Election as Forcing Function - Part I: On Track for a Bond Market Panic - Eric Janszen

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Iran and IMS

Mark, there is much much more at play than what you write here.

Iran has no intentions whatsoever IMO to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth." They would never drop a bomb on the second holiest site in all of Islam. Do muslims want to own and control Jerusalem? Yes, of course, but do they want to destroy it? not a chance and to think otherwise is naive.

I didn't mean that Iran wants to physically erase Israel or destroy holy Islamic sites. Certainly they would not drop a nuke on the Dome of the Rock mosque. But would they like to wipe the political entity, the state of Israel, off the map? Absolutely. This is a prime objective of the fundamentalists: get the Jewish and Western presence out of historic Islamic lands, including Israel. Do they mind if a few million Jews are killed in the process? I doubt it. They would love to utterly conquer Israel and punish the Jews for their perceived wrongs.

The battle between Christianity, Judaism and Islam has waged for centuries. The Muslims lost it due to the Renassaince and Europe's technological/ risk taking and mathematical advances starting from 1250 onward (coincidentally taken from the Arab mathematicians of Fibonacci's day, al jabr and al khorazaimi "where we get the words in english Algebra and Algorithim") We also took the concept of Arab numerals and the concept of Zero (who the Arabs took from the Aryan northern Indians) from the Arabs.

Could you imagine doing advanced quantum mathematics using roman numerals? Absurd. Or any mathematics beyond adding and subtracting without zero and negative numbers? Europe was backwards and it took Arab ingenuity to spark the eventual Renaissance from the 14th to 17th centuries.

In a way the Arab conquests of the near east, north africa, Iberian peninsula and Byzantium lead the way for the cultural revolution in Europe.

In these discussions we are always reminded of that one contribution of Muslims to world civililzation, arabic numerals and the concept of zero. Yes, that is very nice. Wonderful thing. And you have to go back to what, the 12th century to find something worth praising? Please! You should be embarrassed to mention it.

Shall we compare it to the contributions of Europe and Christianity? Which is virtually every other significant aspect of the modern world, from modern medicine to the abolition of slavery to space exploration to personal computer, the internet, cell phones, the use of coal and then petroleum for energy, genetics, the internal combustion engine, etc, etc, etc, etc? Let's not even get started on comparing the relative contributions of the Islamic and the Christian civilizations. The fact that you have to go back 800 years to find something worth mentioning suggests you should not even bring this point up.

"In a way the Arab conquests of the near east, north africa, Iberian peninsula and Byzantium lead the way for the cultural revolution in Europe." Oh yes, what a wonderful benefit it was for the Arabs to invade, conquer, and enslave parts of neighboring civilizations. What a repulsive statement. I'm sure the Caucasians who were enslaved, whose men were sent to the mines or to die on galleys, whose women were bred like animals to produce more slaves - the origin of the word "slav" - would tell you how enriching it was to be conquered by Muslims.

Since then the Arabs have subsisted on their religion and did not care much to move out of their mindset from the early 1500's.

With that being said, you should consider the unequal International Monetary System with the US at the center as one of the main reasons why "they hate us." When the US can bankrupt a nation simply by excluding them from the system and starving them of dollars, well I would be pretty ticked off as well.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a lunatic nor a fanatic, in other words he is not Hitler. The Aryann Persians have no intent on trying to reconquer the land they once conquered from 558 BC to 330 BC when Islam didnt even exist but Zoroastianism was the religion of the land and most likely the basis for all Abrahamic religions for that matter.

Ahmadinajad is not a fanatic? A guy who literally believes the twelfth (or is it thirteenth?) "mahdi" is down a well somewhere and is soon going to come out of it and lead Islam to conquer the world is not a fanatic? He is very much a Hitler. He believes fanatically that it is the destiny of Islam to rule the world. And that it is his obligation, his moral duty from God, to help make that happen. Every believing Muslim is commanded to believe that!

The Persian empire died long ago and they care not to mix their Aryan blood with semitic Arab blood. They have been subservient and subjugated to other powers since Alexander the Great.

The Pakistanis and Indians have nuclear weapons and they are much larger muslim countries with hostilities toward each other yet no one says a word about their "ambitions."

Look, the only time that Muslims have not been at our throats was when they were too weak to be able to attack us. Our European ancestors - from Charles Martel to Jan Sobieski - could give you some firsthand information about how benign and peaceful Muslims are.

We cannot afford to be Chamberlains again.

I am in favor of a hands-off policy in the Middle East, myself. Put a cordon around it and let them sit and simmer in the backwardness until those frustrated Iranian teenagers and their peers around the Middle East throw off Islam once and for all. But lets have no illusions about the intentions of devout Muslims. There really are close parallels between the racial supremacist view of the Nazis - who believed their racial supremacy gave them license to conquer the world - and the religious supremacist views of the Muslims. People who try to lull us to sleep by telling us that there is no danger or that the threat is our own fault do us a grave disservice that is going to cost a tremendous number of lives in the long run when we have to fight another war of survival against Islam.

