Quoted for posterity.
It just doesn't click with him Flenser. I see what you're getting at clear as day.
MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Police State Thread
- Thread starter heady muscle
- Start date
Quoted for posterity.
It just doesn't click with him Flenser. I see what you're getting at clear as day.
Mr. Deltoid
New Member
I too am a flawed individual I claim no genius , I have my opinions but I hardly think they contradict one another. You said I was talking about a minority when I said muslims have a bad track record of human rights that's why I brought up the women and homosexuality thing I think , listen I am at work I have to call it quits on this debate I don't sit at a desk I'm in charge of 2bldg.
Have a good day fellas.
Have a good day fellas.
Mr. Deltoid
New Member
I'm flawed , we are all flawed In one way or another maybe you missed that I've said that several times.
No worries. I don't take this stuff too seriously, considering there's not much I could do about it if I did. I mostly just like to argue.
I too believe we are all flawed as human beings but not bc of things like sexual orientation. Anyway, get your work done and enjoy your day!
I watched Ted Cruz give a speech repeatedly saying he wants to repeal common core curriculum. Two problems there. One, it's not a federal law, so he would in fact have no power to do so as president..making the speech given to a roar of applause nothing but a lie for votes.
Secondly, its not a curriculum. Not to mention wasn't federally created at all. It was designed by academics and teachers. All in all , it just reinforces critical thinking instead of the current memorization scheme we've all learned by as children.
This being said, I'm not for or against common core. But I am against ignorance and straight up lies. Which is the case with Mr. Cruz.
Secondly, its not a curriculum. Not to mention wasn't federally created at all. It was designed by academics and teachers. All in all , it just reinforces critical thinking instead of the current memorization scheme we've all learned by as children.
This being said, I'm not for or against common core. But I am against ignorance and straight up lies. Which is the case with Mr. Cruz.
Here is Senator Cruz not knowing what net neutrality is at all, just as Sen. Franken said. I for one, dont think we need another dumbed down good ol' boy in highest office. The rest of the world already has enough of a lowered opinion of U.S. education and intelligence. I see no winner when the republican and democratic parties are just a thin veil for us against them. Why would you knowingly vote for a priveleged bastard who has been groomed and had the world handed to him?
I ask myself that every day as I listen to our Commander in Chief
We have to stop thinking as voting on republican or democrat just because our families did in the past. These are evil, corrupt men. Dont lend to there already considerable resources. Rich is enough. No office for you, Mr. Wolf in sheep's clothing .
Btw , Cruz's wife works for goldman sachs and at the same time says hes suspicious of the elite. No dice here bud. Shit slides downhill near the shit river.
Wings_of_pain
New Member
Lol not to mention as I said, apparently he's not even going for the Hispanic vote like Obama went for the black community, largely due to the fact that most Hispanics cannot relate to a man who's had everything and while having everything he didn't give a thing back to the Hispanic community. In fact, I read that he's going for the majority republican conservative vote which as you can imagine is primarily older white people. Sorry Ted, but the white people don't want a spic running their country, and Ted isn't even a real spic anyway!! Haha
Mr. Deltoid
New Member
you shouldn't believe everything you hear I
TyroneMoreGains
New Member
I've had several issues with law enforcement in my short lifetime.
When I turned 18 is when it started to really get bad.
I was once cuffed right in front of my house for washing my car...
I was washing my car and had my music bumping to entertain myself while doing it. An officer approached my street and started to flash his lights at me so I approached him thinking he wanted to question me. But no... I was tackled down cuffed and searched right in front of my house...
Then a month later I was riding my bike to a friend's house and was stopped by three cops and a sheriff.. and again searched and questioned for riding my damn bike....
I was detained at 16 for driving my mother's car I had my license registration and insurance but I guess a black teenager can't drive a car...
Recently at the port of entry I was threatened by a Border patrol who was brandishing a gun... I was detained for 3 hours my car was strip searched and I was also strip searched..
Looking at the bright side. I have yet to be shot at by LE. In my neighborhood it's pretty common to hear about police brutality but at least they haven't killed me yet I guess...
When I turned 18 is when it started to really get bad.
I was once cuffed right in front of my house for washing my car...
I was washing my car and had my music bumping to entertain myself while doing it. An officer approached my street and started to flash his lights at me so I approached him thinking he wanted to question me. But no... I was tackled down cuffed and searched right in front of my house...
