Open Thread Sunday 12-13-2009 | War and Peace

15 Comments

1. 

   Hassan

   December 13, 2009 at 7:02 AM

   Obama while accepting nobel “peace” prize defended wars (I thought he was anti-war?) and neo-conservatives are happy because he also accepts american exceptionalism and that war is peace and good. Liberals give him pass because he is eleqouent about it.

   Much of the liberal praise for Obama’s speech yesterday focused on how eloquent, sophisticated, nuanced, complex, philosophical, contemplative and intellectual it was. And, looked at a certain way, it was all of those things — like so many Obama speeches are. After eight years of enduring a President who spoke in simplistic Manichean imperatives and bullying decrees, many liberals are understandably joyous over having a President who uses their language and the rhetorical approach that resonates with them.

   But that’s the real danger. Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices. Just as George Bush’s Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama’s complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same. To red state Republicans, war and its accompanying instruments (secrecy, executive power, indefinite detention) felt so good and right when justified by swaggering, unapologetic toughness and divinely-mandated purpose; to blue state Democrats, all of that feels just as good when justified by academic meditations on “just war” doctrine and when accompanied by poetic expressions of sorrow and reluctance. When you combine the two rhetorical approaches, what you get is what you saw yesterday: a bipartisan embrace of the same policies and ideologies among people with supposedly irreconcilable views of the world.

   http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/11/obama/index.html

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2. 

   Abuzaid1

   December 13, 2009 at 1:23 PM

   I just want to say thanks to CAIR and the parents of the virginia 5 who turned their own children over to the FBI.
   If more of us do this then maybe the non-muslims will see how much we love them and it will prove to them that we are good loyal subjects of the american government. Nevermind these kids will spend their life behind bars now. That is better than them possibly harming one of our brave soldiers defending freedom overseas.

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   • 

     Holly Garza

     December 14, 2009 at 9:13 PM

     Well now because they did, their children are alive and well. Countless of others perhaps too.

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3. 

   abu abdAllah Tariq Ahmed

   December 15, 2009 at 10:35 PM

   As salamu alaykum.

   Peace, alhamdolillah. Mabruk Shaykh Muhammad!

   Reply
4. 

   Furqan

   December 16, 2009 at 12:26 PM

   You people spend too much time talking about politics than talking about our relationship with Allah. You curse America, OK, but be thankful you get to live in the security. You support the Taliban, OK, but keep in mind they sell drugs, burn schools, and are just as xenophobic or more than the extreme Christian right. Muslims are weak, backwards, and ignorant because of the foolish ideology of Sayyid Qutb and the Taliban. We have no religious obligation to support the Taliban because they are also oppressors. I feel sympathy only for the normal, regular lay Muslims who are caught in the crossfire between imperialists and terrorists.

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   • 

     Qas

     December 16, 2009 at 12:31 PM

     This warrants a resounding “WTF?” where F stands for fuddle duddle.

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   • 

     abu abdAllah Tariq Ahmed

     December 16, 2009 at 10:47 PM

     “You people” — subhanAllah. Fear Allah. Fear Allah and fear a Day when you — and I mean precisely you — may be fortunate to have an abundance of good deeds, only to find your balance lessened by every one of “you people” whom you slander with your playground-like posts.

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     • 

       Furqan

       December 17, 2009 at 12:58 PM

       That is hilarious. You get mad at me for writing “you people”?

       Allah said: “O you people…” (49:13)

       You Muslims don’t really care about the oppressed or else you would condemn Al-Qaeda just as you condemn America. You should post a refutation of Al-Qaeda on this blog but I am sure you won’t because you share their twisted ideology.

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       • 

         Amad

         December 17, 2009 at 2:21 PM

         Ignore Furqan… obviously he hasn’t done any research of his own to see what we have said about terrorists and terrorism. Its good to see people speak from both sides of the spectrum, the keyboard jihadists who keep arguing that we talk too much against terrorism, and the ignorant fools who say we don’t. It’s good to be on middle ground :)

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5. 

   Furqan

   December 17, 2009 at 1:07 PM

   The Taliban sell drugs:

   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103957098

   The Taliban burn schools:

   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5258520

   The Taliban use Marxist-tactic suicide bombings:

   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18310289

   Sayyid Qutb, upon whom the Taliban bases their ideology, took his takfiri-khariji ideas from Lenin:

   http://mac.abc.se/~onesr/ez/isl2/S-Qutb-Lenin.html

   These are the ideas and movements that you defend.

