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May 2011
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George Rebane

IslamMeetsWest Thank goodness, at last I’m not alone 😉  In these pages my commentaries on the resumed war between (radical) Islam and the West have met with some pretty hard criticism from our progressive brethren.  My assessments have been described as everything from lunacy to racism.  While I have never claimed a sole perch on this tenet, others have bestowed that upon me.

In regard to the war on Muslim terror, yesterday 3may11 the venerable Wall Street Journal again acknowledged that “we cannot forget that this is a war for national survival against enemies who would annihilate our cities if they could.” (emphasis mine)

I suppose my detractors will now argue that the WSJ is just playing catch-up with RR, even though I myself would take a more modest stance on such a conclusion.

[12may2011 update]  The debates in the comment stream to this post notwithstanding, I early on joined with those who saw the conflict between radical Islam and the West as something much larger than fragmented Muslim vendettas against the western countries for their alleged and acknowledged acts of imperialism.  My claim was that I agreed with the declared Islamists and their condoning silent majority.  Among these was the former head of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden.  As reported in the world’s leading journals it was bin Laden who “by framing the fight as a clash of civilizations, he could draw the West into a global war on terror.”  (The Economist, 7-13may11)

In the meanwhile it has been the constant and conspicuous labor of the left to minimize the scale and scope of this confrontation to the point of attempting to trivialize it into a series of disparate criminal activities.  As the conversation in the sequel reveals, the left is coming around to acknowledging the global import of radical Islam, and instead, is now citing a view of history highlighting the argument that the West had it coming.

The natural extension of this line of reasoning is that our proper response should be contrition in the extreme, doing everything we can not to aggravate or further irritate Muslims wherever they may be found – in their historical lands or in our midst.  All asymmetries in how the two cultures treat each other’s members should be ignored.  And since our culture is the guilty party, it falls on us to bend, comply, and comport ourselves properly so as to bring the matter to a peaceful conclusion acceptable to Islam.

Posted in ,

171 responses to “‘… war for national survival …’ (updated 12may2011)”

  1. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    From the BBC
    Henry’s motives for this first English conquest of Ireland are probably twofold: to distract from the recent murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury; and because the English pope, Hadrian IV, had conferred on him the title ‘lord of Ireland’ with the intention that Henry should take control of the island.

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  2. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Thank GOD the Vikings were stopped in 1000 by the English. We would all be worshiping Thor if they had been successful after 300 years of conquests amd invasions. Also, Russia is named for the RUS, a Viking tribe that actually got as far down as the Black Sea in trading with the natives. They established Kiev and later Moscow as trading centers. Then later the Mongols (Tatars) wiped them out and ruled Russia for many years. We all might have a different look if the later people’s of Russia didn’t rise up and boot them out. I love history. The Mongols would offer a town survival if they surrendered but if the town fought them they would murder every male and enslave the rest. They practised an Eastern religion.

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  3. Larry Wirth Avatar
    Larry Wirth

    For the record, as was said even at the time, The Holy Roman Empire was neither “Holy,” nor “Roman,” nor an “Empire.” It barely held together after its founding by Charlemagne and today’s France rapidly evolved from the Western portion.
    England was never associated with it in any way and the conquest of England was by the Normans (Norsemen) who had settled in Normandy.
    And, of course, while the Celts were conquered in Wales, Scotland and later in Ireland, they were hardly “destroyed.” In any case, religion had little or nothing to do with it.
    The larger point I’ve been attempting to make here is that, yes, Christian peoples have behaved badly (though not usually for religious motivations), but in the case of Muslims, the violent attitude towards “the other” is not incidental to Islam, it is foundational.
    Mike tells us Muhammed first fought with other Arabs; in fact he conquered Mecca and then the rest of the peninsula. Among his first acts as “prophet” while at Medina was the destruction of the three Jewish tribes he found living in peace with the two Arab tribes he was invited there to mediate between.
    His treatment of the Jews consisted of execution, enslavement and exile. Their crime was recognizing that the Koran was largely plagarized from the Bible, both old and new testaments, and refusing to accept “the prophet” as such.
    The Koran is full of contempt and hatred of Jews and, to a lesser degree, Christians. This kind of animus is foundational to no other of the “great religions” and does truly set Islam apart as not a religion of peace.