I really can't understand Western liberals who defend Islam. Are they so ignorant of what Muslims believe? Do they not realize that if the Muslims were in control they would criminalize virtually everything that the liberals hold dear? That they would execute homosexuals, literally keep women barefoot and pregnant and out of the public sphere? That they would ban music, representational art, and would destroy all the cultural artifacts of competing religious traditions as they did the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan? Is there no sensible limit to your anger at your own peoples' traditions, that you willingly work to enable their destruction via Islam? You really have to be willing to stand up for your own people and your own civilization sometimes, you know. Do you know that? Do you even think Western civilization is yours? Do you have any attachment to it? Do you understand that Islam is its enemy, down to the very roots?

Or are you truly Chamberlains, feeling that Mr. Hitler has some valid complaints about the treatment of Germany after WWI, and that after all he just needs a little "lebensraum" and then he will be happy and there will be peace? After all, Mr. Hitler has assured us that this is the case! He's no fanatic, he's a reasonable man, right?

[Chris Coles]

Re: Iran and IMS

A friend of mine's stepfamily is of Iranian origins; she periodically goes over there to visit. She happened to be visiting Iran after Bush's "axis of evil" statement and talked to a lot of young people her age. They were all upset about being described as evil enemies of the U.S. They liked the United States and wanted to be our friends.

I hope we haven't destroyed that goodwill with our determination to paint them as our enemy.

Mark; By far the majority of Iranians are not as you describe them. Go watch the BBC programs, all ten or so hours of them... and then come back. Right now, you have other peoples hatred blinding you to the reality. Let me give you just one more example.

Back in the early 1980's I lived in the English City of Salisbury and as with many there, we had what is called an allotment, a small piece of land upon which we could grow vegetables. Another allotment's tenant was a VERY elderly woman, I cannot remember her name but the words she spoke still ring in my ears. I once sat down beside her as she sat in her chair while she told me about her experience in Palestine where she worked as a Christian voluntary nurse just after WW1. Her description of the Palestinians as a peaceful people that were so nice and friendly sits in direct contrast to the depictions you present of Muslims today. Somewhere along the line of history it seems some people lost their way and chose to treat them badly and from then onwards, all we seem to have had is grief.

You need to also watch The Promise http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Iran and IMS

I didn't mean that Iran wants to physically erase Israel or destroy holy Islamic sites. Certainly they would not drop a nuke on the Dome of the Rock mosque. But would they like to wipe the political entity, the state of Israel, off the map? Absolutely. This is a prime objective of the fundamentalists: get the Jewish and Western presence out of historic Islamic lands, including Israel. Do they mind if a few million Jews are killed in the process? I doubt it. They would love to utterly conquer Israel and punish the Jews for their perceived wrongs.?

Oh interesting where do we start..... No I don't believe Iran wants to kill a few million Jews to take down Israel as a country. Do they want to own the land? Yes. So if you do not believe they will drop a nuke on Israel then why are you so agaisnt them getting nuclear tech? I mean this saga of Iran "imminently" getting nuclear tech has been going on since the 1970s.

Can't you see you are being fooled by policy makers on both sides?

And FYI the Levant region is NOT historic Islamic lands. In fact it is historically Pagan, Christian and Jewish that goes for Syria and Jordan as well. Islam began on the Arabian Peninsula in the 600s. The "arabs" and "phonecians" existed long before Islam and were most likely Chaldean Christians when the Muslims forced them to convert at the point of a sword.

In these discussions we are always reminded of that one contribution of Muslims to world civililzation, arabic numerals and the concept of zero. Yes, that is very nice. Wonderful thing. And you have to go back to what, the 12th century to find something worth praising? Please! You should be embarrassed to mention it.

Shall we compare it to the contributions of Europe and Christianity? Which is virtually every other significant aspect of the modern world, from modern medicine to the abolition of slavery to space exploration to personal computer, the internet, cell phones, the use of coal and then petroleum for energy, genetics, the internal combustion engine, etc, etc, etc, etc? Let's not even get started on comparing the relative contributions of the Islamic and the Christian civilizations. The fact that you have to go back 800 years to find something worth mentioning suggests you should not even bring this point up.

Embarrassed huh? Don't be so obtuse. Islam and Arabs were responsible for far more than zero and arabic numerals which I know you didnt know before I listed them. The Arabs were the first to use oil and had been for centuries before the Europeans knew it existed.

And FYI the guy who made the personal computer possible and affordable for all households is Arab, Steve Jobs. So you can strike the personal computer from your list of accomplishments.

"In a way the Arab conquests of the near east, north africa, Iberian peninsula and Byzantium lead the way for the cultural revolution in Europe." Oh yes, what a wonderful benefit it was for the Arabs to invade, conquer, and enslave parts of neighboring civilizations. What a repulsive statement. I'm sure the Caucasians who were enslaved, whose men were sent to the mines or to die on galleys, whose women were bred like animals to produce more slaves - the origin of the word "slav" - would tell you how enriching it was to be conquered by Muslims.



Ahmadinajad is not a fanatic? A guy who literally believes the twelfth (or is it thirteenth?) "mahdi" is down a well somewhere and is soon going to come out of it and lead Islam to conquer the world is not a fanatic? He is very much a Hitler. He believes fanatically that it is the destiny of Islam to rule the world. And that it is his obligation, his moral duty from God, to help make that happen. Every believing Muslim is commanded to believe that!



Look, the only time that Muslims have not been at our throats was when they were too weak to be able to attack us. Our European ancestors - from Charles Martel to Jan Sobieski - could give you some firsthand information about how benign and peaceful Muslims are..

