BS: Caliphate

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 10:06 AM

Ther ya go again, Boo - flinging that NAZI bullshit around. Really, don't you ever get tired of that same old crap?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 08:24 AM

It's an internal power struggle. I'm more bothered about the Taliban-like regime that Hamas promotes inside Gaza (although that is also disputed). And I'm far more bothered about the Israeli invasion and continuation of the Israeli land-grab.

There is a new battle going on - on Wikipedia - each side says that the other is editing Wikipedia to include propaganda. As Wikipedia currently stands: -

"The pro-Fatah view is, that it [the battle of Gaza 2007] was a plain military coup by Hamas. The pro-Hamas view is, that the US drew up a plan to arm Fatah cadres with the aim of forcefully removing Hamas from power in Gaza. According to the pro-Hamas view, Fatah fighters, led by commander Mohammed Dahlan with logistical support from the US Central Intelligence Agency, were planning to carry out a bloody coup against Hamas.[28] Then, Hamas pre-emptively took control over Gaza"

And "Human Rights Watch accused both sides of violating international humanitarian law, in some instances amounting to war crimes.[33] The accusations include targeting and killing civilians, public executions of political opponents and captives, throwing prisoners off high-rise apartment buildings"

And "Hamas militants seized several Fatah members and threw one of them, Mohammed Sweirki, an officer in the elite Palestinian Presidential Guard, off the top of the tallest building in Gaza, a 15-story apartment building. In retaliation, Fatah militants attacked and killed the imam of the city's Great Mosque, Mohammed al-Rifati. .... a Hamas militant was thrown off a 12-story building."

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 08:02 AM

So you're perfectly alright with this part:

"Then in June of 2007 Hamas perpetrated a violent coup (throwing Fatah officials off roof-tops) and illegally seized all power. Only about 20% of the PA population supported this military takeover."

Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 07:17 AM

Musket, Islamisation has moved on.
There are few Christians in the whole of Gaza now, and of course none in Hamas.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 04:19 AM

Seem to remember Thatcher came to power on 42% of the vote - I doubt if little Booboo would have a great deal of argument with that - might be wrong though!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 02:01 AM

Er - 44% as against 41%. That looks remarkably like an electoral win tome.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 04:44 PM

" they "seized power" as Keith puts it in democratic elections."

Wrong...again for the thicker ones among us:

Hamas won a PLURALITY (not majority) in a LEGISLATIVE election in 2006. The directly elected President (in 2005) was (and remained) Abbas. The election results were 44% for Hamas and 41% for Fatah. After Hamas failed to form a government, about a year after the election, Hamas and Fatah reached a power-sharing unity government under the Mecca Agreement (brokered by the Saudis). Then in June of 2007 Hamas perpetrated a violent coup (throwing Fatah officials off roof-tops) and illegally seized all power. Only about 20% of the PA population supported this military takeover.

Does the fact that they eliminated the opposition and established totalitarian control remind you of anyone?....(Hint think Weimar Republic 1933)

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Musket
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 04:20 PM

It is a rather fascist but still political party of Palestine. What is known as Islamism purposely does not recognise national boundaries.

It's constitution is based on liberation from Israel for its interpretation of Palestine.

It recognises that Palestine is based on geographical not religious grounds, but accepts funding from Islamic sources, which skews matters.

However, it isn't difficult to read their constitution nor google the photo of one of their leaders during the January 2009 attacks by Israel, stood on Parliament Square with the late Tony Benn. Benn noting that the man is a coptic christian. Sure, a token but there again, unlike Keith I have never defended either set of terrorists. Just the Palestinian people.

Try again. People can find the reality, they don't have to accept propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 03:11 PM

Musket, you are such an ignorant buffoon!

You said, "Hamas is a political party with Christians and atheists in its number."

It is an Islamist group!
Atheists and other religions are not tolerated.

How can you have such strong views without knowing or understanding such basic facts?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Musket
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 02:43 PM

First Keith days I made things up. Then he googles and rather than apologising, he tries just qualifying it by admitting his mistake.