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  4. Larry Wirth Avatar
    Larry Wirth

    One last thought: if you read it, the Koran (apart from the Suras based on the Bible), the document more closely resembels “Mein Kampf” than the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

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  5. Mike Thornton Avatar

    “Allah” is the God of Abraham, which is the same God that the “Jews” and the “Christians” worship and in fact according to the Quran Jesus, who is considered a great prophet will return to Damascus as part of the signs that the “Day of Judgement” is at hand.
    Muhammad’s animus against the Jews of his day were largely based in his view that they betrayed him in his fight against the Quraysh rulers of Mecca, who for a number of reasons, including that Muhammad preached a gospel of a single God “Allah” “The God” as compared to the worshiping of the “Banat AlLah” who were the three daughters of God. Muhammad’s victory over the Meccans was a pretty improbable one and led to the premise that “Allah” favored Muhammad and his new religion of Islam. The Arab people quickly grabbed onto the unifying framework of Islam, in part because they had nothing like the Torah and the Bible and were in fact a bit jealous of that fact.
    While it’s true, that Jews and Christians did not have the same rights as Muslims in Muslim dominated lands, they were largely left alone and allowed to practice their religion and customs. This is something that can hardly be said for most of Europe and Russia, where Jews were regularly victims of “pogroms” led by the Christian majority. In fact one of the legacies of the Muslim/Moorish presence in Southern Spain are communities where Christians, Jews and Muslims have been living in relative peace and harmony for centuries.
    Does this mean that the Muslims and Islam are without any faults or not guilty of their own crimes and excesses? Of course not!, But the one-sided view put forth by some here who claim to be great scholars is less than a stellar.

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  6. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    It appears you and Wirth have a different view of he historical issues. Your cut and paste is interesting but I find it interesting you claim the Arabs defeated the Meccans in what? A debate? No, a war. And the Jews were around and had a one GOD belief for two thousand years before the Koran came along and cherry picked some of it. Even the Christians were around for 650 years before Mohamed cherry picked the New Testament. Then they conquered by force and said to all the “infidels” they conquered, become one of us or die. Yep, that peaceful Muslim’s, just a fantasy.

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  7. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Todd: (a) you should leave the factual debate to people who actually know what they’re talking about. Regardless of whether I agree with Steve or not, I don’t argue that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because he clearly does! What I’m arguing about is that (in my opinion) he’s only presenting one side of the story and therefore is making a biased arguement.
    (b) I don’t “cut and paste”. I’ve been to Old Jerusalem, Todd and have stood at the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall and the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and have walked the Via Dolorosa”
    Why do you insist on regurgitating what I’ve already said, not only pretend I didn’t say it, but go on to claim it as your own and use it as an argument against something that wasn’t even said in the first place?
    Yes, the Muslims “conquered by force” And so did the Jews and so did the Christians.
    Todd, do you really want to compare the “body count” between Muslims and Christians?
    Try going to South and Central America or the African Continent or talk to the Native People of North America and ask them about what the “Christians” brought to their shores when they arrived.
    I understand that you have a difficult time with complex concepts, like the fact that there can actually be more than one bad guy/good guy at a time and in fact they can all be one and the same at the very same time.
    The fact is that Muhammad at first had a, fledgling, alliance with the Jews that lived in the area and clearly believed that they, the Christians and the Muslims were all “People of the Book”.
    Look, if you hate all Muslims and believe Islam is evil and must be eradicated, just say that. But don’t waste your time, trying to prove that they’re any more or less evil. than these other folks are.
    I know you’ll refuse to believe it, but I can give you examples of how many of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, not only take Palestinian land, by force, attack their children and defile their mosques while trying to shame and degrade them every day. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and you can’t tell me that if somebody did that to you, that you would turn around and say: “No problem, that’s OK!”
    Or maybe you would…..

