Profiles in Islam

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

ever hear of a little place called ... bosnia??? where nominal muslims were targeted for extermination by a quasi-fascist population feeding off of religiously based 500 year old myths? i know your response -- but muslims were involved!

 

the absolutely brutal russian occupation of chechnya shoots a hole in your theory as well. the chechens aren't blameless, but they didn't start it and their actions pale in comparison to the nominally christian russians, and their historically based grievances against the russians (primarily stalin) are entirely valid.

 

as for tolerance of other religions in muslim countries, you may want to check turkey.  seems to me that they have an excellent relationship with israel as well.

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Actually, his response will be "But those aren't religious conflicts!" (Or, in the case of Bosnia, "That's not a current conflict!") You see, he's constructed this nice circular argument where major religious conflicts only involve Islamic countries, because only Islamic countries fight for religious reasons, ergo Muslims are universally bad...just because. I'm sure he would characterize any other conflict - the Irish Troubles, for example - as not being religious, simply because Islam wasn't involved (Northern Ireland, for example, being a revolt against direct British rule - never mind the fact that the area was completely polarized along Protestant and Irish Catholic lines).

 

Indonesia invading East Timor, on the other hand, IS a religious conflict, because Islam is involved. Never mind the fact that, at the time, East Timor was a majority Islamic country invaded by a Catholic general at the behest of a totalitarian dictator who not only was motivated by the desire to suppress East Timor's democratic movement, but discriminated against Muslims anyway.

 

But it's so much simpler to just say "Muslims bad!" Saves people like him the trouble of actually learning about things.

[GG]

as for tolerance of other religions in muslim countries, you may want to check turkey.  seems to me that they have an excellent relationship with israel as well.

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I don't know if I'd use the word "excellent" The strained relations with Jordan are a tad better.

[dave mcbride]

I don't know if I'd use the word "excellent"  The strained relations with Jordan are a tad better.

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the israelis and turkey have developed a close military relationship in the past 10 years. no, their relationship isn't perfect, but it's better than many of israel's relationships with nominally christian countries. (a close and old friend of mine is the northeast regional director for aipac, and he'd vouch for me on this one.)

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

I don't know if I'd use the word "excellent"  The strained relations with Jordan are a tad better.

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And Egypt. Anyone notice the only occupied territories the Israelis have withdrawn from border Egypt?

 

Israel-Jordan relations are probably better than most suspect. Jordan's a relatively weak country surrounded by relatively strong neighbors with a relatively large population of displaced Palestinians, and they successfully execute a delicate political balancing act trying to deal with all parties. The Israelis, for their part, tend to be remarkably understanding about the tightrope Jordan walks - for example, negotiating with Jordan the terms under which Jordanian military forces would be committed to battle in the Yom Kippur War, so that neither Jordan nor Israel were directly threatened by each other, but the majority of Jordanians and Palestinian refugees who supported the war would be satisfied by Jordanian participation.

 

In fact, Jordan's another good example of a Muslim country with a "great and thriving" religious minority. The Christian community in Jordan is not particularly large (but then, neither is Jordan itself), but it's fairly active, and there's generally no strife between them and the Islamic minority. In fact, if you ask a Jordanian of either religion about the friction between the Islamic and Muslim communities, the response is usually a confused "What? What are you talking about?"

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

ever hear of a little place called ... bosnia??? where nominal muslims were targeted for extermination by a quasi-fascist population feeding off of religiously based 500 year old myths? i know your response -- but muslims were involved!

 

the absolutely brutal russian occupation of chechnya shoots a hole in your theory as well. the chechens aren't blameless, but they didn't start it and their actions pale in comparison to the nominally christian russians, and their historically based grievances against the russians (primarily stalin) are entirely valid.

 

as for tolerance of other religions in muslim countries, you may want to check turkey.  seems to me that they have an excellent relationship with israel as well.

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I'd hardly call Russia a Christian country. In fact, I'd hardly call ANY country a Christian country as most countries that have majority Christian populations are largely secularized.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

I'd hardly call Russia a Christian country. In fact, I'd hardly call ANY country a Christian country as most countries that have majority Christian populations are largely secularized.

