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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

I know a lot, and I mean a lot, of Muslims. NONE of them practice such things, so you tell me: why do we make it sound like all Muslims are barbarians?

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ORIGINAL: RapierFugue


Until people, and their leaders, manage to understand that you can't "rule" a country with a few thousand troops, until they understand that hate is not a doctrine that ever achieves anything, long term .....

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

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ORIGINAL: thishereboi



Which culture is it that is taking doctors out and killing them because they performed abortions? I haven't heard that one yet.

http://www.armyofgod.com/POClist.html
Lucy

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: RapierFugue


Until people, and their leaders, manage to understand that you can't "rule" a country with a few thousand troops, until they understand that hate is not a doctrine that ever achieves anything, long term .....

What seems to be lost in all this wonderful, philosophical rationalization is that a group who did hate slammed a few airliners into some buildings and killed a lot of innocent people.

This group was harbored by the Taliban government which is why we invaded.

quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

...which is an admission that some do not. Therefore while you were so busy condemning the whole of Islamic culture, you were also condemning the moderate forces within that culture.

It wasn't that long ago that, in the US, you could get hanged from a tree for being the wrong colour. Are you seriously suggesting that gay bashing never happens in the US? The US has, in recent months and years, been holding people without trial on hearsay evidence. Some of which has been confirmed, but some has been proven to be false.

These are all barbaric acts as well. Now, i believe that the US is, at heart, an honourable country. It can make mistakes, some lasting generations, but ultimately it can right those wrongs. i also believe the same of Islamic culture. Because, at the heart of the matter, is the fact that we are all humans........and humans FTW.

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ORIGINAL: RapierFugue

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: RapierFugue


Until people, and their leaders, manage to understand that you can't "rule" a country with a few thousand troops, until they understand that hate is not a doctrine that ever achieves anything, long term .....

What seems to be lost in all this wonderful, philosophical rationalization is that a group who did hate slammed a few airliners into some buildings and killed a lot of innocent people.

This group was harbored by the Taliban government which is why we invaded.

I'm staggered by how simplistic some people are.

Then again, I shouldn't be.  History teaches us that most people are sheep.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: RapierFugue

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: RapierFugue


Until people, and their leaders, manage to understand that you can't "rule" a country with a few thousand troops, until they understand that hate is not a doctrine that ever achieves anything, long term .....

What seems to be lost in all this wonderful, philosophical rationalization is that a group who did hate slammed a few airliners into some buildings and killed a lot of innocent people.

This group was harbored by the Taliban government which is why we invaded.

I'm staggered by how simplistic some people are.

Then again, I shouldn't be.  History teaches us that most people are sheep.

Myself, I'm staggered at some people's unbridled arrogance.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RapierFugue

I agree 100%

I'm staggered that any nation could be so unbelievably stupid and arrogant as to charge into a nation and territory they know nowhere near enough about, militarily, socially and politically, and attempt to impose their morals and ideals on another culture, while ignoring the lessons of recent history, like Vietnam, and the Russian army’s total failure to hold more than a tiny proportion of territory, even allowing for huge troop numbers.

But then I've lived and worked in the US, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise.

While mocking you is both entertaining, and laughably easy, it sadly detracts from the original point – until we in the west make a genuine attempt to understand other cultures, rather than merely paying them lip service, we (and I include Europe in this too) will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes. 

If our morality is so clearly and demonstrably better (and I’m not convinced it is, but we can let that pass) then it will be adopted over time everywhere.  The problem is that, militarily, a brute force pacification attempt is doomed to fail.  Try researching a bit of the history of that region – regimes and invaders have come and gone for hundreds of years, and yet the locals tend to win out in the end.  That should tell us all something. 

Brave young soldiers will continue to die, a culture may be partially or wholly subsumed (though frankly I doubt it), the economic cost will be gigantic, and for what?  What’s the good end point we’re looking for in this?  A chain of burger restaurants across the region?  Compulsory schooling in western ideals? 

I’ll repeat this just one more time, coz it gets boring; it’s about the most complex situation imaginable.  To reduce it to the kind of “Look! Bad Men!  Kill them!” arguments I see posted here is both laughably simplistic, and ultimately will ensure that, as time passes, we’ll see more terrorist intervention in our lives, not less, as well as reducing oursleves to the kind of violent, unthinking anti-morality we've seen from extremists thus far.