military action against Libya

Have any of you ever visited Topkapi Palace in Istanbul? If you have, did you visit the treasure rooms? If not, don't miss it, because it's one of the most amazing collections of jewelry you'll ever see in emeralds, other precious stones, and gold.

I saw the dvds on Topkapi Palace. I didn't see the movie Topkapi with Peter Sellers or Yul Brynner.

Ataturk and his Young Turks would have been surprised to hear that ....

It illustrates how destructive and demoralizing partisan politics can be... And there were times when the Ottomans could have been swept from power by popular feeling, and the opposition which came forward we tolerated, and invited in, and when the situation settled some what, the opposition was invited to dinner, and sometime between the first and last course where grabbed as a single man, and strangled... What we think of as barbaric, that the stongest brother's brothers were hunted down and killed the people rejoiced in knowing they were thus spared the curse of civil war... When that practice ended, and parties put forward their candidates for the thrown which they often did not even trouble to educate, things went to hell in a hurry... They were great, and within a very short period of time let it all go to hell, but we do no different in the form of our politics...

We have too few representing too many, and in our elected dictator we place too much power by default, and in electing them we look for signs of virtue rather than intelligence only to find we have bought a bill of lading... Elected officials are as manipulated by advisors and events as was any Sultan in days past... They find their power is no larger then their purse which is empty, and their moral authority has no strength to resist the claims of the opposition party.... In military matters the advantage often rests with the defense... In moral affairs, the advantage always rests with the attack, and defense has no merit, since the innocent and the guilty defend themselves with equal vigor....

Of course it cannot last; and the only question is whether this people will stand up for themselves and resist slavery or be good, and submit...The problem lies in the form, and every form has its paradigm, its way of seeing the world... The rich can no more deny riches to themselves while others are becoming rich than a sinner can reject his sins and become instantly a saint... As that man from Tammeny hall said: I Saw my Chances and I took 'em... It does not matter if we salute the flag, and sing about the land of the free and the home of the brave... It will take more than that to make us free, but the essential fact that could make all people free is not external to us, but internal...

With a blink of the eye the money of the rich could be made meaningless... With the passing of a minute the power of the powerful could be held without effect... People do not need to change the world to have freedom... People need to change themselves, and this power is denied to most simply because they are trapped by their forms and see the world through it, and can see it in no other fashion... As terrible as it might be to see or to suffer, to have all of america thrown out of work, or fearing it, or finding their money unable to meet their needs, and seeing themselves daily reduced to a poverty more certain may be enough to shock them out of their lasitude and fatality.... But if they are ground down, year after year, become demoralized by a slow inflicition of pain which they cannot hope to escape, then they will accept slavery as the price of survival and lament their fates to high heaven...

Pain, poverty, and resentment, sudden, surprising and unrelenting is the best I can hope for... When we see people destroyed before our eyes, and can blame them for the disaster that befalls them, or can call it fate, or misfortune, or bad luck, and do not help them, then when it happens to us we can expect no help, and look for none... We can get used to it if we are given time... We cannot give up our form because while within it we can see no other... If it does not work, but only ruins us, feeds on us, or destroys us one or two at a time to make a few rich people that much more rich, we do not know what to do, and so do nothing... The destruction of our society, economy, and government before our eyes could be like a spur in the side... I don't want people to give up, and get used to it, even if that is the natural inclination of all people... I want people surprised and excited to act suddenly in their own def3ense... So much of what we see is outrageous, but it is the turning of a screw...If people could learn to see through their forms, and to shift their paradigms with ease, then their form would lose its hold on them and they could be free without firing a shot... The skill is not impossible, but unless one is taught, the skill is not learned... The anger is there, but all disorganized and disconnected, random, and misdirected...

They have always been the most Western of the Muslim people, and the most willing to embrace western technology and methods... Ataturk was a man... What he told the Turks fighting the Australians: I am not asking you to fight; I am asking you to die, deserves place among the great statements of warfare in any age...

We sanitize war... There is too much of the white coat and cube farm to it all... Oppenhiemer told Truman: I have blood on my hands, and Truman was offended because he gave the orders that dropped the bomb... Both might have rejoiced in the fact, and yet something is denied to to humanity when people in some nice clean office building can destroy other people with a drone aircraft who have never had anything approaching the life that the killer has enjoyed, having lived always in the company of want and insecurity... There is no insult to humanity greater than killing a person and not making yourself the witness of his fate... Who is it who can kill without the danger or smelling blood, or guts, or defecation??? Who is it who can kill without risk??? What is that but murder??? Show me that one willing to risk death to inflict death, and I will show you a man... But that sort who sit behind a desk ordering up thousands, or millions to be killed have not the compassion of a serial killer...An essential element of humanity is missing from their character...

It is too easy to kill and too difficult to recognize in our enemy our own humanity that we are destroying... Our leaders are not men... They hide behind an army of police, secret police, and secret secret police... No one will ever hold them accountable for their crimes, and they may destroy humanity with a push of the pen... They have no concept of life, of right, of justice, or of the inevitable consequences springing from the want of them... It is too easy for them to kill... It is too difficult for them to grasp for alternatives to killing...

My point was the country was forced into the modern era by the Young Turks . If the Ottomans were the most willing, then the others must be very stuck in the middle ages .