The Arabs invading and conquering was no different then the European Romans/Italians doing the same all over Europe and the Levant/North Africa. FYI the word SLAV comes from Latin which the European Romans/Italians called the region north of Greece where they took a significant portion of their "slaves" from. So it was not Arabs who named them Slavs.

You have a warped few of history to suggest that Arabs are the only ones to rape, pillage and invade. And FYI Arabs are caucasian.

And No I do not believe Ahmadinejad is a fanatic and I am relatively certain he says those things to cause trouble but has no belief in them.

"We cannot afford to be Chamberlains again.

I am in favor of a hands-off policy in the Middle East, myself. Put a cordon around it and let them sit and simmer in the backwardness until those frustrated Iranian teenagers and their peers around the Middle East throw off Islam once and for all. But lets have no illusions about the intentions of devout Muslims. There really are close parallels between the racial supremacist view of the Nazis - who believed their racial supremacy gave them license to conquer the world - and the religious supremacist views of the Muslims. People who try to lull us to sleep by telling us that there is no danger or that the threat is our own fault do us a grave disservice that is going to cost a tremendous number of lives in the long run when we have to fight another war of survival against Islam.

I really can't understand Western liberals who defend Islam. Are they so ignorant of what Muslims believe? Do they not realize that if the Muslims were in control they would criminalize virtually everything that the liberals hold dear? That they would execute homosexuals, literally keep women barefoot and pregnant and out of the public sphere? That they would ban music, representational art, and would destroy all the cultural artifacts of competing religious traditions as they did the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan? Is there no sensible limit to your anger at your own peoples' traditions, that you willingly work to enable their destruction via Islam? You really have to be willing to stand up for your own people and your own civilization sometimes, you know. Do you know that? Do you even think Western civilization is yours? Do you have any attachment to it? Do you understand that Islam is its enemy, down to the very roots?

Or are you truly Chamberlains, feeling that Mr. Hitler has some valid complaints about the treatment of Germany after WWI, and that after all he just needs a little "lebensraum" and then he will be happy and there will be peace? After all, Mr. Hitler has assured us that this is the case! He's no fanatic, he's a reasonable man, right?

Seriously Mark listen to yourself? You really think Iran is as big a threat as Hitler and Germany in the 1930s? Give me a break.

If you want to start throwing around us being Chamberlain etc then make your reference toward China not toward politically insignificant nations in the Middle East.

Iran cannot even refine its own oil and has to import gasoline. They are in no way a threat to western civilization. If you want to go off about something then turn your attention to the real way Islam could take over Europe through population growth vs European pop growth in European countries.

I have as much affinity for European culture as I do Middle Eastern culture. Unfortunately you know not what you speak.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Iran and IMS

Oh interesting where do we start..... No I don't believe Iran wants to kill a few million Jews to take down Israel as a country. Do they want to own the land? Yes. So if you do not believe they will drop a nuke on Israel then why are you so agaisnt them getting nuclear tech? I mean this saga of Iran "imminently" getting nuclear tech has been going on since the 1970s.

Where did I say I do not believe they will drop a nuke on Israel? I think that religious fanatics who will fly 747s into skyscrapers, shouting "God is great!", will be quite willing to drop a nuclear weapon on "infidel" Jews for the glory of Allah. Do you think Bin Laden wouldn't have nuked New York if he had the means? (Actually I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what you think.)

And before you lecture me on how the Shia running Iran are different than the Wahabi Sunnis who murdered people on 747, I am perfectly aware of that. In their hostility to us, the Wahabi Sunnis and the Shia clergy running Iran are close enough that we can't afford to assume they won't drop a nuclear weapon if they get one.

Embarrassed huh? Don't be so obtuse. Islam and Arabs were responsible for far more than zero and arabic numerals which I know you didnt know before I listed them. The Arabs were the first to use oil and had been for centuries before the Europeans knew it existed.

And FYI the guy who made the personal computer possible and affordable for all households is Arab, Steve Jobs. So you can strike the personal computer from your list of accomplishments.

I knew the arabs invented Zero and arabic numerals somewhere back in high school. Don't let your contempt for me lead you into embarrassing assumptions about what I know or don't know.

The fact that you think because Steve Jobs had Lebanese ancestry means that Islam (and you seem to think I'm talking about arabs when I'm talking about ISLAM) gets credit for the personal computer? I'm not sure what to say to something that silly. Charles Murray wrote a book called Human Accomplishment where he developed a method to quantify human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. You might check out the linked article at Wikipedia and see the list of names he came up with as the leading creative people in history. He does give credit for some mathematical innovations to the Arabs. But otherwise it's almost entirely European men. There's no point in you trying to claim some significant contribution by muslims to human progress. Anything they have done has been so trivial in comparison to the West that it is an embarrassment to you to even bring it up. Just acknowledge the superior achievements of the West and try to make your arguments from some other direction.

You have a warped few of history to suggest that Arabs are the only ones to rape, pillage and invade. And FYI Arabs are caucasian.

And No I do not believe Ahmadinejad is a fanatic and I am relatively certain he says those things to cause trouble but has no belief in them.

Where did I say that "Arabs" (again, I have been referring to Muslims) are the only ones to rape, pillage, and invade? Of course it's been going on all over the world all through history.

