response 576 of 604:

Jun 18 23:00 UTC 2002

Please feel free to share what "red-herrings" you think were legitimate
issues.  If that's too general for you, my last three usages of the term
were in responses #561, #569 and #571.  Can you explain why you think I
used the term incorrectly in those instances?

response 578 of 604:

Jun 19 01:26 UTC 2002

Re #564:  Sylivia, what I mean is that the muslim Israelis are not the
targets of attacks from mobs up to armies bent on genocide.  Neither are
the West Bank arabs.  Have you noted that just about every Jew living in
the West Bank is called a "settler", despite Jews living in that area for
thousands of years?  That's because every remaining Jew was either murdered
or had to flee in 1948, and the ones who survived certainly were not
welcome to return while the area was under muslim Arab rule.  (Palestinians
just murdered the Jews maintaining Abraham's Tomb, if I recall correctly.)

Israelis have had control of the same area for 35 years, and there have
been no mass murders, no mass expulsions, NONE of the things which were
trademarks of previous muslim Arab actions (and a lot of today's rhetoric).
The Israelis have been harsh, but they're dealing with an enemy worse and
closer than anything we've faced in the USA; you cannot judge them by the
standards of what we would need to defend our own homes and lives.

response 580 of 604:

Jun 19 13:38 UTC 2002

So you think Clinton was wrong to propose that Israel hold on to a
net 3% of the territories that would enable most of the "settlers"
to remain in their homes?

15:29   Arab countries to invest $20 million in public relations campaign
        against Israel 

16:25   IDF troops demolish explosives lab found in Jenin refugee camp

response 582 of 604:

Jun 19 14:39 UTC 2002

re #576 - Leeron, in looking at #561 I can't quite tell what parts of 
Scott's comment you are referring to as 'red herrings' so it's too 
vague to even attempt to counter.

re #569- Personally, I think you do declare a hardline stance, so how 
is it a red herring for Scott to raise that idea into the discussion? 
Now by hardline I don't mean you enter items about death to all Arabs- 
but that X and y MUST happen in order for peace talks to begin again- 
to me this is hardline. 

Plus- YOU make a red herring of the time issue. I think we can both 
agree that there is a major difference between fifteen minutes a day 
and over an hour a day- yes? You make a big issue of how much time 
Scott spends entering short replies- but then deny that the time YOU 
spend is an issue.

Last one: Oh and actually- see above for #571.

You made up the whole time issue really. Scott commented that on a 
daily basis he didn't have as much time to spend on researching this 
stuff as you do. This then turned into a 'hour many hours per month 
thing' with you claiming Scott doesn't think minutes a day can turn 
into hours in a month. This is silly. This is a red herring. This goes 
back to my prior statement about you inferring arguements in a person's 
statement that they didn't put there. 

The fact of the matter is that time-wise it doesn't take a lot of time 
to enter a short response, it takes a lot longer (on a daily basis) to 
research and enter lengthy items- and it you can't agree with the logic 
of this then there is nothing more to discuss on this subject.

You eat, breathe and live this conflict- you shouldn't expect EVERYONE 
who wants to discuss it can live that way.

Did I cover it enough or do you need more explanation?

response 584 of 604:

Jun 19 19:44 UTC 2002

<a href=http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com>Tuesday, June 18, 2002</a>

Posted 7:38 PM by Eric Raymond 


The Mirage of Moderate Islam:
(First of a series.)

Diplomatic lies notwithstanding, Islam is anything but a `religion of 
peace'. Any honest scholar will tell you that Islam is a religion of 
violence, martyrdom, and conversion by the sword. The duty to wage war 
for the propagation of the faith is plainly written in the Koran; Osama 
bin Laden's suicide bombers are part of a tradition that springs from 
Islam's warlike origins and has been re-affirmed in every generations 
by ghazis, hashishim, and numerous other varieties of holy warrior.

It is the interiorization of `jihad' as a struggle for self-mastery 
that is revisionist and exceptional, one proposed by only a few 
Westernized and progressive Muslims and (one senses) not wholeheartedly 
believed even by them. A truer window on the nature of Islam is the way 
that it divides the Earth into the Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) 
and the Dar al-Harb -- the House of War, the theater of battle to be 
waged with zeal until the infidel is crushed and submits to the Will of 
God. The very word, islam, means `submission'.