Then a month later I was riding my bike to a friend's house and was stopped by three cops and a sheriff.. and again searched and questioned for riding my damn bike....
I was detained at 16 for driving my mother's car I had my license registration and insurance but I guess a black teenager can't drive a car...
Recently at the port of entry I was threatened by a Border patrol who was brandishing a gun... I was detained for 3 hours my car was strip searched and I was also strip searched..
Looking at the bright side. I have yet to be shot at by LE. In my neighborhood it's pretty common to hear about police brutality but at least they haven't killed me yet I guess...
I was drunk I dont drink anymore. Cops stoped me beat my ass tazed in the heart 2 x and planted weed on me and sent to the er. I dont smoke weed! BUT because I was over the legal limit I basically had no rights. I got assult on a public servant and possession. A year later with a lawyer. I got probation because the lost there [emoji404] paper work.
And decided to bring down the charges.
I think most people that become cops have good intentions in the beginning
Then they are taught to lie,manipulate and its legally allowed.To me that sets a bad presidencies. Its ok to break the law to catch a law breaker wtf is that!
Most police I know are miserable. Hate there selves there jobs and have broken marriages why is that.
Bullshit. Westboro Baptists are universally seen by Christians as nut cases. Women are subjugated all over the Islamic world.
The Rights of Muslim Women
Middle East Quarterly
December 1997, pp. 83-84
Under the title of "A Declaration of the Rights of Women in Islamic Societies," a group of born-Muslim intellectuals primarily from Iran and South Asia, put their views on the record. These stand out as remarkable in an era when most of those concerned with the status of Muslim women argue that "gender discrimination began despite Allah's words and Muhammad's intentions."1 The latter reinterpret sacred texts to make Islam compatible with current notions. In contrast, the statement bellow, which originally appeared in Free Inquiry ("the international secular humanist magazine"), Fall, 1997, pp. 28-29, presents Islam as "a major obstacle to the evolution of the position of women."
We, the undersigned, believe that the oppression of women is a grave offense against all of humanity and that such an offense is an impediment to social and moral progress throughout the world.
We therefore cannot ignore the oppression of women by orthodox and fundamentalist religions. We cannot deny history, which shows that these religions were devised and enforced by men who claimed divine justification for the subordination of women to men. We cannot forget that the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran as their respective holy texts, consider women inferior to men: physically, morally, and intellectually.
We note also that whereas women in the Christian West and Israel have ameliorated their lot considerably through their own heroic efforts, their sisters in the Islamic world, and even within Islamic communities in the West, have been thwarted in their valiant attempts to rise above the inferior position imposed upon them by centuries of Islamic custom and law.
We have watched as official Islamization programs in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, the Sudan, and Afghanistan, among others, have led to serious violations of the human rights of women. Muslim conservatives in all Muslim countries, and even in nominally secular India, have refused to recognize women as full, equal human beings who deserve the same rights and freedoms as men.
Women in many Islamic societies are expected to marry, obey their husbands, bring up children, stay at home, and avoid participation in public life. At every stage of their lives they are denied free choice and the fundamental right of autonomy. They are forbidden to acquire an education, prevented from getting a job, and thwarted from exploring their full potential as members of the human community.
We therefore declare that ...
- The subordinate place of women in Islamic societies should give way to equality. A woman should have freedom of action, should be able to travel alone, should be permitted to uncover her face, and should be allowed the same inheritance rights as a man.
- She should not be subject to gruesome ritual mutilations of her person.
- On reaching the legal age, she should be free to marry a man of her own choice without permission from a putative guardian or parents. She should be free to marry a non-Muslim. She should be free to divorce and be entitled to maintenance in the case of divorce.
- She should have equal access to education, equal opportunities for higher education, and be free to choose her subject of study. She should be free to choose her own job and be allowed to fully participate in public life — from politics and sports to the arts and sciences.
- In Islamic societies, she should enjoy the same human rights as those guaranteed under International Human Rights legislation.
To achieve these basic human rights for women, we advocate that the question of women's status be removed from the religious sphere altogether, that governments institute a separation of religion and state, and that authorities enact a uniform civil code under which all are equal.
In the name of justice, for the sake of human progress, and for the benefit of all the wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers of the world, we call for all societies to respect the human rights of women.