You couldn't make it up... (But he does...)

Poo Bad. Getting desperate aren't we? Hamas may be led by people as obnoxious and dangerous as Israel's militant tyrannical leaders, but like Israel's leaders, they "seized power" as Keith puts it in democratic elections.

Which is more than the German nazi party ever did, prick.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 02:31 PM

Hamas has a genuine grievance in that from the tiny area of the Levant occupied by Jews prior to 1948, and on the demands of Zionist terrorist organisations, whose leaders went on to become the leaders of Israel, first a large area of the Levant was designated as Israel, a Jewish state and thereafter its expansion has continued. Since 1948 Israel has by military conquest persistently enlarged. There is a land-grab going on in the area of the Levant. So that's the first thing, and it is undeniable. You may choose to argue that conquests were legitimate, that conquerors acquired extra land by peace treaty after conquest - but you cannot honestly argue that the amount of exclusively or substantially exclusively Jewish occupied land has vastly increased.   

Nobody has succeeded in defending the others whose land has been occupied and taken, whose crops have been destroyed, whose communities have been divided by an illegal wall, and who see town after town illegally built on illegally seized land on which those others used to live and farm. Those people have been squeezed into an ever smaller space, denied the liberty to trade, and suffered the destruction of their infrastructure schools and hospitals. Are you surprised that they and their democratically elected government, Hamas, are mightily pissed off?


None of the above excuses the war by Hamas on ordinary Gazans who (if reportage can be believed, it comes very largely from non-Gazan sources) are oppressed by a Taliiban-like regime. But it explains their fury against the expropriation of their land and destruction of their homelands.


Hassan al-Banna died in 1949. His views as to the purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood may well no longer be very relevant. The designation of Hamas as a terrorist organisation is wholly irrelevant to whether the objectives of Hamas include either the creation of a Caliphate in Gaza or a larger one outside it.


It may however be worth mentioning that an effort may be made to term Hamas "freedom fighters" in that they are seeking to liberate themselves from Israel, but it would not be possible to regard the pre-Israel Zionist terrorists as "freedom fighters". They sought not to liberate any land or people, but to establish their own control over the lands of others.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: pdq
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 11:52 AM

"The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood main branch, based in Egypt, has financed terrorist attacks worldwide that have killed Americans and others. The Brotherhood attacks Christians, women, and other religious minorities, in the name of Allah to fulfill al-Banna's vision of "fighting the unbelievers…to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam." The methods al-Banna suggested to advance jihad included "beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their idols." Al-Banna also said "it is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated" and to "impose its law on nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."

Hamas, of recent Gaza fame, self identifies as "one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine" and was designated as a terrorist organization in 1995 by President Clinton. The Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was designated as a terrorist organization by President Bush shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The 9/11 Commission reported that the Islamization of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, were during their membership in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Majid Al-Zindani, who worked for years with Osama Bin Laden, was designated as a terrorist by the United States in February 2004. Al-Zindani was not only a member but a leader in the Yemeni branch of the Brotherhood.

Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, who was Osama Bin Laden's brother in law, was a Muslim Brotherhood leader who supported the Islamic terrorists waging an insurgent campaign in the Philippines.

The Muslim Brotherhood has participated in "terror conferences" with groups such as Al-Qaeda, Iranian intelligence, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (led by current Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri), Algerian GIA, Hamas (the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), Ennahdha (the Tunisian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), and the Islamic Action Front (the Jordanian Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood)."

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:52 AM

The son of a Hamas leader did become a Christian.

"Mr Yousef said that his doubts about Islam and Hamas crystallised when he realised not all Hamas leaders were like his father, a moderate who he describes as "open-minded, very humble and honest".

Mr Yousef said that he was appalled by the brutality of the movement, including the suicide bombers seeking glory through jihad.