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Thus the other logical fallacy in monkey-boy's argument. "Please name me one major religious conflict currently on the globe that doesn't involve Islam on one side of it." Uhhh...generally, most countries aren't characterized by their religion, be it Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or what have you. Therefore, major conflicts between them are generally not characterized as religious...and the question is unanswerable: since the question presumes that all religious conflict is Islamic, it therefore follows that no religious conflict can be named that doesn't involve Islam.

 

And from there, the idea that all Islam fights for religious reasons because only Islam fights fore religious reasons is only a short leap of fallacious logic away. His argument is truly logically !@#$ed.

[dave mcbride]

I'd hardly call Russia a Christian country. In fact, I'd hardly call ANY country a Christian country as most countries that have majority Christian populations are largely secularized.

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i said *nominally christian*. you're right, most aren't practicing christians, but the nation's historically christian roots are a definining feature of russians' ethnocultural identity.

[pdh1]

ever hear of a little place called ... bosnia??? where nominal muslims were targeted for extermination by a quasi-fascist population feeding off of religiously based 500 year old myths? i know your response -- but muslims were involved!

 

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I actually have a good friend from their who works as programmer in our company.

 

He was shocked that during the Clinton administration that was absolutely no mention of the attacks on Churches, the bombings of Police stations, etc in our news media.

 

Did the "Butcher of Bosnia" get way out of hand with his response, sure.

 

But there was a lot of conflict that was anything but one sided before the US and the UN got involved.

 

And it certainly to do us any favors with the Muslim world, even the U.S, and NATO essentially rescued them for certain doom.

 

When Osama and his goons do their rants, they never mention it.

Go figure.

 

And that area has turned in to hot for guess who?

Form "Al Qaeda in the Balkans: Who in the Balkans wants to destroy America?," by Miroljub Jevtic, Ph.D.

 

The news that a group of mujahadeens headed for Osama bin Laden's jihad were captured on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan would be nothing new, had the Pakistani authorities not announced that one of them was an Albanian citizen. Clearly, Clinton's cooperation with Balkan Islamists in the 1990s is only now turning like a boomerang against the US.

 

While the official affront is that Bosnian Muslims and Albanians are American allies in the war on terror, the US forces are tied up in Bosnia monitoring and chasing the jihadists who have made Bosnia and Albanian inhabited areas in the Balkans their domicile. Overtly then, Balkan Muslims are supporting the West, while covertly they may seek destruction of it.

 

The American strategists believed that by caving into territorial demands Balkan Muslims are making, the newly established Islamic entities will, because of the American influence and endorsement of it, be a model to the Islamic world, showing the right political path. The Christians of Bosnia, for example, are increasingly being centralized under Islamic authority; Christian Croats are spliced within Muslim federation and dominated by them while the Serbian entity is under tremendous political pressure and may disappear. Meanwhile, Bosnian Muslims want to offer Muslim Turks a dual citizenship because they consider these centuries old occupiers of Bosnia their liberators.

 

In Macedonia, likewise, the real masters of the situation are the Muslims Albanians who have placed the Christian Slavs there into virtual political ghettos.

 

Instead of showing themselves content with this, Balkan Muslims are not only setting out towards Islamizing their territories, but also towards actions aimed at America's destruction.

 

Tradition has it that the most extreme Islamists among Slavic Muslims in the Balkans are from the Raska district, i.e. from Tutin, Novi Pazar and Rozaj so one is to expect extremist Imams to come from this region. Yet, the Islamic extremism and open attacks on the US that is spreading among the Balkan Muslims is preached by an Imam, who is not a native of Novi Pazar, nor of Sarajevo, but is an ethnic Albanian from village of Orahovac in Kosovo. This Imam, Bugari, is a hodja of the White mosque in Vratnik, known as the most Muslim part of Sarajevo.

 

Ironically, the fiercest fighter of jihad has not turned up from the middle of Bosnia with its numerous Islamic top ranking religious schools, but from Albanian dominated Kosovo, busy teaching the Bosnians in the midst of Sarajevo what real Islam is.

