?

Sorry Groover I think you really wish to believe in your religion.
You seem like a good guy and I'm sure there are good Muslims.

Although the Muslim religion overall is good...

What I am saying is that any religion that claims all other religions should not exist and treats themselves superior above other religions and any people non-Muslim, even if they believe in nothing, can not work as a religion in the twenty first century and beyond.

I would also like to add that I have no religion although I do hold spiritual beliefs so I am not condemning your religion on behalf of another religion.



[edit on 15-7-2006 by Techsnow]

Oh I am not a Muslim....I formally belong to the Baha'i' Faith that has been poorly treated in Islam, specifically Iran, but since one of the tenants of the Baha'i Faith is the oneness of humanity...I do my best to be tolerant and to understand.

Informally I call my self a Christian/Buddhist/Agnostic/Pagan/Baha'i, the order of which could change on any given day.

I have despite all its current difficulties a profound respect for Islam, as I do all the other religions.

Grover, BH

I had no intention of leading to a conclusion that Islam is evil. Quite the contrary, in fact, I am simply trying to understand that particular mind-set.

Actually Grover the Seminar had several instructors including a Middle Eastern Gentleman.

It is my thinking that the better we can understand a people, the more likely it is that we can reach an understanding and even then, possibly peace. I understand that this has been done and said all over the world, yet this is a different kind of forum and who knows what we may accomplish as a group.

Some of the actions that we see over there are so completely foreign to us, yet so readily accepted by their culture. This sort of barrier makes understanding virtually impossible.

Semper

I am glad to hear that they had mid-eastern (and Islamic? or Christian?) instructors. I really think that when it gets right down to it, if you or I were to walk the streets of Amman Jordan lets say or even Baghdad and had the freedom to interview people without fear you would find that the vast majority are as appalled by the violence and intolerance as we are. Mind you the news outlets thrive on contrast....it is not a deep medium with which to work though it could be if allowed...but when everything has to be reduced down to 30 second news bites or less all you get are the extremes.

Right after 9/11 Bill Mahar had a Pakistani musician on and he said that the vast majority of moderate muslims were appalled that their faith had been taken over by extremists (much like the majority of Christians object that the funnymentalist have run off with Christ and turned him into a right wing republican) so Mahar asked why weren't they protesting in the streets about it then? and the response was telling..."When was the last time you heard of a moderate anything taking to the streets?" And that is the gist of the matter, what Nixon called the silent majority. Those who shout the loudest and are most visible are the ones seen and reported on....and in countries where unemployment is upwards of 40% are better its easy to drum up a crowd...but again you never see the parents, the shop keepers and the responsible leaders shaking their heads in disgust...thats not good copy man.

I like you semper...you are a good man. You try and reason and work things out to some sort of understanding unlike some on here who really only want to hear their own voices.

One last thing....democracy cannot be imposed by force of arms, nor can cultural change. If we really want peace in the middle-east get the hell out...stop supporting Israel exclusively and start supporting economic projects, cultural exchanges and the like to start building the changes we would all like to see, from the ground up.

SHHHHHH
Grover...

You know how I feel the end result of the war will be, but not everyone is privy to that knowledge. HAHAHAHAHAHA

But you also know that I feel the effort is always, always worth it.

Grover, you are one of the most eloquent posters on here and I value your posts tremendously even though we disagree, we are much alike.

Thanks for the input... and information for me to ponder...

Semper

Originally posted by ThePieMaN

Semper
Not for nothing but we should be so thankful and hope that we never see the day that we are ever placed underfoot someone else to where we are powerless to make our own futures or to have freedom. When someone cannot think about the future, then what does he have left to think about?

And why exatly is it that they cannot think about the future?... If anyone would claim it is because of the western world, I see that the propaganda to "blame the western world for what has happened in the Middle East for thousands of years and up to today" is working perfectly....

The Islamic middle eastern governments are some of the richest in the world, yet this fortune is held by a few. Much fewer people are rich in Middle Eastern countries than in western countries. There are some middle eastern countries that embrace the western lifestyle, and only in those countries do we see three classes. High income, middle income, and poor people, but in Islamic societies where Sharia law exists there is only Rich and poor people.

If there is so much suffering and despair in many middle eastern countries is because of their culture, not because of the western world.

