Liar in Chief to Lie at Length Tonight
Regardless of what you think we should do, if anything, to combat ISIS, one thing is clear: Obama is a giant liar:
The comment that has caused Mr. Obama the most grief in recent days was his judgment about groups like ISIS. In an interview last winter with David Remnick of The New Yorker, Mr. Obama sought to make the point that not every terrorist group is a threat like Al Qaeda, requiring extraordinary American action.
“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Remnick. He drew a distinction between Al Qaeda and “jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”
Asked about that by Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” last weekend, Mr. Obama denied that he necessarily meant ISIS. “Keep in mind I wasn’t specifically referring to ISIL,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the group.
“I’ve said that regionally, there were a whole series of organizations that were focused primarily locally — weren’t focused on homeland, because I think a lot of us, when we think about terrorism, the model is Osama bin Laden and 9/11,” Mr. Obama said. And some groups evolve, he noted. “They’re not a JV team,” he added of ISIS.
But the transcript of the New Yorker interview showed that Mr. Obama made his JV team comment directly after being asked about terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Africa, which would include ISIS. After Mr. Obama’s initial answer, Mr. Remnick pointed out that “that JV team just took over Fallujah,” a city in western Iraq seized by ISIS. Mr. Obama replied that terrorism in many places around the world was not necessarily “a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.”
Journalistic organizations like PolitiFact, Factcheck.org and The Washington Post’s Fact Checker all rejected the contention that Mr. Obama was not referring to ISIS when he made his comment about JV teams.
That’s in the New York Times. You should read it all. The whole piece is brutal and worth your time.
Other things that are clear regardless of what you think should happen:
*Congress should take responsibility for introducing a declaration of war resolution and voting it up or down. But won’t.
*Wars increase the power of the state, and give the state a reason to inflate the currency and go even further into debt. They also often lead to unintended consequences. This does not necessarily mean that one must reject military action on ISIS — but they are factors to keep in mind as you contemplate the Grand Strategy that will be laid out by the Liar in Chief.
UPDATE: Link fixed. Sorry about that.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:52 amI have been disappointed so many times by this POTUS, that I no longer get my hopes up that he will even tell the truth.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:55 amI clicked on the link and it is asking for a username and password.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:57 amdon’t they call this enabling:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/world-weary
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:57 amSee, that’s the thing , felipe. I have never been disappointed by the Liar in Chief. I knew what he was from the beginning and knew exactly what we were getting. And we got it.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:59 amWe used to say that you could tell when Bill Clinton was lying because his lips were moving. It seems to be a Democrat thing. We have Jerry Brown in California. The results of recent elections suggest the public prefers lies. God help us.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:05 amMy only consolation is that I did not vote for zero -either time.
Amen, Mike K.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:09 amThe purpose of his speech is to try to appear that he is doing something. Let’s hope that others don’t do something tomorrow.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:12 amI was going to say that “I have a bad feeling”, but I cannot remember the last time I had a good feeling about thia POTUS.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:16 amObama: “Keep in mind I wasn’t specifically referring to ISIL,”
I think this was actually a half-truth. It belonbgs in the aame category with the claim he did refer to terrorism after Benghazi.
Yes, he called a number of groups (including obviously al Shabab and Boko Haram, and maybe Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and various groups in Syria, which all use the name al Qaeda) as “the JV team” but he did not exclude ISIS as being a JV team.
But, by not mentioning them, he did, however, exclude, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as being the JV team.
So he was ranking AQAP as more of a threat than anything in Iraq or Syria.
Sammy Finkelman (728434) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:21 amBob Schieffer did the CBS Evening News last night (Scott Pelley was in Iraq and had on;y been bacl for half of last week)
The first part was about that football player, but the second half of the first segment was about this (and the radio keeps broadcasting at least till the first commercial)
Arab allies mentioned were Iraq, Syrian rebels, The UAE and Saudi Arabia. Jordan was not mentioned.
This is a fertile field for Kremlinology.
Sammy Finkelman (728434) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:24 amYesterday Obama was not willing to say whether he would extend bombing to Syria, or possibly hadn’t decided, but now the New York Times indicates that Syria is, at least, not off-limits, at least i principle.
But if he is going to wait until he gets a decent Syrian rebel group big enough to act as ground troops up and running, it could take a long time. I guess that’s why this is a 3-year plan.
Sammy Finkelman (728434) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:27 amThere are no Arab allies, Sammy Finkelman and the sooner every American realizes that the fewer Americans will die because of the lie. I just love the way politicians and media a-holes keep using the term “moderate Moslems”. It reminds me of all those “moderate Nazi’s” in WWII.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:29 amhe says this with a straight face:
http://therightscoop.com/kerry-isils-hateful-ideology-has-nothing-to-do-with-islam/
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:31 amI just love the way politicians and media a-holes keep using the term “moderate Moslems”. It reminds me of all those “moderate Nazi’s” in WWII.
You’ve got north of 900 million Muslims in this world and a mess of troublesome paramilitaries whose number just might make it into six digits and you’re calling the other 899.9 million ‘Nazis’?
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:34 amArt Deco,
Well, maybe “good Germans”.
C. S. P. Schofield (848299) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:44 amConfusing deeds and deaths with thoughts and words, 0 thinks ISIS is exactly like the groups on SPLC’s list of terrorists and hate groups; named and blamed, but not dangerous.
htom (412a17) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:47 amTake Al Mujahiroun, one of the feeder organizations for ISIS, why is Chowdary given any air time, considering everything he has enabled.
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:51 amI think everyone is forgetting the PRIMARY argument that Obama supports use when judging him and his actions.
“At least he’s the coolest President EVER!”
Never Forget.
Dejectedhead (a094a6) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:04 amThe thing Jay Vee should keep in mind is that only parents watch the game. Everyone in a position to have been his parent has shuffled on.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:13 am“If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor;…” BO 06.11.2009.
He didn’t pay a price for that and He (Peace Be Upon Him) will not pay a price for his inaction and general stupidity over the middle east either. Remember, the NYT is nothing more than a house organ of the D Party and they are clearing brush for Hillary and or whoever is going to run on their side in 2016. Keep that in mind.
Ipso Fatso (10964d) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:14 amWhen the wind is in the trees, (Or when an enemy agent occupies your highest office and commands your armed forces – the pieces are in place, the stage is set, and the time to strike is at hand.) the storm can be expected often before you know it.
ropelight (192dd7) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:17 am15. It was estimated via polling of Arabs years ago, that fully 70% of Saudis supported monetarily Sunni terrorists, at that time comprising the MB, Hamas, al Qaeda and other lesser names.
I really don’t know why you bother.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:19 amSaudi Arabia has been playing us for fools since the end of World War II. They are happy to be our friend and allies where we can serve their purposes by opposing Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but at the same time they sit by passively as their wealthy citizens — including members of the ruling family — export Wahhabism all around the world including into our own country. We have to deal with them to the degree that we need to keep their oil fields from falling into the hands of a group like ISIS, but otherwise we should never mistake them for friends and allies.
JVW (638245) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:28 am15. Art Deco, I agree with you for the most part. I don’t think what we’re seeing with terrorism is necessarily a part of Islam as whole…BUT, I think most people realize that a lot of Muslims…kinda support people fighting for Islam no matter what they do. (Kinda like like the Crusades, probably viewed as a win for their team)
The existence of the paramilitaries is probably more a symptom of the oppressive governments that rules over nearly all muslim nations. Because political dissent was forbidden in those countries, the only venue to express opposition, came in the form of religion, which was not being disallowed. The process of doing that has led to the militant interpretations of Islam because a lot of the Koran speaks about aggressive expansion of Islam.
Furthermore, some of the Muslim nations do not have functioning societies beneath the surface of the government. The people of those nations don’t really identify as a nation. Many of the middle eastern countries were formed by the west after the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait. (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/maps/map_images/ottoman_empire.gif)
(A similar argument could be made for Pakistan which was formed after the U.K. gave it independence AND for many of the African Nations that were formed after Europe colonized the Continent.)
So the paramilitaries are a primary problem…yes, but it isn’t so simple as just fingering them and ignoring the societies that perpetuate the growth of terrorist doctrine. A lot of the tactics witness came out of the Palestinian situation which is constantly used to reinforce the idea of Jihad. (That once land is taken as Muslim, it will always be Muslim land and any tactics to get it back are justified on those grounds). Many Muslims, no doubt, see what they think is success and legitimacy from the Palestinian conflict (I assume, just my opinion) because their press and media and governments all TELL them it is legitimate (This can be seen through the UN General Council votes against Israel).
The societies created for those of Muslim faith have been part of the problem.
Dejectedhead (a094a6) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:31 amLook for the Gay Prostitute following his lecture on ISIS(sic) to field questions on Global Deflation and what that means for the middle class racist.
The EU is leading the way, German bonds are ‘paying’ negative rates of interest thru 2017. Japan joined the party yesterday, today the Swiss are talking ‘We need some of that!’
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:44 amOh, do get out and vote sheeple.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:46 amI mentioned elsewhere, if given the choice, would you choose to make a major speech about anti-terrorism policy on the eve of 9/11? Isn’t this arrogant presumption for political posturing at the risk of being made to look, I mean revealed to be, the arrogant, self-seeking, and foolish person he is?
I hope his foolishness is revealed sooner than later, at a minimum loss of life, none if possible.
Friends of mine who are Christians from Pakistan said they generally got along well with their Muslim neighbors and didn’t fear them, but they also felt strongly that their neighbors would never defend them against more radical elements if they were put in danger.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:48 amthe situation is not unlike the Southern moderate, that King had little regard for, yes they weren’t
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:50 amthe Citizens Councils or the Klan, but they had little impact on Jim Crow,
Friends of mine who are Christians from Pakistan said they generally got along well with their Muslim neighbors and didn’t fear them, but they also felt strongly that their neighbors would never defend them against more radical elements if they were put in danger.