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  8. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Well, it appears you still have no grasp of factual history. You just keep spewing your version of Christian bad, everybody else good. Tell us how you can know more about history by standing at the Wailing Wall than anybody else? Amazing arrogance but not not unusual for people who have no clue. But I digress. Please explain to us all what you know about the Christian Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks. How about telling us how the Arabs got all of North Africa and into Spain in 60 years? Debating the natives? How about the wars between the Indians and Pakistani’s? You see Thornton, you have a one sided view of passing over Muslims atrocities and expanding on others. I recall a terrible pestilence called the Black Death that killed up to 30% of all Europeans. Where did that start eh? You are simply uneducated on the facts and I and Wirth will call you on your fibs every time.

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  9. RL Crabb Avatar

    You might as well give up, Mike. Arguing with Todd is about as useful as arguing with a cinderblock.

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  10. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Do you just write whatever you ‘re going to write, regardless of what’s been said?
    I’m sorry, but did I ever say that there was no Turkish led genocide of the Armenians?
    The Arabs got to North Africa exactly how you think they got there and on top of that they have been brutal to the (largely) Christian, Black Africans in Southern Sudan to this very day.
    And as Steve (correctly) pointed out the other day the French brutalized the Algerians and the Dutch and the Brits ran amok in South Africa and colonized Rhodesia and Shell Oil pays mercenaries to kill activists in Nigeria, so what’s your point?
    The Black Death? Are you saying that the Muslims attacked Europe with germ Warfare?
    Where did the Small Pox come from that killed Pacific Islanders and North American Indians?
    How about the wars between the Pakistanis and Indians and the fact that there are extremist Muslims and extremist Hindus and there have been massacres on both side of that coin?
    Todd, look I know you want to hate the Muslims, so just hate them and be done with it.
    You do know that there was something like 100 Million. Black Africans killed as a result of the slave trade, right? And you do know that there many millions more killed in the Spanish Conquest of South and Central America, right? And then there’s North America….. Do you just pretend that none of that happened and that it’s only the Muslims, that have done horrible things?
    Because that’s what it seems like and for the life of me, I can’t understand how or why you do that!

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  11. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    I like that cinderblock analogy. they are use everywhere and many things are built with them.Since RL has no opinion of Thornton’s rock position I assume he agrees with him. Too bad.
    I don’t hate anyone Thorton, I am putting out information just like you are. If you can’t deal with that then that is your problem. Seems you have covered the atrocity meter of all people’s in your last post. You have a bent towards justifying Muslim activities in the last century and we are simply trying to provide balance. I do not accept your premise that all of the worlds ills are caused by the west. You seem to. So, you can go have a beer with those that agree with you and I will with those that agree with me.

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  12. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Yes, Todd you’re a “hater”. It couldn’t be more clear than if you had it tattooed on your forehead.
    But, I know that the vast majority of “hate” is actually rooted in “fear”.
    Maybe someday you’ll get over that. I hope so, for your sake.

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  13. Greg Goodknight Avatar
    Greg Goodknight

    I can’t say Todd is motivated by hate anymore than you are, Mike. As far as I can tell, most who are so polarized have no clue what the motivations are of their opposites.
    In the real world, there seems to be two basic camps: ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘praise the lord, pass the ammunition’. It isn’t necessarily that much maligned “fear” that is the motivation. I’m not “fearful” of rattlesnakes in my yard, but if one pops up, it will probably be dispatched as humanely as I can manage. Not fear, but when it’s an issue of them or my family or animals, well, the viper will be the one to get recycled.
    While I don’t care for the R-word, I accept what George means by his use is that the R’s are the ones who have declared war against us, and he’s in the “pass the ammunition” camp. Nothing hateful about that, just a realistic assessment of the job that needs to be done.
    With luck, the awakening of the Muslim street will be followed by a cleaning of their own house. We should let them do it with as little interference as is practical.

