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And what, Ernle Bradford (the author of "The Shield and The Sword") was Pope was he? That's news to me. I thought he served in the Royal Navy during WWII before going on to be an accomplished sailor and military historian. You learn something new every day, eh ...
First off Islam is not an ideaology but a religeon which in terms of a technical definition might be the same but in practical application is distinct because people choose an ideology but the vast majority of people though technically can choose a religeon are born into it. Essentially, it is for the vast majority of people (whether they choose to practice or not) an association by birth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niccolo
When you attack something such as this it is loosely the equivalent of attacking someone who is gay for being gay or attacking Jews for being Jewish which is also not an ethnicity but a religeon. Accordingly, if being anti-Jewish is the same as being anti-semitic (Arabs are also semites by the way) or being racist, than the same relationship holds true for Islam and muslims. You seem to be a smart fellow, so I doubt that you have failed to grasp this on your own. This is why being anti-Islam or anti-muslim is as wrong as being anti-Jewish.
This is also why all the remarks that you mention above are extremely offensive, if you don't like people throwing around "anti-semitic" slurs than you should probably try to refrain from doing the same to others.
Finally, if you think that human culture, customs and civility haven't evolved over the course of 1300 years and cannot understand what the contextual difference between something that happened in 640 and 1940 then you may be well served by installing a moat around your abode as there maybe some marauding vikings on the prowl.
I agree completely. Our media doesn't have the balls to air this stuff. The most they will say on the issue is how many civilians Israel has killed, spreading the propaganda that gets people to forget that these "civilians" elected terrorist organizations into political offices, and then sat by idly as groups like Hamas and Hezbollah fired rocks FROM CIVILIAN neighborhoods, next to schools, next to hospitals, next to residential districts into Israel...hoping, daring, wishing Israel would strike back.Quote:
Originally Posted by seanchai
If Mexico's people elected a terrorist group into office, and then watched or cheered on as that terrorist group fired rockets from residential areas into southern California, we'd go in and kill every baby, disfigure every women, kill every parent, burn every house, bomb every town, and torture every survivor until it stopped. By comparison, Israel at least has the sense to put their responses on a tight leash... they sat by as more than 3,000 of those rockets were fired into their boarders in 2008 before reacting with force.
That would never happen here.
So far as my remarks about the Knights of St. John are concerned, perhaps I should draw your attention to the context in which I first mentioned them on this thread: as warriors who fought a military battle against vastly superior odds, and who employed one of the most terrible weapons one could ever imagine against the Janissaries who laid siege to Fort St. Elmo. And I mentioned the siege of Malta (the first siege, that is) in the same breath as the battles at Tours, Lepanto and Vienna. So, hardly portaying the Knights of St. John as "saintly" I was showing that they, as well as others throughout history - and this includes the Allied forces in the Pacific in WWII - fought using whatever means was necessary, in order to defeat their enemy. That was the point I was making! So your assertion that I was making them out to be "saintly" is obviously incorrect.
"The Janissaries, who had been waiting for days to prove their prowess, were given their chance that morning. Mustapha Pasha unleashed line upon line of the Sultan's finest troops against the charred and cracked walls of St. Elmo. The Turkish losses were heavy, for the defenders behind their parapets made use of every device which the Knights of St. John had learned in four centuries of war. Worse even than wildfire or the trump, was the firework hoop - the invention of which was attributed by the historian Vertot to la Valette himself, but by Balbi to a Brother of the Order, Ramon Fortunii.
These hoops, "composed of the lightest wood, were first dipped into brandy, then rubbed with oil, and then covered with wool and cotton which had been soaked in other combustible liquors, as well as mixed with saltpetre and gunpowder. When the preparation was cool, the whole process was repeated several times. On an assault, when the hoops were on fire, they were taken up with tongs and thrown into the midst of the advancing battalions. Two or three soldiers regularly would get entangled with one of these blazing hoops .."
Their impact on the Moslems in their loose-flowing light robes was devastating. It was largely owing to these hoops that this first major assault on St. Elmo failed." (Bradford, "The Great Siege", Penguin, pp. 98 - 99.)
So what you're saying is that one's religion is merely a function of one's address.Quote:
First off Islam is not an ideaology but a religeon which in terms of a technical definition might be the same but in practical application is distinct because people choose an ideology but the vast majority of people though technically can choose a religeon are born into it. Essentially, it is for the vast majority of people (whether they choose to practice or not) an association by birth.
