I Am Sickened

[the tortured one]

As some of you may or may not know, I happen to be a libertarian sympathetic Objectivist (my support of them is conditional though, I vote based on who best represents my values, regardless of political party) so my views on the war on terror is that it is being fought incorrectly, but stories like these make me sick

about 2 years ago, In the city of Amsterdam, a filmmaker by the name of Theo Van Gogh made a movie that was a harsh criticism of the way Muslims treat women. Last Wednsday, he was assaulted by about half a dozen radicals and brutally murdered.

the reaction in Amsterdam was remarkable, rather then cower like the Spaniards did, there were cries of "we won't take this!" among others. Governmental officials are determined not to let terrorists cull their freedom of expression. Mainstream Dutch muslim groups have all condemned the killing

the terrorists were mostly Moroccan, and it is noted they may be related to the group that bombed Spain.

It really is sad that there are those who are so irrational that they would murder to cover up the truth. I see the value of religion (though I do not practice it) and it's sickening how much violence has arisen from religions that preach peace and brotherhood (christianity and Islam, notably)

I sincerly hope that Bush shifts focus on the groups that really are a threat, and stops nation-building.

[Prae]

I sincerly hope that Bush shifts focus on the groups that really are a threat, and stops nation-building.

I've been hoping that since we invaded Iraq and discovered there weren't any WMDs.

[Charles T.]

I've been hoping that since we invaded Iraq and discovered there weren't any WMDs.

Do you believe that Hussein had no WMD's prior to our invasion? (I infer that is what you believe from your statement, correct me if I'm wrong.)

[Oakes]

It really is sad that there are those who are so irrational that they would murder to cover up the truth. I see the value of religion (though I do not practice it) and it's sickening how much violence has arisen from religions that preach peace and brotherhood (christianity and Islam, notably)

Islam is responsible for far more violence than Christianity in the modern world. Most christian nations are industrialized and are far less fundamentalist. The trick is to do the same thing to Islam, which brings me to:

I sincerly hope that Bush shifts focus on the groups that really are a threat, and stops nation-building.

Building free nations is exactly what we need more of in the middle east. It is the disconnection from the globalizing world that causes the fundamentalism we are fighting, and the only way to fight it culturally is to bring freedom to the region. Freedom will allow western ideas and franchises to flood the region and turn the Muslims into this-worldly moderates.

Yes, Bush needs to confront the real threats like Iran, but sticking around to replace the regime with a free one is just as important. Bush's problem is that he thinks "democracy is democracy"; he is reluctant to assert a western-style constitutional republic on them.

As for Van Gogh, here's a good article about the story, the truth about Islam, and the multi-cultural world that refuses to see it:

EUROPA DELENDA: MUSLIM IMMIGRANT MURDERS DUTCH MAKER OF A MOVIE ABOUT ISLAM

. . .

The threats on van Gogh's life started ten weeks ago, after the premiere of his film. It was scripted by a Somali-born woman, Hirsi Ali (34), who grew up as a Muslim but has denounced the cult. She is now a Dutch national assembly deputy, and vociferous in her criticism of Islamic obscurantism and violence. She says the goal of the film was to draw attention to rampant but concealed violence against Muslim women, including those living in Europe, who are routinely subjected to rape, incest, forced marriages, and the suicides. "Muslims deny it," she says, "and many Dutch are afraid of taking it on, of causing religious tension, of being called racists."

. . .

In a display of suicidal idiocy be expected from a supine European Social Democrat, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende hastened to declare that "nothing is known about the motive" of the assassin, and called on the nation "not to jump to far-reaching conclusions." (Only hours later the police in The Hague arrested two-dozen Dutch youths, who seem to have jumped to their own conclusions, for "inciting hatred" and shouting "discriminatory and racist" chants.) The Prime Minister also referred to van Gogh's "outspoken opinions"—with at least a hint of the possibility that he had it coming—and boldly declared that it would be "unacceptable if a difference of opinion led to this brutal murder."

. . .