My point is that my people, the white people of the West, have been threatened and invaded by Muslims for 1,400 years and that Muslims have not changed (in fact are forbidden to change on pain of death) and that it is not our fault if Muslims don't "like" us. My point was in response to a suggestion that somehow we are at fault for their hostility because we've been aggressive towards them. They have always been our enemies and they will always be as long as they subscribe to a religion that commands them to conquer us, a religion which says the final word has been written by the Prophet for all time, that there will be nothing new after that, no new evolution, and that all that is left is for all of mankind to be brought under the rule of Islam by any means necessary.

And I am not impressed by arguments that there are many people of Muslim heritage who have emigrated to the West and reject the fundamentalist version of Islam or who are young people in Iran who like Western culture and don't want to wear burkas and mutilate the genitals of their daughters or tip over stone walls on homosexuals. The problem is I don't know how to sort them out from the ones who want to wipe us out. The 9/11 hijackers didn't get into the U.S. by declaring that they were Jihadi warriors for Allah who planned to teach the infidels a lesson. They got in by quietly pretending to be nice folks who just wanted to come over here and learn some flying skills or study at a college or be tourists or whatever their excuse for getting a visa was. Sorry if the nice Muslims feel offended by my heightened scrutiny of them, but until their co-religionists fundamentally change their religion, I can't tell who among them is going to start murdering us next. That makes scrutiny of Muslims very reasonable. If that offends them and makes them feel hostility, well, all I can say is "tough".

Seriously Mark listen to yourself? You really think Iran is as big a threat as Hitler and Germany in the 1930s? Give me a break.

I think ISLAM is as big a threat as Hitler and Germany in the 1930s. Iran is just one hotbed of Islam.

If you don't think Islamic fundamentalists are a threat, you haven't been paying attention for the last 40 years:

Munich Olympics
Multiple hijackings of planes and execution of Americans and Jews
Achille Lauro
Beslan school murders
9/11
7/7 (England)
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

I have as much affinity for European culture as I do Middle Eastern culture. Unfortunately you know not what you speak.

Ah. So I suspect you are not a white European. You mention that you have an affinity for Middle Eastern culture, and "as much" affinity for European culture. I suspect you are an immigrant to the West or the child of immigrants. Which in itself would explain your reaction to my comments.

Let me say this: I believe a serious, perhaps fatal, flaw of the modern West is the idea that the West has no valid racial/ethnic/religious identity, and that anyone from anywhere with any religion can come and join the West and just become one of us. In reality I don't think that is true. Whether you like it or not, people do feel racial/ethnic/religious kinship with others like them. And whether liberal white Westerners want to pretend that they do or not, the fact is that the vast majority of the world does. You allude to the demographic threat to Europe from Islamic immigration. This is exactly right. We are engaged in a suicidal experiment in liberalism, inviting vast numbers of high-birthrate, incompatible peoples into our countries to set up colonies. And for the next X number of years, we are going to have to wait while the idealistic, well-meaning white liberals learn the hard way through personal experience what happens when you allow your territory to be colonized. Some of them even think we have it coming because we were successful in the historically normal way of being successful: by grabbing good new territory from weaker peoples.

It is ugly to have speak in these terms but someone has to speak up. If we continue to tell ourselves that we have nothing to fear from alien peoples, especially those with as established a track record of hostility to us as Muslims, we will find ourselves in the position of the American Indians or the whites in South Africa who were promised by white liberals that everything would be rainbows and brotherly love if they gave political control to the blacks and made themselves a powerless racial minority.

Our "interference" or "hostility" to the peoples of the Middle East is not the problem. It is a reasonable - and actually terrifically restrained, by historical norms - response to a threat, as well as a normal behavior of a powerful people looking to expand its power and influence, which is something all people and all forms of life seek to do. We have nothing to apologize for.

[astonas]

Re: Iran and IMS

Unite us agaisnt what? It is human nature to form groups and divisions agaisnt something (some outside force foreign to them). This is how tribes, ethnicities and nations are born.

It is indeed a part of human nature to form tribal units, and foster conflict between them.

But it is not the only part of human nature. And it is certainly not the best part.

We may choose, as human beings, what aspects of our nature we give our attention to, and thereby express. Indulging the tribal aspect of human nature simply because it exists is NOT what makes us human. On the contrary, it is what makes some people like animals.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Iran and IMS

Some of the points you make are perfectly valid, but there is another side to the debate that seems to be missed. Here in the UK some years ago we had a TV series that spent some hours telling us about how "our" relationship developed with Iran; from its beginnings to today. What I came away with is an entirely different viewpoint; that by far the majority of the people in Iran are NOT any threat to anyone.

Having already done so before, I again return to a recent movie, Offside, http://www.sonyclassics.com/offside/ created by a group of young people describing their frustration at a very simple fact, no woman can attend a soccer match in Iran. You only need to sit down and watch that movie to see the reality. The young people of Iran desperately yearn for exactly the same things we all take for granted.

I readily grant you that there are frustrated young people in Iran who want, to one degree or another, to throw off Islam and become like the West. I wish them all the success in the world. I genuinely do.

But some of their co-religionists wish to conquer us. And this is not a small number. I submit as evidence the results of the "Arab Spring." Fundamentalist Islamic parties gaining political power all over the Middle East.