The modern world forced them to modernize, and the Young Turks only facilitated what was necessary... And yes, Many Muslim countries are caught in an age, though not the middle ages, that hopefully no people will entirely escape... With us honor is empty show, and with them honor still has real meaning... It is inevitable that where money is dear, honor is cheap... We still like tha appearance of it, but it has long ceased being a thing people will sooner die defending than live without....The whole of Islam is based upon honor, and no man can be a Muslim short of taking an oath to the facts they daily testify to every time they pray... They cannot but defend their religion and the memory of the profit, and we see this in recent deaths in Afghanistan... No one should, on a lark enrage those people...

Muslims are required to pray five or six times every day; it dominates their lives, because it takes over their consciousness from dawn to dusk. It's the fastest growing religion of the world, and christians will become a has been in short order.

I disagree.

While Islam is often referred to as "the fastest growing religion," the accuracy of this claim is dependent upon one's definition of "fastest growing."

Assuming, however, that Islam is the "fastest growing religion," there is absolutely no reason to believe Christianity or any of the world's other great religions will become a "has been" in the near term.

In addition, there is little to no reason to believe that the speed of it's growth has anything to do with praying five times a day or a perceived intensity of faith.

As you know, Christianity is currenly the largest (in terms of estimated adherents) religion in the world. Approx 1 in 3 people self-identify as Christians, while 1 in 5 self-identify as Muslims.

Focusing only on the demographics of The United States and Western Europe may lead one to the conclusion that the worldwide dominence of Christianity is in rapid decline, but that would be looking at only a corner of the entire picture.

Throughout the world, Christianity is growing at a rate of about 1.4, despite the acknowledged and somewhat steep decline in adherents in developed nations. The latter trend, of course, has nothing to do with the specific teachings of Christianity, but illustrates that the more advanced and sophisticated a society become, the less the members' interest in institutionalized religion.

What nation, in which Islam is the dominant religion is as advanced and sophisticated as the US and Western Europe?

Christianty is steadily growing in the region of the globe with the highest population growth: sub-sahran Africa. In all of Africa, Islam leads at 45% of the population with Christianity close behind at 40%

At present the growth in Islam is due primarily to birth rate, while conversion remain a significant driver in the growth of Christianity.

In South America where there is a positive birth rate, Christianity is the religion of approx 90% of the population.

At current growth rates (with that of Islam being in the area of 2.3% and Christianity at 1.4%), the number of Christians in the world will still exceed the number of Muslims in the year 2050, which hardly describes a "has been."

I don't care which religion, if any, "wins out," as long as its adherents act civilized.

You mean like murdering your own daughter to save your honour .

Obviously you have never served your country .

Freudian slip ?

Pure hogwash

Surely a slip, and a fall, since most of the profit (as interest )we make is not allowed to them of other Muslims... They can loan it to us, but who is going to collect???

You have never served your country, but your country has served you with an excuse to bleed others not of your nation... Where are your loyalties, honestly, if you have the honor to say???

You want to make some joke of honor... The only reason people will kill one of their own for honor is because where they are they cannot live without it... Honor for us is a relic of a society without money.... Where people have no money they must often trust their own neighbors with the care of their business and family if they are going to be able to leave home in search of sustenence.... And often their neighbors must be able to trust them in like fashion... That one not trustworthy was an abscess on society, and everyone traded on their honor, and you can see this even in our own bible where Abraham, sending his messenger tells him to place his hand under his thigh, which was a polite way of telling him to take his oath, which all men swore on their testicles... You don't get it, but it has remnants in some of our oldest written stories, from the Illiad, The Orestia, and the epic of Cu'chulain... Do you give credit for nothing, or do you credit the man??? You are living in such a differnt age that there in nothing for which you to compare... It is no wonder that the oaths of western society are empty formality...

I disagree, but you talk as though you at least know hogs and hogwash... Doesn't the smell get to you after a while, or does it grow on you like the scent of a garden???

It is the fastest growing as a result of the poverty they suffer which endangers all life, and because they are the most hopeful of people as well as the most merciful with the help of God, and for this reason they wish to give their hopeful lives to their children... Life is nothing to that one who fears God, but life is meaningless to most Christians since they must live it without joy in order to enjoy eternity, and being joyless, they wish to deny joy to all...

I don't think you can find a Christian alive who does not feel in his heart that he is being cheated out of all the fun in life by a false promise of salvation, and the closest they get to heaven is being a giant buzz killer to everyone else... If people enjoy it though it hurts no one, if it can be conceived of as a sin because sinners do it, then it will be made illegal, and if people do not stop of their own accord they will be dragged into stopping or into jail...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110407/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_libya

This is working out so well...Thanks Obama, great idea of yours....

Not his idea, but he shouldn't have endorsed it. On the other hand, bombing rebels probably keeps the fighting down and "protects civilians".

if the plan was to win friends we dont seem to be on the right page....spending a lot of money to end up with everyone even more pissed at us than they already were is not a good investment. We already knew that we had no national security reason for this military action.

I assume that is why the US is pulling back resources from the effort, but I think you are right, we are not on the right page. It seems the only reason we jumped into this was that our European allies asked us to and we owe them.

It seems the only reason we jumped into this was that our European allies Hillary asked us to and we owe them her.