Anyways, i think you are deviating from the topic of the thread by "trying to blame the mentality of radical middle eastern societies on outside influence, in this case the western world"...

Semper is talking about the mentality that people in radical middle eastern countries are raised in which allows them to strap their children with bombs and send them to kill as many people as possible.

There is a huge difference with having an 18 year old man/woman decide to join the army and fight wars if it is necessary, and sending 8-20s year olds who are brainwashed into believing that "they will go to heaven and will be heroes if they go to a certain death and kill as many people as possible". Having 18 year olds joining the Army, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, Navy does not equal "certain death".... Strapping a bomb to your 8-20s year old child is equal to "certain death....

Normally in western societies no parent would even contemplate the idea of indoctrinating "martyrdoom" in their child and then strapping their 8-20s year old child with a bomb, or having them take up arms to fight. There might be some differences with some demented people in western society who do terrible things to their children, but this is the exception and not the rule.

Radical Middle Eastern societies, or those societies who do not embrace the new ideas which the western world has embraced, indoctrinate people from childhood to accept martyrdoom and the killing of infidels (anyone that does not believe in Allah and his prophet Mohammed, not what some people around here apparently are trying to claim. I have read the Q'uran too...)

Have Christian societies in the past also performed terrible acts even to their own?... Unfortunately yes, but this "happened in the past, as in the middle ages", while in radical Middle Eastern societies they are still stuck in this mentality and many of them don't want to change.

Anyways, we are "talking about the present and not about the past" and "this thread is about the mentality of radical Middle Eastern societies", it is not about the dellusion by some that the western world has anything to do with the mindset that is being indoctrinated in Middle Eastern people, who are born and grow up into a family or society with radical ideals since childhood.

To even begin to understand in what kind of mindset a parent has to be in to send their 8-20s year old child to certain death we would have to examine some of the traditions which still exist these days in radical Middle Eastern countries

There is a huge difference between western society and Middle Eastern societies who embrace Sharia law or are extremists. We can see this difference in the treatment of their women. In a Middle Eastern society where Sharia law is supreme, or has extremist ideals, a woman is the property of a man. A man can do whatever he wants with his daughter, if his daughter does not want to do what her father wants he can punish her in whatever way he sees fit. Some women are burnt, or tortured in some way, while some are killed and the men are not punished by the law for doing this. Some of our members who have been in Middle Eastern countries can be a testament of this happening in these societies.

When a girl reaches a certain age, normally 4-12 years old, althou it has been performed also when the child is older, it is custom in radical middle eastern societies to cut the clitoris from the child with an often rusty, dull blade, or even with a broken bottle.

Although this act does not happen only in Middle Eastern countries, it also happens in African countries, and even in industrialized countries where there is immigration of people from Middle Eastern and African countries where this practice is normal. This ritual is done in radical Muslim societies with the belief that this will help make the woman a better Muslim and she will more easily find a husband.

This act is normally performed by the father who tells his daughter that she is his property, and she must do what he tells her as he cuts her clitoris. But this act is also at times performed by the mother, or other female relatives and other women in a village. A child/woman who has not had her clitoris removed, there are some Muslim women who do not want their daughters to go through this, is viewed as "impure" and is an outcast for the entire village. This treatment and feeling has to be endured by the child until she becomes and adult, and many times when the child is old enough she believes she must perform this ritual to become "pure" and be a good Muslim.

Likewise when it comes to the greatest cause of all, dying in the cause for Allah is viewed as the greatest of all causes.

There are two main forms of Jihad, The greater Jihad, and the lesser Jihad. Although in the Muslim scriptures there are passages which say the greater Jihad is the Jihad for one's soul, there are some hadeeth which state that the greater Jihad is the violent Jihad. Hadeeth are collections of words and deeds performed by the prophet Muhammed/Muhammad.

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
A mouse with his leg caught in a trap will gnaw off his leg to escape the trap.
If it came down to war...you would send your son off just as your parents did when you joined. The one difference being was the USA has an army to speak of. Was there a guarantee you would come back? If you were in a battle, what was your thoughts on the enemy? Take him out and as many as possible or sit back and wait to die?