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  14. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Greg
    I appreciate your insight in this but where does our foreign policy of the last 60 years come into the picture. I keep using the history of our recent CIA sponsored coup in Iran to emphasize why we (meaning all outsiders) are hated in the region and how that inspires violent retribution such as the attacks on 9/11. We must take some responsibility for our violation of the sovereignty of the nations in the region. Again, I highly recommend reading “God’s Terrorists” by Charles Allen to understand the motivations and roots of modern Jihad.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/gods-terrorists-by-charles-allen-468226.html

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  15. Brad Croul Avatar
    Brad Croul

    One thing that I don’t think has been pointed out here is that the majority of the religious conquests and atrocities occurred centuries ago. This is true of both Christianity and Islam.
    Recent incidents appear to me to be the result of fundamentalist, or radical, religious viewpoints; or religious teachings that are used as an excuse by groups to achieve some goal.
    The majority of people subscribe to more of a “live and let live” philosophy.
    Probably the main reason I don’t care for organized religions is because of the groups that use religion as a means to an end; the end usually revolving around taking something from someone or some group.
    We will always be fighting over something, be it water, oil, land, food, money, jobs, or anything else perceived as being in short supply.
    There will always be the Bin Ladens, Timothy McVeighs, Jonestown Jims, Waco cultists,or an IRA, some more dangerous to Americans than others.
    Keep in mind that not all Muslims are terrorists and not all terrorists are Muslims.

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  16. Greg Goodknight Avatar
    Greg Goodknight

    Paul, I posted a link either here or at Steele’s with a quote from a scholar in Lebanon. Well worth reading. To the effect that the Moslem world has blamed everyone but themselves over the past 60 years, and part of the awakening of Moslems is a realization they’ve been putting up with tyrannical butchers of their own. Most of their problems are home grown and killing infidels isn’t going to solve them.
    Finding reasons to blame someone else is as old as the judeo-christian scriptures, and the threads of the modern middle east mess predate the existence of the CIA.

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  17. Greg Goodknight Avatar
    Greg Goodknight

    “Keep in mind that not all Muslims are terrorists and not all terrorists are Muslims.”
    As far as I can tell, no one here has ever managed to forget anything so basic. So why bring it up?

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  18. Brad Croul Avatar
    Brad Croul

    Greg,
    “…no one here has ever managed to forget anything so basic”.
    Who are you presuming to speak for?

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  19. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Greg, Paul and Brad all raise good points!
    But for Greg: I think the difference between my position and George’s is that George sees the Muslim world and Islam in the same way that many of the staunch Cold Warriors viewed the Soviet Union. (a) I think they are/were different things and so therefor need different approaches. I think using the “R-word” is both a tactical and strategies mistake. George has appeared to back off from its use and I think he is correct to do so.
    Todd on the other hand (in my opinion simply enjoys the process of having someone/something to hate. If it’s not Muslims, its Liberals or Obama or whoever/whatever his target of the minute is.
    I’d like to be clear about one other thing: I’m anything but “turn the other cheek” type of person. I believe in the concepts of self defense and of “Just” war. I also believe that we need to find a way to live together on this planet and the Muslims have as much right as we do, to live in peace and security. When people like Todd do their “Good American/Christian, Bad Arab/Muslim” it over simplifies the situation and in fact plays right into the hands of the people who are using the “America is the Great Satan and out to destroy Islam” rap as a recruiting tool. Think about it, you got to pretty darn motivated and/or pretty darn hopeless to be a “suicide” bomber. So while I think the flag waving parties when Osama Bin Laden was killed were inappropriate, I’m glad he’s dead! And I believe that any and all people Muslim or otherwise who are bent on murder and destruction, particularly of innocents, need to be stopped by “whatever means necessarily”. However we can’t take that stand and continue to kick sand in their faces and expect them not to react and react badly. I frankly don’t see how any reasonably intelligent person can argue against this, unless their hatred of Muslims and Islam is their real motivating factor. I mean I guess we can add greed for their resources to the mix as well, but if that’s the case just be honest about it!
    My point about having been to the Middle east on a couple of occasions and studying about the region and it’s history is that it’s complicated and those complications have been building since the time of Muhammad. We simply can’t pretend that they don’t exist, because Michael Savage and Glenn Beck say “Good Christian, Bad Muslim.”