As for the Muslims? they are merely doing their thing, in the footsteps of their prophet. There were no turbulent filmmakers in Muhammad's time, but there were poets, and some of them gave him as much grief as van Gogh apparently did to the young Moroccan. After the battle of Badr, as Muhammad scrutinized his prisoners, his eye fell fiercely on one al-Nadr whom he had never forgiven for captivating the audiences in Mecca with more entertaining tales. He was beheaded on the spot. In Medina Muhammad ordered the murder of Asma bint Marwan, a poetess who made fun of him in verse. Anticipating Henry II's outburst, Muhammad exclaimed, "Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?" One of his followers duly did, that same night, stabbing her as she nursed her youngest child. One Abu Afak, supposedly over a hundred years old, criticized Muhammad in verse. The latter simply commented, "Who will deal with this rascal for me?" Abu Afak did not see the morning. The hatred of artistically inspired detractors was obsessive with Muhammad, and reflected in the Kuranic verdict that poets are inspired by Satan and have gone astray, possessed and no better than soothsayers.

That was the man who is explicitly upheld by all Muslims everywhere—from Mecca to Milan, from Amsterdam to Agadir—as the paragon of godly, morally impeccable behavior, to be admired and emulated until the end of time. His followers in the Western world are ready and willing to kill the native-born infidels who dare say things that are not to their liking. They feel justified by the divine sanction offered by their prophet. And kill they most assuredly will.

Short of a belated, massive, and unexpected recovery of its spiritual and moral strength—impossible under Prime Minister Balkenende and his ilk—Europe faces submission to Muhammad and eventual acceptance of sacred Arab places as its own. It can be saved, maybe, if it rises against its rulers, against the Balkenendes, Blairs, and a thousand clones who facilitate the advance of Islam by destroying every trace of the sense of community of European nations based on kinship, faith, and culture. If it does, if the youths arrested in The Hague provide an example and a lead for a million others, Theo van Gogh will not have died in vain.

[Prae]

Do you believe that Hussein had no WMD's prior to our invasion?  (I infer that is what you believe from your statement, correct me if I'm wrong.)

I'm sure he had some at some point. But I do not believe they were there just prior to our invasion, maybe a few years before, a year at the least.

I think we were led to believe first that he had them and we would find them, and second that he must have gotten rid of them. It all seems like too much of an excuse for not finding anything.

"Oh, they're not there huh? Well he must have gotten rid of them."

[Godless Capitalist]

Prae, it still possible they were smuggled out at the last minute. But in any case it was not our responsibility to prove the WMD were there. It was Saddam's responsibility to prove they were not there, and he failed to do that. Also, there is plenty of evidence that Saddam was planning to restart his WMD programs as soon as sanctions were lifted. As long as he was in power he was a threat, WMD or no WMD.

[oldsalt]

Consider what the argument that since we found no WMD's in Iraq we should not be fighting there really means:

Putting aside the fact that WMD's or no, Saddam posed a threat, and putting aside the argument that Iraq is a legitimate theater in the overall war (which it is), the facts are these:

Every intelligence entity in the world thought that Saddam had an active WMD program, and even the UN inspectors could not account for material we knew that he possessed at one time. Given this fact we had no other choice to go in when Saddam refused to live up to the conditions concerning these programs specified the cease-fire agreement -- which he signed.

We haven't found these materials. Does that mean that we ought to simply leave Iraq now? With the consequences that we know without a doubt would follow? Ought we to just allow someone like bin Laden to waltz into the chaos we created and take up Saddam's mantle? Is this the situation we want sitting on the border of Iran when take them on? Or on the border of Afghanistan? How is it in our best interest in allowing either Saddam, or the chaos we've created -- the two options we were left with -- to remain in play while we fight elsewhere?

The fact is that the war we are waging right now began in ernest with Gulf War I, we just didn't know it at the time. We need to stop attempting to separate the various theaters of this war. We have not fought "The Afghan War" and "The Iraq War". It is all the Global War on Terror (excepting without comment the general name given).

We aren't fighting a conventional war where one state declares war against another and all the lines are neatly drawn in the sand. We are fighting the culture of Islam. Saddam and bin Laden are birds of a feather. They both dream of restoring the Caliphate and Arab greatness. This war is the continuation of a very ancient war which began with the bloody rise of Islam 1500 years ago. These guys are just the latest power-lusters to use Islam to seek world domination. We are in a fight for Western Civilization. To know what that means, you must look to history and understand just who our enemy is. The enemy isn't bin Laden or Saddam. They personify the enemy, but the enemy is the philosophy and culture of Islam.

