John Young: Hate is in neither holy book (Waco TX Trib)

[struggle4progress]

JOHN YOUNG Opinion page editor
Thursday, June 11, 2009

... After hearing this claim for the quadrillionth time, that followers of Islam are commanded to kill non-Muslims, I did what a parrot would never consider doing. I inquired. Not of Google. Not of Fox News. I inquired at the mosque.

In Waco, that’s the place adjoining Al’s Auto Repair — Al being Al Siddiq, president of the Islamic Center of Waco ...

Siddiq said he’d never heard about virgins and various eternal rewards for Islamic warriors until some of them, in suicidal blasts, left their blackened marks on the landscape.

He said religion is not driving the violence associated with radical Islam. What drives it is despair, economic hopelessness and the plights of marginalized people ...

http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2009/06/11/06112009wacyoung.html

[JerseygirlCT]

1. But it makes it so much easier to hate when you believe otherwise! nt

[Why Syzygy]

2. ... poppies? (what drives it)

http://blog.gretchenpeters.org/

[charlie]

3. More a means, than a cause, I'd say

Right after we initially struck Afghanistan, the neocon press was boiling over with golden-hued stories about people digging up VCRs and the like, revelling in freedom denied by the Taliban. Of course, the neocon idiots couldn't imagine it'd take anything more than running off the crazies to make the country stable (and the "rout" was more a matter of guys turning their jackets inside out than anything else -- "Me? Taliban? No, no, I'm one of the Jones boys"). I'm sure those VCRs have long been reburied. Until that silent population who want to live unmolested are somehow empowered, the looneybin clerics will enforce collective madness at gunpoint. I don't know if it's possible, or we're really interested in making it happen.

Man, we and the Soviets really fucked that country up royally.

[rrneck]

4. I can always count on you

to post an interesting read. Thanks.

[Taitertots]

5. Strange when Mohamed killed a bunch of people

His whole life being a serious of military/religious wars of conquest.

Why don't we publish some funny Mohamed cartoons and see just how peaceful Islam is?

[struggle4progress]

6. Poetry of Rumi Spans Across Centuries, Cultures (NPR)

... All day I think about it
then at night I say it
Where did I come from
and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea ...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june09/rumi_06-04.html

[skepticscott]

7. No hate in the Bible

Other than a significant chunk of the OT detailing how the Hebrews slaughtered everyone God told them to, right down to the babies and pregnant women.

[TZ]

8. +1

The god in the OT is a profoundly angry and spiteful deity.

[skepticscott]

10. Yep, if there's one clear message in the OT

It's that if you don't worship the right god in the right way, you deserve to be horribly punished or killed. Is it any wonder that some people could derive a hateful and toxic us-versus-them mentality from reading it?

[PassingFair]

9. Both are LOADED with hate.

:wtf:

[trotsky]

12. No they aren't, just ask the people who don't think they are.

Argument by assertion is the only debate tactic believers have.

[dmallind]

11. Apparently he didn't do what an idiot would never do either

And READ the damn things rather than ask a partisan apologist. If you can't find hate in five minutes in either - including the NT - then you are illiterate or in denial.

[struggle4progress]

13. Apparently he did what you would never do, which is to find out what the owner of Al’s Auto Repair

actually believed -- rather than perpetuating ugly stereotypes

[dmallind]

16. Well sure - Al's Auto repair is an obvious impartial expert on religion

Him being a Muslim apologist and all that.

I suspect Tim McVeigh thought Christian Identity was a great thing too. What passionate adherents think about religion and the attractiveness thereof is about as factually relevant as what Yankees fans think about Derek Jeter.

[struggle4progress]

17. The comparison to McVeigh is ugly and unnecessary

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[moobu2]

15. lol... he went straight to the expert …..Al of Al’s Auto Repair

[Canuckistanian]

18. Whoa. There's a mosque in Waco, Texas?

I hope it's made of asbestos.

[moobu2]

19. At one point Mr.Young writes that AL thinks

“What drives it {Islamic terrorism) is despair, economic hopelessness and the plights of marginalized people”..

If that were true, I would think that you would tend to find terrorism wherever you find poverty, hopelessness and marginalized folks….. that just is not the case. Plenty of countries around the world have large poverty stricken populations and no terrorism at all.