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  20. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Greg
    There’s an old saying that there’s nothing better for religion than a good healthy devil. Do you think 9/11 would have happened if we hadn’t meddled in the affairs of the sovereign nations of the region? Remember, it is estimated that 50,000 Iranians were killed and executed by the dictator the Shah of Iran, the guy we installed and maintained after the 1953 coup. At what point does a sovereign nation have the right to fight back after a foreign invasion or takeover? The fervor of the radical Islamists was nurtured by the West when it was used against the Russians in Afghanistan but after their ouster they turned on us for the same reasons.

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  21. Greg Goodknight Avatar
    Greg Goodknight

    Brad Croul,
    If you hadn’t edited my quote, you could have answered your own question quite handily: I wrote, “As far as I can tell…”
    I was presuming to speak for myself. Was that so hard?

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  22. Greg Goodknight Avatar
    Greg Goodknight

    M Thorton, I think you’re forcing George into the box that the left has been putting conservatives during the cold war, a comfortable sterotype. This isn’t the cold war, the Soviets were not cooking up plots for murdering US civilians.
    P Emery, I met Ron Paul at Timothy Leary’s house 23 years ago when Leary hosted a reception for the ’88 Presidential Campaign, and the only two political parties at the time with platforms of not messing in the internal affairs of other countries were the Libertarian and Peace & Freedom Parties; not surprising, because the LIBs were originally an offshoot of the P&FP. I was firmly against the ’90 Desert Shield and Storm, but grudgingly approving of the toppling of the Baathists in Iraq, an unfortunate necessity after the flawed concept of Desert Storm was made WORSE by not finishing the job.
    The midddle east during the cold war was a hodgepodge of US and USSR client states. Syria was in the USSR camp, Israel and (for a time) Iran was in ours. Turkey was mostly friendly to us, and we paid them a lot to have electronic outposts on their border to monitor USSR ICBM testing. Egypt was for a time more friendly towards the Soviets.
    It was, and still is, a mess. It does appear that many of Islam’s tyrants are finally becoming afraid of their own people, and this is a good thing. Maybe as a partial result they will finally love their children more than they hate Israelis.

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  23. George Rebane Avatar
    George Rebane

    I find blaming the US for 9/11 is too simplistic. The forces at work in the middle east have been complex, more so in recent decades. In cases of interpreting the actions of militant Islam, I prefer starting with history (as do they) and then believing their own considerable writings on the subject of their strategic disposition toward the west.
    Re all religions needing a good devil, it would have been very easy for the Arab countries to have absorbed the Palestinian refugees. They were kept as refugees in the periphery of Israel for a strategic reason.
    (The US and the west could have done the same with the millions of east Europeans after WW2 as part of the cold war against Soviet expansion.)

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  24. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Well Greg there is no doubt that the Arab nations use the Palestinians for their own political ends, of course that doesn’t change the fact, that while many Palestinians left their homes ahead of the Arab attack on the Israelis, many also were forced to flee as a result of organized terror campaigns led by Israeli paramilitary and terrorist organizations. But as always the situation is “complicated” since their are a few small communities in Israel that have Jews, Christians and Muslims living together in a communal environment to this very day.
    I think the “You’re blaming the US for 9/11.” is an example of an over simplification!
    All anybody is saying is that there is a wider context of events, both current and historical that make the “Good American, Bad Muslim.” position a fairly ridiculous and more importantly ineffective one.
    The Baathists and more particularly Saddam Hussein, were our guys and when they were attacking the Kurds and especially in the war with Iran we supported them. Only later when Saddam got too big for his britches and started talking about nationalizing the oil and messing with the Sheiks in Kuwait did he get himself in trouble with the US. But the real kicker was when the Bush Family friends in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia got scared of Iraq. That’s when things really hit the fan for the Butcher of Baghdad and by the way when OBL really set his sights on the US, because of the US troops being brought in to Saudi.
    Getting back to the refugee thing for a minute, the US didn’t have such a great record when it came to Jews fleeing Nazism prior to the Holocaust or for that matter responding to repeated request to bomb the rail lines leading to the camps.
    And yes, that was a Democratic Administration and a horrible decision, along with the internment of the Japanese, made by one of our greatest presidents ever, FDR.
    He really effed up there, but you guys still can’t have the dime to put Ronnie Reagan’s mug on!