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   • 

     aysam

     December 18, 2009 at 1:21 AM

     Brother Furqan relax. You are probably angry at the Taliban and Al Qaeda and are probably venting it out here. Please go through the earlier posts on this blog on the issue of terrorism. Please look at the following two posts (I am sure there were others as well):
     http://muslimmatters.org/2009/10/12/standing-united-against-terrorism-al-qaeda-salman-al-awdah-with-yasir-qadhi-and-yaser-birjas/
     http://muslimmatters.org/2009/10/17/closing-the-chapter-on-benefit-of-doubt-to-terrorists-e-g-al-qaeda/
     And it’s funny that you criticize them for being overly critical of the US and not of the “terrorists” when in fact many actually argue that they do the opposite. If you look at the posts above, they have the blanket condemnation of “terrorism” that many actually criticized in the comments for being too absolute, too general and unengaging with the actual arguments. But you should definitely be able to find what you are looking for there.
     And they also have many posts on drawing closer to Allah. No one website can have the perfect balance and perfect amount of EVERYTHING as part of its comment. Please be reasonable in your expectations and understand that different websites and organizations have different points of focus. But that does not mean they are more into criticizing the US than into worshiping Allah.
     —
     Also, in the lost post all those things that you prove through all those links. What are your sources. National Public Radio? Seriously??? Brother please don’t be so naiive. Even proper academics wouldn’t take such sources at face value. Go read some modern history from proper academic books. Go read Marx, Lenin, and Qutb and then prove that there is a solid link between all three.

     “Sayyid Qutb, upon whom the Taliban bases their ideology, took his takfiri-khariji ideas from Lenin:”
     I don’t know what this is supposed to mean. Lenin never accepted Islam and never did takfir of czars or anyone else that I know of. I have no idea how someone can find the roots of takfiri “ideology” in Lenin. It’s preposterous. It may have made some sense to talk like this during the cold war, but not now. Not thirty years later.

     —

     I am not a huge fan of Muslim Matters or a knight in shining arm here to defend them, but your arguments, your attitude, and your tone was unjust and I think you should apologize to them for speaking badly of them. And you should try to have less resentment for your Muslim brothers and sisters in your heart and less self-righteousness as well because it’s not good for you. I am sure everyone at MM will forgive your comments and not take them to heart. For the sake of Allah.

     Reply
6. 

   Dan

   December 18, 2009 at 2:03 AM

   Amad, how do you feel about the fact that Muslim countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the most repressive?

   It’s no surprise that Muslim countries continue to have appalling restrictions on religious freedom, but do you speak out about it?

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   • 

     Amad

     December 18, 2009 at 3:45 AM

     I have no powers to speak of in Egypt and Saudi… at least the last time I checked. Feel free to relay your concerns and feelings to the respective embassies. Oh, and don’t forget your beloved Shia nation, Iran, which you missed conveniently enough. It was ranked just behind Saudi.

     One more point, Saudi, or even Iran, for instance don’t claim to be secular or provide 100% freedom of religion, neither are they trying to implement their “golden democratic models” upon other countries.

     On the other hand, many of the Western nations who are now bubbling with Islamophobia claim all these. That’s the standard they are being held up against.

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     • 

       Amad

       December 18, 2009 at 3:47 AM

       Also noticed that India has the biggest red (“bad”) circle on the chart. Somehow it was hardly mentioned in the articles talking about the report.

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7. 

   aysam

   December 18, 2009 at 3:44 AM

   There isn’t anything wrong with religious restrictions. Some of them may be in violation of the UN Charter of Human rights but not everyone wishes to be judged by that standard and not everyone holds it as an ideal. So if the Saudi state as an Islamic state feels that its ideals require it to treat religious minorities differently, not necessarily badly but differently, that’s fine. It’s their business. I’d say the problem arises not when Amnesty or some other international organization criticizes them, but when they fail to live up to the ideals of the treatment of non-Muslims contained within their own religious tradition.
   In any case, where do we find incredibly religious tolerant regimes. Certainly the BNP in the UK is not an example of that yet their popularity is growing. Certainly the Swiss have showed dangerous inclinations with the minaret ban. We all know about France and the niqab. Read the following article on Guantanamo:
   http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/12/2009121512529278299.html
   Certainly Israel is a racist state and that’s not me saying that. It’s Jewish scholars like Chomsky and Finkelstein.
   Where do we go from there then?

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