So much as I wish those young people well, the fact that there are people like them really means very little for what we have to do to ensure our safety.

Some people do not like our BBC, but they have in the recent past done many of us a very great favour by highlighting the history of our relationship with Iran. An example that really sticks in my mind is that the CIA once quite literally threw a Prime Minister of Iran out of his home with his possessions thrown into the street. We Brits have not been much better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ3bZF0-IN8 This is a small part of a major BBC TV series, Iran and Britain. VERY thought provoking....

Again another BBC series, three one hour programs; Iran and the West
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00htnkq/episodes/guide

Again another BBC program Regeh inside Iran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC0lE-GFNHg

With the very greatest of respects, your viewpoint is distinctly distorted from the underlying reality. We need to make friends with the real, underlying nation. Please, everyone, take the time and trouble to watch all these. THEN come back and tell me what you think.

I respectfully suggest that it is in fact your view that is distorted from the underlying reality.

Here is my view of the underlying reality: all forms of life, from bacteria to plants to animals to humans, have built into them a biological drive to reproduce and expand. To expand into good new territory. To grab the best resources. And because the amount of territory is finite, that means struggle for control of that territory: survival of the fittest.

Another aspect of reality is that people feel affinity for their own kind. "Their own kind" is defined along several axis: genetic similarity (families, ethnic groups, races) and cultural or belief systems (language, religion, culture, political views). People naturally group together with their own kind when they bump up against a competing people in the struggle for territory. The stark racial separation that occurs in prisons is an example.

In the white West, we have been so completely dominant in our struggles for territory with other peoples, and for so long, that we have had the luxury of actually trying out suidical liberal beliefs about how this affinity can be based entirely on a very narrow set of political beliefs about "tolerance" and "equality". A white Western liberal with these beliefs feels a closer affinity to a friendly Muslim Somali family that moves into his neighborhood, builds a mosque, and starts having ten children than he does with white traditionalist conservatives who don't want the Somalis moving into the country. Even though it is entirely predictable, based on historical experience all over the world, that as the alien colonists' populations grow, they will become less and less friendly and more and more assertive in their control over their newly-gained territory. Look at the behavior of the Mexicans who have essentially taken over swaths of the American Southwest. In their more uninihibited moments they have torn down American flags and put up Mexican flags. This is natural behavior. They are a people; they are taking over new territory, "feeling their oats", and they want that territory to reflect their values, their traditions, their culture, their race.

Tying this back into the discussion of Iran: yes, we have certainly used our power and wealth to try to influence the political situations in other countries. This is normal behavior. In fact it is incredibly restrained behavior by historic standards. Has there ever been a civilization as powerful as the modern West in comparison to the rest of the world, which did not then use that power to attempt to conquer the world? I think if we wanted to, we could have. (I'm not sure that's true anymore.) But we didn't because of the evolution in our ethics. However, regardless of this evolution, the biological imperatives to expand are not going away. So I don't think we have anything to feel ashamed of for using our power to influence Iranian politics. Bluntly, that's the nature of life. If anything, we may live to see the day that we regret not using that power in a much more heavy-handed way to wipe out the threat of the Islamic ideology when we had the chance.

So Chris I respectfully am not interested in documentaries about how we tried to influence the Middle East and how they resent us for it. Of course they resent us for it. And of course we tried to influence them. That's the way life works, in my view. The question becomes "whose side are you going to take in this struggle for territory?" Because I can tell you that if the Muslims ever gain political and military control of the West, it is going to be very unpleasant for us regardless of how many nice young Iranians want to listen to popular music and go to the movies and own cars. They are our competitors and there is no way around that. It's built into us.

[jpatter666]

Re: Iran and IMS

Mn_Mark,
Your comments could easily be adapted to the world 500 years ago when it was the white European Christians running amok and taking vast swaths of territory (and slaughtering untold numbers of "heathens") in the name of Christ and the Catholic Church.
When they weren't killing "infidels" they were happily cutting each others throats in Protestant/Catholic wars.

One of the tragedies of the Muslim world was its cultural near-obliteration at the hands of the Mongols. In my opinion, it's a shock they are *still* recovering from.

Islam needs a Martin Luther, Reformation and the Renaissance -- to me it's a more interesting question as to if, when and from where such an event might occur. I wish there was a breakthrough in clean energy -- with the money spigots turned off, the culture would be forced to look inward and finally evolve.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Iran and IMS

Where did I say I do not believe they will drop a nuke on Israel? I think that religious fanatics who will fly 747s into skyscrapers, shouting "God is great!", will be quite willing to drop a nuclear weapon on "infidel" Jews for the glory of Allah. Do you think Bin Laden wouldn't have nuked New York if he had the means? (Actually I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what you think.)

And before you lecture me on how the Shia running Iran are different than the Wahabi Sunnis who murdered people on 747, I am perfectly aware of that. In their hostility to us, the Wahabi Sunnis and the Shia clergy running Iran are close enough that we can't afford to assume they won't drop a nuclear weapon if they get one.


I knew the arabs invented Zero and arabic numerals somewhere back in high school. Don't let your contempt for me lead you into embarrassing assumptions about what I know or don't know.