Therefore anyone who thinks critically about any religon at all, anywhere at any time, under any circumstances whatsoever, is inevitably and automatically guilty of a thoughtcrime?
Stunning piece of logical thinking, that. :lol:
We all remember 9/11 but as I have said several times now on this thread, there have been many, many more terrorist attacks throughout the world since then, including quite a few in the United Kingdom. Imagine what it would be like to have to endure that every day. Imagine that .. then think what it would be like to live in Israel.Quote:
Originally Posted by SarahG
Not one of the people who have happily criticised Israel on this thread has responded to that. (So far as I can recall anyway - if anyone has, then please correct me here.)
And I agree too, what would happen if British or American soldiers allowed a bunch of children on to a military base, then let them play around a lorryload of explosives - and then managed through their own incompetence, to blow them all up? There would be a fucking uproar - and rightly so!
Of course our soldiers are professionals. They don't allow children on to military bases, and they certainly wouldn't let them play beside a lorryload of explosives. That just wouldn't happen.
But why were those Hamas gunmen letting children play beside a heap of explosives? And flashing their weapons at them?
Were they just a bunch of stupid bastards? Or were they helping to indoctrinate children, so that they would become suicide bombers, or something of that sort? Is that a possibility? Has that ever happened before? I mean, we've all seen kiddies wearing those green bandanas .. I wonder if some of the people on this thread, who would like everyone to think their primary concern is the wellbeing of innocent Palestinian children, would like to address these questions?
Why? What were they doing, do you think?Quote:
Finally, muslims were already in Europe via Spain and South Eastern Europe .. - zaron
You'll find the two are not mutually exclusive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niccolo
That'll never happen, just as people will remain silent when its pointed out that these 3,000+ rockets were putting Israeli children at grave risk, or that Hamas and Hezbollah both intentionally went into residential places to fire rockets HOPING that counter-strikes would take out these Palestinian & Lebanese children.Quote:
I wonder if some of the people on this thread, who would like everyone to think their primary concern is the wellbeing of innocent Palestinian children, would like to address these questions?
"The main reason I'd been glad to leave America was Protestant fundamentalism. But Europe, I eventually saw, was falling prey to an even more alarming fundamentalism whose leaders made their American Protestant counterparts look like amateurs. Falwell was an unsavory creep, but he didn't issue fatwas. James Dobson's parenting advice was appalling, but he wasn't telling people to murder their daughters. American liberals had been fighting the Religious Right for decades; Western Europeans had yet to even acknowledge that they had a Religious Right. How could they ignore it? Certainly as a gay man, I couldn't close my eyes to this grim reality. Pat Robertson just wanted to deny me marriage; the imams wanted to drop a wall on me. I wasn't fond of the hypocritical conservative-Christian line about hating the sin and loving the sinner, but it was preferable to the forthright fundamantalist Muslim view that homosexuals merited death. [...]Quote:
When you attack (criticise) something such as this (Islam) it is loosely the equivalent of attacking someone who is gay for being gay or attacking Jews for being Jewish which is also not an ethnicity but a religeon. - zaron
The situation was alarming. The very things I most loved about the Netherlands - and about Europe - were the things most threatened by the rise of fundamentalist Islam. Yet the Dutch did nothing. Why did they refuse to deal with something that obviously endangered their freedom? Didn't they see what I did? Didn't they notice the look of rage in the eyes of many Muslim men at the sight of that ultimate spectacle of dishonor - a Dutch woman bicycling to work? Or did they assume that such men, simply by inhaling the damp Dutch air, would somehow magically become open-minded and secular?" (Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept, Broadway, pp. 33-34.)
In this passage Bruce Bawer, who one might "loosely" describe as being a gay bloke from America who now lives in Norway, is criticising Islam (and the Dutch). Please explain to me how, as Bawer criticised the "fundamentalist Muslim view" that he should die because he was gay, he could possibly be doing something "loosely" akin to criticising himself, or anyone else for that matter, for actually being gay?
(Bawer is an excellent writer BTW. "While Europe Slept" is an astonishing book. He's also written some great articles - Google him & see for yourself.)
The men who did this weren't Vikings. Were they?