That Moslem family in the neighborhood who smiles and waves hello and has those cute little kids might be super-friendly, but hey, the Ummah is the Ummah, and you are still a kafir.
JVW (638245) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:52 amyes, why is it it’s always up to Ahmadiya or the Sufi (except if they are Nasquabandi) to step up in these matters.
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:59 amTo do good requires courage, to be nice just needs a desire not to make a fuss. I think C.S. Lewis wrote that courage was the “chief of virtues”, as without it, all of then others had little impact.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/10/2014 @ 10:01 amWhat I am concerned with is the president not giving away strategy to the enemy in his speech. Hopefully, he has learned from his informing the enemy when we would be withdrawing troops…or his advisors are reminding him of the balance between informing the public and being discreet. I picture ISIS is counting on his lack of discretion.
Dana (ebb245) — 9/10/2014 @ 10:21 amDana – Perhaps our Semi-Retired President and religious scholar will lecture the world again on what Islam is really about.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/10/2014 @ 10:28 amThe President has a pretty fine tightrope to walk here. On the one hand, he has to persuade the liberals whose votes his party desperately needs this fall that the U.S. isn’t going to get bogged down in military action in the Arab world, but at the same time he has to convince moderates and independents that he recognizes the threat posed by ISIS and he will actually be proactive in bringing the fight to them. Look for the President to make great use of the words “but,” “yet,” and “however” tonight, and marvel how brazenly he will speak out of both sides of his mouth.
JVW (638245) — 9/10/2014 @ 10:30 amApparently, the president was delphic:
http://weaselzippers.us/199180-white-house-if-congress-wants-to-know-obamas-isis-strategy-they-can-watch-obama-on-tv-tomorrow/
It may not be all that much clearer tonight, except that now bombing syria is not off limits.
he seems to ahve told members of Congress he does not want, or rhinks he needs an authorization of force resolution, but he does want $500 million for training Syrian rebels so they’d be ready to fight in a year or two.
I suppose there are 3 stages in his plan:
1) Stop ISIS from making any more gains in Iraq and maybe also in Syria, and it goes without saying any place else.
2) Roll them back in Iraq.
3) Finish them off in Syria – in 2017.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:07 am24. JVW (638245) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:28 am
Saudi Arabia has been playing us for fools since the end of World War II.
Since before the end of World War II.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia in February, 1945, on his way back from the Yalta conference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB24qYtoF2M
I think he agreed to declare war on Germany and FDR agreed not to oppose the Arabs – FDR also didn’t quite seem to understand the strength of the kings’s opposition to Jews coming to Palestine.
http://www.ameu.org/getattachment/51ee4866-95c1-4603-b0dd-e16d2d49fcbc/The-Day-FDR-Met-Saudi-Arabia-Ibn-Saud.aspx
They are happy to be our friend and allies where we can serve their purposes by opposing Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but at the same time they sit by passively as their wealthy citizens — including members of the ruling family — export Wahhabism all around the world including into our own country. We have to deal with them to the degree that we need to keep their oil fields from falling into the hands of a group like ISIS, but otherwise we should never mistake them for friends and allies.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:15 amThey are happy to be our friend and allies where we can serve their purposes by opposing Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but at the same time they sit by passively as their wealthy citizens — including members of the ruling family — export Wahhabism all around the world including into our own country. We have to deal with them to the degree that we need to keep their oil fields from falling into the hands of a group like ISIS, but otherwise we should never mistake them for friends and allies.
It’s really bad what they do.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:16 amSorry, Art Deco don’t want to upset you. First off your numbers are wrong. There are about 1.3 billion Moslems in the world, secondly if only 10% are terrorists that makes 1.3 million. Finally, since the other 1.27 billion do absolutely nothing to stop the terrorists they then become enablers.
You should also learn to read. I didn’t call Moslem’s Nazi’s.(although they were allied with the Nazi’s). I equated that if there are moderate Moslems then there were moderate Nazi’s.
Now read the Koran below and tell me what makes a loyal, faithful, practicing Moslem Art Deco. I have another 125 verses if you need them. I’ve read the Koran 6 times and studied it with a Moslem and he admitted that the true Moslem is the Jihadist until the Twelfth Caliphate. So you my disagree all you want, I’m sure Daniel Pearl, Mr. Sotoff and Mr. Foley would too. Perhaps even the folks jumping out of the WTC windows. That would only make all of you woefully ignorant of the people you’re dealing with.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:18 amWill the columns make a showing?
mg (31009b) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:27 amWill not watch or listen to hoebama.
everything i needed to know about Islime i was reminded about on September 11, 2001.
a skunk doesn’t change its stripes.
nor its smell.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:33 amFoolish and arrogant or bold and authoritative to make such a speech on 9/10?
Dana (ebb245) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:35 amIt will be interesting to see how the two liars, obama and kerry, will be able to build a coalition to fight ISIS. What country will be willing to go along with them when they tell lies, change their position tomorrow or deny they ever said that. Because they are both for something before they are against it.
Jim (145e10) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:38 am10% of 1.3 billion is still 130,000,000. Even if only 1% are terrorists, that’s 13,000,000. Still a lot of terrorists.
Jim (145e10) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:42 amSorry Jim I hit the decimal. But you all got the drift. The point is there are so many and their book tells them what to do. The Koran doesn’t say “love thy neighbor”, or “turn the other cheek” or even “he without sin cast the first stone” (or lob off the first head). These are animals who wrap a barbaric ideology in a so-called religion and sell a pack of lies to westerners who believe in freedom of religion (unless of course it’s an evil Christian refusing to bake a damn cake). Plus, they have declared war on us. Why are they even here? Would we have tolerated Nazi beer halls in 1943? Then why do we allow mosques to be used for recruitment in 2014?
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/10/2014 @ 12:12 pmOK, a poll: What’s the I vs we score going to be in tonight’s speech? (Numbers or ratios)
I call four to one.
htom (412a17) — 9/10/2014 @ 12:27 pmHoagie, you are, I gather, a big believe in the Meme Theory of History and Social Relations. I’m not terribly interesting in parsing scripture, which is not, in any case, a series of intra-office memoranda.
I would refer you to Alistair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace on war and politics in Algeri prior to 1963. The Association of Ulema is disposed of with a few sentences. It simply was not a consequential force in Algerian politics at the time. Truculent nationalists, Francophiles, and local bosses distributing the colonial government’s patronage were important. It’s pretty much the same in any Arab country which had a measure of political pluralism ca. 1955. You find patron-client formations, Communists, Ba’athists, praetorianists, &c; revanchist Muslims are unusual. The Shah of Iran’s conflicts with the opposition ca. 1952 were with secular nationalists drawn from the country’s tiny educated minority. The conflict with the Islamic clergy was a dozen years in the future (and not obtrusive or consequential until about 1977).
Political Islam, most particularly of a violent and revanchist sort, is not a constant feature of Arab politics (much less the more peripheral components of the Muslim world) and may be no more abiding than was Leninism in Europe.
While we’re at it, very few people are politically active at any given time bar in country’s in pathological states. I once saw some figures on the number of people in Germany who had paid dues for a political party membership: it amounted to 3.3% of the adult population in Germany. Survey research on the United States some years later revealed that 3% of the respondents had volunteered for a candidate or proposition during the most recent election cycle. I was living ca. 1988 in a town with 230,000 residents. I was given an estimate by someone plugged into the local political parties that attendance at monthly Democratic Party district committee meetings in that town was around about 90. He’d run into an old friend who was circulating petitions that year who had groused that there were so few circulating that he’d been pressed into service. The man in question was pushing 70 and had been doing that sort of work for decades and would have liked to hand it off to someone else.
All of which is to say that when you offer figures like 10% or 1% are this that or the next thing, that’s not likely to be true because the full spectrum of people who put any sweat into public life most places is likely to be in the low single digits – enhanced in times of contention but diminished in poor societies with low levels of education and with people pre-occupied by their battle against the elements. Now look at Iraq: Moqtada al-Sadr’s groupies are supported by about 1/8th of the Shi’ite population. Only a small minority of these are going to hand out fliers or contribute funds and only a smaller minority still are going to be picking up guns.
That aside, political Islam and strict Islam are not to be counfounded with revanchist Islam. Saudi Arabia has always been intensely Islamist. Their political class is also composed of men of affairs who follow reasons of state in their international dealings.
And you get away from the Arab World and adjacent areas and you see revanchist Islam is a marginal phenomenon and even within that zone ambiguity and abivalence is often characteristic of Islamic parties (e.g. the Justice and Development Party in Turkey or Ennhadha in Tunisia). The leading fire-eater party in Pakistan is good for 2% of the vote in a general election. Their counterparts in Nigeria and Senegal cannot manage that. Boko Harem is a criminal gang, not indicative of the views of a public constituency of any size.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 12:43 pm10% of 1.3 billion is still 130,000,000. Even if only 1% are terrorists, that’s 13,000,000. Still a lot of terrorists.
A more plausible guess would start with the population of men of military age. In a country in a state of exceptional mobilization, you see perhaps 12% of the population in uniform. You’re not going to see anything like that with regard to the partisan militias. Then you have to recall that in most of the Muslim world, revanchist Muslims are a small minority. It’s only in a screwball locale like Gaza that their competitive by dint of a popular constituency alone. So you start with a popular base of x% of the adult population, reduce that by about 95% because only the most modest minority put sweat into public life, and reduce that by 85% to 95% because not many are willing to use armed force and put their own carcass on the line. If you want to get an idea of how many terrorists you’ve got, quit extrapolating for broad populations and estimate from actual activity.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 12:52 pmSaudi Arabia has been playing us for fools since the end of World War II.