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  25. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    What this line of discussion proves is each person has read the history books of their choice and now maintain a world view all their own. George and Russ are probably the only veterans here and have actual experience on the issues we book readers and newspaper lookers have. So I would say they are the people we need to listen too more. I agree with some of the points even from Paul and Thornton but only on sme of the the historical facts not much on the outcomes they now think are the reasons for the Geo-politic. For every atrocity the leftwing extremists conjure up against the west or America, there are hundreds more from the East and Middle East. Simply because the American nation is only 240 years old and the others are thousands. What cracks me up is the self importance the left has about the outrage they claim America is guilty of, The Iran issue is one of them. The USSR wanted a warm water port for hundreds of years and they were after Iran. The West stopped the Russians from achieving their takeover by helping get the Shah into power. (I think he was actually in a line of rulers deposed earlier). So, the left then shouts with glee when the Ayatollah regains power and the religious nuts take over. Now isn’t that special? The left hates religion yet supports people like the Mullahs of Iran because they took over from a USA supported ruler. Amazing. I have more but my fingers are tires.
    Oh BTW, I don’t hate anyone Mikee, I am simply cautious.

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  26. Greg Goodknight Avatar
    Greg Goodknight

    “All anybody is saying is that there is a wider context of events, both current and historical that make the “Good American, Bad Muslim.” position a fairly ridiculous and more importantly ineffective one.”
    Thornton, no one I know of has a “Good American, Bad Muslim.” position, your whole argument is based on a straw man.

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  27. Larry Wirth Avatar
    Larry Wirth

    Not to be a spoiler here, but Mike, you need to get your “math” on more solid ground. At the time the “slave trade” flourished, the “dark continent” probably contained less than 50 million human inhabitants. Are you telling us, in cold blood, that European slavers killed all of them twice?
    I’d guess the death toll of the slave trade probably amounted to a few thousands, a far cry from a “hundred million.” Where do you get your “talking points,” MSNBC? Of all the preposterous things you’ve said here, that one sands out loud and clear.

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  28. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Todd, I never said that the US didn’t have strategic reasons for their own benefit to wage a coup and replace a democratically elected leader with a favorable dictator. In fact you confirm that notion. So in your opinion if a sovereign nation’s leadership is deposed by a foreign entity doesn’t that give them the right to retaliate? Again, imagine if the shoe was on the other foot if the Iranians ousted Truman and installed their own guy what would we do? I’m just trying to put recent history in perspective to better understand why we have become targets of Muslim extremists.
    Do you not consider the coup against the sovereign nation of Iran an “outrage”, as you use the word?
    Iran is only one example. The point is they hate us because we’re there. Again, “we” means all foreign intruders. “They” refers to the radical Islamic factions.

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  29. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Pail wasn’t the Shah actually a legal heir to power in Iran? I suggest you read “Jefferson’s War” if you haven’t. The west was under attack and paid tribute to the Barbary Pirates in the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries until Thomas Jefferson kicked their butts in Tripoli. The reason the “pirates” were doing this is because they had declared “Jihad” against everything western. Some things never change eh?