[Prae]

Prae, it still possible they were smuggled out at the last minute. But in any case it was not our responsibility to prove the WMD were there. It was Saddam's responsibility to prove they were not there, and he failed to do that. Also, there is plenty of evidence that Saddam was planning to restart his WMD programs as soon as sanctions were lifted. As long as he was in power he was a threat, WMD or no WMD.

It is our responsibility to prove they were there or not. We were going to attack the country (we did attack the country) if he didn't give us proof the weapons were gone. How can he prove the weapons are no longer there? He can show the inspectors the factories but we would say mobile facilities, in which case he could never prove they don't exist.

And then we just assume that he was going to start the programs again. It's possible he might have, but we have no idea what he was thinking.

[Prae]

Every intelligence entity in the world thought that Saddam had an active WMD program, and even the UN inspectors could not account for material we knew that he possessed at one time.

It is because the material wasn't there and hadn't been there for a long time.

We haven't found these materials.  Does that mean that we ought to simply leave Iraq now?

We should have never gone there in the first place. People know there wasn't WMD's, yet they don't make the connection that Bush is a liar. I wish they had voted him out of office. I don't necessarily believe pulling out of Iraq would be a good idea because it would obviously cause a power vacuum (as if destroying Iraq didn't create a power vacuum).

This war is the continuation of a very ancient war which began with the bloody rise of Islam 1500 years ago.  These guys are just the latest power-lusters to use Islam to seek world domination.  We are in a fight for Western Civilization.  To know what that means, you must look to history and understand just who our enemy is.  The enemy isn't bin Laden or Saddam.  They personify the enemy, but the enemy is the philosophy and culture of Islam.

I have heard this argument used before and it scares me to hear it every time. I imagine you will disagree with me but this view is racist and ignorant. The fact that you had to look back one thousand years to find historical backing says alot. This is exactly the same attitude that the terrorists are portraying americans as having.

[AisA]

Prae, have you watched the videos linked to here?Islam explicitly calls for the death of every infidel. Watch the videos and see for yourself.

People know there wasn't WMD's, yet they don't make the connection that Bush is a liar.

Which is it Prae? Are you unable or unwilling to distinguish between a mistake and a lie?

This "Bush lied" business has never made sense to me. If Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq -- that is, if he knew for a fact that no WMDs would be found -- why not sneak some nerve gas into Iraq to prevent the lie from being exposed?

[oldsalt]

Racist? Bush is a liar? A mistake to look to history for context? You are a perfect product of a concrete bound, range-of-the-moment modern "education".

Prae, if this were any other forum, I wouldn't bother to notice such ignorance. But this is an Objectivist forum, so I'll simply say this: Your education has left you bereft of the critical skills and knowledge required to address the questions you are discussing. Objectivism is the beginning of the cure for this ignorance. I'm not saying this to be mean or to demean you in any way. There is no shame in ignorance, unless it is maintained through sheer laziness. Since you are here, I'll grant the possibility that this does not describe you. Perhaps you are unaware of the extent to which you have absorbed the multi-culturalist, politically correct "axioms" which underly your statements. If so, you need to become aware of how much they are coloring your thinking and root them out.

Check your premises.

[Patrick N.]

It is because the material wasn't there and hadn't been there for a long time.

We should have never gone there in the first place. People know there wasn't WMD's, yet they don't make the connection that Bush is a liar. I wish they had voted him out of office. I don't necessarily believe pulling out of Iraq would be a good idea because it would obviously cause a power vacuum (as if destroying Iraq didn't create a power vacuum).

 

I have heard this argument used before and it scares me to hear it every time. I imagine you will disagree with me but this view is racist and ignorant. The fact that you had to look back one thousand years to find historical backing says alot. This is exactly the same attitude that the terrorists are portraying americans as having.

Are you unable to distinguish between a race and a culture? A race and a religion?

[Prae]

If Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq -- that is, if he knew for a fact that no WMDs would be found -- why not sneak some nerve gas into Iraq to prevent the lie from being exposed?

Because if he was caught (and remember there was reporters everywhere) his political campaign would have been ruined. He probably reasoned that he could get away with lying, and he did.

[Prae]

Racist?  Bush is a liar? A mistake to look to history for context?  You are a perfect product of a concrete bound, range-of-the-moment modern "education".