How?
They are happy to be our friend and allies where we can serve their purposes by opposing Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but at the same time they sit by passively as their wealthy citizens — including members of the ruling family — export Wahhabism all around the world including into our own country.
Strange as it may seem, countries do both compete with and co-operate with other countries according to sentiment and interest. Not sure what’s so sinister about the Saudi’s doing this. (And if the consumers of Wahhabism had a disposition toward international politics that the originators do, we would not be facing that many dilemmas in the Near East).
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 12:55 pmAnything less than Obama rolling out Michelle, Sacha, and Mahlia in Burqas, OBlitheringIdiot is lying.
PCD (39058b) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:00 pmArt Deco- when the great majority of Muslims in the US, England, France, Denmark, etc., start throwing the rabble rousers our of their Mosques and isolate and ridicule the various outbreaks of fanaticism, then I’ll be comforted with the thought that this is a passing fad of a small minority, soon to be left behind in the flow of history.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:01 pmHow many terrorists does it take to cause a catastrophe in America?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:03 pmNot that many, probably about as many as can cross the southern border in any 15 minute window of time.
42.Foolish and arrogant or bold and authoritative to make such a speech on 9/10?
Dana (ebb245) — 9/10/2014 @ 11:35 am
What logical reasons would he have to be bold and authoritative?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:06 pmHow many Isis wannabe’s in the Twin cities are still there who couldn’t afford a plane ticket and want to hit the Great Satan at the Mall of America on the anniversary of their glorious victory?
My predictions for tonight:
JD (61a2fb) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:16 pmLots of I/me/my when talking about the awesome things he is claiming to have done
Lots of we/our when discussing what has t been done
Lots of deflection about authorization to go into Syria
Half-arsed efforts to fight ISIS that are more for PR and show as opposed to actually winning
Lots of lying and distorting
Example of pyromaniac in a field of gasoline soaked strawmen
Lying about his “red line” that was written in pink crayon
You’ve done a marvelous job in breaking out the numbers, Art Deco. But, we really have no way of knowing how many Moslem terrorists there are worldwide or even inside America. But let me ask this: How many would it take to blow up a shopping mall, or a stadium, or a skyscraper? I think no more than one or two. So I ask again: why are they here? Why is it so important to risk our lives and the lives of our families to prove that a barbaric creed is a religion of peace? Because you see, if we were at war with Nazi’s I wouldn’t want one single little Nazi bastard in the U.S.. Call me crazy.
I realize that as a civilized American it can be difficult to see a cult of war and barbarism who wraps itself up as a religion and judge it evil. But for a thousand years they’ve done little more than destroy everything in their path and in the last fifty years it’s been we who are in their path. I can only say that if after the Cole, Lebanon, the Achille Lauro, the WTC ( 1st and then 9/11), the beheadings, the Boston bombers and so many more if you cannot understand them for what they are and what they intend to do to us then you best pray others do.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:17 pmI am not responding to any particular comment. “Moderate Moslems”. Right.
When the news broke on TV of one terrorist attack on the U.S. An Iranian colleague (at that time), forgetting himself, excitedly shouted to me, “Do you see how many of your people one of mine can kill”?
Make no mistake. Islam is incompatible with anything else.
felipe (40f0f0) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:23 pmwho’s gonna actually take time out of their day to listen to this dipshit
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:29 pmJD (61a2fb) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:16 pm
JD, here are some words that I will bet Dear Leader does not utter tonight:
– red line
– Benghazi
– Secretary Clinton (he would love to toss her under the bus, but he can’t until after the mid-term elections)
Here are some words you can count upon hearing:
– NATO
– the world community
– peace in Gaza
– Osama bin Laden (he’ll be milking that one forever)
– bipartisan efforts
I’m glad that I have better things to do tonight than listen to his horsepoo.
JVW (638245) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:38 pmwhy do we refuse to consider when they take their faith seriously, one of their pillars, is zakat, charity, which can be as innocuous as the Red Crescent, but as controversial as the Muntada Trust,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:39 pmDejectedhead (a094a6) — 9/10/2014 @ 9:31 am
Because political dissent was forbidden in those countries, the only venue to express opposition, came in the form of religion, which was not being disallowed.
An example of how Occam’s razor can be wrong. That’s not really why all the important or the armed opposition is Islamic.
It’s because that was the only kind of opposition being funded by outsiders.
In Afghanistan, in the 1980s, Pakistan would only fund and organize Islamic opposition. All the aid the United States sent was routed through Pakistan, partially because the Reagan Administration thought of them as experts, and partially because they thought they had no choice.
[A lot of money was siphoned off by BCCI. (the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which also funded Jesse Jackson after Libya stopped – in return maybe for him promoting it to African governments – and was tied to the Worthen National Bank which loaned money to Bill Clinton’s campaign during the primary season in 1992, and without this cash infusion, which gave him avery big advantage other candidates sdid not have, he never would have been president, and if he hadn’t won the nomination, he might have wound up in the penitentiary, because he wouldn’t have been able to pay bank the loans and it would have been discovered that the dcumentation for the loans was fraudulant.)]
After 2011, Barack Obama made the same mistake wth Syria that Reagan made with Afghanistan. He allowed Saudia Arabia and Qatar to tell him who to give help to.
That’s why so much of the armed opposition is Islamic.
Before the 1980s, Arab terrorist groups and rebels (as in Algeria) were not Islamic, but secular.
Sammy Finkelman (3fda43) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:39 pmJVW (638245) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:38 pm
here are some words that I will bet Dear Leader does not utter tonight:
Israel.
It will be very interesting to see what is included and what is left out, or if something is mentioned, but very obliquely.
I also actually do not expect him to use the word NATO, but to use some other phrase that approximates it but is not identical.
I think NATO, as an organization, will not get involved,, just eight or nine of its members.
(Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Canada, the United States and the questionable help of Turkey – to which we add Australia to make 10.)
Sammy Finkelman (3fda43) — 9/10/2014 @ 1:48 pmArt Deco- when the great majority of Muslims in the US, England, France, Denmark, etc., start throwing the rabble rousers our of their Mosques and isolate and ridicule the various outbreaks of fanaticism, then I’ll be comforted with the thought that this is a passing fad of a small minority, soon to be left behind in the flow of history.
I do not doubt there are rabble rousers here, there, and the next place. The question is whether they can and do get more accomplished than run their mouths.
You can observe people’s behavior or you can spin scenarios in your head. The latter is likely to tell you more about yourself than about whatever social and political problems there are.
Right now, there are several sets of problems:
1. Political conspiracies on the home front. We have a federal police force to address that.
2. The degree of compatibility between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in select societies. We have some historical experiences to draw on (see Malaysia, India, and Israel). There may be abiding problems here that manifest themselves in any sort of setting, but I’d wager the biggest problem is the professional-managerial class we live under, especially the bar, the educational apparat, the social work apparat, and the politicians who respond to them. If we had an elite who did not despise the non-exotic working class and use exotic populations against them, I’ll wager that immigrant populations and their spokesmen would be a good deal less intractable. Israel manages to bump and grind along with an Arab Muslim population proportionately 5x that of France’s. Still, immigration restriction targeted at this population may be advisable, e.g. requiring applicants for settlers’ visas from a list of problem countries to apply as family units (mother, father, children or older married couple) and be admitted only as one or another of these formations.
3. We have enough trouble on our plate as is with actual paramilitary forces which need to be suppressed and killed, and that is trouble we can see, not trouble we speculate about. I see nothing to be gained by lobbing insults at Muslims or making vitriolic statements about them or pretending we’re in a war with “Islam” when the occidental world has gone long stretches without much violent conflict with components of the Near East or North Africa or Central Asia (much less violent conflict which draws specifically on Muslim scripture).
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:23 pmwell it’s not that simple, for every paramilitary there are many more support personnel, take this Abu Samra fellow,
http://20committee.com/2014/09/09/paris-is-overwhelmed-by-the-jihadi-threat/
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:36 pmbarack obama
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:37 pmhe’s the JV President
lies when his lips move
I realize that as a civilized American it can be difficult to see a cult of war and barbarism who wraps itself up as a religion and judge it evil. But for a thousand years they’ve done little more than destroy everything in their path
You need to get a grip.
The Near East, Central Asia, and North Africa are not ‘destroyed’. These are just parts of the Third World, poor compared to the West but not so much as Tropical Africa or some outliers like Burma or Haiti. Most of these countries have made an embarrassing hash of their sovereign freedom in recent decades, but then again Latin American politics ca. 1855 was not exactly edifying.
They have not destroyed anything in the occidental world either. The Ottoman Turks were not Genghis Khan and company, their position in the Balkans was in a state of monotonic decline from 1683 onward, and they were pushed out of Europe entirely by 1913 bar that little knock of Thrace they still hold. They then had their ass handed to them during the 1st World War and lost all of their non-Anatolian Turkish territory bar the unfortunate Kurdish provinces. (The Moors did not destroy Hispania either, and were ejected from it for good more than 500 years ago).
These truculent and violent characters are Muslims. One might consider – and Thomas Sowell is instructive here – that they are also pride-driven people who’ve suffered serial humiliations for more than three centuries; humiliations are what happens when you fight people and compete with people who are not your equals. Sowell offers that, given challenges and reversals of fortune, recrimination rather than efforts at constructive self-improvement are the modal response among human collectivities.
