Let's cut the crap Coffee Can...
I caught Kofi Annan condemning Israel’s actions against Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Hamas on this mornings news before coming to work. What blatant bullshit. Where the hell was his crooked scheming ass and his worthless army of smurfs when these TERRRORIST organizations kidnapped Israeli soldiers? Why is it that known terrorists can carry out a naked act of aggression without nary a word much less diplomatic intercedence on behalf of the U.N. or any other world player, but when Israel responds with force it’s worthy of everybody’s ire. Has the free world gone fucking mad? Why is this so complicated? Don’t shoot at them, and they won’t shoot at you.It’s becoming clearer with each passing day as the trouble in the ME continues to boil. This is not a battle between Israel/U.S. and the ME states, this is the modern contemporary world coming up against stone age mentality. The sooner we stop fooling ourselves that it’s anything but, the sooner we can ally and defeat it.
For those that want to blame the U.S., Isreal, or anybody else, I dare you to argue with this women. I ganked the link from a great post by Michael Yon on the same topic Another well done piece on the world blame game.
posted by Tony Alva @ 12:41 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
If I had a nickel for every time I've read your post, smacked my head and said, "Is he out of his mind?"... well I'd have very heavy pockets that's for sure. I just don't understand how someone so smart can disagree with me so often. I often read the Yon posts that you site, or at least parts of them because they tend to be very long. I find them informative and I like the way he writes. He has a gift for making events come alive and he usually seems to organize his writing in a way where the journalism comes first and the editorialism comes second. This is probably why we both can enjoy his pieces. Most times I will get throught 3/4 of the piece and form an opinion only to find out at the end that he is advocating an opinion in direct opposition to mine. This doesn't upset me; I can still value the information that I gathered from the piece... Until now. Yon's inclusion of that clip from the secular Arab woman, the one you dared anyone to argue (oh, don't worry I will), may just have destroyed his journalistic integrity as far as I'm concerned. It comes from MEMRI, an arab related press service that claims to "bridge the language gap between the arab world and the west" but for all intents and purposes is nothing more than a propaganda machine for the Israeli government. In fact, it is run by a former Israeli Intelligence agent. They select and translate heart-warming pieces from Arab newspapers that are sure to promote tolerance with titles like "Islamic Clerics Authorize Sex With Infants." You can read a criticism of the organization here:
www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,773258,00.html - 51k
www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=4047 - 43k --
Be sure to read the colonel's response to The Guardian where he discounts the opinion of the spokesperson from CAIR by stating he is a Hamas supporter; irrelevant and probably inaccurate. His rebuttal proves many of the points made in the charge.
As for the self-loathing woman in the clip, her diatribe is just shy of being racist hate speech, despite the fact that she is Arab. The world is not that uncomplicated that we can equate Islam with the bad, barbaric, uncivilized, fanatical, backwards and misogynist, and equate Judeo-Christianity with the good, pure, civilized, just, loving, scientifically advanced, and socially responsible. There are too many examples to the contrary on both sides. I'm not discounting Yon's bloody list of atrocities committed by Islamic fundamentalists, but they do not justify the labeling of an entire religion as backwards and uncivilized.
Nor do the justify the bombing and invasion of Lebanon, the thoughtless killing of it's citizens, and the destruction of it's infrastructure.
An Arab women pointing out the dismal world that ME women live in earns your ire? I don't get it at all Clarkie.
The bombing of South Lebenon is a direct result of argression on the part of Hezbellah plain and simple. It is justified and warranted. If Lebenon is serious about sharing a boarder with Israel peacefully, they should send their own troops in to crush Hezbellah, but they won't do that, why? I'll wait for a response, but expect crickets chirping...
I couldn't get the Guardian link to work, but I did check out anti-war dot com link and remain unimpressed. Prof. Juan Cole? Please. This guy's been discredited more than Milli Vanilli. Who will you cite next, Cynthia McKinney?
Myself and the "self loathing women" as you describe, do NOT describe Islam as bad and Judeo-Christian as good. Zealots of either are dangerous to freedom and democracy (at one point she even says that she does not beleive in the fantasy of the myths and tales, but is an educated secular Arab women). The fact is, right now at this present time, radical Islamic zealots pose a MAJOR threat to the worlds stability. Not because of anything the United States has done, but rather because the Islamic zealots thinking is stoneage, cruel, inhumane and evil. There is absolutely no redeeming value to mankind in their ideology. I'm not talking about muslims who worship at the temple by my house, I'm talking about those who burn schools for women in Afghanistan. There is no place in this world for them. I still cannot understand how you can think other wise Clarkie.
Until recently, Lebanon - as a country - would love to see Hezbollah crushed. The majority of the people of Lebanon have hated Hezbollah in droves - particularly after Hezbollah assassinated their presdient - and expressed their hate on the streets of Beirut in the hundreds of thousands. The reason the Lebanese military has not done anything about it is because they are not capable and they fear a civil war. On the converse, Lebanon was chosen by Israel for attack ahead of Syria and Iran because they're an easy target. The US chose to attack Iraq because we thought we could win. Israel chose to attack Lebanon because they think they can win. Neither the US, Israel, or Lebanon, for that matter, is willing to engage with an enemy unless they believe victory is assured. Don't you think by this point, Lebanon would have struck back at Israel? Either they are happy to let Israel worm out Hezbollah for them, or they are just plain incapable of fighting back. If it is the former and not the latter, there is a tipping point somewhere that is about to be crossed. There has been way too much indiscriminate death and destruction for the invasion to be justifiable. Of course some sort of response is justified for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, but the way this crisis has escalated makes it clear to me that the action is not about the missing soldiers and never was. What annoys me is that this military arrogance that Israel brandishes comes at the expense of American taxes, crediblility and safety.
I have never once defended the actions of Islamic Fundamentalists who commit acts of terrorism. I agree that "Islamic zealots thinking is stoneage, cruel, inhumane and evil" but so are zealots of any religion. I abhor religious fundamentalism of any sort, including the fundamentalist element of our own government and the fundamentalist sector of the Israeli government. The Bible is not a real estate decree. To say that Islamic zealots pose a major threat..."not because of anything the US has done" is pretty shortsighted as well. The US and Israel have done a great deal to incur the wrath of Islamics and in turn have inspired many to transform themselves from moderate to fundamentalist.
The self loathing secular Arab woman was doing far more than speak out against subjugation of women in the ME and I wrote nothing at all to imply that I would defend that sort of lifestyle. [although I have to say, I really hate driving and I wouldn't mind so much being driven around]... She (not you - I wouldn't dare to assume what you believe unless you state it yourself) absolutely describes Islam as bad and Judeo-Christian values as good. She calls it a clash of civilizations, for God's sake. She says absolutely nothing positive about Islam at all and then claims that Jews alone are responsible for the progress of science. I don't doubt that the opinions are her own, but how you can't see that giving that woman a microphone is propaganda is beyond me. And it is very typical of the tactics of MEMRI.
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