- Reza Afshari, Iran, Political Scientist
- Sadik al Azm, Syria, Philosopher
- Mahshid Amir-Shahy, Iran, Author, Social Critic, and Founder of the Defense League for Rushdie, France
- Masud Ansari, Iran, Physician, Author, United States
- Bahram Azad, Iran, Scholar, Physician, United States
- Parvin Darabi, Scholar, Homa Darabi Foundation, United States
- Khalid Durán, Professor of Political Science, Editor and Founder of TransState Islam, Founder of the Ibn Khaldun Society, United States
- Ranjana Hossain, Executive Director of the Assembly of Free Thinkers, Bangladesh
- Mustafa Hussain, Sudan, Advisory Board, Ibn Khaldun Society, United States.
- Ramine Kamrane, Iran, Political Scientist, France
- Ioanna Kuçuradi, Philosopher, Turkish Human Rights Commission and Secretary General, International Federation of Philosophical Societies, Turkey
- Luma Musa, Palestine, Communications Researcher, United Kingdom
- Taslima Nasrin, Bangladesh, Author, Physician, Social Critic
- Hossainur Rahman, India, Social Historian, Columnist, Asiatic Society of Calcutta
- Siddigur Rahman, Bangladesh, Former Research Fellow, Islamic Research Institute
- Armen Saginian, Iran, Editor, Publisher, United States
- Anwar Shaikh, Pakistan, Author, Social Critic, United Kingdom
- Ibn Warraq, India, Author, Why I am Not a Muslim, United States
1 Reza Afshari, "Egalitarian Islam and Misogynist Islamic Tradition: A Critique of the Feminist Reinterpretation of Islamic History and Heritage," Critique, Spring 1994, p. 16.
http://www.meforum.org/378/the-rights-of-muslim-women
They don't? That's news to anyone who follows events in the area.
And you can stop with the stolen land bullshit too. Jews have a historical claim to Israel.
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It must be. That seems to be all your Mohammedan brothers are able to do.
BTW, I see you've found a new friend in our resident neo Nazi, Wings of Pain. He's following right behind you like a lost puppy, liking your posts. How fitting.
Since 2001? LMAO That's right around the time you were born, isn't it DeeDee?
Islamic terrorism started with Muhammed and has continued ever since.
Here's a brief history of America's first experience with the religion of peace:
Christopher Hitchens
Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates
America’s first confrontation with the Islamic world helped forge a new nation’s character.
Spring 2007
When I first began to plan my short biography of Thomas Jefferson, I found it difficult to research the chapter concerning the so-called Barbary Wars: an event or series of events that had seemingly receded over the lost horizon of American history. Henry Adams, in his discussion of our third president, had some boyhood reminiscences of the widespread hero-worship of naval officer Stephen Decatur, and other fragments and shards showed up in other quarries, but a sound general history of the subject was hard to come by. When I asked a professional military historian—a man with direct access to Defense Department archives—if there was any book that he could recommend, he came back with a slight shrug.
But now the curious reader may choose from a freshet of writing on the subject. Added to my own shelf in the recent past have been The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World, by Frank Lambert (2005); Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror 1801–1805, by Joseph Wheelan (2003); To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines, by A. B. C. Whipple (1991, republished 2001); and Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, by Joshua E. London (2005). Most recently, in his new general history, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, the Israeli scholar Michael Oren opens with a long chapter on the Barbary conflict. As some of the subtitles—and some of the dates of publication—make plain, this new interest is largely occasioned by America’s latest round of confrontation in the Middle East, or the Arab sphere or Muslim world, if you prefer those expressions.
In a way, I am glad that I did not have the initial benefit of all this research. My quest sent me to some less obvious secondary sources, in particular to Linda Colley’s excellent book Captives, which shows the reaction of the English and American publics to a slave trade of which they were victims rather than perpetrators. How many know that perhaps 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780? We dimly recall that Miguel de Cervantes was briefly in the galleys. But what of the people of the town of Baltimore in Ireland, all carried off by “corsair” raiders in a single night?
Some of this activity was hostage trading and ransom farming rather than the more labor-intensive horror of the Atlantic trade and the Middle Passage, but it exerted a huge effect on the imagination of the time—and probably on no one more than on Thomas Jefferson. Peering at the paragraph denouncing the American slave trade in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, later excised, I noticed for the first time that it sarcastically condemned “the Christian King of Great Britain” for engaging in “this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers.” The allusion to Barbary practice seemed inescapable.
