BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism

Subject: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST,Josephus XXVII
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 09:55 AM

Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of (Arabic) Al- Arabiya news channel. This article on Islamic terrorism appeared this week, in Arabic, in the pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. This translation is from The Telegraph in London.

Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on Islamic terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: PoppaGator
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 01:34 PM

Good for him. It is many times more worthwhile for such a message to come from a prominent Muslim Arab than from a Westerner. Let's hope somebody is listening.

Right-wing pundit Cal Thomas mentioned this article in his syndicated column this morning. Cal, of course, added a little spin of his own ("See? Terrorism is essentially Islamic.")

I'm glad to have had a chance to read the original article.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 03:19 PM

Thanks, I had read parts of it in German but not all.

It can be added that the reaction of the reader who cared to write was mostly negative and hostile.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 03:36 PM

Thanks, I had read parts of it in German but not all.

It can be added that the reaction of the reader who cared to write was mostly negative and hostile.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 04:12 PM

Let us consider the other end of the seesaw. The originators of the civilian concentration camps in Southern Africa were not Muslims. The proponents of "manifest destiny" who were complicit in the decimation of the native Americans were not Muslims. Eichmann was not a Muslim. Hitler was not a Muslim. The Spanish Inquisition was not
imposed by Muslims. The users of Agent Orange were not Muslims.
If not "terrorists", what label can we use? "Super-terrorists"? None of the above were Muslims. Neither, in common with some present day practitioners of terror, were they Christians---no matter what label they hypocritically tried to display.
A couple of old saws apply--"People in glass houses----"
          and--"Two wrongs can never make a 'right' "

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 11:06 AM

People in glass houses? So anyone who lives in any country that has ever done a bad thing in its history can never criticise a modern evil doer?
I am not sure what you are saying with the other saw.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 11:31 AM

Certain nations and peoples are much more guilty of crimes against humanity than others.

In modern times of the nation state, the most guilty nations have a handful of European states and of course, the US. A few others, like Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan are mere blips on the radar of well orchestrated and exectuted mechanized slaughters of millions of people around the world, including:

1. The Nazi Holocaust;

2. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki;

3. WWI, WWII, and numerous imperial wars carried out by Europeans and European Americans around the globe (which includes Russia and it's "states" exploited by Russia to control a good chunk of the world's oil fields and the resources necessary for the global ruling elite to extract it;

4. The contemporary Judeo-Christian crusades against the Muslim world by the Europeans and Americans, using Israel and Saudi Arabia as regional surrogates, being fought over control of the world's largest oil fields and the resources necessary for global ruling elite to extract it.

I think the question being asked is, who is the great threat to the world and it's societies' safety and stability: terrorists who may or may not have nationalist affiliations, who succeed in killing thousands, or national militaries of the world's most powerful nation states, who succeed in killing millions?

At this juncture in history, at the end of a century of human history's most obscene era of violence perpetrated by nation states who are responsible for developing technologically advanced weapons of war which resulted (and still continues today) in the mechanized slaughter of millions of innocent human beings, that question is a profoundly important one to be asking.

Or more simply, we should be asking: which is the greater crime against humanity, Dresden or 9/11?

Note I am not asking which one of those two atrocities constitutes a crime against humanity, as both do. The question is, which crime against humanity is greater?

The answer has to do with who has access to and controls the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Answer: it isn't the Muslim terrorists.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 12:24 PM

Guest, you have covered a lot of ground there. We have had many and long discussions here about most of the events in your one post, so I can't pick any out to debate with you. You would need to start more threads .
I accept that history is full of bad things. Islamic terror is a new one. It would be nice if they would stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: DougR
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 01:44 PM

Excellent! It's about time some responsible Muslim leaders speak out against radical Islam.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST,Josephus XXVII
Date: 11 Sep 04 - 02:50 PM

4. The contemporary Judeo-Christian crusades against the Muslim world by the Europeans and Americans, using Israel and Saudi Arabia as regional surrogates, being fought over control of the world's largest oil fields and the resources necessary for global ruling elite to extract it.

What utter lying nonsense. Israel is most certainly not being used as a surrogate in anyone's fight for control over the world's largest oilfields.

You haven't seen Israel fighting, at all, for control of any oilfields. The occupied territories that are at the heart of Israel's disputes with the Palestinians (many of whom are Christian, BTW) and the Syrians are from from any drop of oil.

As for Saudi Arabia, that country is as close to a Muslim theocracy as any on this planet. They are also as hostile to Jews as any country on this planet. They, too, are hardly surrogates for a "Judeo-Christian" crusade.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 02:50 AM

"My disagreement with the peace-at-any-price men, the ultrapacifists, is not in the least because they favor peace. I object to them, first, because they have proved themselves futile and impotent in working for peace, and second, because they commit what is not merely the capital error but the crime against morality of failing to uphold righteousness as the all-important end toward which we should strive ... I have as little sympathy for them as they have for the men who deify mere brutal force, who insist that power justifies wrongdoing, and who declare that there is no such thing as international morality. But the ultra-pacifists really play into the hands of these men. To condemn equally might which backs right and might which overthrows right is to render positive service to wrong-doers ... To denounce the nation that wages war in self-defense, or from a generous desire to relieve the oppressed, in the same terms in which we denounce war waged in a spirit of greed or wanton folly stands on a par with denouncing equally a murderer and the policeman who, at peril of his life and by force of arms, arrests the murderer. In each case the denunciation denotes not loftiness of soul but weakness both of mind and morals." -- Theodore Roosevelt

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 04:25 AM

And to whom, Guest, would you apply the Roosevelt label in the present day? It fits no one at all as far as I can see.
Kieth A. of Hertford---you seem to imply that I condone Muslim terrorism. Far from it; I simply try to point out that terrorism is a long way from being employed by Muslims only---either in the past, or in the present day. And as far as the "glass houses" comment goes, there are many in the world today who , when pointing fingers and mouthing the word "terrorist", should be standing squarely in front of a mirror.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 01:32 PM

Isn't Teddy Roosevelt the US president who threatened to wage war against Canada if Canada didn't agree to give the US the land that is now the southern panhandle of Alaska? Sounds like a hypocritical blowhard to me. And a big bully. Righteousness my ass.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 02:15 PM

It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.

Far from true. From Belfast to Nepal and from Sri Lanka to Japan to Oklahoma, and a whole load of places in between, there are examples of terrorism which has nothing whatsoever to do with anything to do with Islam.

There has been Christian based terrorism, Jewish based terrorism, Sikh, Hindu and even Buddhist terrorism. And plenty of Atheist terrorism. Whatever the belief system may be, at some time and place you are going to find it used as a justification and support for terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 09:40 AM

True.

Subject: RE: BS: Abdel Rahman al-Rashed on terrorism
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 05:20 PM

McGrath droning.