(Q1)
1ai)Its a fair cop gov. WE did not behave in the best way when we let isreal be created and we've hardly reigned in its excesses. However I don't think Osama would agree with me on a secular multi-ethnic Cis-Jordan.
1aii)Historical rights over Cis-Jordan, BS for the Jews, BS for Muslims.
1aiii)I can see why the palestinians might desire to be avenged. Revenge never solved anything
1b)Fair cop.
1ci)Sharia, as with all laws based on faith and religious texts, is inflexible and causes more injustice than justice.
1cii)Fair cop.
1ciii)Don't know about this one.
1civ)See 1ai, states with a religious basis are pernicious and reactionary almost by definition, see also 1ci.
1cv)Yes we are connected with the fuck-up that is Isreal, but it doesn't justtify the means. Ahimsa, anyone.
1d)Yep, the US's main motivation in going to war against Iraq seems to be to break OPEC and let the taps flow, untill it runs out in 10-15 years time.
1e)Sod neo imperialism, good old fashioned imperialism is alive and well in Arabia, client states abound.
1f)Fair cop.
1g)Fair cop. Many jewish arrivistes would desire nothing more than drive the muslims from the 'holy' city
2)See 1e.
3a)Good argument but it does make the rather large assumption that US or any other western democracy is either fully functioning or even fully democratic.
3b)See above.
3c)Only a part of the American people, not the representaion of the whole. See also 3a.
3d)See above and 3a.
3e)Fair but as with everything so in section 3 the American people aren't some kind of hive mind.
3f)'An eye for and eye until the whole world is blind'
(Q2)
1a)Mao said, 'Religion is Poison', for once I agree with him.
1b)I don't even know if this is true but see point 1a.
2a)Not gonna happen, we've freed ourselves from the yoke of theocratic oppression, we have economic and social oppression left to conquer.
2b)Fantastic Osama thinks that we are the worst civilization in the History of Mankind.
2bi)See 1civ.
2bii)South see company to Enron, we're greedy buggers aren't we. But why not attack this from a well rounded economic and social platform rather that from that of the Zealot.
2biii)Fun isn't it. Attack the west for its hypocrisy rather than for its lack of abeyance to the word of some deranged imagining of a sixth century man.
2biv)Clinton was forgiven largely because he was the most intelligent man to have inhabited the whitehouse for 40 years.
2bv)See 2bii.
2bvi)True but there are much better secular (femenist/humanist) arguments against this.
2bvii)We're all just fornicating all the time.
2bviii)And we all thought that this was a cruel twist in primate virus evolution.
2bix)Fair cop. Kyoto doesn't even go far enough but GWB can't even get his house in order to make the limited sacrifices to achieve this.
2bx)First sentence fair point. I thought it was the queen the free masons, the c*rlyle group and elvis.
2bxi)Fair point.
2bxii)Fair point.
2bxiia)How many tinpot dictators has the west propped up in the name of 'freedom and democracy'
2bxiib)Fair enough. We should disarm before persuading others to do so.
2bxiic)Yep, just how many UN resolutions on Palestine, have been willfully ignored, for starters.
2bxiid)Just as the victor writes the rules the victor decides on who are the war criminals. The ICC was meant to sort this out but the GWB regime has sort to undermine this.
2bxiie)9/11 was just an excuse for our respective regimes to tighten the screws on our civil liberties that have been in a state of continual erosion for years. A godsend for Blunkett and all like him. Hypocrisy is king.
3)Substitute nation for regime or succession of regimes and he's got the west figured
4)Let us banish religion from politics and then, and only then, can we start working these problems out.
5)Fair enough, it is really time to be done with imperialism.
6)Fair enough, this is obviously a call for an end to the support of the al Saud monarchy an evil and pernicious regime if ever there was one. However replacing it with a 5th century Zealotracy is not the answer.
7)Apart from the bit about the jews this could be a general call from the third world to the first world.
Given different circumstances Osama would have made a good socialist.
― Ed (dali), Sunday, 24 November 2002 11:18 (twenty-three years ago)
Agreed. I think what running through it point by point does is show why OBL's position is attractive to the dowtrodden masses of the Muslim world. Its interesting that the one place in the Muslim world where OBL's followers are few is Iran, this has got to be in part because of the Sunni/Shia split, but more likely because Iran is an Islamic democracy. Admittedly very flawed but reform progresses in fits and starts and offers a good deal more hope to the muslims of the world than the despots of Arabia and North Africa.
Two arguments to be put up against this:
1) What about Turkey Indonesia and Malaysia? Turkey's democracy has been hobbled by the power of the armed forces. Indonesia and Mayasia are emerging from dictatorship and are having problems attendant with that.
2)Surely the aim is secular democracy? Well yes, but these things take time and Secularism has little to endear itself to the man in the Souk. 'Secular' 'democracies' have spent a lot of time meddling and bombing muslims the world over.
It's going to take a long time to sort things out. We (the west) have been meddling in other peoples affairs for far too long. It may even be fair to say that Jihad as a Holy war as opposed to an internal struggle was a British or Russian construct to encourage the Afghans to attack their one or the other.
I think the solution is to remodel Israel as a secular multi ethnic democracy, a beacon to the rest of the middle east.
― Ed (dali), Sunday, 24 November 2002 19:50 (twenty-three years ago)
twenty years pass...