Are middle easterns good people overall? Or true terrorists?

reply to post by grover


You are absolutely right my friend. We're all in this together. We are all the same regardless of race or religion. The powers that be make us think that we are separate and different.

reply to post by _Phoenix_


My 86 year old Mother is the same way. If she spends an hour and a half cooking homemade biscuits and gravy ,eggs and bacon you had better eat at least some of it or you will not get a moments worth of peace. So you can't suggest it's just MiddleEasterners that are offended that way.

reply to post by KingIchigo


Yes and it always amazes me how many people buy into it as well. Only ideas keep us apart.

I have just retired from 22 years in the USAF. I spent MANY a day in the Middle East...alot of which was living Downtown in Abu Dhabi, UAE during the Southern Watch days before OIF started. After living amongst people of the middle east, I am proud to say that they are not only kind and generous, but arguably the most friendly people on the planet. They will literally give you the shirt off of thier back, their LAST crumb of food, etc. I still stay in touch with at last count 17 friends over there. It's a true shame that a VERY small portion in Islam are ruining it for the rest of the trully wonderful Islamic people. You CAN NOT generalize because of a small few. But the door swings both ways...On a shopping trip down to the souks, I was with a black friend in Oman...We went into this store, and I could tell the shop owner was VERY nervous...after talking to him and then grabbing our interpreter, we came to realize that he thought Mark (The Africna American guy) was going to shoot and rob him...Turns out Mark was the first Black American he'd ever laid eyes on...Mark became upset, but then calmed down when I told him to think about it....all he'd seen was TV shows from the states with alot of black "Gangsta" types...a sterotype to be sure, but it also opened Marks eyes up who was VERY anti-muslim...so the morale of the story is just because you LOOK like a terrorist dosen't mean you are one...One poester said Middle Eastern people are like any other...wanting a good life for their family and children...and I agree 200%. After going to 63 different countires in my career, I've come to one BIG conclusion....kids are kids...no matter where they are...it's the parents that screw them up or point them in the proper direction. I've seen kids playing in the streets and they have alot in common with their counterparts from any other country...laughter and playing...if theirs a ball around, they either want to catch it or kick it...if theirs water around, play in it...(Mud too!!!) So you see...the people of the world are generally the same...except for that VERY small percentage who think Raical Islam is the answer...which is a shame, as 99% of the worlds muslums think just the opposite.

Originally posted by kacou
reply to post by jedimiller

 

As i am here in Europe, it seems to me that in USA it is all about trend. The enemy of today is the friend of tomorrow how the media and political lobbyist will dictate. One more thing, how American react when they see on TV Bush holding hand to the King of Saudi?
I am from a middle eats background and have worked and lived in many places in Europe. Here where I am now in Germany (a very small village) I have never uncounted prejudice or fear about people with my physiognomy.
If someone fear you for what you look like , you will not be wrong to assume that this person is of very low self esteem.

Kacou.

On the subject of Europe and Muslims, they have a much larger problem than the the U.S. in regards to relations between ethnic groups. After the Holocaust, Europe and especially Germany opened its borders and welcomed immigrants by the truckload, in an effort to escape the racist stigma that Hilter left them with. Well it worked----people, especially Muslims immigrated by the thousands and Europe has a huge Muslim population, 1000 times more than the US. I have read various write-ups about the problems that exist, as the Muslims congregate in particular sections of cities/towns, they are very clannish. I have read that it is dangerous to enter into these invisible borders of Muslim "territory" because they dislike all ethnicities but their own. We in America have no inkling of what it is like to live in a Muslim society so we can't really say what they are like based on really KNOWING them. My few experiences have been mixed. I know the men tend to totally dominate their women, but, maybe the women like it that way, not for me to judge. I think that in "general" terms however, that muslims dislike Americans just "because" more than Americans dislike Muslims.

You know how they say that things about you are passed down through your DNA. Well I think an extreme religious fanatics personality can be transmitted through DNA of offspring and thats why there are allways problems over in the middle east. Having that DNA would give you a disposition to becoming a fanatic of any sorts and not specifically "Muslim" or Terrorist. But because thats what the culture is made up over there thats how these addictions are relieved as.