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  30. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    The US led coupis a more recent example of piracy, this time about oil. The whole point of this conversation is to look at the root causes of Islamic terrorism so I think it’s relevant.
    Iran was a Democratic Republic at the time of the coup. The Shah was the second and last monarch of the House of Pahlavi of the Iranian monarchy. He was at the time of the coup the Monarch but the country was a Parliamentary style Democracy. The Shah dissolved the Parliament and ruled as a dictator until deposed in 1979
    Here is more about the Iran coup from a study based
    on documents released to the National Security Archive and reflected in the book Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne.
    “In 1957, the CIA helped to found Iran’s secret police, which had unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It eventually became a law unto itself, imposing the Shah’s authority through its reign of terror and torture . An estimated 13,000 Iranians were killed by SAVAK’s agents; among other distinguished acts of state loyalty, it brutally repressed the riots and demonstrations that, starting in 1978, eventually led to the Shah’s deposition by Ayatollah Khomeiny a year later; untold thousands were gunned down during those riots.
    The ’28 Mordad’ coup, as it is known by its Persian date, was a watershed for Iran, for the Middle East and for the standing of the United States in the region. The joint U.S.-British operation ended Iran’s drive to assert sovereign control over its own resources and helped put an end to a vibrant chapter in the history of the country’s nationalist and democratic movements. These consequences resonated with dramatic effect in later years. When the Shah finally fell in 1979, memories of the U.S. intervention in 1953, which made possible the monarch’s subsequent, and increasingly unpopular, 25-year reign intensified the anti-American character of the revolution in the minds of many Iranians.”

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  31. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    I wonder how many Iranian and Iraqi lives would have been saved if there had been no war between them when the Ayatollah was head honcho? I guess one good coup deserves anther eh?

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  32. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    You might sense here that I embrace to a considerable degree a Ron Paul preference on foreign policy.
    Todd The Iran-Iraq war. A half million lives were lost in that long and futile war. That war began when Iraq invaded Iran on September 1980. We supported both sides but mostly Iraq. In those days Saddam was our guy . A successful invasion of Iran would enlarge Iraq’s oil reserves and make Iraq the dominant power in the Persian Gulf region and we wanted to be part of the action. Generally,Iraq was regarded by the West as a counterbalance to post-revolutionary Iran so we overlooked his use of chemical warfare . We did protest verbally to his use of chemical weapons but continued to support him with logistics and materials even after his use of such weapons against the Kurds in his own territory.

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  33. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Paul, what do think things would look like today if Iran was taken by the USSR for their warm water port?

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  34. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Todd
    That is a highly hypothetical conjecture and if it’s meant to be used as a reasoning for the coup in Iraq it won’t stand up to even the most casual inquiry. They would still have to secure a land route to the port which would involve going over the Kyber Pass through Afghanistan. You saw what happened when they tried that 20 years later. Here’s my thoughts on the issue of empire building and maintenance.
    Let me start with a quote from Ron Paul from a speech he gave while advocating our withdrawal from Iraq
    “Special interests and the demented philosophy of conquest have driven most wars throughout history. Rarely has the cause of liberty, as it was in our own revolution, been the driving force. In recent decades our policies have been driven by neo-conservative empire radicalism, profiteering in the military industrial complex, misplaced do-good internationalism, mercantilistic notions regarding the need to control natural resources, and blind loyalty to various governments in the Middle East.”
    The coup was staged to secure strategic resources and no other reason. The cold war was tagged as a secondary reason but it was really all about oil and the fact that Mohammad Mosaddeq chose to nationalize Iranian oil to cut out British Petroleum so he could get a better deal for his country. We made the choice to sacrifice the liberty of the Iranian people to secure our Empire interests. This is a good source for the story.
    http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

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  35. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    So the manifest destiny started by Peter the Great was not an issue then? Why did the Rooskies invade and keep the Baltic states? I think you are underplaying them and I am not sure why.

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  36. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    BTW Paul, could you and Thorton explain to us why the Muslims are burning down dozens of Coptic Christian churches and murdering their members in Egypt? I am reading this is happening since Mubarak left. Also, the burners are the “street” Muslims. What the heck?