One immediate effect of the American Revolution, however, was to strengthen the hand of those very same North African potentates: roughly speaking, the Maghrebian provinces of the Ottoman Empire that conform to today’s Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. Deprived of Royal Navy protection, American shipping became even more subject than before to the depredations of those who controlled the Strait of Gibraltar. The infant United States had therefore to decide not just upon a question of national honor but upon whether it would stand or fall by free navigation of the seas.
One of the historians of the Barbary conflict, Frank Lambert, argues that the imperative of free trade drove America much more than did any quarrel with Islam or “tyranny,” let alone “terrorism.” He resists any comparison with today’s tormenting confrontations. “The Barbary Wars were primarily about trade, not theology,” he writes. “Rather than being holy wars, they were an extension of America’s War of Independence.”
Let us not call this view reductionist. Jefferson would perhaps have been just as eager to send a squadron to put down any Christian piracy that was restraining commerce. But one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.” (It is worth noting that the United States played no part in the Crusades, or in the Catholic reconquista of Andalusia.)
Ambassador Abd Al-Rahman did not fail to mention the size of his own commission, if America chose to pay the protection money demanded as an alternative to piracy. So here was an early instance of the “heads I win, tails you lose” dilemma, in which the United States is faced with corrupt regimes, on the one hand, and Islamic militants, on the other—or indeed a collusion between them.
It seems likely that Jefferson decided from that moment on that he would make war upon the Barbary kingdoms as soon as he commanded American forces. His two least favorite institutions—enthroned monarchy and state-sponsored religion—were embodied in one target, and it may even be that his famous ambivalences about slavery were resolved somewhat when he saw it practiced by the Muslims.
However that may be, it is certain that the Barbary question had considerable influence on the debate that ratified the United States Constitution in the succeeding years. Many a delegate, urging his home state to endorse the new document, argued that only a strong federal union could repel the Algerian threat. In The Federalist No. 24, Alexander Hamilton argued that without a “federal navy . . . of respectable weight . . . the genius of American Merchants and Navigators would be stifled and lost.” In No. 41, James Madison insisted that only union could guard America’s maritime capacity from “the rapacious demands of pirates and barbarians.” John Jay, in his letters, took a “bring-it-on” approach; he believed that “Algerian Corsairs and the Pirates of Tunis and Tripoli” would compel the feeble American states to unite, since “the more we are ill-treated abroad the more we shall unite and consolidate at home.” The eventual Constitution, which provides for an army only at two-year renewable intervals, imposes no such limitation on the navy.
Thus, Lambert may be limiting himself in viewing the Barbary conflict primarily through the lens of free trade. Questions of nation-building, of regime change, of “mission creep,” of congressional versus presidential authority to make war, of negotiation versus confrontation, of “entangling alliances,” and of the “clash of civilizations”—all arose in the first overseas war that the United States ever fought. The “nation-building” that occurred, however, took place not overseas but in the 13 colonies, welded by warfare into something more like a republic.
There were many Americans—John Adams among them—who made the case that it was better policy to pay the tribute. It was cheaper than the loss of trade, for one thing, and a battle against the pirates would be “too rugged for our people to bear.” Putting the matter starkly, Adams said: “We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever.”
The cruelty, exorbitance, and intransigence of the Barbary states, however, would decide things. The level of tribute demanded began to reach 10 percent of the American national budget, with no guarantee that greed would not increase that percentage, while from the dungeons of Algiers and Tripoli came appalling reports of the mistreatment of captured men and women. Gradually, and to the accompaniment of some of the worst patriotic verse ever written, public opinion began to harden in favor of war. From Jefferson’s perspective, it was a good thing that this mood shift took place during the Adams administration, when he was out of office and temporarily “retired” to Monticello. He could thus criticize federal centralization of power, from a distance, even as he watched the construction of a fleet—and the forging of a permanent Marine Corps—that he could one day use for his own ends.
At one point, Jefferson hoped that John Paul Jones, naval hero of the Revolution, might assume command of a squadron that would strike fear into the Barbary pirates. While ambassador in Paris, Jefferson had secured Jones a commission with Empress Catherine of Russia, who used him in the Black Sea to harry the Ottomans, the ultimate authority over Barbary. But Jones died before realizing his dream of going to the source and attacking Constantinople. The task of ordering war fell to Jefferson.