One thing to remember is "Religious extremists are addicted to dogma and imposing it on others. The religion through which they choose to do this is the means - not the end." -David Icke

For example- A son of an alcoholic will not become an alcoholic and show the signs of one if he dose not drink. However when he does drink, he activates that part of the DNA that might make him become one, because it was passed down from his father.

reply to post by PlaneIP


A star for you my good man. More people need to understand such things... ignorance is rampant and we need to fight it any way we can.

Right after 9/11 i was at a bus stop and there was this Muslim mother with two little kids. There were these three teenagers harrassing and threatening her, the children were afraid and crying and trying to hide behind her.

I walked up and pulled out my cell phone and told those teens that if they didn't stop bothering her and go away I was calling the police.

Well they called me every name in the book, but they left. And, I stayed there and made sure she got on the bus safely.

Now every time she sees me she smiles and gives me a big hug.

When we deny the basic humanity of another person we deny it in ourselves as well. As the Roman playwrite Terence wrote:

"Because I am a man, nothing human is alien to me."

It is difficult to get those pictures out of our heads of muslims---men, women, both young and old, even young children-----dancing in the streets and holding celebrations after 9/11. They were happy as hell in a general sort of way. Certainly there are muslims who do not hate Americans but where were they after 911? I didn't see them, just the haters. Prior to 911 I had no feelings towards them one way or the other, but afterward what I feel is leeryness, as though all or most muslims hate us. No one tried to repeal that image. Same goes for the preacher-from- hell at Trinity Church in Chicago. Many people now wonder if black churches all over the country are preaching anti-whitey and anti-America on Sundays. If not, then black preachers need to campaign to erase these assumptions/suspicions that many people have now.

I will go so far as to make this statement about Americans and who we don't like. Americans do not like radicals from ANY group, religious, environmental, political, governmental, scientific, anti-religious, etc. telling us how we MUST and MUST not believe.

For example, we don't like Muslim extremists telling us we must convert to Islam or they will kill us. We don't like extreme Southern Baptists telling us that we must all believe homosexuality is a sin and we must all believe that way. We don't like extreme atheists telling us that we must not believe in God because they say so. See the pattern?

The thing that makes America so great is that we are all able to believe the way we want and practice what we believe as long as it doesn't violate the law. It's one of our greatest strengths, but can also be one of our greatest weaknesses because we have to accomodate so many radically differing beliefs and views when making policy - we see prime examples of that going on daily in Congress. But I still argue that this is the best country to be in, hands down.

Originally posted by Bombeni
It is difficult to get those pictures out of our heads of muslims---men, women, both young and old, even young children-----dancing in the streets and holding celebrations after 9/11. They were happy as hell in a general sort of way. Certainly there are muslims who do not hate Americans but where were they after 911? I didn't see them, just the haters.

Well, guess who you can thank for that? The media of course. Just as there were many who celebrated when 9/11 occured I would argue that there were probably 10 times as many weeping and saying prayers on our behalf as events unfolded. Of course you didn't see that side of things because that's not as sensationalist to show. The media and their selective journalism is a cancer on the backside of common sense.

reply to post by jedimiller


They are good people...please do not get it twisted.


we are all humans and on the same team....evil wants to devide and conquor..


racism and religion are a couple of their tools.



take care

reply to post by jedimiller


Although I rarely contribute threads that have been running for so long it takes an hour to catch up, I am going to on this one because to me seems too important to pass up.

There is such a thing as ideology. And the problem Americans faces is that in the last few decades ideology has been used as a tool to influence the will of the American people. That same problem has faced those who embrace Islam. Ideology about how things 'should be' have driven people to extremes on both sides.

Many people in the US have little to no understanding of the history of the people of Islam, of neo-conservatism, nor a working knowledge how fundamentalism and delusions of morality affect those in leadership. In America, ignorance of civil studies and government, has lead to the surrender of the very rights we rely upon to control, and protect us from, the government. We allow the employees to run roughshod over us, the bosses.