As i have said above there is a huge difference between an 18 year old deciding to join any branch of the Arm Forces, and strapping an 8-20s year old with a bomb.

Being in the military does not equal mutilation or certain death, strapping a bomb in a child will assure at the least mutilation and at the worse death. More often what happens is the death of the child since there are enough explosives to kill several people.

I see you trying to "equate" joining the Arm Forces with "strapping a bomb" as a desperate measure in your part trying to humanize the act being done in radical Islamic societies.

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
1982, Israeli IAF pilots penetrated Iraqi territory, passing through several hostile borders with heavily modified flying tanks of fuel. It was a suicide mission. What seperates them from the Palestinians that they can actually sit there and describe to you about the profile of a Palestinian suicide bomber?Is it the Plane that makes the difference? Does the idiea of a plane make you feel more comfortable? Is it the suicide vest ? Which?


Think about it.

Who really has to think about it is you... Pilots do not go to a certain death by getting in their aircraft... Children strapping a bomb to their chest assures death....

---edited to add some comments---

[edit on 15-7-2006 by Muaddib]

BTW, here are some links to how people are being indoctrinated from childhood to be terrorists. This also shows that Islamic extremists will use any excuse to indoctrinate children into radicals.

Quake orphans ‘adopted’ for jihad


CHILDREN orphaned by the Kashmir earthquake are being “adopted” by terrorist groups that hope to train them to fight in the jihad, or holy war, writes Dean Nelson.
Pakistan’s leading human rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, said jihadi groups fighting the Indian government were taking orphans off the streets and putting them in training camps.

The organisation said it also had evidence that sympathetic government officials were passing children on to the jihadis to be looked after.

The popularity of the Islamic militants has risen sharply since the earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 87,000 people.

The militants were among the first to arrive with aid at some of the worst affected villages. Their organisation and ability to commandeer lifting equipment and tents have generated significant new support. But according to human rights campaigners they are using their new popularity to smuggle weapons and recruit the young and vulnerable.

“We have heard from very reliable sources and seen with our own eyes that orphaned and lost children are being taken by jihadi organisations in northern Pakistan to be trained,” said Fahad Burney, of the trust.

www.timesonline.co.uk...

The above is proof that any excuse is used to make children into extremists and terrorists.

German Women Vowed to Mount Suicide Attacks in Iraq

By Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark

German authorities may have thwarted suicide bomb attacks in Iraq by German women. According to intelligence sources, three women were prevented from travelling to Iraq after one of them had announced she planned to blow herself up in Iraq.

SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that German intelligence agencies have prevented three German women from travelling to Iraq in recent weeks. The women, who have close contacts to the Islamist scene in Germany and at least one whom has converted to Islam, came to the attention of intelligence agencies after one of them had announced on an Internet site that she intended to blow herself and her child up in Iraq.

service.spiegel.de...

To radical Muslims there is no higher sacrifice than dying trying to spread their cause to the world, and even women are indoctrinated to believe that there is nothing higher or better than to spread the cause even if it means their death, or the death of their children and husbands.

'Jihad' magazine for women on web

By Sebastian Usher
BBC World Media correspondent

Radical Islamists have launched a new magazine publication on the internet especially for women.
..................
The first edition of the magazine uses fierce language similar to that found on Sawt-al-Jihad.

One of its encouragements to jihad reads: "The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering."

news.bbc.co.uk...

I am not trying to propose that all Muslim people are like this, there are many who would never accept this form of indoctrination, and many moderate Muslims have died by the hands of extremist Muslims, but this indoctrination does happen, and in many Islamic societies this form of indoctrination is normal.

Even when many radical Muslims go to live in western societies, they take with them these radical ideals.

[edit on 15-7-2006 by Muaddib]

I am only sorry I am out of WATS!!!!

Great POST Muaddib

Semper

Originally posted by Muaddib
I see you trying to "equate" joining the Arm Forces with "strapping a bomb" as a desperate measure in your part trying to humanize the act being done in radical Islamic societies.

Trying to 'humanize' the act? These are humans, man. These aren't dragons doing this.

And what is the difference? They both want to kill other people. They both are doing what they can to make sure other people who disagree with them die.

Specifically, what's the difference?