 

Says Bugari: "The speech of the sword is more sincere than that of the letter. Its blade lies between seriousness and jest. The whiteness of the sword, not the blackness of the letters, for its back knows no rust of doubt'.

 

Continues he: "The status of Muslims cannot be improved by papers. This doesn't work. It is well known what can improve the status of Muslims worldwide. How was it improved at first? By taking Islam to all places. By convincing people that only God Allah exists."

 

Bugari concludes with a call to violence: "By purifying the heart of all idols, and then, if necessary, by the jihad. And jihad was necessary and will be necessary! Don't think that we can survive in any other way, except by these three things: faith, economics and responding to Allah when the time for jihad comes".

 

"[T]aking Islam to all places", including the US is the obligation of every Muslim, preaches Bugari.

 

This Albanian Muslim Imam is also an avid anti-Semite. Says Bugari: "Americans rule the world, and so do the Jews. With the Americans' help, they have again outsmarted the entire world, especially the economy. We consume American-Jewish products every day. We drink their 'Coca-Cola' and their 'Pepsi', we use their banks, buy their weapons, their 'Nikes' and various other products. Imagine how many 'cokes' a billion and a half Muslims drink every day. According to some data, 700 million 'Coca-Colas' every day, and you know well that 10 percent of every 'Coca-Cola' goes to Israel".

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

But there was a lot of conflict that was anything but one sided before the US and the UN got involved.

 

There was a lot of conflict that was anything but one sided before the US and the UN, and Christianity and Islam, even existed. That little conflict goes all the way back to Philip of Macedon.

 

And that area has turned in to hot for guess who?

Form "Al Qaeda in the Balkans: Who in the Balkans wants to destroy America?," by Miroljub Jevtic, Ph.D.

 

The news that a group of mujahadeens headed for Osama bin Laden's jihad were captured on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan would be nothing new, had the Pakistani authorities not announced that one of them was an Albanian citizen. Clearly, Clinton's cooperation with Balkan Islamists in the 1990s is only now turning like a boomerang against the US.

 

While the official affront is that Bosnian Muslims and Albanians are American allies in the war on terror, the US forces are tied up in Bosnia monitoring and chasing the jihadists who have made Bosnia and Albanian inhabited areas in the Balkans their domicile. Overtly then, Balkan Muslims are supporting the West, while covertly they may seek destruction of it.

 

The American strategists believed that by caving into territorial demands Balkan Muslims are making, the newly established Islamic entities will, because of the American influence and endorsement of it, be a model to the Islamic world, showing the right political path. The Christians of Bosnia, for example, are increasingly being centralized under Islamic authority; Christian Croats are spliced within Muslim federation and dominated by them while the Serbian entity is under tremendous political pressure and may disappear. Meanwhile, Bosnian Muslims want to offer Muslim Turks a dual citizenship because they consider these centuries old occupiers of Bosnia their liberators.

 

In Macedonia, likewise, the real masters of the situation are the Muslims Albanians who have placed the Christian Slavs there into virtual political ghettos.

 

Instead of showing themselves content with this, Balkan Muslims are not only setting out towards Islamizing their territories, but also towards actions aimed at America's destruction.

 

Tradition has it that the most extreme Islamists among Slavic Muslims in the Balkans are from the Raska district, i.e. from Tutin, Novi Pazar and Rozaj so one is to expect extremist Imams to come from this region. Yet, the Islamic extremism and open attacks on the US that is spreading among the Balkan Muslims is preached by an Imam, who is not a native of Novi Pazar, nor of Sarajevo, but is an ethnic Albanian from village of Orahovac in Kosovo. This Imam, Bugari, is a hodja of the White mosque in Vratnik, known as the most Muslim part of Sarajevo.

 

Ironically, the fiercest fighter of jihad has not turned up from the middle of Bosnia with its numerous Islamic top ranking religious schools, but from Albanian dominated Kosovo, busy teaching the Bosnians in the midst of Sarajevo what real Islam is.

 

Says Bugari: "The speech of the sword is more sincere than that of the letter. Its blade lies between seriousness and jest. The whiteness of the sword, not the blackness of the letters, for its back knows no rust of doubt'.