I suspect that those in the House of Submission (Islam) are equally ignorant of the way in which some Muslims suddenly, radically, decided that if you didn't not totally accept their interpretation of the Koran - you weren't worthy to call yourself Muslim and thus could be killed - despite the commandment that no Muslim should ever kill another Muslim. The radicals made themselves judges, and thus authorities, over all their brothers and sisters.

Americans seem incapable, at this time, to bear witness to the subtle shift from a community-based culture to one of materialistic-consumerism and selfish individualism. They fail to sense or react to the notion that they are being 'told' what reality is, as opposed to being given the tools to determine it for themselves. As a result we see this externally-driven inclination to 'categorize' people from the middle east, not as people, like us, but as people UNLIKE us. We are told that our 'nation' has a purpose to fight evil, and only 'they' cal tell us what that evil is.

When the Soviet Union collapsed under it's own megalithic weight, a new evil was identified for us. It was not wanton profiteering and greed, not the voyeuristic idolatry of mass media, not globalist commercial exploitation, nor even indifference to human suffering. They told us it was terrorism.

Islam is a devotion, a religious practice, a means to worship. It has rules and traditions, many, incompatible with the notion of individualistic expression as we embrace it here in the US. Islam transcends statehood, yet tribalism and culture virtually demand the existence of a state. The compromise would seem to be embracing Islam as a guiding central moral compass for the state which is home to the Muslims. The compromise and accommodation between a secular state and an Islamic people is their highest challenge. A challenge they are still struggling to overcome.

If one is to pay proper respect to the religion of Islam, it must be accepted that they nobly wish to embody their faith. The form and structure of that faith must resist the materialism and glamor that western culture has distilled from it's enterprises of commercialism. However, that resistance is undermined by the common thread between us, wealth. Radicals have sought to identify the individualistic mentality of the consumerist commercialism of the US as the source of their problems. Hence they believe that 'destroying' America - the wellspring of materialistic selfishness - would be a spiritually noble pursuit.

There are those in the US who see the same flaw in individualistic tendencies, they want a single guiding moral principle to be embedded in the body of our government. The offer us hyperconservatist absolutism, also based largely on doctrines of faith. They have instilled, or tried to instill, a notion of national purpose, destiny, linking the US with the protection of Israel, and even democracy, which we ourselves do not practice.

We have been pitted against each other the' American' and the 'Muslim' by those who haven't the wit to convince and persuade us of the merit of their ideology through any other means than propaganda, and terror.

I have, in other threads, said this before, and I believe it is a truth that will haunt humanity until the paradigm shifts - PEOPLE ARE ALL THE SAME. People are exactly the same regardless of nationality, creed, race, or even religion. Everything we contrive to separate us one from the other is an illusion of convenience. We accept the differences because it suits us.

All of this is to say that as long as we are willing to accept that we are 'against' one another, we will be. I say we are not 'against' one another at all. There ARE people who ARE against one another, they have just taken advantage of their positions to USE us for their own ends.

The neocons and the radical extremists AGREE on one thing. The ends justifies the means. What does that tell you?

The huge cultural gap between those of european decent and middle eastern decent of course lends itself to fear and prejudice...it is human instinct to fear the unknown. Those who educate and research on the culture and history and actively engage in dialogue with people of other ethnic origins will find that we all have the same human urges and desires...to love, to hate, to care, to believe etc.

What has happened is that the media has consistently projected negative images of the middle east (eg. the group of 3-4 dark bearded men yelling and burning the american flag)...these images are burned in our brains...

You think if the US started projecting images of the Middle East of families sitting in a park having a picnic with their young kids, or going snowboarding, or playing in a rock-band, or even eating ice-cream by the beach....if these images were propagated to us over the course of the last 30 years, I am sure our view of the middle-east would be entirely different.

I myself am actually Iranian, actually an Iranian woman, albeit I don't live in Iran right now...I am as intrigued as most of all of you are with UFO's, ghosts, secret political agendas....do you fear me too?