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Trying to 'humanize' the act? These are humans, man. These aren't dragons doing this.

i never said they were not of the human race...hence i said "trying to humanize their acts"....

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
And what is the difference? They both want to kill other people. They both are doing what they can to make sure other people who disagree with them die.

Specifically, what's the difference?

Oh, i see...so according to you there is no difference between "indoctrinating a child since childhood, 8 year old, and even younger, into accepting that their deaths for the cause of Jihad is the greatest of all deeds"....and between an 18 year old man/woman who decides to join the Armed Forces?....

Sorry to break your parade, but there is a huge difference....

Not only that but "joining the Armed Forces" does not equal to "killing people". There are a lot of servicemen and servicewomen who do not take arms to fight. Being indoctrinated from childhood into believing that killing infidels for the cause of Allah has only one goal, killing anyone and everyone who is not a radical Muslim.

[edit on 15-7-2006 by Muaddib]

If there is a huge difference, then you should be able to clearly articulate it. I'm asking you what it is. I'm not saying what I see or don't see, I'm asking to to tell me the difference and the significance of it.

We indoctrinate children from a very young age to respect and admire the military. Some day, when they're old enough, they'll be able to join and fight for their country. And to die in the service of one's country is the most honorable death of all!

Recruiters are going into the schools in 6th grade.

Break my parade? My parade isn't broken. I have no parade.

But I'd still like to know this huge difference...

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
If there is a huge difference, then you should be able to clearly articulate it. I'm asking you what it is. I'm not saying what I see or don't see, I'm asking to to tell me the difference and the significance of it.

and i have articulated it Benevolent....you just don't want to see the difference for whatever reasons. perhaps you are one of those people who thinks everything in the world can be solved without battles.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
We indoctrinate children from a very young age to respect and admire the military. Some day, when they're old enough, they'll be able to join and fight for their country. And to die in the service of one's country is the most honorable death of all!

We do not....show me evidence where in the U.S. are "children" being indoctrinated since childhood, 6 year olds as you claim, to accept to die for one's country.... Yes, there are servicemen and servicewomen who go on " work day" to schools to tell children what they do, but they are not indoctrinated into "dying for the cause is the greatest of all deeds".... i kind of doubt that servicemen and servicewomen are allowed to tell "battle stories and they glorify dying for any cause" to children in the 6th grade....

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Break my parade?

My parade isn't broken. I have no parade.

Yes you do if you believe there is no difference between indoctrination of children from childhood into being martyrs and 18 year olds deciding on their own to join the military....

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
But I'd still like to know this huge difference...

i would like to see your proof that children in the U.S. are taught since the 6th grade, as you apparently claim, that it is ok to die for any cause...or that children are being taught that death is glory....


[edit on 15-7-2006 by Muaddib]

I would also like to see where in the U.S. are children encouraged to do the following.

Warning, the following link shows children playing with body parts

TERRORISM: VIDEO SHOWS IRAQI CHILDREN PLAYING WITH REMAINS OF U.S. SOLDIER

Rome, 15 March (AKI) - The children climb down into the crater left by an explosion and start picking up scraps of twisted metal. "Allah is great!" they shout before the camera hones in to show what one boy is holding: torn fabric, the colour of the camouflage fatigues worn by US troops. The next scene shows the same children holding aloft a human leg, shreds of the same camouflage fabric hang from it and the foot is clad in a military-style boot. The children trample the leg and kick it around in the dust.

www.adnki.com...

i just can't understand how someone would not see the difference between an 18 year old deciding to join the Armed Forces and this..

On April 19, 2000, seventeen year-old Afaq Ahmed Shah got into a car filled with explosives and drove it to the Indian Army headquarters in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. Stopped by guards at the entrance, the teenager detonated a bomb inside the vehicle, triggering a massive explosion that injured four people. In the months leading up to the bombing, Shah, along with other youngsters in the contested region of Kashmir, spent a great deal of his time in the local mosque, falling under the influence of local terrorist groups. Thus motivated, he became the first suicide bomber1 of the Kashmiri conflict.2

