The Left and Islam

[MamboJoel]

If we don't take action, then we're heartless and greedy; if we do we're imperialistic monsters. I suppose it's only natural in a way, the top dog is usually hated simply for being the strongest. It's still irritating though.

Yes it's natural in a way... From my experience, I often feel like you : as if anything we could do would lead anyway to a massive protest contradicting itself if we'd have chosen the other way around...
You need to understand that it's a typical way right wingers tend to think (and I'm one): Pretending that we've proposed all possible solutions to fallaciously demonstrate that other's protests aren't justified.

In the case above, you're saying that not taking action makes us heartless, while taking action makes us imperialists. It's assuming the only two issues are :
100% action : brutality, war etc
or
0% action : total irresponsibility
It's of course fallacious and I know you know it because there is a whole range of solutions between 0% and 100%, and reducing the issue to it's two extremes while easy and straitforward, is shortsighted and erroneous.

But Europe is, on the whole, much more liberal ("Liberal" in the way it is used in the US, not in the classical sense) than the United States, and much more friendly to groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, as opposed to Israel, even if it's by not wanting to take any side at all.

You need to draw a symmetry between Europe/Us and Palestine/Israël to finally reconsider this way of thinking. American conservatives are 100% behind Israël. Read this forum (I know most are clueless teenagers or even older) and you'll have an idea of how often these guys put the US and Israël on the same ground in terms of defense, alliance "I'd kill for the US or Israël" etc... Now find Europeans (and it's half the population here) defending Palestine with such energy. Let's not enter the debate about who is "evil", indeed the debate is that some use the word "evil".
In France, I don't have any anti Israel feeling, the proportion of jews in the medias is incredibly bigger than the one in the population, and they are not biased towards any side.

In fact, the purpose of this thread was trying to draw links between issues that have nothing to do together : left/right, europe/america, israel/islam, unilateralism/multilaterism...
In front of these there are two ways of thinking :
- Understanding each issue
- Amalgamating them

 

[blackheart]

Also, there really isn't much more to the distaste with America than being on top. I always find it funny how liberals are complaining that we do nothing in Darfur or Rwanda, but when we act against tyrants (Milosevich, Hussein, Aidid, etc.) we are being the aggressors. So which is it? Are you an isolationist? Or an interventionist? Or just somebody who only likes the conflicts that have no strategic value? Point is....we do something and it is bad and we do nothing and it is bad. We could just play the superpower game and colonize everything we can like the British and maybe then we would be okay with you?

International politics doesn't boil down to war or no war.

You don't see the difference between wholesale genocide and living under tyranny?

 

[sonorakitch]

International politics doesn't boil down to war or no war.

You don't see the difference between wholesale genocide and living under tyranny?

I think you would agree that tyrannical leaders (whether or not associated with the state) at the more extreme levels bring genocide at one level or another. Whether a thousand, hundred thousand, or half a million people are butchered determines the level of involvement we choose. When the level of involvement exceeds our capacity, we must select the arenas in which to act. Milosevich committed genocide, and yet the extreme leftist establishment opposed the intervention. Aidid committed genocide in Somalia, but the extreme left opposed the intervention. Even Hussein, to a lesser extent in Kuwait, committed atrocities against the Kuwaitis. The left opposed this action as well. But now there are movements across America to intervene in Darfur. What happens to world opinion towards America if we were to?

International politics is a multi-faceted organism. In times this organism does boil down to intervention or non-intervention. Intervention doesn't necessarily mean war, but sadly it often times does.

I am one who believes personally in little intervention throughout the world. I believe opposition to tyranny comes from within-not from an outside source no matter who it is. But my beliefs are not in question nor do I hold Europe or elsewhere to a lower standard because their beliefs differ than my own. I merely try to explain why global opinion towards the US as the ultimate hypocrisy in geopolitics today.

Without the rambling: living under tyranny and genocide (to any level) almost always walks hand-in-hand and there is no denying this.

~Chris

 

[Atlas14]

So by that logic there should be no muslims in europe Canada or the US that born here and natual citizens that are militant islamic terrorists right?

The percentages are irrelevant in the sense that the Koran is not responsible for those percentages, the government and historical/regional culture instead is the main factor. Of course there will be militant Muslims outside of the ME, but that doesn't mean the Muslim represents the religion as a whole. The majority of pro-violence Muslims come from the magical ME, what a coincidence. The ME also has the most dictatorial governments and some of the worst literacy rates .