Prae, if this were any other forum, I wouldn't bother to notice such ignorance.  But this is an Objectivist forum, so I'll simply say this:  Your education has left you bereft of the critical skills and knowledge required to address the questions you are discussing.  Objectivism is the beginning of the cure for this ignorance.  I'm not saying this to be mean or to demean you in any way.  There is no shame in ignorance, unless it is maintained through sheer laziness.  Since you are here, I'll grant the possibility that this does not describe you.  Perhaps you are unaware of the extent to which you have absorbed the multi-culturalist, politically correct "axioms" which underly your statements.  If so, you need to become aware of how much they are coloring your thinking and root them out.   

Check your premises.

You know what, I am wrong. We should go on a crusade against Islam and all who side with that terrible religion. Nuke em all. Then we can take their oil (which isn't stealing because they are not rational) and we can make the middle east a resort. People from all over will come to see the land that used to be home to the terrorists. There will be history tours with life size wax figures of arab people doing sub-human activities, all in the name of western progress.

[Prae]

Are you unable to distinguish between a race and a culture? A race and a religion?

I am perfectably able. Are you saying that the majority of the people who live in the middle east are not muslim? I am sure there are a couple Arabs over there who aren't muslim.

And since Oldsalt considers islamic culture and philosophy the enemy, that means all practicers of islam worldwide. That is ecompassing multiple races, but still one religion.

I don't really see your point however, it doesn't refute anything I said, all it does is make me clarify myself.

[ex_banana-eater]

Prae, there is a free Leonard Peikoff lecture video at the Ford Hall available here: http://www.deathtotheocracy.com/ (Inside the green box). Digest the views presented in it and see if you find them logical.

[AisA]

You know what, I am wrong. We should go on a crusade against Islam and all who side with that terrible religion. Nuke em all. Then we can take their oil (which isn't stealing because they are not rational) and we can make the middle east a resort. People from all over will come to see the land that used to be home to the terrorists. There will be history tours with life size wax figures of arab people doing sub-human activities, all in the name of western progress.

Prae, you've got the right plan, just the wrong actors. What you describe is what Islam plans for all the rest of us.

[oldsalt]

I won't argue with Prae. I'll enter into a discussion with ignorance, but not petulance. I cannot, however, pass up the opportunity of pointing out the glaring contradiction of the multi-culturalist definition of racism and its consequences.

Prae called me a racist because I spoke of the philosophy of Islam, the culture to which it has led, and the way that it is being used by power-lusters to seek world domination. To this mind-set, if I speak of the philosophy governing a peoples' action, I am automatically a racist because most of the people who believe and practice this philosophy are Arabs. (Of course, not all Muslims are Arabs, but this seems to be unimportant to Prae.)

Frankly, I don't give a damn what other people think -- as long as it doesn't interfer with my freedom. But this isn't what Islam preaches. You are born a Muslim, or you convert, and you are a Muslim for life. The penalty for a Muslim who denounces or goes against the religion is death. DEATH. This is why Salman Rushdie was condemned, even though he no longer lived within the Middle East. This is why all infidels are condemned. (There are provisions which allow infidels to live as slaves if they won't convert, but only so long as they keep their mouth shut and do as they are told. It's called dhimmitude) The people who act on this premise must make elaborate plans in order to kill me because I live in a free country which is far away from their sharia courts. But what of those individuals who live within the Muslim ummah (the term used to define all of the people who belong to Islam)?

Prae would have us believe that it is racist to condemn a philosophy that enslaves and murders the individual human-being who doesn't agree with it. We are to lump this individual in with all the other Muslims and only deal with the whole, not the parts, i.e., the collective, not the individual. Because I am concerned about individual human beings, not groups or collectives, I am in favor of overturning the present system of government dictated by Islam, which does not distinguish between religion and the state; all is one and all belong to Allah -- as interpreted by individual human beings who use Islamic law, as laid down in the Koran, to enslave everyone within their purview.

Islam does not recognize man qua man as an individual, but as merely one more cell in the body of the ummah. It is specifically America's individualism and consequent love of life that they find so dangerous and evil that they would obliterate it, and are willing to die to do so. This is what the Koran commands them to do. This is why they brag that they will win because we love life and they love death.

I do not think that Islam is outside discussion, nor do I think it is racist to point to the fact that it is a philosophy that has murdered thousands upon thousands of individual human beings, beginning with its inception 1500 years ago when it was spread with the sword, and continuting to this day, when it is spread with the envied technology produced by its enemies. Anyone who can ignore the mountain of corpses produced by such a philosophy in the name of supposed racial equality is engaging in deadly relativist ethics. According to this view, if enough people believe something, regardless of the consequences to individual lives, it is valid. It is the subjective belief, not the objective facts of reality which govern this mind-set.

