THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html

It's never a question of which Bush - they are a family with Carlisle connections. Their allegience is to Carlisle and money.

UNOCAL is being exposed for giving the five star treatment to Taliban Mullahs in the Lone Star State in 1997. The "evil-ones" were also invited to meet with U.S. government officials in Washington, D.C.

Somethings never change.

"The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract." In a paper prepared by Neamatollah Nojumi, at the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Nojumi wrote in August 1997 that Madeline Albright sat in a "full-dress CIA briefing" on the Caspian region. CIA agents then accompanied "some well-trained petroleum engineers" to the region. Albright concluded that shaping the region's policies was "one of the most exciting things that we can do."

Iraq was not a present or future threat to us.

There were no more terrorists in Iraq before we attacked the country than there are in many other countries, including our own. We created a vacuum and cranked up Muslim hatred. The terrorists rushed in.

How does this compare to the tens of thousands of Iraqis that WE killed?

I would lay my reading and listening next to yours any day, as well as my analysis of same.

Kara wrote:

Iraq was not a present or future threat to us.

And your evidence is ... ?

Kara wrote:

There were no more terrorists in Iraq before we attacked the country than there are in many other countries, including our own. We created a vacuum and cranked up Muslim hatred. The terrorists rushed in.

Muslim hatred was cranked up long before the US went into Afganistan or Iraq. It goes back centuries!

Why does anyone believe that Saddam aided and abetted only Palestinian jihadist terrorists?

Kara wrote:

I would lay my reading and listening next to yours any day, as well as my analysis of same.

Any day? Why? Are they based on what you feel driven to believe or are they based on what are true facts? How do you know which is which?

Muslim hatred was cranked up long before the US went into Afganistan or Iraq. It goes back centuries!

Why does anyone believe that Saddam aided and abetted only Palestinian jihadist terrorists?

They are the same. They are the Iraqi soldiers and terorists plus about 20% non-combatant Sunnies et al that we killed.

Its practically impossible to provide evidence that somebody was NOT a threat. How do you go about proving that?

But if Saddam's Iraq really was a threat to the US, that should surely be easy to prove, no?

Where's the beef, is what I say. We can all speculate. Fact is I havent seen any evidence that Iraq undertook any attack on the US or its citizens in the past ten years.

Ehm ... wasnt the discussion about Iraq?

Because there is no convincing evidence to show otherwise.

ican711nm wrote:

Kara wrote:

Iraq was not a present or future threat to us.

And your evidence is ... ?

Its practically impossible to provide evidence that somebody was NOT a threat. How do you go about proving that?

But if Saddam's Iraq really was a threat to the US, that should surely be easy to prove, no?

More than a mellennium, actually. However, note that it is a two way street. We were repelling Muslim onslaughts into Europe for almost a thousands years. When the tables turned, sometime around the failed siege of Vienna in 1683, we wasted no time in launching incursions into Muslim territory. Also, remember the Crusades and the ejection of the Moors from Spain.

It never ceases to amaze me how people can look at a history of conlict, and then lay the blame or aggression squarely on the Muslim side. Its dumb.

Because that is all we have evidence for.

Where is the evidence of a Hussien/Al Qaida link?

The latest figures indicate over 10,000 innocent civilians were killed.

Never downplay this, moron.

A little correction:
There were no real "Muslim onslaughts into Europe." The closest thing would be the establishment of Almoravid Spain in 731.

The civilization of Islam, on the other hand, was ecumenical in its outlook and explicitly so in its aspirations. One of the basic tasks bequeathed to Muslims by the Prophet was jihad. This word, which literally means "striving," was usually cited in the Koranic phrase "striving in the path of God" and was interpreted to mean armed struggle for the defence or advancement of Muslim power. In principle, the world was divided into two houses: the House of Islam, in which a Muslim government ruled and Muslim law prevailed, and the House of War, the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels. Between the two, there was to be a perpetual state of war until the entire world either embraced Islam or submitted to the rule of the Muslim state.