 

[Elrohir]

What has aid got to do with military intervention, what your saying is if you go isolationist you start sucking your thumb like a spoilt child? If you ask me next time 142 out of 191 countries tell you your full of it and your going to get in serious trouble you should be more likely to listen, you can mess with the UN all you like but it's you that keeps getting burned on this. Fine just don't invade any more countries for pointless motives that just serve to cause hatred widespread death and cost you more than you can really afford. That'd be nice. And since the UN was set up to prevent precisely what your country has done, you shouldn't ***** about setting it up in the first place, seems to me you like setting up organisations and talking the talk, but when you don't get what you want and it shoots you in the arse such as Iran and Afghanistan you blame everyone else.

The UN is collection of bureaucratic, naive idiots who turn out sanctions and orders that aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Relying on them is a recipe for disaster; they can't even keep their own men from breaking their own embargoes, or make sure justice is done to the rapists in the ranks of their own Peacekeepers. The UN is a joke, and bad one at that.

So why does feeling like you are going to drown not qualify? You listed torture that leaves physical marks of pain. What about emotional pain combined with physical pain? That is exactly what feeling like you are about to drown induces. I would know.

Because it's just that - a feeling. Deliberately causing pain for the purposes of interrogation is torture. Making them feel uneasy isn't. There is no physical pain involved in having your face covered with plastic wrap and having water poured over it. It sucks, and it's unpleasant, but it's hardly comparable to having your fingernails wrenched out with rusty pliers, or being flayed alive, or anything of that sort.

This is rather pointless, as I don't believe waterboarding is used any longer.

Yes it's natural in a way... From my experience, I often feel like you : as if anything we could do would lead anyway to a massive protest contradicting itself if we'd have chosen the other way around...
You need to understand that it's a typical way right wingers tend to think (and I'm one): Pretending that we've proposed all possible solutions to fallaciously demonstrate that other's protests aren't justified.

In the case above, you're saying that not taking action makes us heartless, while taking action makes us imperialists. It's assuming the only two issues are :
100% action : brutality, war etc
or
0% action : total irresponsibility
It's of course fallacious and I know you know it because there is a whole range of solutions between 0% and 100%, and reducing the issue to it's two extremes while easy and straitforward, is shortsighted and erroneous.

Of course I understand that, it's the anti-Americans who don't. To them, America is always at fault: Either we didn't intervene, and people died, like in Rwanda, and it's our fault. Or we do intervene, like in Iraq, and we're heartless monster/imperialists who eat babies. I guess I just fail to understand why we should continue to protect and help people who seem to always blame us, regardless of what we do.

 

[MamboJoel]

Sorry, Elrohir you got me wrong : we don't agree at all on this. Reread your above post quoting mine.
You say "Should we do 0% or 100% they'll protest anyway". I'm saying it's a typical fallacious right wing way of thinking: trying to avoid what's between 0% and 100% and more, trying to avoid other dimensions.
Oversimplification of the world, this is the american conservative's problem. It's easy and sexy for the voters, but unfortunatly it's pretty dangerous and disconnected from reality.

 

[Princeps]

Funny...the second half of the 20th Century to this point has been the most peaceful this earth has ever seen. That is because of America more than anything else.

Nonsense. The reason why 20th century has been in some sense peaceful is because of 1. the immense destructive power of modern weapons, namely the nuclear bomb. 2. Two immensly strong (and few regional great powers) super powers who hold these weapons.

Whether a thousand, hundred thousand, or half a million people are butchered determines the level of involvement we choose. When the level of involvement exceeds our capacity, we must select the arenas in which to act.

Nonsense. What truely matters is the amount of interest in the area. Like it did in Iraq.

Iraq was a rebellious American client state, it needed to be controlled and the US decided that Saddam was not to be the ruler of this state. Instead they established another puppet government.

Iraq was in the very center of US interests, therefore it was the target of their invasion.

This, sir, is the reason why Darfur or Rwanda have been ignored.

 

[RedWolf]

In short my advice to young western people is this, "you won't find your political and social ideals in Islam, defending Islamic ideology will not make you the next Karl Marx. But if you're motivated by other prejudices then I can't help you."

I consider myself a bit of a leftist - but I wouldn't want koran thumpers running my government, making laws etc. any more then I'd want bible thumpers doing so.

That being said - I think we can all manage to live in a single society together and practice our own faith in the privacy of our homes.. and also that FWM (Flying While Muslim) shouldn't be a crime. Take from that what you will.