I end by asking: Which way of thinking leads to racism -- the philosophy which recognizes the individual human being, or the one that lumps all people of a race or belief system together into one undifferentiated collective?

[Prae]

I am in favor of overturning the present system of government dictated by Islam

That one part of your post expressed exactly what I disagree most with you. Just because we are the 'civilized west' does not give us the right to destroy other governments at our discretion. With that type of philosophy we would be heading down a dangerous road. I can envision sunday school children being led out of their classrooms at the point of a bayonet in the name of reason.

People have the right to live their lives, even if it is by worshipping a fictional god. I would never be in favor of banning religion, and certainly never be in favor of toppling governments so that people couldn't worship god anymore. These people should be allowed to determine how they are going to live, whether we disagree with it or not.

[tommyedison]

That one part of your post expressed exactly what I disagree most with you. Just because we are the 'civilized west' does not give us the right to destroy other governments at our discretion. With that type of philosophy we would be heading down a dangerous road. I can envision sunday school children being led out of their classrooms at the point of a bayonet in the name of reason.

People have the right to live their lives, even if it is by worshipping a fictional god. I would never be in favor of banning religion, and certainly never be in favor of toppling governments so that people couldn't worship god anymore. These people should be allowed to determine how they are going to live, whether we disagree with it or not.

And what about the few honest rational individuals which are being ruled by the Islamic government?

Don't THEY have a right to be governed by a better government?

Should we just let that matter go just because the majority wants an Islamic government? Not to mention that an Islamic government is more dangerous than a secular one to America.

[Patrick N.]

That one part of your post expressed exactly what I disagree most with you. Just because we are the 'civilized west' does not give us the right to destroy other governments at our discretion. With that type of philosophy we would be heading down a dangerous road. I can envision sunday school children being led out of their classrooms at the point of a bayonet in the name of reason.

People have the right to live their lives, even if it is by worshipping a fictional god. I would never be in favor of banning religion, and certainly never be in favor of toppling governments so that people couldn't worship god anymore. These people should be allowed to determine how they are going to live, whether we disagree with it or not.

What is the extent of your knowledge of Objectivism?

[Patrick N.]

I am perfectably able. Are you saying that the majority of the people who live in the middle east are not muslim? I am sure there are a couple  Arabs over there who aren't muslim.

And since Oldsalt considers islamic culture and philosophy the enemy, that means all practicers of islam worldwide. That is ecompassing multiple races, but still one religion.

I don't really see your point however, it doesn't refute anything I said, all it does is make me clarify myself.

If you realize that race and religion are different, how could you call condemnation of Islam "racism?"

[oldsalt]

That one part of your post expressed exactly what I disagree most with you.

You are dropping the entire context of this argument, which is the fact that war was declared and has been waged against us for over 20 years.

As I said, I don't give a damn what people think, until they come after me and mine -- which is exactly what they have done, beginning with the taking of hostages in 1979. Since that time they have kidnapped and murdered Americans with great regularity. Because of the nature of the enemy, we ignored what they were doing to our citizens. Even when we knew for sure that certain states were backing the kidnapping and the murdering of Americans, we never did more than toss a little metal their way. We emboldened them by allowing this to go on with no cost to the people who backed them, be it a state or individuals.

Just since 1991, we allowed Saddam to get away with a war without toppling him from power and then allowed him to continually break the cease-fire he signed as he fired on the air forces flying in the no-fly zone; we allowed ourselves to be run out of Somalia after the deaths of our servicemen (bin Laden); we allowed a US ship of war to be attacked, again with the death of our Sailors (bin Laden); we allowed the death of more military personnel at their barracks in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia (Iran); we allowed the destruction and death of US diplomatic and military personnel in two US diplomatic missions in Africa -- we allowed the death of all of these official members of our government without cost to those who did the killing.

The people who have plotted against us have done so in over 60 countries all over the world, including Iraq. Just how long are we to stand back and allow this to go on? When they danced in the streets at the sight of the towers collapsing, they let us know that we were doing battle with more than just a handful of somewhat dangerous malcontents.