In June of 2002, a 16 year-old Palestinian boy by the name Issa Bdir was dispatched by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to carry out a terror attack in Rishon Letzion, a suburb of Tel Aviv. After dying his hair blond so as to appear European, he entered a crowded pedestrian mall packed with elderly people and foreign workers and blew himself up, killing two Israelis (including one teenager), and wounding over 30 others. At that point Bdir became the youngest person ever to successfully complete a suicide mission in Israel.3

On November 1, 2004, Amar al-Faar, another 16 year-old Palestinian boy, entered Israel through a gap in the security fence. He carried out a suicide bombing in the densely populated Carmel outdoor market in Tel Aviv. The boy’s attack killed four Israelis and wounded thirty-two, six of them seriously. Al-Faar was recruited by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a neo-Marxist faction of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). In interviews following the attack, Al-Faars’ mother condemned the terrorists who recruited her son, claiming, "It's immoral to send someone so young. They should have sent an adult who understands the meaning of his deeds."4

In August of 2003, two Kashmiri Muslim boys, aged 13 and 17, were kidnapped at gunpoint by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT, Army of the Pure) terrorist organization. The boys were among hundreds of Muslim youth who have been forcibly recruited and trained to commit acts of terror against the Indian military and civilian populations.5 The kidnappers were most likely responding to the dictates of the LeT ordering local villages "to contribute one recruit each to the organization, or face reprisals."6

Recently, the involvement of minors in Palestinian terror touched a new low, as an 11 year-old boy was caught while unwittingly trying to transport a bag holding a 7-to-10 kilogram bomb past an Israeli military roadblock. The young porter had been hired by the Fatah Tanzim terrorist organization, affiliated with Yasser Arafat. The terrorists had two equally appalling scenarios in mind. If the bomb was successfully smuggled past the roadblock, it would have been given to a suicide bomber and used to launch a deadly attack somewhere in Israel. Alternately, if the boy were caught, his dispatchers had intended to blow him up along with the soldiers at the roadblock by detonating the explosive charge via a cell phone detonator. Fortunately, due to a technical glitch, the bomb failed to go off and the terrorist plot was foiled.7

Unfortunately, the episodes described above are not isolated. This disturbing practice of deadly child abuse is on the rise in Muslim societies all over the world, most notably in the Palestinian areas and in Pakistan as also in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). While the average Israeli or Indian citizen does not usually make the connection, there are striking similarities between the threats that face their two countries. Muslim terrorist organizations that recruit – sometimes forcibly – these teenagers, justify this illegal and immoral practice by noting that children, much like females, are less likely to be intercepted by security forces before they carry out their missions of death.

www.satp.org...

I didn't say anything about 6-year olds. And if you don't already know that American children are being indoctrinated to honor and respect the military and that it is an honor to die in service to one's country, nothing I show you is going to be proof enough.

I just asked a question. What's the difference? If you can't answer it, that's ok, too.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I didn't say anything about 6-year olds. And if you don't already know that American children are being indoctrinated to honor and respect the military and that it is an honor to die in service to one's country, nothing I show you is going to be proof enough.

I just asked a question. What's the difference? If you can't answer it, that's ok, too.

.... i already posted the differences...and you did say children in the 6th grade are being indoctrinated in the U.S., apparently you believe they are indoctrinated to die for one's country...

i asked you for proof....so why can't you provide that proof?....


[edit on 15-7-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
1982, Israeli IAF pilots penetrated Iraqi territory, passing through several hostile borders with heavily modified flying tanks of fuel. It was a suicide mission. What seperates them from the Palestinians that they can actually sit there and describe to you about the profile of a Palestinian suicide bomber?Is it the Plane that makes the difference? Does the idiea of a plane make you feel more comfortable? Is it the suicide vest ? Which?


Think about it.

Who really has to think about it is you... Pilots do not go to a certain death by getting in their aircraft... Children strapping a bomb to their chest assures death....

Im not gonna comment on everything else because neither you nor I coul ever climb into the heads of these people and know what they are going through or have gone through to cause them to react like this.

I do know about the Osirak mission because the pilots were told most likely they would not come back due to the fact that they were crossing over hostile borders (Several) and they more then likely would not have enough fuel to return. Twist it how you want. I watched the documentary and heard the pilots speak. The commander told them they may not return. They still did it and they did return. You can also try to look up info on Kamikaze pilots of WWII who were also some underage pilots sent to their deaths.

Pie