The fact that you think because Steve Jobs had Lebanese ancestry means that Islam (and you seem to think I'm talking about arabs when I'm talking about ISLAM) gets credit for the personal computer? I'm not sure what to say to something that silly. Charles Murray wrote a book called Human Accomplishment where he developed a method to quantify human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. You might check out the linked article at Wikipedia and see the list of names he came up with as the leading creative people in history. He does give credit for some mathematical innovations to the Arabs. But otherwise it's almost entirely European men. There's no point in you trying to claim some significant contribution by muslims to human progress. Anything they have done has been so trivial in comparison to the West that it is an embarrassment to you to even bring it up. Just acknowledge the superior achievements of the West and try to make your arguments from some other direction.


Where did I say that "Arabs" (again, I have been referring to Muslims) are the only ones to rape, pillage, and invade? Of course it's been going on all over the world all through history.

My point is that my people, the white people of the West, have been threatened and invaded by Muslims for 1,400 years and that Muslims have not changed (in fact are forbidden to change on pain of death) and that it is not our fault if Muslims don't "like" us. My point was in response to a suggestion that somehow we are at fault for their hostility because we've been aggressive towards them. They have always been our enemies and they will always be as long as they subscribe to a religion that commands them to conquer us, a religion which says the final word has been written by the Prophet for all time, that there will be nothing new after that, no new evolution, and that all that is left is for all of mankind to be brought under the rule of Islam by any means necessary.

And I am not impressed by arguments that there are many people of Muslim heritage who have emigrated to the West and reject the fundamentalist version of Islam or who are young people in Iran who like Western culture and don't want to wear burkas and mutilate the genitals of their daughters or tip over stone walls on homosexuals. The problem is I don't know how to sort them out from the ones who want to wipe us out. The 9/11 hijackers didn't get into the U.S. by declaring that they were Jihadi warriors for Allah who planned to teach the infidels a lesson. They got in by quietly pretending to be nice folks who just wanted to come over here and learn some flying skills or study at a college or be tourists or whatever their excuse for getting a visa was. Sorry if the nice Muslims feel offended by my heightened scrutiny of them, but until their co-religionists fundamentally change their religion, I can't tell who among them is going to start murdering us next. That makes scrutiny of Muslims very reasonable. If that offends them and makes them feel hostility, well, all I can say is "tough".



I think ISLAM is as big a threat as Hitler and Germany in the 1930s. Iran is just one hotbed of Islam.

If you don't think Islamic fundamentalists are a threat, you haven't been paying attention for the last 40 years:

Munich Olympics
Multiple hijackings of planes and execution of Americans and Jews
Achille Lauro
Beslan school murders
9/11
7/7 (England)
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc



Ah. So I suspect you are not a white European. You mention that you have an affinity for Middle Eastern culture, and "as much" affinity for European culture. I suspect you are an immigrant to the West or the child of immigrants. Which in itself would explain your reaction to my comments.

Let me say this: I believe a serious, perhaps fatal, flaw of the modern West is the idea that the West has no valid racial/ethnic/religious identity, and that anyone from anywhere with any religion can come and join the West and just become one of us. In reality I don't think that is true. Whether you like it or not, people do feel racial/ethnic/religious kinship with others like them. And whether liberal white Westerners want to pretend that they do or not, the fact is that the vast majority of the world does. You allude to the demographic threat to Europe from Islamic immigration. This is exactly right. We are engaged in a suicidal experiment in liberalism, inviting vast numbers of high-birthrate, incompatible peoples into our countries to set up colonies. And for the next X number of years, we are going to have to wait while the idealistic, well-meaning white liberals learn the hard way through personal experience what happens when you allow your territory to be colonized. Some of them even think we have it coming because we were successful in the historically normal way of being successful: by grabbing good new territory from weaker peoples.

It is ugly to have speak in these terms but someone has to speak up. If we continue to tell ourselves that we have nothing to fear from alien peoples, especially those with as established a track record of hostility to us as Muslims, we will find ourselves in the position of the American Indians or the whites in South Africa who were promised by white liberals that everything would be rainbows and brotherly love if they gave political control to the blacks and made themselves a powerless racial minority.

Our "interference" or "hostility" to the peoples of the Middle East is not the problem. It is a reasonable - and actually terrifically restrained, by historical norms - response to a threat, as well as a normal behavior of a powerful people looking to expand its power and influence, which is something all people and all forms of life seek to do. We have nothing to apologize for.

I caution you to take a step back and not have such hatred toward a religion or people. And FYI you projecting your thoughts/experiences on to me is ridiculous and you have been wrong on every assertion you have made.

You quite clearly said "I didn't mean that Iran wants to physically erase Israel or destroy holy Islamic sites. Certainly they would not drop a nuke on the Dome of the Rock mosque"

Which implies you DO NOT believe Iran would drop a nuke on Israel. Israel is a tiny country and if they dropped a nuke on Haifa it would destroy Jerusalem and the dome of the rock with it.

You make all of your arguments in extremis and have weak arguments in general.

Yes, I am from caucasian European ancestry. But again Arabs and Persians are caucasian as well.

" I think that religious fanatics who will fly 747s into skyscrapers, shouting "God is great!", will be quite willing to drop a nuclear weapon on "infidel" Jews for the glory of Allah."

So you acknowledge that it was fanatics to fly planes into the buildings but what were most of the hijackers? I believe 19 of them were Saudi's, so why did we attack Iraq? Why did we not attack Saudi Arabia?