"Hamas, they are using civilians' lives, they are using children, they are using the suffering of people every day to achieve their goals. And this is what I hate," he said. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/2613399/Mosab-Hassan-Yousef-son-of-Hamas-leader-becomes-a-Christian.html

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:45 AM

"Hamas is a political party"

So was the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known in English as the Nazi Party. Do you have a "thing" for them too?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:43 AM

Hamas does not have any Christian or atheist members.
You just made that up.
There is no Palestinian Army.
Hamas has its own fighters, who killed many non-Hamas Palestinians when they seized power.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Musket
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 10:31 AM

Hamas is a political party with Christians and atheists in its number. It had control of the Palestinian army in the same way the conservative party has control of the British Army.

And what the flying fuck Al Qaeda is doing in your commentary on Palestine is beyond me. Yes, there must be many people in Hamas sympathetic to the aims of Al Qaeda (which does not wish for a global caliphate, prick) and that makes them dangerous in the same way gung ho foolish British military top brass occasionally need reining in by ministers and diplomats with vast greater grasp on issues. (The Alan Clark diaries were fascinating. He may have been a bit of a twat but his grasp of history and his contempt for chiefs of staff when a defence minister start making up for his occasional stupidity.)

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 09:58 AM

Many people have grievances.
Going to war is not the best way of addressing them.

If the casualties were "mostly civilians" you would expect a representative sample of the civilian population.
The large excess of young men requires an explanation.

Al Qaeda is committed to establishing a global caliphate.
That is the goal of Isalmism.
Hamas is itself an Islamist organisation.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 09:38 AM

"It seems to me that Hamas has a legitimate grievance that is not being addressed."

And what would that be exactly?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 09:36 AM

Ooops, the link make your own blicky, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/gaza-under-seige-naming-dead-2014710105846549528.html

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 09:36 AM

Quoth Poo-bad "What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about"

It is not too much of a leap to accept that of ISIS and Boko Haram. I think you should perhaps evidence the statement about al-Quaeda and Hamas. It seems to me that Hamas has a legitimate grievance that is not being addressed.

Here is a link some days old listing the Palestinian dead. How do people like Poo-bad know they were in Hamas? According to the "Time" magazine article linked to - because they were the right age. It's hard to see that as sufficient evidence to validate killing someone.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 09:10 AM

This thread is not about Israel, and Christians like most Muslims are not committed to imposing their religion on others.

Why are you only interested in one of the Middle East conflicts?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Musket
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 07:40 AM

I've just done a poll of 100 people.

50 think stifling freedom by imposing religious views on the rest of humanity is wrong. The other 50 were Christians.

100 of them couldn't say what a lefty liberal was.

100 of them felt that when a fool is ashamed of his earlier bloodthirsty support for Israeli terrorists, he tries to change the subject. Syria and Libya being two cited examples.

Next.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Aug 14 - 07:21 AM

They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about.

Lefty liberals should hate that and support opposition to it.
Yet they do not.

Meanwhile in the region, two Libyan cities are the scene of heavy fighting and Western embassy staff evacuated, violence and murder daily in our new caliphate, and the worst violence in the whole region, that in Syria, today spills over into Lebanon with many deaths.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:30 PM

An astute observation from my friend Bruce Rosenberg:

"What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way.

This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don't want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It's just that some of us haven't realized it yet."

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 10:52 AM

No intentions of hitting you anywhere Mike - I'm a pacifist.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 09:31 AM

No. It wasn't that sort of interview. It was Arts pages, not news or politics. So it would have been unprofessional, even if I had thought of it; which I don't think I did, concentrating as I was on the job I was being paid to do, which was asking him about singing.