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  37. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Why is it that when Todd thinks the context of history bolsters his arrangement it’s then useful to focus upon it, but when it doesn’t it’s to be ignored?

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  38. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Can’t answer the question eh? Typical leftwing dodge.

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  39. Mike Thornton Avatar

    Gee, Todd, I would have thought you’d know the answer to that one?
    My guess it’s because they’re “haters”, something you know more than a little bit about!
    Of course the other side of this is; How many Muslims, didn’t burn down any Coptic Christian Churches in Egypt today or yesterday or for the last 1000 years?

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  40. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    I know about haters because you and your ilk have taught the world your hate. I don’t hate anyone so you are simply making it up for your own leftwingnut reasons. The Muslims are burning the Coptic’s out because they have been doing it since Mohamed was alive. Why do you hate America Thornton? Did it do you wrong?

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  41. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Todd
    “Manifest Destiny” is just another word for beating the crap out of your neighbors and taking everything they have just because you can. We certainly don’t have a franchise on the concept. The point to be made is with our recent history we shouldn’t set ourselves up as an exception to the rule. Russians in the Baltics? Sure. Ottoman Empire? Sure. European Colonialism? Sure. On and on…………..
    Why are the Coptic churches being burnt down? (I think it’s only one) Because that’s what people do to each other and have been doing for thousands of years (church burning). Look at the history of the Klu Klux Clan in this country or the Catholics in Aztec Mexico or the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland or the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Chinese in Tibet. If what you are getting at is that this is a uniquely Moslem trait look again at history, something you like to do . They all have God or the State on their side if you ask them.
    Now answer mine. Here’s one you never answered.
    “Do you not consider the coup against the sovereign nation of Iran an “outrage”, as you use the word?”

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  42. Steve Enos Avatar
    Steve Enos

    Hey George.. didn’t Todd recently post he would stop with all his personal, off topic attacks on your blog?
    Seems the follwoing post by Todd again shows Todd can’t keep his word… will you George? Will you ever apply standards to Todd?
    It’s clear to all that read this blog that the number one poster of personal attacks is Todd.. a fact.. here is just one more example from Todd:
    “I know about haters because you and your ilk have taught the world your hate. I don’t hate anyone so you are simply making it up for your own leftwingnut reasons. The Muslims are burning the Coptic’s out because they have been doing it since Mohamed was alive. Why do you hate America Thornton? Did it do you wrong?”
    EXIT QUESTION… George why do you allow Todd to do this over and over and over?

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  43. Mike Thornton Avatar

    To be fair, I did sorta tweak Todd’s nose on this one.
    However, I’d really like to ask Todd a couple of serious questions: (1) Are all Muslims bad and if so, why? Do you object to Islam as a religion (not the acts of a few of it’s so-called adherents) but as a religion in and of itself and if so, why” (2) If all Muslims aren’t “bad”, what is the percentage of Muslims that are? And (3) Do you believe that Islam, rates as one of the world’s “great” religions and should be accorded equal respect with Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.? If not, why?

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  44. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Paul, I gave you my view on Iran. Read back. SteveE, stop whining. Mike Thornton, I will answer your questions after you answer mine.

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  45. Steve Enos Avatar
    Steve Enos

    Hey Todd… how about you keep your word to George and stop with the endless, needless, personal attacks?
    EXIT QUESTION… George why do you allow Todd to do this over and over and over?

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  46. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    SteveE stop whining. You come of as immature.

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  47. Steve Enos Avatar
    Steve Enos

    Once again.. Todd shows everyone what he really is.
    EXIT QUESTION… George why do you allow Todd to do this over and over and over?

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  48. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Todd
    Can you refresh me on your opinion on
    “Do you not consider the coup against the sovereign nation of Iran an “outrage”, as you use the word?”
    Looking back I couldn’t find a clear answer from you.

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  49. Mike Thornton Avatar

    I don’t know what question you mean, Todd?
    If it’s actually a legitimate one, I’m sure I’ll answer it.

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  50. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Sorry I don’t need to repeat myself, do some homework.

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