Why have the muslim Pakistanis who have had nukes for something like 30 years now not done the same? I mean Bin Laden was LIVING in Pakistan in front of the military, don't you think that he could have procured a nuke for his followers?

"The fact that you think because Steve Jobs had Lebanese ancestry means that Islam (and you seem to think I'm talking about arabs when I'm talking about ISLAM) gets credit for the personal computer? I'm not sure what to say to something that silly. Charles Murray wrote a book called Human Accomplishment where he developed a method to quantify human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. You might check out the linked article at Wikipedia and see the list of names he came up with as the leading creative people in history. He does give credit for some mathematical innovations to the Arabs. But otherwise it's almost entirely European men. There's no point in you trying to claim some significant contribution by muslims to human progress. Anything they have done has been so trivial in comparison to the West that it is an embarrassment to you to even bring it up. Just acknowledge the superior achievements of the West and try to make your arguments from some other direction. "


Here you go again projecting and making absurd arguments.I was pointing out that Arabs have made significant contributions to mankind with one example that you carelessly listed before not coming from the Arabs "personal computer." And FYI Steve Jobs is Syrian not Lebanese and if you knew your history you would know that half to most Lebanese do not consider themselves Arab.

I never once said that Europeans did not make THE MOST contributions to mankind. In fact I would lump Arabs in with Europeans as they are BOTH caucasian. If you want to start talking about Islams contributions compared to Christianity well they were both been horrible and good but I can't attribute "accomplishments" to religions only to races/ethnicities/people.

"Where did I say that "Arabs" (again, I have been referring to Muslims) are the only ones to rape, pillage, and invade? Of course it's been going on all over the world all through history."

The muslims you continue to talk about are caucasian and Arab, at least the ones "invading europe" for the last 1400 years. What other Muslims do you want to refer to? The ones in subsaharan Africa or in Asia? Both of which have had little to no influence on European history or invaded Europe. Therefore I will continue to use Arab.


"I think ISLAM is as big a threat as Hitler and Germany in the 1930s. Iran is just one hotbed of Islam.

If you don't think Islamic fundamentalists are a threat, you haven't been paying attention for the last 40 years:

Munich Olympics
Multiple hijackings of planes and execution of Americans and Jews
Achille Lauro
Beslan school murders
9/11
7/7 (England)
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc"



No I don't think Islam is as big as a threat to the West as China could be. And I certainly do not think Islam is as big a threat to the West then the construct of the IMS and our own economic and political actions.

Perhaps Islam by sheer amount of children they have in Europe is a threat to certain European countries homogeniety. Which I disagree with and believe that if I were to visit Sweden in 30 years and see not Swedes but majority Arabs it would be a tragedy as it would be if I visited Ghana and saw not Ghanese but majority Indians.

Of course the west has a valid racial/ethnic/religious identity. And you are correct in certain liberals and Europeans are disillusioned with Christianity and the concept of being "caucasian." White guilt and all that.


"Our "interference" or "hostility" to the peoples of the Middle East is not the problem. It is a reasonable - and actually terrifically restrained, by historical norms - response to a threat, as well as a normal behavior of a powerful people looking to expand its power and influence, which is something all people and all forms of life seek to do. We have nothing to apologize for."

It is a two way street. I also dont think we should be apologizing either, but the fact remains that we continue to meddle in the formation of their countries, ideals and religion.

There is a reason why they have not developed an intellectual class, entrepreneuers and a strong democracy and that is because they can dig up their tax revenue from the ground for less than 5 dollars a barrel. They have no need to develop those hallmarks of society as the European nations and America has.

The despotic leaders have instant capital and money in their hands so they would rather control it by force instead of by elections. Why allow a business class to develop that would threaten your power?

As I have said before there is a lot you are missing and everything is not black and white. Good luck Guy of Lusignan

[aaron]

Re: Iran and IMS

If there were a "plan", I'd say the west was trying to drain the middle east of all of its oil, thus depriving the people there of any future. It is a brilliant strategy, becoming of a Great Empire like the United States. Without oil, the populations will shrink drastically, by civil war and starvation. In fact, the more the countries rely on oil, the more they are going to be crushed when the flows stop.

No more oil means no more food; the excessive breeding will stop. Those who survive after the wars and famine will live exactly like those arabs 500 years ago. And, 500 years from now they will likely still be there.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Iran and IMS

As I have said before there is a lot you are missing and everything is not black and white. Good luck Guy of Lusignan

I've already contributed enough to turning this thread into another Islam argument, so I will just refer you to an excellent editorial in the Investors Business Daily about Islam, and leave it at that.

[shiny!]

Re: Iran and IMS

Mn_Mark,
Your comments could easily be adapted to the world 500 years ago when it was the white European Christians running amok and taking vast swaths of territory (and slaughtering untold numbers of "heathens") in the name of Christ and the Catholic Church.
When they weren't killing "infidels" they were happily cutting each others throats in Protestant/Catholic wars.

Agree. Fortunately, Christianity evolved. Unfortunately, Islam did not. (This statement is not intended as a slur against individual Muslims who might be perfectly nice people.)

One of the tragedies of the Muslim world was its cultural near-obliteration at the hands of the Mongols. In my opinion, it's a shock they are *still* recovering from.