 

Continues he: "The status of Muslims cannot be improved by papers. This doesn't work. It is well known what can improve the status of Muslims worldwide. How was it improved at first? By taking Islam to all places. By convincing people that only God Allah exists."

 

Bugari concludes with a call to violence: "By purifying the heart of all idols, and then, if necessary, by the jihad. And jihad was necessary and will be necessary! Don't think that we can survive in any other way, except by these three things: faith, economics and responding to Allah when the time for jihad comes".

 

"[T]aking Islam to all places", including the US is the obligation of every Muslim, preaches Bugari.

 

This Albanian Muslim Imam is also an avid anti-Semite. Says Bugari: "Americans rule the world, and so do the Jews. With the Americans' help, they have again outsmarted the entire world, especially the economy. We consume American-Jewish products every day. We drink their 'Coca-Cola' and their 'Pepsi', we use their banks, buy their weapons, their 'Nikes' and various other products. Imagine how many 'cokes' a billion and a half Muslims drink every day. According to some data, 700 million 'Coca-Colas' every day, and you know well that 10 percent of every 'Coca-Cola' goes to Israel".

557610[/snapback]

 

Of course, that simply demonstrates the point many of us are making: it's not Islam that's the problem, it's extremism. That article you've posted makes that point itself. It actually goes to great lengths to point out that it's extremism that's the problem. Of course, it goes to equally great lengths to contradict that as well...but that's because it's a sh------- article.

 

It does, however, point out yet again just how ungodly horrible Clinton's foreign policy was - where it existed. Most Muslims feared Islamic extremism more than Clinton did.

[pdh1]

Thus the other logical fallacy in monkey-boy's argument.  "Please name me one major religious conflict currently on the globe that doesn't involve Islam on one side of it."  Uhhh...generally, most countries aren't characterized by their religion, be it Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or what have you.  Therefore, major conflicts between them are generally not characterized as religious...and the question is unanswerable: since the question presumes that all religious conflict is Islamic, it therefore follows that no religious conflict can be named that doesn't involve Islam.

 

And from there, the idea that all Islam fights for religious reasons because only Islam fights fore religious reasons is only a short leap of fallacious logic away.  His argument is truly logically !@#$ed.

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Let take it a step further, swamp goat.

Most countries don't have government sanctioned religion that controls the state, True. You know the only ones that do?

Bing. Bing. Bing.

Islam.

 

So what you have is not only violence against other religions, but other governments that currently count Muslims as part of their citizens.

 

Why? Become they only believe in governments based on Islamic law.

So you now have conflict and violence against governments for strictly religious reasons.

 

For example:

Bomb explosion in Thai south leaves two dead

 

he attack, suspected to have been carried out by Muslim militants, came just hours after Thailand's queen appealed for peace.

 

The attack came after Thailand's revered Queen Sirikit delivered a televised address late Saturday calling on the public to unite against the ongoing violence in the southernmost provinces -- the only Muslim-dominated areas of this largely Buddhist country.

[Ghost of BiB]

Let me see a show of hands of anyone here who knows what the fugg they are talking about?

 

OK, thought so.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Let me see a show of hands of anyone here who knows what the fugg they are talking about?

 

OK, thought so.

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Oooh, hey, I do!

 

I also know where I'm over-simplifying things for the Bazooka Joe crowd, as well.

[TheMadCap]

Please name me one major religious conflict currently on the globe (not Hatfield and the McCoys size family feuds), just one major armed conflict or struggle, that doesn't involve Islam on one side of it. Please. Do tell. Buhadists fighting the Jews? Christians fighting the Hindus?

 

I

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Ireland.

 

Oh wait, am I too late?

 

 

Sorry, Nevermind...

[hamasyourmamma]

Oooh, hey, I do!

 

I also know where I'm over-simplifying things for the Bazooka Joe crowd, as well. 

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I congratulate you, my Crap Throwing Monkey for your defense of Islam 

 

I call on the other mujahedeen on Two Bills Drive to focus their attacks on the new puppet GM, zionist Marv Levy. Most of the Bills revenues go to the enemies of Islam; meanwhile most of what is left is taken by the thieves.