Michael Oren thinks that he made the decision reluctantly, finally forced into it by the arrogant behavior of Tripoli, which seized two American brigs and set off a chain reaction of fresh demands from other Barbary states. I believe—because of the encounter with the insufferable Abd Al-Rahman and because of his long engagement with Jones—that Jefferson had long sought a pretext for war. His problem was his own party and the clause in the Constitution that gave Congress the power to declare war. With not atypical subtlety, Jefferson took a shortcut through this thicket in 1801 and sent the navy to North Africa on patrol, as it were, with instructions to enforce existing treaties and punish infractions of them. Our third president did not inform Congress of his authorization of this mission until the fleet was too far away to recall.
Once again, Barbary obstinacy tipped the scale. Yusuf Karamanli, the pasha of Tripoli, declared war on the United States in May 1801, in pursuit of his demand for more revenue. This earned him a heavy bombardment of Tripoli and the crippling of one of his most important ships. But the force of example was plainly not sufficient. In the altered mood that prevailed after the encouraging start in Tripoli, Congress passed an enabling act in February 1802 that, in its provision for a permanent Mediterranean presence and its language about the “Tripolitan Corsairs,” amounted to a declaration of war. The Barbary regimes continued to underestimate their new enemy, with Morocco declaring war in its turn and the others increasing their blackmail.
A complete disaster—Tripoli’s capture of the new U.S. frigate Philadelphia—became a sort of triumph, thanks to Edward Preble and Stephen Decatur, who mounted a daring raid on Tripoli’s harbor and blew up the captured ship, while inflicting heavy damage on the city’s defenses. Now there were names—Preble and Decatur—for newspapers back home to trumpet as heroes. Nor did their courage draw notice only in America. Admiral Lord Nelson himself called the raid “the most bold and daring act of the age,” and Pope Pius VII declared that the United States “had done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages.” (In his nostalgia for Lepanto, perhaps, His Holiness was evidently unaware that the Treaty of Tripoli, which in 1797 had attempted to formalize the dues that America would pay for access to the Mediterranean, stated in its preamble that the United States had no quarrel with the Muslim religion and was in no sense a Christian country. Of course, those secularists like myself who like to cite this treaty must concede that its conciliatory language was part of America’s attempt to come to terms with Barbary demands.)
Watching all this with a jaundiced eye was the American consul in Tunis, William Eaton. For him, behavior modification was not a sufficient policy; regime change was needed. And he had a candidate. On acceding to the throne in Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli had secured his position by murdering one brother and exiling another. Eaton befriended this exiled brother, Hamid, and argued that he should become the American nominee for Tripoli’s crown. This proposal wasn’t received with enthusiasm in Washington, but Eaton pursued it with commendable zeal. He exhibited the downside that often goes with such quixotic bravery: railing against treasury secretary Albert Gallatin as a “cowardly Jew,” for example, and alluding to President Jefferson with contempt. He ended up a supporter of Aaron Burr’s freebooting secessionist conspiracy.
His actions in 1805, however, belong in the annals of derring-do, almost warranting the frequent comparison made with T. E. Lawrence’s exploits in Arabia. With a small detachment of marines, headed by Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, and a force of irregulars inevitably described by historians as “motley,” Eaton crossed the desert from Egypt and came at Tripoli—as Lawrence had come at Aqaba—from the land and not from the sea. The attack proved a total surprise. The city of Darna surrendered its far larger garrison, and Karamanli’s forces were heavily engaged, when news came that Jefferson and Karamanli had reached an understanding that could end the war. The terms weren’t too shabby, involving the release of the Philadelphia’s crew and a final settlement of the tribute question. And Jefferson took care to stress that Eaton had played a part in bringing it about.
This graciousness did not prevent Eaton from denouncing the deal as a sellout. The caravan moved on, though, as the other Barbary states gradually followed Tripoli’s lead and came to terms. Remember, too, that this was the year of the Battle of Trafalgar. Lord Nelson was not the only European to notice that a new power had arrived in Mediterranean waters. Francis Scott Key composed a patriotic song to mark the occasion. As I learned from Joshua London’s excellent book, the original verses ran (in part):
In conflict resistless each toil they endur’d,
Till their foes shrunk dismay’d from the war’s desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur’d
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban’d head bowed to the terrible glare.