Look at the loathing for Israel manifest in the Egyptian media (and Egyptian society at large). What’s Israel done to Egypt? Not a whole lot and almost nothing the Egyptian government did not ask for, but Egyptians carry around with them the knowledge that Jewish warriors destroyed their Air Force in 1967 and prevailed against the Egyptian military in 1948 and 1956 and 1967 and at least held their own in 1973. The Jews have historically been a subaltern population in Arab societies.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:42 pmfundamentally
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:46 pma misguided view of world
this Prez in nutshell
he’s the “Lyin’ of the Desert”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:48 pmhe is out of touch
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:51 pmwe are nearly out of time
say it isn’t so
feed these Gitmo clowns
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 2:54 pmfirst lady’s school lunch menu
they’ll beg for quick death
The links in this post appear to be going to this URL instead:
https://patterico.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=87039&action=edit&message=10
School Marm (228bed) — 9/10/2014 @ 3:01 pmConsidering the hideous rules of engagement I don’t think risking the lives of our soldiers is worth the retaliation of an American journalist’s beheading.
mg (31009b) — 9/10/2014 @ 3:26 pmTroops on the United States Borders first, president hoebama
#59.
I wasn’t trying to say that Islam being politicized was true in ALL cases. Just in a general sense. It is the case in many of the Islamic countries that religious leaders were allowed to speak on subjects that other political opposition would be silenced for. Many of the governments used the political Islam to take heat off themselves and allowed it in some form. Obviously, there are situations where Islamic Political dissent was also oppressed, as with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
The issue of political opposition in Islam was also cited as by Fareed Zakaria recently in an article (http://fareedzakaria.com/2014/09/05/why-they-still-hate-us-13-years-later/). It was also affirmed as an issue by an Egyptian (Now a American, his family is still in Egypt) as recently as Saturday.
Are you saying the issue is entirely irrelevant? I’m also confused as to why you bring up Occam’s Razor with my statement.
Dejectedhead (a094a6) — 9/10/2014 @ 4:01 pmPlease name the last great contribution made by a Muslim scientist. Or writer. Or composer. Or entrepreneur.
Outside of a democratic society.
Birdbath (3be0e2) — 9/10/2014 @ 4:27 pm“The issue of political opposition in Islam was also cited as by Fareed Zakaria recently in an article.”
wonder who he stole that from?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 4:47 pm#74. Who knows. I have heard it before though. It ain’t the first reference.
DejectedHead (9b0c64) — 9/10/2014 @ 4:52 pmAnd you need to get both a perspective and some enhanced knowledge of history.
Compared to what they were, they most certainly are “destroyed”.
North Africa had thriving Christian communities. Parts of Tunisia and Algeria were once of the main breadbaskets of the Roman Empire. Now they are a desert wasteland.
For the Near East, Egypt was also a net food exporter that now verges on starvation, surviving only on massive food subsidies. While some of the devastation of Mesopotamia can be blamed on the Mongols the failure of the region to ever recover its past status once the Mongols had settled in and converted to Islam can only be blamed on Islam. As for Turkey, how other than Islam would you explain it sinking into a technological rut after using cannon to seize Constantinople?
Central Asia into India suffered the loss of tens of millions of people and half its territory to invading Muslims, and now must deal with a Muslim minority.
They certainly destroyed the Byzantine Empire.
And they destroyed Christian North Africa.
They maintained a stranglehold on Hispania for 700 years, consuming men and delaying its progress.
They enslaved the Balkans for 450 years, claiming a portion of the population as slave soldiers and sex slaves.
Their is even an entire school of history that assigns blame for the Dark Ages on the Muslim expansion rather than the more convention barbarian hordes or Christianity.
Again, check that history.
Muslims were unchecked for decades until the Battle of Tours and constantly battled France for another 3 centuries before the Reconquista pushed the border far enough back.
The Ottomans fought the Byzantines for 2 centuries, the Hungarians for 1-1/2 centuries, and the Hapsburgs for 3 centuries. They began to lose only in 1683, being continually victorious for the 4 centuries before that.
I find myself utterly unable to sympathize with them having to be on the losing side for the past 3 centuries after 9 centuries of expansion.
And so the West, and Israel, should feel guilty about defeating their long time oppressors and willingly embrace a secondary status so as not to offend their “proper” overlords?
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/10/2014 @ 5:03 pmI hear communists remain thoroughly put out that the U.S. won the Cold War. Should we similarly submit to the unrestrained reign of the current administration so as not to continue offending them into subverting our government with voter fraud and lawfare?
#73, Birdbath, how about weaponizing the Ebola virus?
ropelight (192dd7) — 9/10/2014 @ 5:05 pmweak indecisive
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2014 @ 5:18 pmmendoucious and limp-wristed
feckless obama
The limp-wrist is what causes his slice, Col.
mg (31009b) — 9/10/2014 @ 5:47 pmRef #5 – Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:59 am
“See, that’s the thing , felipe. I have never been disappointed by the Liar in Chief. I knew what he was from the beginning and knew exactly what we were getting. And we got it.”
= = = = = =
Hoagie forgot to add the obligatory ” – good and hard” to the end of his last sentence there…
A_Nonny_Mouse (386917) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:12 pmUPDATE: Link fixed. Sorry about that.
Patterico (9c670f) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:12 pmAnd you need to get both a perspective and some enhanced knowledge of history.
You’re instructing me?
—
Parts of Tunisia and Algeria were once of the main breadbaskets of the Roman Empire. Now they are a desert wasteland.
1. You’ve repeated memes derived from discourses promoting French colonialism. Please see Will Swearingen’s work on this point (re Morocco): the notion that Morocco was some sort of hyper-productive granary had to have been much exaggerated.
http://www.amazon.com/Moroccan-Mirages-Agrarian-Deceptions-1912-86/dp/1850430713/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410398861&sr=1-6
2. The productive parts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia are in a zone which has a “California” climate of seasonally variable rainfall. It’s a chaparral biome. Agriculture accounts for between 9% and 15% of value added in these countries, about normal for countries of that level of affluence. Algeria and Tunisia are net importers of food (the former more than the latter). Morocco’s is roughly balanced). As for the extent of the Sahara, that predates the Romans and the Arabs.
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/naturenet/11341/desert-menu
—
For the Near East, Egypt was also a net food exporter that now verges on starvation, surviving only on massive food subsidies.
Egypt is a net food importer. That reflects in part its deteriorating trade situation in recent years consequent to political unrest. As recently as 2009, the trade deficit in foodstuffs amounted to < 1% of gdp. Also, the deficit of caloric intake in Egypt is quite modest – not only in comparison with Tropical African countries (e.g. Ethiopia) but in comparison with Balkan ones (e.g. Servia). Egypt is not starving. The food subsidies are antique and derive from efforts to please urban consumers.
—
can only be blamed on Islam. As for Turkey, how other than Islam would you explain it sinking into a technological rut after using cannon to seize Constantinople?
I gather you fancy that that you need only one factor to explain temporal variation in technological adaptation or any other social phenomena. That aside, the Ottomans reached their territorial maximum in the latter 16th century. And, of course, you’ve seen the rise and decline of a succession of empires since: Spain’s, Britain’s, and Soviet Russia’s to name three. It would be odd to attribute their problems to “Islam”.
They certainly destroyed the Byzantine Empire. And they destroyed Christian North Africa.
No, they conquered both and succeeded the extant political class therein. The Christian civilization in both dissipated consequent to political subordination. That happens when one place conquers another and Christianity was advanced in Central and Eastern Europe by conquerors and kings as well as by missionaries.
They maintained a stranglehold on Hispania for 700 years, consuming men and delaying its progress.
Actually, Early Medieval Iberia was a comparatively affluent and sophisticated part of Europe at that time. If you wish to offer a counter-factual and say that continued Visigothic rule would have featured an even more affluent and sophisticated territory, fine. One does not ordinarily state counter-factuals all that emphatically.
They enslaved the Balkans for 450 years, claiming a portion of the population as slave soldiers and sex slaves.
The estimate I was able to locate put the slave share of the Ottoman population at 20% of the total, similar to British North America. Do you really want to make an issue of this?
Their is even an entire school of history that assigns blame for the Dark Ages on the Muslim expansion rather than the more convention barbarian hordes or Christianity.
An idea propagated by Henri Pirenne. See Philip Daileader on this issue. Pirenne’s thesis is not much subscribed to by specialists in Early Medieval Europe, who look more toward autonomous long-term demographic decline as a cause.
Again, check that history. Muslims were unchecked for decades until the Battle of Tours and constantly battled France for another 3 centuries before the Reconquista pushed the border far enough back.
I was thinking in terms of contrasting fortunes over historical periods. The point is not that esoteric.
And so the West, and Israel, should feel guilty about defeating their long time oppressors and willingly embrace a secondary status so as not to offend their “proper” overlords?
Will you sober up before posting again?
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:26 pmBy the way, when accounting for what “militant Islam” has done in the West, don’t forget to add the British tube bombing, the train bombing in Spain, and the God-awful atrocities at Beslan. Plus the Bali bombing, and the pizza place in Israel, and the Lockerbie bombing, and the crazy French guy who killed a bunch of schoolkids, and the crazy British guy who beheaded the soldier, and on, and on, and on — all across the world, and also across the span of history.
Stop pretending that “militant Islam” is somehow separate from the rest of Islam. Their schizophrenic “holy book” talks out of both sides of its mouth, just like our Dear Leader does. Islam *IS* at war with us because the infernal book says to wage war against the Unbelievers until Islam is dominant everywhere. So, they are. By any and all means. Committed, unforgiving, eternal enmity. Please do not misunderstand this point. The vast majority of Muslims don’t take part in the “bloody hands” part because Allah and his jihadis are doing quite, quite well as it is. Insh’allah, as God wills it, the whole world will be ruled by one Caliph. The Koran says so. All the “peaceful” majority has to do is bide their time until then.