[ironbark]

20. Factor in one more component…

foreign troops on ‘their’ turf.

As I understand it this was the finding of the Pentagon report (commissioned post 9/11) into the causes of suicide bombings.

The report looked at terrorist attacks from a range of countries over a long period of time- (Tamil Tigers, IRA, Islamic extremists)…the most common factor was the presence and resentment of troops perceived as foreign on thier soil. English troops in Ireland or US troops in Saudi Arabia evoke the same resentments among those subjected to “despair, economic hopelessness and the plights of marginalized people”.

Religion becomes no more than a useful tool to the terrorists in these circumstances.

The Roman Empire had some 141 foreign military bases.
The British Empire had some 143 foreign military bases.

The United States currently maintains some 148 foreign military bases.
(Congratulations……….your winning ;-)

One of those bases, Pine Gap, is located in central Australia and although it is generally accepted/ignored by the broader comfortable/middle class/white Australians it is deeply resented and loathed by young local Aboriginal males. These young men, in circumstances of “despair, economic hopelessness and the plights of marginalized people” see US service men as- “Over here, over sexed and over paid” and as a violation of thier territory.
These young men, some of whom had been recipients of direct material benefit from Pine Gap, so hate the presence of foreign troops on their turf (and competition for ‘their’ girls) that when 9/11 occurred they were heard to celebrate the event and mock American tourists.

That great American, Dr M Scott Peck, pointed out that most proposed explanations for events are shallow, simplistic and ‘over determined’….pinning terrorism to religion is just such a case.

“Terrorism is to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity” *… a small and isolated aberration

*West Wing…..The show that convinced us that the noble liberal/left tradition of open minded understanding was still alive…..even if not often reflected in DU R&T ;-)

[charlie]

21. Robert Pape, not the Pentagon

He was careful not to extrapolate from his findings on suicide terrorism to terrorism in general.

[ironbark]

24. Thank you

I couldn't remember his name.

"Pape's Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005) contradicts many widely held beliefs about suicide terrorism. Based on an analysis of every known case of suicide terrorism from 1980 to 2005 (315 attacks as part of 18 campaigns), he concludes that there is "little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions... . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland" Wiki

[skepticscott]

22. Don't forget that

the reason the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia is particularly offensive to Muslims is a religious one. Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two most sacred sites, Mecca and Medina.

[ironbark]

23. Ahhh yes….

Religion drove them mad, religion made them do it. Nothing else need be considered or discussed, not the history of the region, nor imperialism, nor injustice and disempowerment....”sacred sites”- wiz bang- planes into buildings.
It’s simple.
It’s obvious.
Religion is at core and the sites are so sacred that the whole Muslim world rose up to defend them.

We know these things because we are educated Westerners well informed by a secular free media.
When the twin towers fell we got to see the religious fanatics dancing in the street, in fact we got to see it over and over again in almost continuous loop…an old woman and a handful of kids celebrating in Gaza. Show it often enough and it looks like a crowd or widespread response.

I guess it must have been temporary religious insanity that prompted the management of CBS/FOX/CNN and the rest of Western media to ignore what transpired in the majority of the Muslim world in the days following 9/11. In Tehran they came spontaneously onto the streets in their thousands and held candle light vigils night after night. Thank goodness our media did not let even a glimmer of such religious fanaticism through until six months after the event.

Better to stick with the shallow, simplistic and over determined script- religion is the core problem, religion made them do it.

That way we don’t ever have to consider nasty complex issues and our part in them.

Australians got hit in the Bali bombings…wanna consider the contributing part played by resentment towards organized rings of European child molesters preying in Bali…or just wanna put it down to religion?

[TZ]

28. One word: Taliban

Violent and cruel and the source of anguish for many. I suppose they aren't religiously motovated right? Or they aren't true Muslims right? Say what you want but religious extermists are the bane of society and have been for thousands of years. And tell me about the wonderful religion police in Saudia Arabia did politics create that? Nope. Tell me how religion is not behind this dictatorial theocracies like saudia Arabia and Iran..