Conspicuous by their absence are any clear denunciations of bin-
Ladenite terror from the members of the ulama, the loose collective of 
elders and theologicians that articulates the Islamic faith. Such 
internal criticism as we do hear is muted, equivocal, often excusing 
the terrorists immediately after half-heartedly condemning them. Far 
more common, though seldom reported in Western media, are pro-jihadi 
sermons that denounce America as a land of devils and praise Al-Qaeda's 
mass murderers in one breath with Palestinian suicide bombers as 
martyrs assured of a place in heaven.

There has been some play given in the media lately to the notion that 
the ideological force behind Islamic terrorism is not Islam per se but 
specifically the puritanical Wahhabi sect associated with the House of 
Saud. Some accounts trace the rise in terrorism to Wahhabi 
prosyletization in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Most versions 
of this theory have it that Wahhabism is an unattractive doctrine (by 
contrast with, say, the Sufi tradition of the Caucasus or the relaxed 
syncretic Buddhist-influenced Islam of Indonesia) but that it wins 
converts because, with billions in Saudi oil money behind it, the 
Wahhabites can afford to field missionaries and build schools that 
promulgate the puritan party line.

The trouble with this theory is that it ignores the history of Islam 
and the internal logic of Islamic doctrine. The history of Islam is a 
collection of cycles of doctrinal decay followed by fundamentalist 
renewal. Believers tend to drift away from strict Islam, but every 
century or two some mad-eyed wanderer will come screaming out of the 
desert and haul the faithful back on to the Narrow Way with a blend of 
personal charisma, argument and force (the latter generally 
administered by some allied warlord who sees political gain in it).

This drama keeps getting re-enacted because, in general, these 
charismatic fundamentalist looney-toons are correct in their criticism 
of `soft' Islam. The Koran, the actions and statements of the prophet 
Mohammed, and the witness of the lives of his immediate followers are 
pretty clear on what the religious duties of a Muslim are. Long before 
the 9/11 attacks, I read large portions of the Koran (in translation) 
and more than one history of Islam, because I collect religions. I 
learned about the Five Pillars and the hadith (the traditional sayings 
of Mohammed) and the ulama. The picture is not a pretty or reassuring 
one.

Moderate Muslims trying to argue against the latest version of Islamic 
fundamentalism are in a difficult situation. All the fundamentalists 
have to do to support their position is to point at the Koran, which is 
much more authoritative in an Islamic context than the Bible is in most 
Christian ones. Moderates are reduced to arguing that the Koran doesn't 
really mean what it says, or arguing from hadith that qualify or 
contradict the Koranic text. Since the Koran trumps the hadith, this is 
generally a losing position.

The grim truth is that Osama bin Laden's fanatic interpretation of 
Islam is Koranically correct. The God of the Koran and Mohammed truly 
does demand that idolatry be purged with fire and sword, and that 
infidels must be forced either to convert to Islam or (as a limited 
exception for Christians and Jews, the "Peoples of the Book") live as 
second-class citizens subject to special taxes and legal restrictions. 
The Koran really does endorse suicidal martyrdom and the indiscriminate 
killing of infidels for the faith.

(The Koran does not, however, require purdah and the veil; these are 
practices the Arab world picked up from Persia after the tenth century 
CE. Nor does it require female genital mutilation, which seems to have 
been acquired from sub-Saharan Africa.)

For both shallow diplomatic/political reasons and deeper psychological 
ones, Westerners have trouble grasping just how bloody-minded, 
intolerant, and prone to periodic murderous outbreaks of fundamentalist 
zeal Islam actually is. But we must come to grips with this. If we 
treat the terror war as a merely geopolitical conflict, we will be 
fighting the wrong battle with the wrong weapons.

It is not merely Al-Qaeda or the Taliban or even Wahhabism we are 
fighting, it is a fanatic tendency wired deep into the origins and 
doctrine of Islam itself, a tendency of which these movements are just 
surface signs. That tendency must be cured or cauterized out. No lesser 
victory will do for a world in which means and weapons of mass 
destruction grow ever easier for terrorists to acquire.

(To be continued...)

response 586 of 604:

Jun 20 02:54 UTC 2002

re:  "#579 (slynne):  I dont think I would judge Israel harshly if they had
annexed all of the west bank and Gaza and then made everyone living in those
areas citizens."

Ah.  So now you are in favor of Israel deciding to unilaterally violate UN
resolutions.

response 588 of 604:

Jun 20 05:36 UTC 2002

What appears as "convenient" is the desire to dismiss what is a well
supported (if dramatic) thesis on the basis of something on which many
scholars *do* agree.  As the article itself states, though, this is not
a condemnation of Muslims per se (it cites moderating influences) but
of the Koran and the well-respected tradition of Muslim fundamentalism.