Of course, I get the polemical point you are making, Jim; and no doubt it is fair enuff from your pov. But a bit below·the·belt IMO.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 03:32 AM

"I don't see why you think favouring one above the other to be mounting any sort of unworthy 'platform', which I now take to be your point?"
I'm not sure our views differ too much on the rights and wrongs of what is happening in the Middle East - problem is that it's difficult to find out what they are when it is assumed that we take sides - I have been accused of doing so throughout these arguments - I really don't.
I don't want another religion-based Government, any more than I believe you don't, but I am appalled at the brutality of the situation, not only in the present bloodbath, but also in the every-day lives of the Gazans, particularly over the last near-decade.
Whoever broke the cease-fire, I have little doubt that I will open the newspaper later and read that an Israeli soldier has been kidnapped - with afterthought - I might be able to find how the estimates 60-odd dead and 200 injured Palestinians met their particular fates.
As far as I have been concerned, all the politicians in this mess can all go to their own chosen Hells in their own particular hands-carts, but the fact that an estimated 1,500 Palestinians have now died and none of these politicians seem to care too much about it, makes me angry.
I very much doubt if Hamas will be party to any permanent cease-fire that doesn't include the lifting of the blockade and the allowing of the lives of the Palestinians to return to some degree of normalcy.
I also doubt that the Israelis will sign anything that doesn't allow them to hold on to what they have and to continue to build new settlements - they made that clear during the last round of peace talks.
As far as I can see, the situation has to be put in the hands of the U.N. and any rights of veto that can impair a balanced solution need to be removed, otherwise the Palestinians are going to end up like the Native Americans, scattered all over the Middle East on reservations.
There are already calls for "the levelling of Gaza" if the soldier isn't returned, and from the beginning the Israeli extremists have been howling that the troops must "push on and finish the job now it's been started".
"Burl Ives"
Didn't get to watch the film after all - Library project; I recorded it and will do so later.
Wonder if you asked him about his giving evidence against Pete Seeger and the rest during the H.U.A.C. trials, when you interviewed him?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:12 PM

Brilliant! The Kurds can kick some serious jihadi butt. I hope they forge an alliance with Israel soon.

Peshmerga Forces Kill 20 Militants, Capture 30 West of Mosul

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 04:22 PM

... also, BTW, later wrote one of Burl's Guardian obituaries: they ran two side-by-side, mine on him as a folksinger, the other on his films. I remember he said to me that he reckoned he got by because actors thought he was a singer and singers thought he was an actor...

Nuff drift!

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 04:13 PM

Hope you enjoyed The Big Country. I once interviewed Burl Ives for The Guardian. Very charming man he was too; but had one of those never-out-of-hearing wives sitting in on the interview. An interesting thing, in retro, was that Colin Irwin & I met him in his suite at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, during the 1st Brighton Folk Festival of 1977; we all know what happened there 7 years later...

I am sure we both regard deaths as a result of ideological/political differences as a misfortune. Seems to me that both trying to find solutions to the differences sufficient at least to avoid future deaths resulting, and considering what the effect on the survivors might be, are different aspects of the topic worth exploring; neither in any way that I can see preventing proper consideration of the other. I don't see why you think favouring one above the other to be mounting any sort of unworthy 'platform', which I now take to be your point?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:50 PM

"Genuinely puzzled as to what you mean by the term.."
Sorry - not explaining myself.
I'm the first one to use human suffering as an argument, but I try to do so while at the same time, suggesting a reason and maybe a solution.
For me, the deaths tang place are due to religious extremism being used fr political purposes - presenting them in response to a specific opinion as if they contradicted that opinion.
You may disagree with that opinion, if so, show where I am wrong - despite our differences, I do try to understand your point of view.
Simply relying on the feelings of the widows of those whose heads ended up on spike is more likely to produce more heads on spikes rather than an understanding of how they got there in the first place.
Again - sorry if I have missed your point - it really wasn't intentional.
Must go - haven't seen 'The Big Country' for forty years!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:16 PM

"You appear to be making the point that none of what I have said makes any difference to the fact that people are being killed"
.,,.

... and here's another bit I can make nor heads nor tails of, Jim. What "difference to the fact that people are being killed" does anything you say make, do you think?

Puzzleder & puzzleder...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:22 PM

Still don't quite see what you mean about "using as a platform". If your are, as you say, stressing that people are being killed, than I am not going to post about cute puppy-dogs or the landscape of the Lake District, am I? But what is this 'platform' that you keep going on about?

Genuinely puzzled as to what you mean by the term..