[ironbark]

29. Your ‘One word’

and all that followed said >nothing< to the points, issues and arguments raised in the post it is ostensibly responding to.

You say nothing to the issue (yours) of “sacred sites” and why (if terrorism is primarily religious) Moslems have not risen up en mass to defend/rescue Mecca and Medina.
Nor do you respond to any of the other point/issues re complexity, media, Pape’s findings or anything else of substance already on the table.

Rather you wish to move on with the apparent expectation that I answer what concerns you while you ignore the points I have made?
ok.

“ I suppose they aren't religiously motovated right?”

Of course they are religiously motivated. They are also motivated by nationalism, culture, tribalism, geo politics, money and power and a philosophy that has very contemporary origins.
Are they a Terrorist organization? If so at what point did they become so?
Was it prior to, during or after the support provided by the US government?

“Or they aren't true Muslims right?”

I’m not a Muslim, difficult for me/anyone to say what a ‘true Muslim’ is. If the response of the vast majority of Muslims, clerics, scholars and historians is anything to go by…then no…they appear to have a very perverted concept of Islam.

“Say what you want but religious extermists are the bane of society and have been for thousands of years.”

No doubt.
Extremists of all kinds (religious, political, military) have been a “bane” throughout history.
The general question remains- Is Muslim extremism any more reflective of Islam than the KKK is of Christianity?
In relation to the OP the specific question remains- Is religion the central/primary motivating force in terrorism or is it a tool employed in the context of a range of factors?

“Tell me how religion is not behind this dictatorial theocracies like saudia Arabia and Iran.”

How are you going to know what is “behind” the adult without looking at childhood development?
How can you have any insight into what is “behind” Saudi Arabia and Iran if you wont look at their development, their environment and who supported and/or abused them?
You could start with a look at T.E.Lawrence and the betrayal of the Arab Revolt, or the House of Saud and the twist of fate that placed oil exploration rights in US hands, or you could take a look at the CIA and the Shah of Iran….all these factors are “behind” the very existence of these states.

Or perhaps, if you really want to know what is “behind” extremism in Islam, you could have a look at Sayyid Qutb and the influence of his trip to America had or his subsequent torture by CIA trained Egyptian security forces..

You will find his story and what is “behind” contemporary extremism (religious and political) in-
‘Politics - The Power of Nightmares’
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2798679275960015727&hl=en


But I suspect you will be satisfied with the simplistic and shallow exclusively religious explanation.
It is, after all, much easier than research and critical examination.
;-)

[struggle4progress]

31. Religious extremists came to power in Afghanistan because the Reaganites armed them:

as part of their Cold War strategy, the Reaganites identified the so-called "mujahideen" as their proxies against the Soviets. When the Soviets finally withdrew, the country was in ruins, and the only remaining power nucleus were the armed religious extremists. The US -- and the rest of the world -- showed little further interest in the country, though in 2001 W's administration became interested in pipeline issues and courted the Taliban, providing some millions in support as part of their effort

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Afghanistan was a popular tourist destination: google "hippy trail"

[Taitertots]

25. Islam is looking for a fight

They built the dome of the rock on the temple mount. Any sane person would realize that building that on the holiest of sites in judaism would cause centuries of war.

Muslims are not commanded to "kill" non-believers. Just create a global Islamic caliphate with all non-believers second class citizens or dead.

[ironbark]

26. A post truly stunning

in the depth and degree of ignorance and bigotry displayed.

Well worthy of inclusion in the hall of fame here at Raving Lunatic Republican Underground.

[struggle4progress]

27. thank you

[ironbark]

30. I should have just posted-

http://www.reelbadarabs.com/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223210418534585840


And saved my breath.

;-)

[Taitertots]

32. The Dome of the Rock

So you believe that Mohamed could transport through space and time?
There can be no honest justification for building the Dome of the Rock on the temple mount. That just couldn't have been the spot. Mohamed was hundreds of miles away when he claims to have been there. So unless you believe that Mohamed can transport through space and time, you have to believe that the Dome has no real historical significance.

Mohamed personally murdered people to create Islam. He created an army and created Islam at the edge of the sword. Then the people immediately after him continued his expressed goals of the global Islamic state, with non-believers as second class citizens.