Where have you seen anything like the actions you describe, except by the enemy? It was not Americans who shot school children in the back as they ran for their lives. It was not Americans who made munition dumps out of schools and Mosques. It was not Americans who targeted civilians. It was not Americans who paraded hostages before the cameras as we hacked off their heads. We have stayed our hand in every action we have taken, to our own detriment. You put the words "western civilization" into quotes, as though this isn't a legitimate concept. I am sick to death of people who only manage to sneer at their own culture, but have all the tolerance in the world for those who spit at us. This is the very attitude that has convinced our enemies that they can take us over. And why not? You, and others like you, see only fault in your own culture, ignoring the very fact that being able to criticize that civilization is a luxury not available to most of the people of the world. Because it isn't, they criticize us.

I'll say one more thing that you don't want to hear: The militants who are open about it, standing there with guns in their hands are not the most dangerous foes we face. The most dangerous enemy is the one living among us who would disarm this country and keep it from fighting for its civilization. It is the person who mouths the bromides and platitudes of a "tolerance" that tolerates every idea and culture but Americanism. It is a tolerance that allows for Saddam's rape rooms, prisons for children, and mass graves, but finds the disgrace of Abu Gra'ab an intolerable scandle. It is a tolerance that allows the women of Afghanistan, and other Muslim countries, to be slaves beaten, mutilated, and murdered, but finds the unavoidable deaths of some of these innocents to be an intolerable evil when done by American forces liberating them. It is a tolerance that keeps you blind, deaf, and dumb in the face of the abject poverty and enslavement of millions by the atavists ruling them in the name of Islam.

It is an attitude that is causing the deaths of your own military forces, who put their own lives on the line and whose only mission is to protect you and try to change the systems that put you in danger in the first place. Everytime someone mouths the platitudes you have used here, it emboldens the enemy. It makes them believe that we are weak in our resolve and they have a chance to win. It gives them further reason to strap on one more explosive belt, plant one more bomb on the roadside, blow up one more car, kidnap and behead one more hostage -- each time killing innocents and your own people.

Prae, I sincerely hope you will get beyond your concrete-bound view of the world and invest in a few books by Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, and others like them. I hope that you will actually learn something about the nature of Islam and what about it makes people willing to commit suicide if they can take out an infidel or two. I hope you do this because the enemy is more than the Islamist with a gun. The danger is inherent in the philosophy, and that philosophy is being taught right here in this country. Islam is very patient. It tells its adherents to sit quietly and not protest until they are strong enough to overpower the civilization they are living in. If they do not sit quietly, Islam provides for their punishment. Islam doesn't care if it takes over in this century or the next, because Allah has all the time in eternity to wait for Islam to conquer. Understand this fact, and you will understand why you have seen no mass demonstrations by American Muslims against the mass murder of their fellow citizens. Understand this and you will grasp how dangerous your "tolerance" is.

Do I think that all Muslims, or even all Arabs, want to see us destroyed? Of course not. Every individual possesses the reason to see and understand reality. My fight is for those who do so. But I don't give a fig for those who want to see me chained to Islams' philosophy and my country destroyed under sharia law, nor do I give any consideration to those who would sit by and let it happen.

[gadfly]

We aren't fighting a conventional war where one state declares war against another and all the lines are neatly drawn in the sand.  We are fighting the culture of Islam.

Oldsalt, I would adjust this to say "culture of Islamic fundamentalists", because not all adherents of Islam want world domination, an Islamic state, and to murder anyone who is not a Muslim, any more than all Christians want to end their lives in a standoff with the FBI and be burned to death as per the Branch Davidians at Waco. Some of Prae's arguments are directed against the premise that ALL Muslims are murderers, which is incorrect. There are probably as many shades of adherence to Islam as there are practitioners, and if a Muslim does not intend to violate my rights, they should be free to practice their religion and live their life free from interference.

Just because we are the 'civilized west' does not give us the right to destroy other governments at our discretion.

Prae: it does if the government violates individual rights to the necessary degree. Obviously there are, again, shades of this (I would not advocate invading Washington D.C. because it levies taxes on me...), but for example, a dictatorship is not a legitimate government and has no rights, and can be morally overthrown at our discretion and replaced with a government that protects individual rights. This does not mean we must always do it, or that it's the only way to do it, only that we have the right to do it.