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:15 PM

"If we are in a discussion where people's deaths are an issue, then what in hell's name effect is that particular constant meaningless accusation"
You appear to be making the point that none of what I have said makes any difference to the fact that people are being killed - you did it presistently with the soldier who was murdered in Woolwich.
I really am with you as far as Isis is concerned, but I have little doubt that, should the opportunity present itself, they would be as likely customers for the British Arms Industry as was Assad.
Sorry if I have got you wrong
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:44 PM

Jim, you do repeat your argumentative effects to the point [or pointlessness] of tedium. It doesn't enhance your points, you know.

What, eg, is all this constant whitter about my 'using the dead as a platform'? If we are in a discussion where people's deaths are an issue, then what in hell's name effect is that particular constant meaningless accusation supposed to compass? You are really doing your disputative repute no good with these incessant non-point attacks!

Or can you find some way of explaining this point so that we shall all have some idea what you are on about, with your 'platforms'?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:25 PM

"Tell that to the widows of the previous owners of those 50 heads I mentioned last post.."
Oh dear - using the dead as a platform again Mike.
Isis got where it was today largely for the reasons I described.
The responsibility certainly lies with Isis extremism but the fact that they are were they are is the responsibility of oil thirsty nations who cynically created the conditions for their proliferation
States like Bahrain have appalling human rights records - The Arab Spring had barely got going when Cameron was falling on his arse to sell them weapons.
Both sides of the Libyan conflict were killing each other using British artillery.
It seems that Islamism is far less of a worry where commerce is concerned.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:10 PM

Christians who march about in pointy white hoods carrying burning crosses and advocate stringing up "niggers", especially those who step out of line in regard to white women.
Modern laws have made much of this a thing of the past, but that doesn't mean the will has gone away.
Some of the atrocities carried out in Apartheid South Africa in the name of Christianity with the blessing of the Dutch Reform Church doesn't bear a re-visit.
.,,.
Quite, Jim. As you quite fairly point out, although all that was too recent for comfort, it is all in the past.

Isis isn't. Those heads on poles are probably still there -- now, at this very moment...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 12:46 PM

"Isis is, of course, a fair point, but it is very much a case of peoples trying to break with the old ways and failing"
.,.

If only, Jim. Tell that to the widows of the previous owners of those 50 heads I mentioned last post...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 12:34 PM

"Organisations' are not abstract concepts. PEOPLE run them"
Not individually, they don't - its when they form themselves into a church they become a problem - I can honestly say I have never met a Muslim who I would have thought would advocate stoning anybody or carrying out female genital mutilation....
I've read about them though, just as I've read about Christians who march about in pointy white hoods carrying burning crosses and advocate stringing up "niggers", especially those who step out of line in regard to white women.
Modern laws have made much of this a thing of the past, but that doesn't mean the will has gone away.
Some of the atrocities carried out in Apartheid South Africa in the name of Christianity with the blessing of the Dutch Reform Church doesn't bear a re-visit.
I wouldn't particularly like to be a Muslim in today's Israel, particularly right at this present moment.
You can point to religious extremism in any society and pull out excesses in behaviour.
Isis is, of course, a fair point, but it is very much a case of peoples trying to break with the old ways and failing - for all sorts of reasons.
Much of the modern-day rise of religious extremism in the Middle East and Africa is a direct product oil wars, searches for W.M.D., selecting friendly fundamentalists rather that hostile secular governments, arms sales..... business and politics; as that nice Mr Cable said, "We sometimes sell arms to states with dubious human rights records".
It will be interesting to see, if Assad finally wins out in Syria, whether he will once again become a close ally of Britain, as he was when he was only filling his torture chambers with opponents where the world couldn't see.
Little of this has to do with real religion; rather, it's about religion being used for political or economic ends - when it comes to it, people are people everywhere.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 11:40 AM

'Organisations' are not abstract concepts. PEOPLE run them! It's people who stone those women & cane those girls & behead those men. If it was just organisations they wouldn't end up so dead or sore.