Similar ideas have been expressed by saying that, unlike Christianity,
Islam has not undergone a reformation. I think that's close, but misses
the mark. I think Christianity's (um) saving grace is that for its early
years and most of its existence fundamentalism was not accepted. The
Catholic Church has many mechanisms to forgo literal interpretations of
"bad" sections of the Bible, from "Dogma" to "Papal infallibility."

(Perhaps the difference can be traced back to origins of a persecuted
cult vs. a persecuting cult. One who is persecuted by the authorities
is in no position to demand a fundamentalist following by recruits.
Yet conquering holy warriors can dictate this.)

The point the article is making is that progressive/liberal Muslims will
always lose the theological debate with fundamentalists precisely because
that is the interpretive tradition. So while some Muslim societies
(influenced by non-Muslim schools of though) can and do break away from
this, the article posits that every so often all that is needed is for a
counter-reformer to ride out of the desert and show such progressives the
error of their ways.  Oddly, the article argues against Wahhabism as
being that messenger today but doesn't provide an alternative.

Does anyone remember the meaning of the word "Islam"?

response 590 of 604:

Jun 20 14:16 UTC 2002

re #585- Leeron, to be totally honest, I think a major part of the 
problem here is that people don't agree on what the issues are. I've 
seen people mention arguements time and again only to have you state 
that whatever they brought up isn't an issue followed by a barrage of 
text and cites. This isn't condemnation, just a simple fact. Main thing 
missing here is a degree of compromise in deciding issues (no one 
person can set up what the issues are and what 'sources' are acceptable 
and which are not- though that is putting it very simplistically. And 
while I rarely agree with you fully, I do respect your knowledge on 
this subject- taking your personal slant into consideration (as I do 
with anything I read/research).

response 592 of 604:

Jun 20 18:13 UTC 2002

I agree that Islam has certain built-in fundamentalist aspects to it, 
but then again have you actually read the Old Testament? It says in one 
place that it is OK to kill your children for stubbornness! I think if 
people actually followed Christianity a lot closer it would be a lot 
more vicious than it is now. As it is, the main Christian societies are 
mainly "make of the Bible whatever you think of it", and are not 
enforced as law (something that I think of as good). Most Christians 
that I know of are Christians on Sunday and forget about it the rest of 
the week. there is more "fudge room" in the Bible though. The Koran 
tends to be simpler and much more direct, so there is lesser room to 
squeeze out of something that you don't want to follow. I would agree 
that a greater development of Islam would be a welcome occurence. The 
Sufis tend to have a less militant message, but they have this nasty 
tendency to lose their heads . . .

response 594 of 604:

Jun 20 20:32 UTC 2002

Not a lot of time over here- but I wanted to address this:

> I've seen people mention arguements time and again only to have you 
state
> that whatever they brought up isn't an issue followed by a barrage of
> text and cites.

That's hardly the same as your initial claim, that I dismiss such 
aruments out of hand as red herrings.  Seems as if you are saying that 
I do respond on those issues (perhaps too much) with a "text and cites".

(First mine, second Leeron's)

Leeron... I didn't contradict myself there- you don't really 
necessarily respond to the issue someone else has raised if you don't 
think it's an issue. If you don't think it's an issue you say it's 
either a- a false equivilency or b- a red herring. The back-up you 
support doesn't really touch the questionable issue raised but backs up 
your ideas of what the issues are. 

Challenging other people's beliefs is fine... if you're honestly 
willing to have your own be challenged and really look at them.

response 596 of 604:

Jun 21 02:01 UTC 2002

vmskid: as I said, it's not that there aren't "bad" parts in the
Jewish and Christian Bibles, its that there isn't the long-standing
tradition of going by the Book.  Judaism has always had an oral
tradition (in fact, for obvious reasons it predates the Old Testament)
and was considered the equal of the Bible. For many generations
Christianity was a persecuted cult -- and also open to recruiting
various pagans by adopting their symbols (often with disregard for
the written word), which may have played a role in the Catholic
tradition that the written word is not holy above all else.
Islam simply doesn't have these degrees of freedom -- yet -- and
it's not so clear how it will develop outside of distant pockets.

response 598 of 604:

Jun 21 15:11 UTC 2002

No, I don't think it's important for you to point it out.  I choose not 
to let some of those things resonate in my mind too long after reading 
them.  There are definitely malicious people in the world, or we 
wouldn't be having these discussions.  I also will admit in the early 
stages of my return to grex, I did not have as much time to view these 
items, so I may have missed this.  I do not think that it pays to point 
out those you believe are guilty of this, as it would only open up 
unecessary arguments.