And for all the apologists who tell us, “Oh, that’s not the REAL Islam” . . . just look at the history books. It’s been the “real Islam” for 1400 years so far. It was the REAL Islam on 9-11. It was the REAL Islam back when Churchill wrote about it. It was the REAL Islam when the Barbary Pirates were raiding our ships. It was the REAL Islam when Martin Luther wrote “On the War against the Turk”. It was the REAL Islam that -over several centuries- conquered the Indian subcontinent. And it was the REAL Islam when Mohammed’s thugs killed off all the men of whole villages, burying them in mass graves and taking the women and children as slaves.
Islam isn’t going to change. It CANNOT change. It is what it is; it is what it always has been. Why on earth are we still deluding ourselves?
A_Nonny_Mouse (386917) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:39 pmPlease name the last great contribution made by a Muslim scientist. Or writer. Or composer. Or entrepreneur.
Neguib Mahfouz was a Nobel laureate in Literature. Abdus Salam was awarded the physics prise. Here’s a site on traditional Arab music http://www.traditionalarabicmusic.com/ . As for entrepreneurs, this company was founded in 2005 http://www.allseasshipping.com/team/
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 7:45 pmArt Deco – Good job responding to things which Sam did not say.
1. You’ve repeated memes derived from discourses promoting French colonialism.
Since I believe Sam was referring to the Islamic takeover of the area in the 7th century, not the 20th century conditions described in the book which for some reason you refer to, the claim made by Sam stands.
They certainly destroyed the Byzantine Empire. And they destroyed Christian North Africa.
No, they conquered both and succeeded the extant political class therein. The Christian civilization in both dissipated consequent to political subordination.
How is that not a distinction without a difference? When the population of conquered territories converts to Islam over 100-200 years is not the Christian society destroyed? Splitting words again Mr. Deco?
If you wish to offer a counter-factual and say that continued Visigothic rule would have featured an even more affluent and sophisticated territory, fine.
What kind of an argument is the above?
Please elaborate on who is responsible for the three centuries of shame endured by the Arab peoples.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:05 pmSince I believe Sam was referring to the Islamic takeover of the area in the 7th century
Daleyrocks, when “Sam” says “Now they are a desert wasteland”, I think he actually does mean “now”. (Dr. Swearingen’s book has discussions of historical and contemporary matters, btw).
How is that not a distinction without a difference?
When you’re not giving it much thought. If you want to ‘destroy’ a place, you level its physical capital, irrigation works in particular. (Justinian’s misbegotten attempt to reconquer Italy pretty much ruined the place). Again, empires rise and decline and territories and people change hands in the rough and tumble of war. There’s nothing all that local to Islam in that. There may be particular social forms which attend warfare or particular tactics and strategy, but that’s a different issue.
What kind of an argument is the above?
He made assertions about the condition of Medieval Iberia I doubt any historian of the period would subscribe to given the comparative condition of Iberia and much of the rest of Europe. No clue why you find my point so confusing.
Please elaborate on who is responsible for the three centuries of shame endured by the Arab peoples.
I’m not assessing that. The Arabs have lost out in recent centuries. That’s what happens. They haven’t taken it well.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/10/2014 @ 8:22 pm“Daleyrocks, when “Sam” says “Now they are a desert wasteland””
Nah, right after he goes through the expansion of Islam in the centuries after its founding, I don’t thing so. Particularly when his frame of reference is the Roman Empire.
“He made assertions about the condition of Medieval Iberia I doubt any historian of the period would subscribe to given the comparative condition of Iberia and much of the rest of Europe. No clue why you find my point so confusing.”
You are mistaken. I did not find your confusing. I found it absurd. You were the one suggesting a Visigoth alternative could have been different. Hey, so could a lot of other alternatives that didn’t happen, so they are dumb hypothetical arguments.
“I’m not assessing that. The Arabs have lost out in recent centuries.”
My mistake – your words “that they are also pride-driven people who’ve suffered serial humiliations for more than three centuries”. I used shame instead of humiliations. So now they have these pathological revanchist Islamic movements set loose upon the world, post-Iranian takeover by my reckoning and the occident is worried. Maybe I need to be referred to a book to get my head right or read more of your polysyllabic profundity.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:42 am99% of Arabs are only fit to sit around picking lice off of themselves. .0001% had ancestors who were in the right place at the right time and now take the skim from oil extracted by foreign oil companies. That is the cause of frustration in the remaining .999% who comprise H-1 workers, gas station owners, and terrorists.
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:41 am*remaining .0999%*
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:49 amAre you really so uninformed or are you being deliberately deceptive.
Exactly zero Muslim scientists have earned Nobel prizes in science in Muslim countries.
Mohammed Abdus Salam earned his prize for work he did in Europe. He had no choice. His sect, the Ahmadiyya sect, was declared heretical and non-Muslim in his native Pakistan. There were several reasons for this. But one reason is that Ahmadis accept western science.
He is one of two Muslims to have earned Nobel prizes in science. The other is an Egyptian-American science who earned his in chemistry.
Congrats on noting that some obscure author won a Nobel prize in literature. That’s right down there with the peace prize as being merely a political statement. The mercy f%$@ of literary achievement. And anybody can find websites on folk music.
Neither getting a Nobel prize in scribbling or having a website qualifies as a “great contribution” in terms of significance to the world.
All in all your comment was very Obamaesque. In that when Obama utters something, it seems really profound until you think about it for a second and realize it’s all nonsense. In fact, your comment does nothing more than emphasize the fact that no Muslim in modern times has made any great contributions to humanity in terms of the arts. And that the achievements of the two Muslims who did achieve something in science had to flee Islam to do so, and in any case given the relative populations the achievements of Muslims are practically non-existent compared to the achievements of Jewish scientists.
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 4:21 amAre you really so uninformed or are you being deliberately deceptive.
I answered his question. You pose a different question and accuse me of being deceptive for not answering the question I was not asked. My integrity is not the problem here.
If you want to know something about the work of natural scientists, physicians, and engineers look in databases of scientific, medical, and technical literature, and sort by institutional address. You’ll indubitably find some people based in the Muslim world or from there and working temporarily in the occident. You won’t find many. Muslim countries tend to be poor countries without the margin to set aside for scientific and technical research. Could I name off the top of my head a working scientist who was not a relative or employed at an institution which did not employ me? Of course not. Research scientists publish for small professional audiences and the ones who publish for general audiences are disproportionately composed of people who do not publish professionally much anymore or make buffoons of themselves , or both. I picked a Nobel laureate because some of them might just qualify as public figures.
Mahfouz is not obscure and his work was first translated into English decades ago.
—
Really, his question was stupid. Much of the Muslim world is economically depressed and the political cultures therein are often diseased. What’s the point of suggesting that no one therein has any achievements of interest? Is that minimally plausible to you fools?
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:22 am99% of Arabs are only fit to sit around picking lice off of themselves.
Of course, any Arab country has a generous complement of farmers, merchants, artisans, factory workers, teachers, technicians, professionals, &c. You also see the sad sorts an urban geographer once described to me as ‘individual-as-enterprise’ or part of the ‘family-as-enterprise’ attempting to eke out a living in spot labor and small trade. Arab countries vary a great deal in their level of affluence and technical sophistication.
Do you say foul and asinine stuff like that just to amuse yourself?
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:28 amNah, right after he goes through the expansion of Islam in the centuries after its founding, I don’t thing so. Particularly when his frame of reference is the Roman Empire.
Keep on spinning.
—
You are mistaken. I did not find your confusing. I found it absurd.
There’s nothing absurd about it, you haven’t figured out what my point was though it was stated plainly.
—
Maybe I need to be referred to a book to get my head right or read more of your polysyllabic profundity.
You might deal with your personality problems first.
–
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:33 amarabs have been exploited by vainglorious princes, presidents for life, unscrupulous preachers for time immemorial, they did have a hand in scientific advances back during the middle ages, but that has declined markedly since the 13th century, for reasons you can speculate,
http://www.newsweek.com/four-most-depressing-moments-obamas-speech-269688
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/11/2014 @ 5:45 amBite me, Art Deco. If they hadn’t happened to be sitting on easily-pumped oil, they’d all be living in camel hair tents and wiping their behinds with their left hand because they use the right hand to pick their nose. They’ve been romanticized by the ilk of T.E. Lawrence and other pederasts because they’re a ready source of young boys, but with the exception of that .0999% I mentioned they are a worthless lot.
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:04 am73. 84. 90.
Steve57:
Art Deco:
Steve57:
Art Deco to Steve 57:
Well, maybe it was the wrong question.
This is really a trick answer, but such trick answers sometimes exist.
Really, his question was stupid. Much of the Muslim world is economically depressed and the political cultures therein are often diseased. What’s the point of suggesting that no one therein has any achievements of interest? Is that minimally plausible to you fools?
I think he wanted to say that the political culture of all Islamic countries is diseased.
Is there a trick answer to the other question – somebody who won the Nobel Prize in a scientific field who worked in a Moslem country?
Sammy Finkelman (d11d69) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:21 amBite me, Art Deco. If they hadn’t happened to be sitting on easily-pumped oil,
Arab countries vary in their level of affluence and in the quantum of oil they possess as well. Tunisia has no oil, and neither does Morocco. Both are middle income countries with Latin American standards of living. The oil in Bahrain is long gone. The country has built an economy as a trade entrepot and banking center. Bar Yemen, Mauritania, and the Sudan, none of the Arab countries are especially poor on a global scale.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:22 amI think he wanted to say that the political culture of all Islamic countries is diseased.
I think what he wanted to say was what he actually did say (which was not that).