What goes around comes around. When he had the opportunity the Muslim Mogul emperor Aurangzeb, a proponent of Sharia law, perpetrated atrocious cruelties on Sikhs and Hindus in an attempt to obliterate their cultures and convert them to Islam. Sikhs were tortured on the rack and the wheel, slowly burned alive, cut up limb by limb and ultimately beheaded when they refused to convert. Sikh mothers who refused to convert were enslaved, forced to watch as soldiers threw their babies into the air to land on upthrust spears.

The slaughter was so complete that at one point there were only handfuls of Sikhs left starving in caves. A toll was placed on a highway to collect money for Aurangzeb. In a gesture of defiance one Sikh, believing himself to be the last one alive, stood in the middle of the road to collect the toll in the name of the Sikhs. He went down fighting the Mogul army alone.

Yet today, Sikhs and Hindus seem to have recovered quite well from that shock of attempted genocide.

Islam needs a Martin Luther, Reformation and the Renaissance -- to me it's a more interesting question as to if, when and from where such an event might occur. I wish there was a breakthrough in clean energy -- with the money spigots turned off, the culture would be forced to look inward and finally evolve.

Totally agree. Unfortunately, enlightened Muslims who call for reform are usually met with death threats and end up in hiding.

I bear no ill will to any individual or religion who wishes to live and let live in peace. But the definition of insanity is expecting different results from the same behavior. History and even our current time shows us clearly what happens to non-Muslims (and Muslim women) under Sharia law. It isn't pretty.

Excerpt from the September 2002 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 49, No. 9)

The Arab Press on Arab Human Development
Rima Khalaf Drops a Bomb

Fahed al-Fanek, Al-Ra’i (partially state-owned, pro-government), Amman, Jordan, July 4, 2002
When Dr. Rima Khalaf Hunaidi was Jordanian minister of planning, she wanted to issue a report about human development in Jordan along the lines of the report published annually by the United Nations Development Program on human development in developing countries. The political aim of the minister was to show that the social and development situation in Jordan is better than many critics think and at the same time to provide the Planning Ministry with an instrument with which to pressure other ministries and organizations to improve by way of comparing their performance.

Now that Rima Khalaf has moved to the United Nations as director of the Arab regional office in the U.N. Development Program, she has taken the same idea and expanded it to cover 22 Arab countries in order to make clear the region’s faults and give encouragement to those in a position to instigate reform.

The team she chose and led was 100-percent Arab in order to avoid accusations of bias against the Arabs or of focusing on negative points in an attempt to distort the image of the Arabs in the world, according to the conspiracy theory.

But, despite that, the report was a bombshell nonetheless, though the only thing that would surprise those who are familiar with the situation in the Arab world is its nondiplomatic language and criticism, and naming of the faults. Arab societies are paralyzed because of the absence of political freedoms, the persecution of women, and isolation from the world and new ideas.

The oil wealth is matched by social backwardness, and the only other region of the world with an income level lower than ours is sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is decreasing, scientific research is virtually nonexistent, the region is suffering a brain drain, and illiteracy afflicts half of Arab women. The report was only diplo-matic concerning implicit criticisms of extremist Islamist movements as a cause of the culture of backwardness and absence of fertile ground for democ-racy. Interestingly, the report found that the total number of books translated into Arabic yearly is no more than 330, or one-fifth of those translated in a small country like Greece.

Indeed, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars—WPR] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year. The report noted that Arab rulers stay in office all their lives and create dynasties that inherit power, and the peoples are unable to institute change.

[jk]

Re: Iran and IMS

Agree. Fortunately, Christianity evolved. Unfortunately, Islam did not. (This statement is not intended as a slur against individual Muslims who might be perfectly nice people.)

islam is 600 years younger than christianity. the proper comparison is christendom in 1400 or so.

[jpatter666]

Re: Iran and IMS

islam is 600 years younger than christianity. the proper comparison is christendom in 1400 or so.

There isn't a defined timeline of events for a religion. Buddhism? Hinduism?

[vinoveri]

Re: Iran and IMS

islam is 600 years younger than christianity. the proper comparison is christendom in 1400 or so.

so we should expect and Islamic Summa Theologica by now

[shiny!]

Re: Iran and IMS

islam is 600 years younger than christianity. the proper comparison is christendom in 1400 or so.

In this Age of Information, I think social changes occur faster than they once did. Information and ideas that used to take years to travel and propagate now move across the world in the blink of an eye.

I don't buy the argument that we need to patiently wait another 600 years or so for Muslims to join the modern era and stop trying to kill people who don't believe as they do* in the name of Allah. We don't have the luxury of time. For centuries in Spain during the Middle Ages, Muslims lived peaceful, productive lives alongside Christians and Jews. If it was possible then, it should be possible now. No, lack of "years in business" isn't at the root of their violent behavior.

As an example, Sikhism is only about 550 years old, yet from its inception it has espoused the equality of men and women regardless of race, religion or caste, and been opposed to genocide, prosthelytizing, forcible conversions, and cruel practices such as sati, purdah and blood rituals. So age or relative youth of a religion has little to do with it's behavior towards others.

* (I also think the USA should stop doing the same thing in the name of Democracy, or whatever the excuse is.)

These are just my opinions, and worth exactly what you paid for them.