From an early date, Muslims knew that there were certain differences among the peoples of the House of War. Most of them were simply polytheists and idolaters, who represented no serious threat to Islam and were likely prospects for conversion. The major exception was the Christians, whom Muslims recognized as having a religion of the same kind as their own, and therefore as their primary rival in the struggle for world domination-or, as they would have put it, world enlightenment.

The crusades began in 1099, long before the seventeenth century siege of Vienna. That event was more of a Ottoman vs. Europe event, than a specifically "religious" conflict.

Indeed, any aspect of war in the name of religion tended to be pursued by the Christian side, not the Muslim side. One important aspect of crusading ideology was the idea that remission of sins could be achieved by kiling "heretics." This was not a concept embraced by the Muslim opponents of the crusaders, or by their Ottoman successors.

However, it was Kara who claimed the US was partially to blame for cranking up Muslim hatred in Iraq. I was refuting that claim and not blaming the Muslim hatred on Muslims or any other people. It's dumb to misread what's written.

nimh wrote:

Where is the evidence of a Hussien/Al Qaida link?

In Iraq!

nimh wrote:

The latest figures indicate over 10,000 innocent civilians were killed.

Ok make that approximately 14% of those killed in Iraq were innocent citizens instead of 20% of those killed in Iraq.

First of all, the geographical proximity of Christian and Islamic civilization, combined with thier ecumenical nature, and thier proslytizing ways, almost guaranteed conflict. The prevalent intrepretation of the Islamic religion throughout the ages, in particular, can almost be seen as supporting or encouraging this conflict

What would be more interesting is if somebody could cite some scripture supporting the "killing of heretics." I would like to make use of it in my discussions with Christians

To liberate her we had to slaughter her. It was for her own good.

But, 9/11 dude!!!

God bless America!

Further, I'll reference the Tatars in Russia,

the Moors in Spain,

and constant Muslim fighting with the Byzantines

and the Holy Roman Emperor in southeastern Europe (they captured Budapest and Belgrade) as just some examples of Muslim expanionism into Christian lands.

One rather exceptional incident, for example, was the Barbary Corsairs making it to Iceland in the 17th century.

Conflicts occurred, but more often due to the sort of political diferences that started any conflict, religion had little to do with conflict from the Muslim side.

Lewis is a fairly good source. I think you are misunderstanding the concept of the "house of war." The Christians and Jews were not considered to be fair "targets," since they were fellow "peoples of the book." The "polytheists" were frequently the other Arab and N. African tribes the Muslims encountered on their trip westward, and similar groups in the east.

From an early date, Muslims knew that there were certain differences among the peoples of the House of War. Most of them were simply polytheists and idolaters, who represented no serious threat to Islam and were likely prospects for conversion. The major exception was the Christians, whom Muslims recognized as having a religion of the same kind as their own, and therefore as their primary rival in the struggle for world dominationEach of these, in his time, was the principal adversary of the jihad.

Under the medieval caliphate, and again under the Persian and Turkish dynasties, the empire of Islam was the richest, most powerful, most creative, most enlightened region in the world, and for most of the Middle Ages Christendom was on the defensive.

IronLionZion wrote:

What would be more interesting is if somebody could cite some scripture supporting the "killing of heretics." I would like to make use of it in my discussions with Christians

Bernard of Clairvaux's Lauditas Novam Militiae (In Praise of the New Knighthood) is a good place to start. Malcolm Lambert's work is also a good source for heresy and its hunters in the middle ages.

These were pretty typical of the expansion of nomadic tribes in the early middle ages. Their religion had little to do with their migration.

I already mentioned them. You are aware that this group became the Almoravids, are you not?

The Persians had been fighting the Eastern Empire long before they converted to Islam, and continuied after. Again, this had little to do with religion.

Again, these were part of the Byzantine empire, not the Holy Roman Empire. The Byzantines and the Persians (and later the Turks) were at war pretty much all the time.

The key word here is "pirate." they were not seeking land.

I usually agree with you politically, but you are generalizing from a poorly researched position here.