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:24 amYou know Art Deco, if you choose to romanticize this depraved “religion” and think of all it’s followers like the character played by Sean Connery in The Wind and the Lion that’s your choice. And if you see Arabs/Moslems/Islamics or whatever as different, so be it. But to me they’re as different as Methodist/Presbyterian/Lutheran. And if you think them victims that’s your choice. But they’re victims of themselves and their own depraved beliefs. And that’s all well and good as long as they’re over in the Middle East. But once they started coming here and spreading their diseased philosophy around our Republic all bets were off.
Right now, as we speak, Moslems in prisons all across the Fruited Plain are converting angry black men into radical Islamists. Thousands a year. This is one of their best recruiting methods. These men are then released back into our society to spread the faith. But then we are surprised to see Americans fighting with ISIS. And right now through our open, Obama border they are entering our country. And they’re not coming here to get Nobel prizes in science! And sooner or later they will use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons on our citizens, your neighbors, but then it’s too late.
These animals never surrender, never stop. They just keep coming because theirs is a philosophy that states Death is Life. They are philosophically, socially, politically and culturally incompatible with the Western concept of a Constitutional Republic and especially religious freedom. They are not a religion! They are a cult political movement bent on conquest and submission cloaked in religious rhetoric having nothing in common with the real religions of the world. I have a greater respect for a damn atheist than a Moslem. At least the atheist doesn’t want to kill me for being Christian.
I’m trying to figure out which American is more dangerous Art Deco: the one who converts to Islam or the one who apologizes for Islam all the time. What I do know is Islam must be stopped.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:07 amYou know Art Deco, if you choose to romanticize this depraved “religion” and think of all it’s followers
You have a reading comprehension issue.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:21 amWinston Churchill’s description of Islam in the The River War is as true today as it was when he wrote it.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:27 amIslam is still a religion that was started by a mass-murdering, pedophile, rapist, thieving slave trader who had sex with his daughter-in-law. And Since all the the above statements are documented by the Koran and Hadith, a Moslem can’t deny those statements without blaspheming. If a non-Moslem denies that is a description of Mohamed, then they should go read the Koran and the Hadith, that information is not hidden. To say it is not true is propagating a lie and deceit.
There is nothing good about Islam. Countries taken over by Islam become third world countries. What is amazing to me is how Obama could possibly believe that ISIL is not Islamic.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:36 amWell, there is Abdul Qadeer Khan. Building a nuclear arsenal in a place where AKs are pounded out by tinkers on their front stoops could not have been easy. But then, Pakistanis are not Arabs.
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:40 amWith my 172 IQ, I must have the same problem.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:41 amProbably, Art Deco. I do have dyslexia so I often screw up words, spelling and subsequently some comprehension. However, I do not have a Threat Assessment comprehension issue which you apparently do.
You may not agree with me but I am not a threat to you, your family, out country or our way of life. They are!
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:41 amI agree with Tanny O’Haley…..in spades.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:44 amThirteen years ago today Moslems hijacked our own commercial planes and used them to hit the WTC, the Pentagon and fortunately the other was brought down by Patriots. Today some among us are talking about a “religion of peace”, tolerance and even the President lies through his teeth and tells us ISIS/ISIL is not Islamic. I guess he thinks they’re damn Mormons. To him white, Christian men are the real threat.
We’re living in a politically correct nightmare of leftist creation where Moslems blow up buildings and must be “tolerated” but when a Christian baker refuses to bake a damn cake the entire force of government descends in him to crush his insolence.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 7:54 am“Bar Yemen, Mauritania, and the Sudan, none of the Arab countries are especially poor on a global scale.”
So Egypt has a substantial middle class ? You are delusional.
Mike K (d85405) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:14 amAn alert from the puppeteer, Master Soros:
The one and only certain takeaway–Mr. Soros is very, very much on the wrong side of the EU bet.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:26 am108. When you are the only one in the room who cannot see that you are obviously the smartest one present, you just might be a Liberal.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:30 am110. *can*, Doh. Plainly I never have the prob.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:32 amSo Egypt has a substantial middle class ? You are delusional.
Egypt is a poor country. It has a large mass of its workforce in peasant agriculture and in the informal economy, which you do not see in occidental countries. It also has a stratum of merchants and salaried employees like anywhere else. Social stratification in Egypt was irrelevant to my point, which is that Arab countries are generally not poor on a global scale. They are not. That you cannot be bothered to look at the national income statistics is not my problem.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:42 am“national income statistics”
Kuwait’s per capita income is $50,000. A family of five lives like the The Cosby show? No, a family of one thousand lives like Arab princes and a family of five lives like the Good Times show.
The good Times show. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Times
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:51 amAnd that’s being charitable.
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 8:52 amClearly I have to, as you do not seem to know much about the multiple historical periods and social, political, economic, and hard science involved.
Just to check:
No, no mention of Morocco there.
Once again, I said Tunisia and Algeria with no mention of Morocco.
As for Tunisia and Algeria, I refer you to Cato the Elder and his trip to Carthage, from which he returned with a massive bunch of fresh grapes as a symbol of its agricultural might.
While your classical education may be non-existent, mine is not, and I will defer to Cato the Elder on his assessment of the agricultural potential of Carthage, aka “parts of Algeria and Tunisia”.
You do not need only one factor.
But sometimes such can be explained primarily by only one factor.
That aside, I know that. And? You seem to offer as if it scores you some point. It does not.
You also want to assert that just because one particular fact causes the decline, or rise, of one particular empire it must be the cause of the decline or rise of every single empire. That is beyond wrong.
No, the Christian civilization in both dissipated consequent to slaughter, enslavement, and oppression. Parsing it with “consequent to political subordination” might pretty it up enough to be palatable to some, but it does not eliminate the very real brutality of the conquest and subjugation of the region.
Conversely, after a hundred years of so of European rule of North Africa and the Middle East, Islamic “culture” remains strangely prevalent. Not only doesn’t it happen whenever one place conquers another, but it provides a stark contrast between the savagery of the Muslim conquest and the benign attitude of the Christian “conquerors”.
Actually, it was not. While that may be in dissent to the conventional wisdom developed to try and justify how Islam managed to expand so rapidly and threaten Europe so much, and while it serves the ends of Islamists, continued research has exploded virtually all of the fallacies of the so-called “Islamic Golden Age”.
Early Medieval Iberia was a sinkhole of Islamist oppression and rivalry. Christians and Jews were both subject to oppression, generally whenever a more “fundamentalist” successor dynasty took over. Learning was stunted as it was everywhere by the basic beliefs of Islam. It was from exiles that much was learned, but why were they exiles in the first place? And what was left when they had fled?
If you must wallow in obsolete interpretations go right ahead, but do not expect others to be restrained by your appeal to “settled science”.
Certainly.
What you clearly failed to note was that when the Ottomans, and Muslims in general, took African slaves they always castrated the males. Full castration, with its significantly higher death rate. Conversely British, French, and Spanish America accepted uncastrated male slaves, resulting in a significantly lower collateral death rate to provide the same amount of slaves.
So once again your limited knowledge betrays you.
And yet Pirenne’s thesis explains changes that others cannot, in particular why the demographics declined – Muslim slave raiding, loss of trade, and so forth.
You mean you want to contrast the fortunes over a limited period that “proves” your point but wish to exclude contrasting them over the entire period as it utterly disproves your position.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/11/2014 @ 9:16 amCan I interest you in a hockey stick graph regarding climate?
Well technically I mean the period from the Arab takeover until now as contrasted to the period before the Arab takeover.
And while I am aware that a significant climate shift has affected the region, it remains that the Arab conquest did not help matters in maintaining the land.
So then the Arabs showing up and razing cities, enslaving the population, and wrecking the infrastructure of North Africa wasn’t “destroying” but it was “destroying” when Justinian did it in Italy with no regard as to what the Goths and Lombards had already done.
Uh huh.
And yes, all those things do happen all the time without regard to Islam. And yet . . .
Rome destroyed Carthage, but Africa was still a breadbasket.
The Vandals conquered Africa, but Africa was still a breadbasket.
Justinian reconquered Africa, but Africa was still a breadbasket.
The Arab Muslims conquered Africa . . . and it became a desert.
“One of these things, is not like the others. One of these things, doesn’t belong.”
That’s funny, I find many historians of the period subscribing to that description of Medieval Iberia given the comparative condition of the rest of Europe.
Your point is confusing because it asserts that your ignorance of alternative views constitutes evidence that they do not exist or are not valid.
So you know it has happened but refuse to try and explain why.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/11/2014 @ 9:17 amThat is fine.
However you insist that no one else is allowed to suggest that it is because of Islam.
That is not fine, particularly as you have no rebuttal to such an assertion other than declaring it is simply wrong because you don’t like it.
The Arab Muslims conquered Africa . . . and it became a desert.
The boundaries of the Sahara may vary some, but as a climatic zone it antedates any civilization in North Africa, and inhabitants do not control the climate. The productive portions of the Maghreb not only did not disappear, they remain there today. You cannot, if you’re prudent, speak of literary allusions to ancient agricultural productivity as if they were meticulously documented production statistics from today (Dr. Swearingen notes that promoters of French colonialism were taken in by this).
Morocco’s had some crop failures in the last two years (which you are going to get in areas where rainfall is quite variable), but in general all three countries have seen secular increases in crop production the last generation and have about doubled the real value of their output in that time. Cereal yields have more than doubled in Algeria in that time and are half again larger in the othter two.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 10:17 amActually, it was not.
You’re just wrong.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 10:19 amAnd yet Pirenne’s thesis explains changes that others cannot, in particular why the demographics declined – Muslim slave raiding, loss of trade, and so forth.
No, it does not. The political disintigration of western Europe antedates the Muslim conquest of Arabia by 250 years. Problems with agricultural production were already manifest in the time of Diocletian when measures were instituted to attempt to bind peasants to the land. You also had a wretched 6th century plague which further injured the population base.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 10:23 amKuwait’s per capita income is $50,000. A family of five lives like the The Cosby show? No, a family of one thousand lives like Arab princes and a family of five lives like the Good Times show.