Then mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.
The song was part of the bad-verse epidemic. But brushed up and revised a little for the War of 1812, and set to the same music, it has enjoyed considerable success since. So has the Marine Corps anthem, which begins: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” It’s no exaggeration to describe the psychological fallout of this first war as formative of the still-inchoate American character.Till their foes shrunk dismay’d from the war’s desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur’d
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban’d head bowed to the terrible glare.
Then mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.
There is of course another connection between 1805 and 1812. Renewed hostilities with Britain on the high seas and on the American mainland, which did not terminate until the Battle of New Orleans, might have ended less conclusively had the United States not developed a battle-hardened naval force in the long attrition on the North African coast.
The Barbary states sought to exploit Anglo-American hostilities by resuming their depredations and renewing their demands for blood money. So in 1815, after a brief interval of recovery from the war with Britain, President Madison asked Congress for permission to dispatch Decatur once again to North Africa, seeking a permanent settling of accounts. This time, the main offender was the dey of Algiers, Omar Pasha, who saw his fleet splintered and his grand harbor filled with heavily armed American ships. Algiers had to pay compensation, release all hostages, and promise not to offend again. President Madison’s words on this occasion could scarcely be bettered: “It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.” (The expression “the United States is” did not come into usage until after Gettysburg.)
Oren notes that the stupendous expense of this long series of wars was a partial vindication of John Adams’s warning. However, there are less quantifiable factors to consider. The most obvious is commerce. American trade in the Mediterranean increased enormously in the years after the settlement with Algiers, and America’s ability to extend its trade and project its forces into other areas, such as the Caribbean and South America, was greatly enhanced. Then we should attend to what Linda Colley says on the subject of slavery. Campaigns against the seizure of hostages by Muslim powers, and their exploitation as forced labor, fired up many a church congregation in Britain and America and fueled many a press campaign. But even the dullest soul could regard the continued triangular Atlantic slave trade between Africa, England, and the Americas and perceive the double standard at work. Thus, the struggle against Barbary may have helped to force some of the early shoots of abolitionism.
Perhaps above all, though, the Barbary Wars gave Americans an inkling of the fact that they were, and always would be, bound up with global affairs. Providence might have seemed to grant them a haven guarded by two oceans, but if they wanted to be anything more than the Chile of North America—a long littoral ribbon caught between the mountains and the sea—they would have to prepare for a maritime struggle as well as a campaign to redeem the unexplored landmass to their west. The U.S. Navy’s Mediterranean squadron has, in one form or another, been on patrol ever since.
And then, finally, there is principle. It would be simplistic to say that something innate in America made it incompatible with slavery and tyranny. But would it be too much to claim that many Americans saw a radical incompatibility between the Barbary system and their own? And is it not pleasant when the interests of free trade and human emancipation can coincide? I would close with a few staves of Kipling, whose poem “Dane-Geld” is a finer effort than anything managed by Francis Scott Key:
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbor and to say:—
“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
Kipling runs briskly through the stages of humiliation undergone by any power that falls for this appeasement, and concludes:To call upon a neighbor and to say:—
“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is wrong to put temptation in the pathof any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:—
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
It may be fortunate that the United States had to pass this test, and imbibe this lesson, so early in its life as a nation.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/Author/Nadim.Koteich (<br />)
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/Author/Nadim.Koteich (Nadim Koteich)
Published: 13/01/2015 01:08 PM | Updated: 15/01/2015 02:01 PM
We are all ISIS
These killers are us. They are our religion at its most extreme.
Condemnations are no longer sufficient. They were never enough in the first place and they never bore any weight except as an entry point to more advanced steps.
They are not enough, especially when what follows them amounts to no more than idiotic expressions suggesting that a crime like the Charlie Hebdo massacre is not an expression of “true Islam.” In an effort to divorce Islam from responsibility for other crimes, some have said that the Islamic State (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, Somalia’s Al-Shabab, the Taliban and hundreds of other armed groups also do not represent true Islam.
So what is this true Islam that those who condemn crimes committed in the name of Islam are supposed to be bestowing upon us? Beyond condemnation, what confrontation with the criminals have the proponents of true Islam been engaged in since the defeat of the Mu’tazila — the defeat of rationality in Islam 1,100 years ago?