 

My Muslim warriors, you will not enjoy free elections, protected sanctity, and the freedom to hold negative signs at Ralph Wilson Stadium able unless you are free from the crusader-Zionist occupation and the corrupted governments, and this will not be fulfilled but with Jihad.

 

We want to tell all the Muslims that the mujahedeen al-Qaida, thank God, is expanding and increasing in strength.

[dave mcbride]

Overtly then, Balkan Muslims are supporting the West, while covertly they may seek destruction of it.

 

The American strategists believed that by caving into territorial demands Balkan Muslims are making, the newly established Islamic entities will, because of the American influence and endorsement of it, be a model to the Islamic world, showing the right political path. The Christians of Bosnia, for example, are increasingly being centralized under Islamic authority; Christian Croats are spliced within Muslim federation and dominated by them while the Serbian entity is under tremendous political pressure and may disappear. Meanwhile, Bosnian Muslims want to offer Muslim Turks a dual citizenship because they consider these centuries old occupiers of Bosnia their liberators.

 

In Macedonia, likewise, the real masters of the situation are the Muslims Albanians who have placed the Christian Slavs there into virtual political ghettos.

 

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this is flat out foolish and i will not participate in this discussion anymore. on display above is a wildly conspiratorial vision of how world history "works." seriously, do you know one goddamn thing about the history of the Balkans? if you did, you'd know that balkan "muslims" are about as religious as me (i.e., not at all). it's a european dispute deriving from the last vestiges of the ethnic nationalisms that fueled world war II and entirely divorced from religious disputes. and if you want to go after me, try -- i actually know what i'm talking about with regard to balkan history and the denouement of the eastern bloc.

[philburger1]

I congratulate you, my Crap Throwing Monkey for your defense of Islam 

 

I call on the other mujahedeen on Two Bills Drive to focus their attacks on the new puppet GM, zionist Marv Levy. Most of the Bills revenues go to the enemies of Islam; meanwhile most of what is left is taken by the thieves.

 

My Muslim warriors, you will not enjoy free elections, protected sanctity, and the freedom to hold negative signs at Ralph Wilson Stadium able unless you are free from the crusader-Zionist occupation and the corrupted governments, and this will not be fulfilled but with Jihad.

 

We want to tell all the Muslims that the mujahedeen al-Qaida, thank God, is expanding and increasing in strength.

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Hah! I knew it! Who are you, Ward Churchill' teaching assistant?

[philburger1]

this is flat out foolish and i will not participate in this discussion anymore. on display above is a wildly conspiratorial vision of how world history "works." seriously, do you know one goddamn thing about the history of the Balkans? if you did, you'd know that balkan "muslims" are about as religious as me (i.e., not at all).  it's a european dispute deriving from the last vestiges of the ethnic nationalisms that fueled world war II and entirely divorced from religious disputes.  and if you want to go after me, try -- i actually know what i'm talking about with regard to balkan history and the denouement of the eastern bloc.

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You need to ask Miroljub Jevtic, Ph.D. the author of "Al Qaeda in the Balkans: Who in the Balkans wants to destroy America?" that was cited in the reply.

 

By the way, here is his bio. Seems like he might be someone with some knowledge of the subject:

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/jevtic/

[dave mcbride]

You need to ask Miroljub Jevtic, Ph.D. the author of "Al Qaeda in the Balkans: Who in the Balkans wants to destroy America?" that was cited in the reply.

 

By the way, here is his bio. Seems like he might be someone with some knowledge of the subject:

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/jevtic/

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wildly conspiratorial vision of history is confirmed.

[The Avenger]

Ireland.

 

Oh wait, am I too late?

Sorry, Nevermind...

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Yeah, but in Ireland they didn't resort to indiscriminate car bombings like those radical muslims - those people are animals with no repect for human life. Just shows that Christians are much better than people who practice savage religions.

 

Oh wait...

[philburger1]

wildly conspiratorial vision of history is confirmed.

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I think a wildly conspiratorial vision of history would be something like the US gov. shot a missle at the Pentagon.

 

Nope, he just sounds like a guy with a Ph.d who teaches political science who actually lives a lot closer to the subject at hand than you do, and has an opinion you don't agree with.