Pretty irrelevant to discussing Egyptian production statistics given that natural resources rents do not constitute more than 12% of Egyptian GDP, and a third of those rents are not derived from oil.
The Gulf states have seen natural resources bonanzas. Three or four others have substantial reserves. Most Arab countries are not all that well endowed. The income distribution statistics of these states are unremarkable. Latin America is the locus of this sort of social imbalance, not North Africa.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 10:29 am#109, from gg’s George Soros quote it’s clear the Red Billionaire is no fan at all of diversity, at least not when it comes to holding the EU together. He’s obviously at sixes and sevens, he’s reduced to extolling the virtues of American melting pot politics for the continent of Europe, which is a concept he’s spending lots of money to denigrate here in the US. Like Soros, diversity apparently has two faces, one to unite Europe and another to divide the US.
Soros is foursquare against the evils of what he calls Resurgent nationalism, it’s on the rise and it threatens what he sees as Europe’s shared values and ideals, which really aren’t shared by the EU’s member states, at least not to the extent of overcoming their differences. Soros and his thanes and retainers prefer to pretend his own collectivist agenda is shared by Europeans but the resurgent rise of self-determination, individual freedom, and personal responsibility prove that just ain’t so.
Soros is also against illiberal democracy. By which, of course, he means those who obstinately refuse to vote in favor of his pre-selected candidates and policies. You see, that’s the problem with democracy, overtime the peasants actually do come to believe they really do have a right to their own opinions, which is decidedly a revoltin’ development as King George sees it.
ropelight (489b96) — 9/11/2014 @ 10:46 amWell actually, you can.
Indeed, the productive portions are still there – but they aren’t productive.
Why?
Well, it was productive when the Berbers were there but they weren’t Muslim.
What changed?
Could it be the Arabs showed up an Islamized the region?
Hmmm . . .
According to Islamists and their apologists.
According to history . . . not so much.
Right – antedates.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:05 amThe Franks and Visigoths were generally stable as were the Byzantines in the West. The Byzantines did still have issues with Persia, but neither was in danger of imminent collapse. Even England was on the verge of unification, though their problem came from the Vikings.
That means both the political disintegration and demographic collapse you wish to cite had ended 100-200 years earlier. Europe was recovering and rebuilding. And then the Muslims showed up . . .
Your own timeline citations disprove the discredited theory you insist on holding to.
Rule by Sharia law tends to produce predictable results.
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:09 amIndeed, the productive portions are still there – but they aren’t productive.
Stop talking out of your rear end and read the production stats yourself.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:16 amRule by Sharia law tends to produce predictable results.
I think Saudi Arabia applies the Sharia quite extensively. Other places, not so much.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:17 amEven England was on the verge of unification, though their problem came from the Vikings.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were corralled together in 887 AD and the Danelaw conquered 50 years later. Your about four centuries off.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:19 amAccording to history . . . not so much.
You know little history not adulterated by your imagination.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:21 amEurope was recovering and rebuilding. And then the Muslims showed up . . .
Again, Daileader. The single best guess that early Medieval historians have been able to muster at this time locates western Europe’s economic and demographic nadir in the mid 7th century. You cannot attribute that to the Caliphate because it was brand new at that time and western Europe had been declining for four centuries. The period from the mid-8th century to the mid 9th was the locus of the Carolingian renaissance.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:24 amStop talking out both sides of your rear end trying to make excuses for Islamism and learn the historical record.
You want to hold up that the region is gloriously, albeit selectively, productive now, yet you insist on denying it was productive during the Roman era.
You cannot have it both ways. Either the region can be productive or it cannot, pick one.
Meanwhile you mention the increase in real value as if it was identical to actual production.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:31 amAs for actual production, how much of the recent increase is due to farming methods and technology developed in the West? What was the production without such Western improvements?
You are throwing around statistics as if they prove your point, but all you are doing is proving you have no clue as to how to actually comprehend the available data.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had stabilized into the Heptarchy by 600.
While they spent the next 200 years shifting dominance, they were effectively a coherent social unit at the start of that period, and would have entered a fully unified renaissance in the 9th century but for the Viking invasions.
Notice how that coincides with the ending of the continental renaissance by the appearance of the Muslims as Pirenne described.
You know no history not adulterated by your Islamist apologetics.
Again, selective parsing disproven by the evidence.
Yes, that was the period of the Carolingian renaissance.
How did the Carolingians come about?
Defeating the Muslims at Tours.
What was happening to the Byzantines at that time?
They were being destroyed by the Muslims.
What was happening to the Visigoths at that time?
They had been destroyed by the Muslims.
Why didn’t the Carolingians and their successors expand faster?
They were fighting the Muslims.
Are we noticing a unifying feature in any of that?
Could it be . . . the Muslims?
Why yes, yes it can.
Europe was recovering. Even before the Carolingian period the Merovingians, Visigoths, Byzantines, and Anglo-Saxons were rebuilding Europe. It wasn’t the same superpower as it had been under the Romans, but the successor states were stable and sometimes expanding.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:47 amIt suddenly stopped and was forced to endure centuries of constrained development until a confluence of factors led to the Renaissance and the development of sufficient technologies to swing the balance of power in their favor against the Muslims, who by then were defined by the Ottoman Empire.
Maybe you’ve never seen pictures of homosexuals in Iran being executed in public by hanging them from cranes. Shocka! The Shiites have their schools of Sharia law, too.
Perhaps you missed the recent Hollywood boycott of the Beverly Hills and Bel-Air hotels. They’re owned by the Brunei Investment Group, and Brunei just went full frontal Sharia.
It’s a thing these days in the Islamic world.
Most members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) apply Sharia to personal status issues such as divorce, child custody, etc., and a growing number are, like Brunei, basing their criminal code on Sharia as well.
It ain’t just Saudi Arabia.
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 11:52 amAnd the contours of your criminal code and estate law are not going to have much effect on the pace of economic development unless property rights and investment are compromised. There are lots of rubrics in banking in that part of the world to remain compliant with the Sharia and that may induce some inefficiencies. That aside, there is really nothing unusual about production and income levels in Muslim countries and you can find precise correspondents in non-Muslim countries wherein Sharia law is not even a rumor. Lots of things influence the quantum of economic dynamism in an economy, not just the law code or ethereal elements of culture.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:25 pmAgain, selective parsing disproven by the evidence. Yes, that was the period of the Carolingian renaissance. How did the Carolingians come about? Defeating the Muslims at Tours.
The economic and demographic depression in Frankland cannot be laid at the feet of a brief incursion by Moorish armies ca. 732. (The Carolingians were already established as mayors of the palace to the decrepit Merovingian kings a generation prior to Tours). Neither can a permissive antecedent (no Muslim occupation) account for active efforts at cultural promotion and state building.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:29 pmIt suddenly stopped and was forced to endure centuries of constrained development
Sam, you do realize that you cannot attribute events or phenomena at point of time A to events at point of time B when A proceeds B, no? Economic and demographic decay in Europe pre-dated Mohammed and measures of improvement post-dated Mohammed (with a period of regression in the 9th and 10th centuries). It’s odd, though I suppose Pirenne had his arguments, to suppose that the non-existent Caliphate is somehow responsible for the former and somehow the latter is also indicative of the depredations of the Caliphate.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:35 pmReally? Treating religious minorities (such as Christians and Hindus in Pakistan) as subhumans, keeping them uneducated and in a constant state of fear, allowing them to do only the most menial tasks, doesn’t have an effect on the pace of economic development. Treating women as property, keeping them veiled and in the home unless they’re accompanied by a male relative, and shooting them in the face if they try to get an education (such as Malala Youfsazi in Pakistan) doesn’t have an effect on the pace of economic development? Kicking scientists out of your country because the scientific method is un-Islamic (as happened to Mohammed Abdus Salam in Pakistan) doesn’t have any effect on the pace of economic development.
On some other planet, maybe, but on this one it does.
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:36 pmYou know no history not adulterated by your Islamist apologetics.
Given time and diligent effort, you might just figure out the distinction between taking exception to your deeply confused timelines and sense of causality and “Islamic apologetics”.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:37 pmYou guys are really good at history. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter a rats ass. Current events have Moslems murdering people all over the globe. So ya’ll can throw out Visigoths and “occidental” all you want. The threat is in the here and now and I couldn’t care less what happened 600 years ago. They are currently at war with America. They currently are at war with Western Culture. They currently are at war with Christians and Jews. Nothing else matters at this point. Faithful Moslems will murder everyone on the planet who refuse to convert. Submit, convert or die for Allah is their motto. All this crap about Moors and Carolingians is nothing but rubbish. These people want to kill us and they want to do it now. We cannot change what happened in the past but we sure can get rid of the cancer that infects the present.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:44 pmthere’s lots of really nice muslims i think
oodles and oodles really
and i don’t see much sign that America is interested in helping to create the conditions by which Islam could be reformed
to begin such a project, we’d need to cut loose the royal perverts of the filthy house of saud
meanwhile it won’t help to lump everyone over there together
that’s just not reflective of the political or cultural reality i don’t think
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:51 pmHoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:44 pm
Faithful Moslems will murder everyone on the planet who refuse to convert.
I don’t think they’re actually doing that. They may either be killing people without giving them any choice to convert (captured soldiers, or apostate Moslems, in which category ISIS puts Shiites and Yazidis) or allowing them to leave.
Jihad always mostly was about Moslem rule, not conversions – they consider a outright forced conversions worthless. They tended to remember that, after a while. Of course some of their principles may sometimes contradict other principles, I don’t know.