Condemnation alone is not enough. The people from the Sunni camp of contemporary Islam who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the Pakistani school massacre before it, the massacres by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the 9/11 attacks and other atrocities all belong to true Islam. The same applies to the people in the Shiite camp of contemporary Islam who kidnapped and killed foreign journalists in Beirut, and issued and renewed the fatwa that said the blood of British writer Salman Rushdie could be spilt. They are a central part of true Islam and its many schools of jurisprudence.
It doesn’t matter which Islamic text, whether it is a Qur’anic or jurisprudential text, or a text recounting the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad; the killers do not kill for nothing, they kill in the name of books, fatwas, ayahs and age-old tradition. All of these things are inseparable parts of true Islam. They will remain Muslims as long as they pronounce the shahada and as long as the religious institution doesn’t dare to modernize the criteria for being a Muslim.
These killers are us. They are our religion at its most extreme. They are our true Islam taken to its furthest extent and they are not beyond the scripture. If the West says in one united voice “we are Charlie” we should say “we are ISIS.”
As Muslims, what should we do with Ayat as-Sayf, the fifth verse of Surat at-Tawbah, one of the last Qur’anic chapters delivered to the Prophet in the city of Medina, and thus of central importance with regard to the structure of Islamic rulings and the system for the relationship with the other? The ayah says:
“Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! God is Forgiving, Merciful.”
With this in mind, was the ayah not instrumental in building Islam’s military glory? Didn’t Islam become a vast empire of might, dominion, high renown, money and power? Was this ayah not the central compass that directed the wars of the Muslims, from the preparations for the conquest of Mecca to jihadist pamphlet “The Neglected Duty,” by Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj, one of the clearest and most dangerous pieces of jihadist literature ever written? For those who are unfamiliar with Faraj, he was the emir of the Al-Jihad group that assassinated Anwar Sadat in the name of the very same true Islam.
What kind of ruling can there be against “idolaters” in the 21st century and what should we make of the ruling to slay them “wherever [we] find them” now that we have international law and the nation state? Where do today’s Muslims draw the line between Islamic jurisprudence and law?
As Muslims, what should we do with the 20th verse of Surat at-Tawbah, which is dedicated to our relationship with Christians and Jews? The text is as follows:
“Fight those who do not believe in God or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what God and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
Do these ayahs belong to the so-called ayahs of forgiveness that Muslims praise as evidence of Islam’s kindheartedness in conferences of flattery and social deception? Are they really all we have left of Islam in its latest incarnation?
What is the verdict on the fatwas of Sheikh ul-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah who still presides over the jurisprudence of jihad eight centuries after his death, from the Muslim Brotherhood to ISIS? What is his position, in view of who he is in the history of Islamic jihadist jurisprudence, in today’s Muslim world? Who will draw the borders between the jurisprudence of jihad as one of the Islamic sciences and the criminal jurisprudence that was practiced in Paris, especially as both of them are derived from the same original texts?
It was very telling that straight after the announcement of the Charlie Hebdo massacre people’s thoughts turned to Islamist extremists, despite the fact that the French magazine’s satire spared not Judaism, Christianity nor the French political establishment. This is because Islam’s relationship with the present is in crisis, and any group going through such a crisis is always the first suspect. In fact, Islam as a whole stands accused in advance, and not only its extremist fringe. The original texts that form an inseparable part of true Islam and inspire the ongoing crimes committed in its name are also guilty. This will be true as long as there is no central authority to reorganize the relationship between the Islamic text, as a piece of history, and the necessities of the present day, in the same way the Qur’anic text itself acclimatized as the ayahs were gradually sent down, with some new rulings replacing older ones.
The truth is that what the killers did in Paris has only reinforced the images drawn by the artists of Charlie Hebdo. The only difference between the actions of the artists and the killers is that the number of people who follow caricatures is far less than those who followed the international drama caused by the massacre. Nothing can insult Islam and Muslims as much as such crimes, and yet we still make do with saying that they do not represent true Islam, without providing a clear description of what true Islam is, beginning with our religious schools, some of which are factories for crime, to our constitutions which are rigged with the mines of Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia law.
Nothing insults Islam more than the Charlie Hebdo massacre, which says, from the belly of true Islam itself: Those of us who love the Prophet most are our greatest criminals.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564668-we-are-all-isis
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/ar/commentaryar/564657-%D9%83%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4 (This commentary has been translated from the original Arabic by Ullin Hope.)
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