 

[blackheart]

Because it's just that - a feeling. Deliberately causing pain for the purposes of interrogation is torture. Making them feel uneasy isn't. There is no physical pain involved in having your face covered with plastic wrap and having water poured over it. It sucks, and it's unpleasant, but it's hardly comparable to having your fingernails wrenched out with rusty pliers, or being flayed alive, or anything of that sort.

Torture is the stimulation of feelings to cause you to cave. Not causing massive physical harm will allow for prolong probing of those feelings.

Of course I understand that, it's the anti-Americans who don't. To them, America is always at fault: Either we didn't intervene, and people died, like in Rwanda, and it's our fault. Or we do intervene, like in Iraq, and we're heartless monster/imperialists who eat babies. I guess I just fail to understand why we should continue to protect and help people who seem to always blame us, regardless of what we do.

Intervening doesn't always mean invade a country. There's more than one option to intervene and police.

 

[RedWolf]

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and if we don't do anything we'll all be living under sharia law and all women will be in burqas.

Can you actually not realize absurd you sound?

 

[Princeps]

I'm sorry to bump this thread...

Well, AFAIK, he (Naziassbandit, aka Princeps) is under 18. Most school kids who say they "support terrorism", or some other extremist view, are saying it to get a rise out of people, and for attention.

Yeah...

I'm sorry, but I can't help but to feel amused by this "psychological" view you take. I don't seek attention, not much here, not at all in real life, quite on the contrary, I consider myself to be shy.

 

[useless]

Nonsense. The reason why 20th century has been in some sense peaceful is because of 1. the immense destructive power of modern weapons, namely the nuclear bomb. 2. Two immensly strong (and few regional great powers) super powers who hold these weapons.



Nonsense. What truely matters is the amount of interest in the area. Like it did in Iraq.

Iraq was a rebellious American client state, it needed to be controlled and the US decided that Saddam was not to be the ruler of this state. Instead they established another puppet government.

Iraq was in the very center of US interests, therefore it was the target of their invasion.

This, sir, is the reason why Darfur or Rwanda have been ignored.

iraq has oil, darfur and rwanda dont.

 

[Princeps]

iraq has oil, darfur and rwanda dont.

Yes... That's part of my point.

 

[useless]

bast, why do you hate muslims? i highly doubt they'd be able to take over over countries, they have enough problems controling thier own as it is...

 

[Azash]

First, if you recall correctly, the metaphorical bees attacked us first

As far as I know, the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center were saudi-arabian.

 

[CartesianFart]

bast, why do you hate muslims? i highly doubt they'd be able to take over over countries, they have enough problems controling thier own as it is...

That is the point in the new Western initiatives on changing Muslim nation-states more democratically and reforming the administratorial class; meaning less management based on the ideology of Islam and more for secular liberalism.

A new policy shift on how to foster the Middle-Eastern nation-states into viable trading partner with the west and more assest of political homogeneity in the international scheme of things;which is peace.

 

[Elrohir]

As far as I know, the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center were saudi-arabian.

The metaphorical "bee-hive" we were talking about was the Middle East, not Iraq.

Torture is the stimulation of feelings to cause you to cave. Not causing massive physical harm will allow for prolong probing of those feelings.

So if you convince your wife to go to the movies with you by tickling her, you're a torturer? I mean you just used "feelings" to make her "cave" from her position of not going to the movies. Going by your definition, that would be just as much torture as ripping someone's fingernails out with pliers or covering them with hot tar. Ridiculous.

Does torture fit under that definition? Certainly, but so do many things which aren't criminal or considered torture, like my scenario above. Your definition is far too broad.

Intervening doesn't always mean invade a country. There's more than one option to intervene and police.

Not ways that are terribly effective, especially with the UN in charge.

 

[Azash]

The metaphorical "bee-hive" we were talking about was the Middle East, not Iraq.

The idea of putting a terror act by saudis and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the same umbrella confuses me, sorry.

 

[Elrohir]

The idea of putting a terror act by saudis and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the same umbrella confuses me, sorry.

9/11 wasn't sponsored by the Saudi government, it was run by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was hiding in Afghanistan, and the ruling Taliban party of Afghanistan refused to hand them ove to us, so we invaded. With Iraq there was a less obvious link.

 

[Azash]

9/11 wasn't sponsored by the Saudi government, it was run by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was hiding in Afghanistan, and the ruling Taliban party of Afghanistan refused to hand them ove to us, so we invaded. With Iraq there was a less obvious link.

A link you won't share, I take it.