I Am Sickened

Current Events Terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism
1

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.

2

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.

3

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.)

4

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.

5

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.”

6

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.

7

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.

8

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.

9

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.

10

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?

11

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.

12

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?

13

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.

14

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.

15

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.

16

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.

17

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.

18

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?

19

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.

20

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.