As a sidebar (to use Iraq as an example) at the time of the invasion, I was not at all convinced it was a good idea based on the evidence presented by our government. I don't think a control freak like Saddam would ever let al Quaeda run amuck in Iraq, and the WMDs obviously did not pan out. Posts on this site are changing my mind however; mainly, the idea that a dictatorship has no moral legitimacy, combined with the likelihood that he would have found a way to produce and use WMDs eventually.

[oldsalt]

Oldsalt, I would adjust this to say "culture of Islamic fundamentalists", because not all adherents of Islam want world domination, an Islamic state, and to murder anyone who is not a Muslim, any more than all Christians want to end their lives in a standoff with the FBI and be burned to death as per the Branch Davidians at Waco. Some of Prae's arguments are directed against the premise that ALL Muslims are murderers, which is incorrect. There are probably as many shades of adherence to Islam as there are practitioners, and if a Muslim does not intend to violate my rights, they should be free to practice their religion and live their life free from interference.

<snip>

[i thought that I made it clear that this is my position.  My argument is that Islam itelf is such that it can be used by power-lusters like bin-Laden, or Saddam (who was essentially a secularist) to declare jihad against whomever they please.  Christianity was used in just such a way for over a thousand years, both within Christianity itself and against outside foes.  It wasn't until the Rennaisance and the Protestant Reformation that the power of a single united Church was broken.  There are, in fact, many different sects within Islam, beyond the Shi'a and Sunni sects.  The Wahhabis' are an extreme, fundamentalist sect which has spread all over the world and began the present trouble by attacking other Muslims.  I followed their murder and meyhem against their brother believers for over 10 years before the Towers fell.  One of my points in the last post, however, is that Islam itself doesn't leave much room for those who would be peaceful to protect themselvs against such a sect.  It is anathma to speak out against other Muslims.  If you are living under a vicious dictator, you are to endure it until that dictator dies and hope that the next one will be better. 

One of the problems that Islam faced after the Renaissance reinvigoraed the West was that their culture had stagnated after several strong dictators and a Caliphate that left no room in the whole of the Middle East for any kind of innovation.  They suddenly found themselves behind in the sciences, mathematics, etc., with the West able to produce weaponry that was beyond their ability to match.  Something else, of even more importance, confronted Islam:  The West suddenly came up with these very strange concepts, such as freedom, individualism, rights, etc.  There aren't even concepts in Arabic that equate to these ideas.  Since an idea such as individualism is specifically proscribed against within the Koran and its associated traditions, they could find no way to adjust or advance.  At least, not until the Young Turks and their leader, Ataturk, gained control of Turkey.  Even so, they've never been able to make the transition to a completely secular society, as is evidenced by the last ten years in Turkish politics.  Oldsalt.]

As a sidebar (to use Iraq as an example) at the time of the invasion, I was not at all convinced it was a good idea based on the evidence presented by our government. I don't think a control freak like Saddam would ever let al Quaeda run amuck in Iraq, and the WMDs obviously did not pan out. Posts on this site are changing my mind however; mainly, the idea that a dictatorship has no moral legitimacy, combined with the likelihood that he would have found a way to produce and use WMDs eventually.

(I don't know how to break up a quote, so I've had to put my comments within the body of the quote. If you missed them, they occur right after the <snip>. Sorry about that.)

The confusion over Iraq is the fault of the Bush administration. It is a mistake to think that Saddam would not have engaged Al Qaida just because of their differece. The Dalfer (I know that's not spelled right!) Report made it clear that the two had many contacts and Saddam protected various members of Al Qaida, and even provided certain kinds of training. Even if Saddam hadn't backed Al Qaida specifically, he certainly was a state sponsor of terrorism. He made no bones about his payments to Hamas and Hezbollah, and he did provide training for those groups in a facility right outside of Baghdad. We need to remember that Hezbollah is a group that repeatedly kidnapped and murdered Americans during the 80's and 90's. Thus, Iraq is as important a theater in this war as Afghanistan. Indeed, Iraq was in more of a position to threaten us with WMD than Afghanistan, which had nothing and resorted to our own airplanes. We have found evidence of WMD in Iraq (which the MSM has assiduously left out of its reporting because we didn't find the expected stockpiles), and there is evidence that most of the actual weapons and material were removed to Syria while we were dithering around with the UN. Even Blix could not account for the material that we knew Saddam had.

Edited November 8, 2004 by oldsalt