Submit, convert or die for Allah is their motto.
Is submit the same as convert? There was also leave.
Sammy Finkelman (d11d69) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:56 pmThe country of Jordan has organized some statements of clerics to say that ISIS/ISIL is not following Islam…
Jordan has one captive cleric, associated with original al Qaeda, in particular:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/07/isis-beheadings-islam-abu-qatada
Earlier: Abu Qatada denounces ISIS ‘gold tax’ on Syrian Christians
Sammy Finkelman (d11d69) — 9/11/2014 @ 12:57 pmReally? Treating religious minorities (such as Christians and Hindus in Pakistan) as subhumans, keeping them uneducated and in a constant state of fear, allowing them to do only the most menial tasks, doesn’t have an effect on the pace of economic development. Treating women as property, keeping them veiled and in the home unless they’re accompanied by a male relative, and shooting them in the face if they try to get an education (such as Malala Youfsazi in Pakistan) doesn’t have an effect on the pace of economic development? Kicking scientists out of your country because the scientific method is un-Islamic (as happened to Mohammed Abdus Salam in Pakistan) doesn’t have any effect on the pace of economic development.
1. Religious minorities were not, outside the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, particularly numerous, so that’s not going to have much of an effect in those loci. Egyptian Copts were generally peasant farmers. There was an ample supply of Christian merchants in the Levant during the Ottoman period, and so forth.
2. Only a small minority would have had much schooling three or four generations ago. As we speak, the comparative adult literacy rates of men and women are as follows: Iran, 89% (M) and 84% (F); Kuwait, 96% and 95%; Egypt, 82% and 66%; Saudi Arabia 97% and 91%. Seems like someone is getting some schooling.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:00 pm“1. Religious minorities were not, outside the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, particularly numerous, so that’s not going to have much of an effect in those loci.”
Certainly not after the areas were initially conquered by Muslims, which was a point made earlier by Sam.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:06 pmOh, yes, they were numerous. Much more numerous than they are now. In pre-Partition Pakistan religious minorities (Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians) comprised 15% of the population. That’s not insignificant. But thanks to the riots that accompanied and decades of oppression religious minorities now comprise about 3% of Pakistan’s population.
Persecution tends to have that sort of effect. They were run out of the place, as the Jews were throughout North Africa and the Middle East, and as the Christians are now being run out of Syria and Iraq.
But no worries. I’m sure ethnic/religious cleansing has no effect on the pace of economic development. Isn’t that what you’re going to tell me?
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:19 pmAs we speak, the comparative adult literacy rates of men and women are as follows:
Learning to read the Koran is encouraged*. Boko is what’s haram.
*In Iran, memorizing it gets you a commutation of your prison sentence. It also gives you the power to chase away jinn.
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:24 pmNot the way I see it Sammy. When they say submit they mean live as a second class citizen among them, beware any Moslem can do anything to you he wishes and it’s legal and you can’t own property.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:27 pmBut yes, leaving can be an option. Just like the Nazi’s would let a Jew leave. All they need do is give up their property, belongings, possessions such as jewelry and all their money and they’re welcome to leave. That then begs the question if their design of a world-wide caliphate is realized what then happens to all those who “left”? I think we all know that answer.
Beldar mentioned, in a previous thread, that Nazi “resettlement areas” in the East were a deep trench and a machine gun with the crews on two-hour shifts.
nk (dbc370) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:30 pm“I’m sure ethnic/religious cleansing has no effect on the pace of economic development.”
Steve57 – It’s part of that quantum of economic dynamism and/or ethereal parts of culture that varies from place to place with no rhyme or reason.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:34 pmOne other thought Sammy. If leaving is really a viable option with Moslems why don’t they just let the Christians, Jews, apostates and gays leave? I mean frankly, I don’t like illegals, leftists, anarchists, socialists, communists, feminists, Al Sharpton and Moslems and as far as I’m concerned they are all free to leave.. Shoo! I lift my lamp beside the golden Exit Sign.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 1:38 pmBut no worries. I’m sure ethnic/religious cleansing has no effect on the pace of economic development. Isn’t that what you’re going to tell me?
I was not planning on telling you that. Please recall, you attributed the state of economic development in the Muslim world to Sharia law, not that you have a clear idea the pathway through which this is supposed to operate (in places where it is sytemically applied and in places where it is selectively incorporated into legal codes (and neglecting also that underdevelopment is quite unremarkable in this world, Sharia or no Sharia). Then you made anachronistic remarks about the abuse of confessional minorities (and had to go to the periphery of the Muslim world to find any such minorities). Then you rant about women being killed to prevent their schooling, as if gruesome human interest stories were a reliable guide to mundane life.
You know, there are economists and sociologists and geographers who spend their careers trying to make sense of what makes societies tick in this respect: why they develop rapidly in one place, slowly in another, not at all in another. Why not write them and tell them they’re wasting their time because the obvious answer to their researches is Sharia law and wife beating.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/11/2014 @ 2:13 pmBethlehem used to be 80% Christian, now zero.
Thank you Sam for the history lesson, I appreciate the knowledge.
Hoagie, thank you for bringing us back to the present.
Tanny O'Haley (79c656) — 9/11/2014 @ 2:46 pmThis trope about Islam being a peaceful religion has been around for a long time:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=dy6dlh&s=8 (circa 1885 book, by Lady montagu, reprinted 1924)
Page 114: http://i59.tinypic.com/23hsnf5.jpg
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:11 pmHoagie, Sharia is an integral part of Islam. This is why groups like IS execute secularized Muslims. Because such a thing is an affront to Islam. They are elevating man-made law above Allah’s law. Therefore they are hypocrites, not Muslims, and worthy of death.
Islam isn’t just a belief system, it’s a governing ideology. Muhammad was not just a prophet but a ruler, a warlord, and the judge over all things among the Muslims.
http://quran.com/4/65
Muslims are commanded to obey not just the Quran but to obey the authority established by the Sunnah, the “well trodden path,” of Muhammad. Ibn Kathir was one of the premier commentators on the Quran. Anyone who translates the Quran into English must refer to ibn Kathir in order to ensure they accurately convey the meaning of the text.
http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=644&Itemid=59
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:18 pmActually by “Magnus Lady”
Lady Katie Magnus.
Somebody in England with half knowledge.
Born at Portsmouth May 2, 1844. Daughter of E. Emanuel; wife of Sir Philip Magnus.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:20 pm145. there were different things.
I don’t think ISIS (or al Qaeda or the Taliban) is following anything
For one thing, the extreme segregation of the sexes they impose when their rule is fully established has never before been seen any where – not even in Saudi Arabia.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:23 pmThere has not been a valuable Muslim addition to the world since the concept of ‘zero’ and shoes in 4,000 B.C.
Birdbath (3be0e2) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:31 pmJust in case anyone reads #153 and is under the impression that a Muslim must refer to the Quran and the Sunnah only in matters of religion (nothing in the true Islamic state is outside the realm of “religion”), ibn Kathir explains how 4:65 came about.
http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=640&Itemid=59
Islam, you will note, encompasses everything. Including water rights.
To put secular law above Sharia is to reject Muhammad as the judge in all disputes. And anyone who does that can not be a Muslim, because they have no faith.
Steve57 (b7cfe5) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:33 pm“Then you rant about women being killed to prevent their schooling, as if gruesome human interest stories were a reliable guide to mundane life.”
Mr. Deco – If you want to advance an argument that keeping women ignorant has no impact on the economic development of a society, please feel free.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:39 pmMy dates could be off.
Birdbath (3be0e2) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:40 pmArt Deco, killing women to prevent their schooling is not a gruesome human interest story. It is a way of life and the law according to their idiot prophet.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/11/2014 @ 3:49 pmchinesers kill lots of girls too
but they also buy lots of our paper
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/11/2014 @ 4:34 pmHowever the Muslim invasion, which was not brief, can very much account for being the final event that gave the Carolingians the prestige they needed to seize power from the Merovingians.
Further, the Muslim invasion provided a basis for the Carolingians to become the protectors of Rome, setting the stage for the Holy Roman Empire.
And yes, in point of fact, the lack of the Muslim occupation but continued threat of a Muslim invasion can absolutely account for the active efforts of the Carolingians to promote Christianity, along with the state building required to promote it.
If A proceeds B then you absolutely can say that A led to B.
You cannot automatically conclude it without supporting evidence, but something that happened yesterday can absolutely cause something that happens tomorrow.
So wait . . . now you want to move the period of regression from the 4th-6th centuries to the 9th-10th centuries?
Perhaps you should make up you mind when they actually occurred before challenging me as to what caused which.
Further, since it escapes your notice, the 9th and 10th centuries post-date Mohammed, meaning the influence of the expanding Muslim states very much could have caused the regression.
You really seem to be having a significant problem with the concept of linear time and cross-referencing events from one cultural group to another cultural group.
Except you just said that a regression occurred when the Caliphate was existent.
Or will you now try to parse the Caliphate out of existence in the 9th-10th centuries? At this point it is hard to know how you will try and redact history next to make it fit the obsolete and flawed model advanced by Gibbon.
Given time and diligent effort, you might just figure out the distinction between taking exception to the properly cross-referenced timeline and sense of causality I present and the Islamic apologetics based off of anti-Catholic and anti-English Rivals propaganda that produced the myth of a Muslim Golden Age in the first place.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:29 pmmeanwhile, only the best & brightest are given positions in the White House here in Obamamerica…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/11/2014 @ 6:32 pm157. “Islam, you will note, encompasses everything”
If I were an intellectually curious sort, your point ought to put the matter to rest.
Being an Obot troll tho, I am immune.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 9/11/2014 @ 9:38 pmyes, there’s no excuse for that,
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/11/2014 @ 9:47 pm