Like I said, educate yourself on the history, the culture, the people...try not to focus on the political aspects of the country. Speaking as an Iranian, the people in Iran are not representive of the political movement there...we are not ALL fundementalists...just like not ALL americans are members of the FLDS...we enjoy pizza, we watch hollywood movies, we have boyfriends (or girlfriends), we have fun...just like you all do. It pains me to know that there are a significant percent of people out there who will look at me and think that my agenda in life is to make americans miserable and to invoke jihad on the US...lol

Anyway, I appreciate your honesty in your question, at least you are asking the right question and bringing up the issue instead of wallowing in hatred and ignorance like a lot of people do.

SciDoc

Most of humanity is good people. The ones that are not are the selfish greedy "my will über aller" type that would sell their mother for a more power and wealth and control. But this type is a psychological type, it's part of all peoples.

"Fear" the control mad sociopaths. They don't come with labels and they are the ones that really cause the problems, by polarizing people based on lies, engineered events and false national dualities.

Most people on this planet are happy to experience new cultures and have open minds. Most leaders do not have open minds and wish to destroy all cultures but their own conceited ego driven greed motivated subculture.

This is how the world is. Wake up to it.

reply to post by grover


I think fewer people buy into the myths than you and others fear, grover. Oh, undoubtably they're out there...there's certainly enough proof of that. I think most people are of a mindset that encourages live and let live.

'course I might be blind, too.

reply to post by grover


You're a good man, sir.

No, not a one line post.

reply to post by jedimiller


Hi,

Actually, that to me right there is proof of propaganda spread by your government through media.

I am Canadian, yes, Canadian.
Now I know a lot of you think we live in ice houses or have no running water but that is far from being accurate hehe!

Actually, Canada and Quebec especially has one of the most diverse cultures in the world. We have Muslims, Chinese, Japanese, French, Indian, Bulgarian, Russian, etc you name it.

I don't understand how you can be afraid when you have never met such a person, and even if you had, they are people like you and I. You can't generalize like that especially with so many people on this planet. Some are good, some are bad, its not because you are of certain nationality that it makes you automatically bad. That is the medias doing.

It corrupts your mind to make you think such people are dangerous and make you hate them. Stop to think, are they really your thoughts, or thoughts that have been forced upon you? Think really hard, and once you realize what YOUR opinion truly is, notice that most of your opinions may actually not be of your own thinking.

I personally have nothing against people from Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.
For one I sympathize and feel extremely bad for those who have done nothing wrong.

If you would ask me who do I fear the most between an Iranian or an American, unfortunately I would say American.

I don't believe that middle eastern people are any more "terrorist" than someone from my country or yours. It is not the country that makes you evil but rather the choices that YOU make.

To me, the greatest threat is from America, not from middle-eastern countries.

Best regards

Originally posted by jedimiller


Personally, I fear Muslims & Islam. They scare the heck outta me and I'd hate to be lost and trapped in a Muslim country.

That because you're uneducated and ignorant. You believe your ideals as they do theirs. Propaganda has beaten you senseless.

Originally posted by Tomis_Nexis

Originally posted by jedimiller


Personally, I fear Muslims & Islam. They scare the heck outta me and I'd hate to be lost and trapped in a Muslim country.

That because you're uneducated and ignorant. You believe your ideals as they do theirs. Propaganda has beaten you senseless.

Well Jedimiller would be correct as far as Iraq or Afghanistan right now, it would be dangerous to get lost in those areas. Maybe that is what he is referring to.

reply to post by sos37



I agree 100% that the media is a cancer: I put them lower on the social list than lawyers now. But it is a fact that we saw thousands of people celebrating after the Trade Center went down. I can't imagine any human being celebrating the deaths of innocent people. I remember old toothless women, small children, clapping and dancing in the streets. You can say that was just a handful of representatives of muslims but I disagree; I realize it didn't represent all muslims of course, but I believe it gave a fairly good crosscut of the muslim opinion of a catastrophic attack on Americans, and many of them were ecstatic. They weren't terrorists, they were just everyday average citizens who showed their feelings unashamedly. This doesn't mean the same people would go out and kill and bomb innocent people themselves, but they were certainly proud of those who did.

Remember, the op asked for our opinions and name calling etc. isn't required.