,..,

"Videos circulated of 50 soldiers' heads stuck on poles at Raqqa in Syria by troops acting for Isis, which now calls itself the Islamic State". Spectator Portrait of the Week

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 11:14 AM

"I shouldn't strike too many attitudes of moral virtue about it."
I don't - as I've said before, I've always found it far easier to discuss my non-religion with ordinary practicing Muslims I've met than I have with practicing Christians - more tolerant by far.
Most of the Jews I knew were either lapsed or atheist, so I can't comment.
It's not Muslims, or Christians or Jews or whoever, I have a problem with - just their organisations.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 10:15 AM

...not while they're so busy smashing women's heads in with rocks & caning young girls' bare bottoms publicly and cutting people's heads off so regularly...

And you know that is what happens - NOW - in Saudi & Yemen & Malaysia & N Nigeria, and don't pretend you don't, and don't pretend you think anything comparable is going on in the rest of the world...

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 10:10 AM

No -- I think that sort of relativism is just plain silly.

They are all disagreeable and stupid and foolish and censorious indeed. But it is no sort of either sense or logic to go from there to the position that one cannot regard any of them as worse, as more disagreeable &........, than any of the others. IMO Islam is more mischievous, both in its beliefs and teachings and in its resultant actions, than any other I can think of at the present time.

YMMV, naturally, as is your right. But if I were you I shouldn't strike too many attitudes of moral virtue about it.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 10:01 AM

"No, Jim. But name any of the others in which it is, NOW"
At the present time Islam is in the ascendancy and the fanatics are able to do anything they wish.
Christianity, when it was a power to be reckoned with, did as they wished.
When the Americans were in Iraq they were part of the looting and destruction of religious artifacts that took place in places such as Baghdad museum and art gallery.
On numerous occasions American troops deliberately set out to offend Muslims by destroying their holy books
They destroyed shrine and temple in Cambodia when they were there.
Buddhists have recently destroyed holy places in South East Asia.
Religions attempt to wipe out other religions   
Singling out one religion and ignoring the record of our native religions seems to be what you do.
Personally, they are all one to me - I have no religion and I can't think of a church, as a body, I would give my vote to - but I detest the idea that any religion should be used to sow dissension among people - they all do it or allow it to happen- one is no better than the other.
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:31 AM

No, Jim. But name any of the others in which it is, NOW, {not any time in the past, but NOW, today, this very minute), a capital offence anywhere in the world to convert to one of the others.

Go on. Just one?...

Thought not...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 08:35 AM

"YOU approve of the destruction of Mosques and holy sites as long as it is done by Muslim"
Nope - nor do I approve of the destruction of hospitals school and homes, as done on a massive scale by the Israelis (especially as most of them were occupied when they were destroyed)
What's your point - are you asking which of these do I feel to be most important?
"There is a HISTORY of Islamists destroying holy sites"
There is a history of all religions and nationalities destroying, desecrating and looting the sites of religions they don't approve of - ever been to The British Museum?
The British Empire systematically destroyed hundreds of religions in their crusade 'civilise the world and turn "the savage hand from error's chain".   
You are not seriously suggesting that Islam is the only religion intolerant of other religions, are you.....?
Not even you would be that thick, O Bearded One!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 07:39 AM

So. Jimmy Boy,

YOU approve of the destruction of Mosques and holy sites as long as it is done by Muslims?

There is a HISTORY of Islamists destroying holy sites- Throughout the world. Yet it MUST be Israel's fault, right??? If Israel would just go away, the poor misunderstood extremist Muslims would live in peace and happiness ( right after they declare their world-wide Caliphate and kill all the leftists that are supporting them here, and all the Muslim moderates that keep quiet for fear of being targeted).

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 03:01 PM

yes, folks, let's hear it yet again for J·i·m C·a·r·r·o·l·l
And the prize for not committing himself and letting others do the dirty work for him by sticking their necks out goes to -- Lenny the Lion Myer.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 12:30 PM

The Caliphate has destroyed the tomb of Younis (Jonah) and the mosque near Mosul.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 08:52 AM

It's intentional.